“Then for better or for worse be prepared to be taught by an expert amongst experts.” Mizuki gloated.

Sora was highly skeptical that Mizuki would actually take the time to teach him about this world - after all it was not like the personality Yuko to do so. However, knowingly or unknowingly, Sora had driven Mizuki into a corner. For reasons unknown right now – Mizuki ‘wanted’ Sora and Sora’s resistance drove Mizuki into a corner. Under normal circumstances, she would have never taught Sora anything but she needed Sora. She needed him willingly and her current personality / strategy wasn’t bringing her in his good graces. Thus, Mizuki decided to be ‘nicer’ to Sora.

“There are three types of energies in this world.” Mizuki began explaining to Sora. “Life force or Ki as you adventurers call it, spiritual energy and mana.”

‘All three in one game?’ Sora wondered. Normally, you either have Ki or Mana. ‘And what the heck is spiritual energy? Is that from some Wuxia novel?’

Mizuki ignored Sora’s subtle changes in expression and continued to explain. “Normally, I wouldn’t explain something in detail however this knowledge might help you understand your own situation a little better.” – that was a warning that he better pay attention.

“Life force is generated from the strengthening and conditioning of the body. Your absolute potential life force is determined from your birth. If you have ever met a martial artist, then you can be certain that he has high life force. A strong life force is always accompanied with a strong body. It is a taboo to obtain strong life force without strengthening and conditioning of the body. ”

“Is that what I am suffering from?” Sora was quick to infer where Mizuki was leading him.

“Yes. An unprecedented event by all accounts.” Mizuki replied. “Never before have I met an individual whose body carries the burden of several hundred times the life force it can sustain. It is the equivalent of carrying a mountain on your shoulders. Had I not provided you with those artefacts then your body would have slowly turned into dust.”

There was slight gratitude in Sora’s eyes – though he still didn’t trust this woman at all.

“Spiritual Energy is derived from the cultivation of the mind. However, to some extent it can also be cultivated through physical conditioning. Those martial artists at their peak often have high spiritual energy. However, physical conditioning is not a prerequisite for spiritual energy cultivation. Understand?”

Sora nodded his head vigorously – for the first time someone was actually feeding him the information he so desperately wanted. His opinion of Mizuki slightly improved – maybe she isn’t all that bad?

“Spiritual energy determines exactly the strength of the magic one can cast. The higher the spiritual energy the greater the strength of the spell.”

“Can’t life force be used to cast magic?” Sora interrupted.

Mizuki smiled – it were as if Sora fell into a trap. “You, along with countless many before you, are mistaken about this. There are two mistakes you made. Not once did I say spiritual energy is used to cast magic – I only stated that it determines the strength of it. Spiritual energy is not something that exists in the physical or meta-physical plane. It is more to do with the degree of concentration one can achieve. Spiritual energy is that which enables you to cast mana. The higher the spiritual energy of an individual the more ‘Spirits’ can be commanded. The more spirits that can be commanded, the more ‘transient mana’ can be compacted into a spell. It is ‘transient mana’ that is being used to cast magic. The second mistake you made was assuming life force cannot be used as a supplement. However, which replenishing life force takes significant amount of time and overuse often does more harm than good.”

“But that is strange…I am sure the vampire who attacked me said his attack would drain me of spirit power. Is spirit power something else?” Sora asked – there was still some lingering suspicion towards Mizuki.

“In this world, you should not be surprised if someone confuses life force for spirit power, or if they confuse spiritual energy with the transient, or the transient and spirits as the same as mana. Different people have different interpretations for the energies they experience. Some schools of thought believe there exist a hundred forms of mana based on the many elements found in nature. But that thought is wrong, there are only different spirits not mana. Similarly, some martial artists don’t believe in mana but rather call it external life force. However, there is no such thing as external life force or cosmic energy. At best you can drain another creature of their life force but that isn’t the same as mana. One of the silliest mistakes one can make is to assume they are born with mana – no one is born with mana!” Mizuki spoke as if she personally encountered all these erroneous views of the world. “ Many such confusions exist. Nonetheless as you have an expert teaching you and you must never confuse any of the two for the other.”

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Author's note:

1. Thank you for reading this far! We are finally getting to the starting of the main story.