Sildra took a moment to collect her thoughts. Morgus had appeared to her in her sleep, something he rarely ever did. Usually, she heard his words as a sort of whisper in the wind on nights when the moon was full. She wouldn’t exactly say she was jealous that Velik had experienced a full-on dream communion with her god—that would be ridiculous—but she was… surprised.

Of course, the fact that he was basically sending Velik to his death did put a damper on things. Sildra had spent a lot of time thinking about that as she traveled, trying to reconcile the fact that the little boy who’d been exiled from the village was now a grown man about to voluntarily exile himself from all of civilization.

She had no idea how he’d thought he was going to survive a trip across the sand sea before Morgus had decided to help him. Nobody ever reached the other side, not with the behemoth monsters that lived out there. One step past the boundary, and all enchantments and magical gear stopped working. In theory, if someone survived the monsters and got far enough from the boundary, they’d lose their skills and levels, too. From there, death was assured.

Velik is blinded by his dreams of revenge. If he’d followed that divine beast on his own, it would be the death of him. Morgus is giving him a fighting chance, but I need to do my part to prepare him so he doesn’t die halfway there. No pressure or anything.

“Alright, let’s start with the basics,” she said. “You know that Ghestal’s eastern border is a desert, right?”

“And that any sort of magic carried into it stops working,” he replied. “Which I guess is because the system apparently just… ends.”

“It’s a weird idea to wrap your head around,” Sildra said.

It had been part of her life, every second of every day, for over a decade. Even before she’d gained her original class, she’d known about the system. Her parents had it. Her neighbors had it. The monsters in the woods were a part of it. The idea that a person could just walk far enough and escape its reach was insane.

Of course, she only knew that because Morgus had told her the truth. The common perception was simply that no one could stand up to the monsters out in the desert, which was true. Anyone who actually tried to leave the reach of the system ended up dead long before they got far enough.

“You’ll have to leave all your gear behind,” Sildra said, pulling her thoughts back on topic. “It won’t do you any good, and the pieces you bought directly from the system store will actually unravel into raw magic if you take them past the boundary.”

Velik’s eyes shifted to look at his arm. That spear of his was coiled around it in its usual place, looking more like a raised tattoo than an actual weapon. Somehow, it was flexible enough to shift with his movements, which she supposed was the result of it being a legendary-ranked weapon.

“I commissioned a replacement weapon for you at Morgus’s instruction,” Sildra said. “It won’t be as good as your spear, but it does have the advantage that it’s crafted through purely non-system methods and materials. It won’t fall apart once you get into the desert. It’s with the wagon I came in on.

“The other thing is—and I’m going to be honest here, Morgus did not explain to me what this means—you absolutely must learn to control essence. That’s the trick to surviving the desert. The monsters out there can sense it, and if you can’t hide yours, they’ll find you.”

“Easy to say,” Velik said. “But no one knows what exactly essence is or how to manipulate it. I asked.”

Sildra gave him a flat look. “Morgus knows. This is what I’m here to teach you.”

Never mind that I don’t get it myself.

“Great,” Velik said. “Teach away.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“It’s not that simple. You can’t do it here in the Garden. What I’m going to tell you is theoretical. You’re going to have to figure it out for yourself once you get to the desert.”

“Great,” Velik muttered again.

“Do you have [Mana Manipulation] yet?”

Velik barked out a laugh. “Are you serious? No. I don’t even have [Mana Sense].”

“Then I guess we’re going to have to start farther back than I planned,” Sildra said. “I take it that’s what you were working on with that woman?”

“Yeah. [Mana Scent], specifically. I’ve been making steady progress.”

“Alright, let’s start with how to merge that with another sensory skill. I am assuming you’ve probably got something with five or six skills in it already?”

“I do,” Velik said, “but we were actually aiming to merge it with [Mana Sight].”

Two basic mana sensory skills? I’m surprised he had the open skill slots for it.

Then again, she couldn’t even tell what level he was now, and she should have been able to. His raw mental must have been incredibly high to so completely block her own [Moonlit Truth]

skill. Even in the middle of the day and indoors, it should still have given her at least a vague sense of his strength.

It galled her to admit it, but in Velik’s case, Aria was probably the better instructor. It might be better to leave that part of Velik’s preparation to the mage. Sildra really didn’t know what she was doing, and Morgus wasn’t big on laying out step-by-step plans. His instructions were more along the lines of what he wanted the end result to be, and it was up to her to figure out how to get there.

It was too bad she had no idea how to do that.

* * *

There was a stark difference between Aria’s and Sildra’s teaching methods, and Velik knew which one he preferred. Aria’s directions were very technical. She explained what she was doing, what the goal was, and how she thought he could accomplish that goal. It didn’t always work, and that was fine. She had no personal experience with [Mana Scent], so it was entirely expected that not everything would work out like they’d thought it would.

Sildra spouted off some vague philosophy about the nature of mana and how humans could interact with it. That was all well and good as a long-term goal, he supposed, but it didn’t do much to help him get there. He tried to find some way to interpret what she was saying to come up with some sort of useful exercise, but he kept coming up empty.

“Look, I’m sorry, but whatever this is isn’t working for me,” he interrupted her.

“Keep trying,” Sildra said. “You can’t expect to master this in the span of an hour. New caster classes take months to figure this out.”

“I don’t have months.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to teach this any faster. I barely understand it, myself. I used different mana sensing skills and I folded them into a druid class skill that you don’t have access to,” Sildra said, frustration leaking into her voice. “I’m just trying to help you like Morgus wanted, Velik.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have chased off the person who was actually teaching me, then,” Velik told her. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad Morgus is taking an interest in killing Tesir. I’m going to do it with or without his help, but I’m not going to complain about him making it easier for me.”

“You say that like you have a chance in hell of even reaching Tesir without Morgus’s help.”

Velik nodded. “Oh, I do. They want me to follow them. Tesir made sure I could. If I sat in this room and did nothing, I have no doubt that a divine beast would show up to poke me until I moved. They obviously know how to cross the sand sea, and they want me over there. Just because you don’t know how to do it doesn’t mean they don’t.”

“Fine! Go ask them for help then.”

“I doubt it’s safe to rely on their generosity. I’m just pointing out that I have options here. Morgus is a convenience, not a necessity.”

Sildra gave him a disgusted look. “It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to talk to you again. I know you’re not very reverent toward the gods, but maybe try not to just casually blaspheme against them all the time.”

She stood up from the table and jabbed a finger at Velik. “Figure it out yourself. You’re so smart and powerful; it should be easy. Mana sensing is just another way to view the world, right? So go view it.”

Then she stomped out of the room in much the same way Aria had. Velik knew this one was his fault, even if he wasn’t entirely sure where he’d gone wrong. He hadn’t said anything that was untrue, after all, but then again, he supposed some people were offended by unflattering truths. That was why he tried to just keep his mouth shut if possible.

With both his old and his new instructor gone, Velik was left to figure things out himself. In a way, it was a relief. It was easier to think without Sildra trying to help with her confusing philosophical instructions on how to think about mana. He was sure she was doing her best in a sincere desire to help. It was just that her help didn’t make things easier.

Now, how can I get these two skills to merge together? Maybe if I added a third skill, it could show me a different angle…