[Location: Druid Encampment — Outer Clearing, Two Days Later]
Ren stood in a ring of dirt, his shirt already sticking to his back from sweat.
Across from him, Aglain watched with his arms crossed, silent, assessing.
The morning air was heavy with mist, and the smell of damp earth mixed with the faint metallic tang of mana discharge. A few younger druids had gathered nearby — curious, whispering. Most had never seen foreign magic before.
"Again," Aglain said.
Ren exhaled and extended his right hand. Thin lines of light formed around his fingers — not glowing circles like Balzar's structured geometry, but rougher, pulsing like live current.
He focused. The charge flickered.
A spark leapt from his palm, fizzled, and died.
The murmurs grew louder.
Aglain's tone stayed calm. "You're forcing it again. You think in patterns and numbers — you try to calculate what must be felt."
Ren clenched his jaw. "Feeling gets you killed when energy overloads."
"Control doesn't mean rejection," Aglain countered. "You already hold your power with discipline — now you must let it breathe."
Ren turned slightly, looking at the moss-covered stones nearby, still glowing faintly from the night before. "That's easy for you to say. Your magic listens to you. Mine…" he flexed his fingers, a faint hum sparking again, "…argues."
Aglain smiled faintly. "Then argue better."
Ren stared at him, then took a breath — slow, deep, deliberate. He'd been approaching this like an equation: focus, stabilize, release. Maybe that was the problem.
He lowered his hand and thought instead of flow — energy passing through, not from.
Like balancing an unstable current.
When he raised his hand again, the light was smoother, steady this time — more like a low vibration under the skin.
"Good," Aglain said softly. "Now give it direction."
Ren took a step forward and extended his arm. The energy built, pulsing blue-white, then released with a sharp crack. A flash of light cut through the clearing — not explosive, but focused, a clean pulse that scorched a line across the ground.
The watching druids fell silent.
Ren stared at the mark — still smoking, the earth split slightly where the energy hit.
Aglain's expression was unreadable. "Not bad."
Ren turned to him, breathing heavy. "That was... control."
"Barely," Aglain said. "But it's a start. You built a bridge between your power and the world's mana. Do that again, refine it, and you'll shape true spells soon."
Ren nodded, half-distracted. His analytical brain was already breaking it down — flow rate, release ratio, field stabilization. He could feel how the mana wanted to move, not just how he told it to move.
Aglain stepped closer. "Now you understand what I meant — it's not a weapon yet. It's communication. You and the world must speak the same language."
Ren looked up, sweat dripping down his neck. "Then I'll learn the language."
[Later That Night – Campfire Edge]
Ren sat alone, watching the sparks drift up from the fire. His palms still tingled from the mana discharge.
He replayed the moment in his mind — the shift, the release, the way his internal current resonated when it finally synced with the world's.
Quantum mana wasn't pure energy — it was adaptive. Reactive.
It learned.
And now, so would he.
[Author's Note]
This chapter marks Ren's first true offensive spell — not through brute strength, but adaptation. He's learning to merge scientific precision with the natural flow of magic, a key evolution for his later arcs in worlds with more complex energy systems.