I stood in front of a huge wooden door in a building a bit far from the mansion where I live. I came to the building that resembled a tower after running away from Henderson. Supposedly this is where Harry spends most of his days.

ring creak

I pushed the slightly heavy door which resulted in a harsh squeaking that overlapped with the sound of a doorbell. It was an unpleasant harmony. How rusty is the hinge of this door? This Harry guy must have never left his room.

With a judgemental thought, I entered the room. It was an overly spacious room, and plenty of papers filled with scribbles were littered across the already huge room. A robed man wearing spectacles turned to me while holding a flask filled with silver liquid. His haggard face almost made me flinch. Have you turned into a zombie from overworking?

I stood at the entrance and asked,

“Is this the laboratory?” I inquired.

“What does the young master need?” the man asked me back.

“Just answer my question.” I requested politely.

“Yes, the young master is in the laboratory right now.” answered the haggard man.

“I assume you’re Harry then?” I inquired again.

“I’m flattered the young master know me even though we never met,” said Harry with a snarky undertone.

“I could say the same about you.”

I returned his sarcastic remarks and a smile that resembled a smirk formed on his pasty face. It was an unpleasant look.

“So, what does the young master need from this humble servant?” Harry asked his initial question again.

“I want to learn magic.” I gave him a straightforward answer.

A smile that seemed more genuine than the previous one appeared on his face. He looked at me somewhat warmly.

“Sure, I could teach the young master,” he said with a face that is somehow pleasant to look at suddenly.

Despite his somewhat rude attitude, he seems like a nice guy.

***

“The atmosphere of our world is filled with invisible energy called mana. Magic is when we use mana to create physical phenomena by inducing resonance between mana in our body and mana in the atmosphere.”

Harry is currently teaching me magic theory in the study room. It was a day after I came to him to ask him to teach me magic.

His face looks healthy and radiant now in contrast to his sickly appearance yesterday. No, is that even possible? Is this one of the miracles of magic? He looks handsome now with his sharp chin and messy green hair. How do you pull off that kind of hairstyle? Is this also because of magic?

I listened to his teachings while questions keep running around my mind.

Trivial? No this is equally important as magic. I need to know how that unrealistic hairstyle could be perfectly pulled off outside of anime. But he looked at me weirdly when I asked him. I guessed I need to find out by myself later.

“To create a resonance between mana in the body and the atmosphere a mage needs to be able to absorb mana from nature to form a magical circuit at the heart known as circles. A mage's capabilities are measured by the number of circles they had formed. Naturally, the more circles they had formed the stronger their spells are.”

This sounds familiar. Is it the Three Treasures of traditional Chinese medicine? The heart is where the middle dantian is located. Does this mean the lower and upper dantian exists too?

“Teach, is the heart the only place where magical circuits can be formed?” I asked Harry out of curiosity.

“Indeed. According to magical studies, the theory that has been formed and put into practice is that the heart is where magical circuits could be formed.” Harry answered.

“Hmm.” I hummed curiously with my hands on my chin.

“Perhaps, is there a specific channel where mana flows in our body?” I asked.

Harry raised his eyebrows while looking at me.

“Indeed. It’s called the mana veins. How did you know?” Harry’s voice was ladened with surprise.

“Just a guess,” I said with a smile.

“Hmm.” this time it was Harry that hummed with curiosity.

But this confirms it, there could be an upper and lower dantian inside the human body. Does this mean I could also practice those cool martial arts in those web novels I read? I need to experiment with this.

Harry continued his magic theory lesson after our brief discussion while I listened with focus. I totally forgot about his unrealistic hairstyle by then.

***

I sat under a tree cross-legged and start skimming through my memories. I’m not proud of it, but I’ve read thousands of light novels and manga in my previous uneventful life. There should be millions of references to draw inspiration from.

Also, didn’t I reincarnate into another world? The only difference is that I wasn’t hit by a truck when I died. Other than that I’m basically a main character.

It’d be cool if I had a cheat system too.

Ding! Ding!

No way. Could it be?

I looked around to see where the sound came from and oh, it was the town bell that signals the time of the day. It’s noon now. Damn, I just got duped by Big Ben of all.

Of course, there’s no way things would be that easy. I returned to reality and closed my eyes.

‘Let’s see, I should calm my mind to feel the mana around me.’

Harry warned me to not try to practice alone and wait for the next lesson but I’m impatient.

Don’t worry I’ll be fine. I think.

I focused hard to try to get the feeling of mana in the surrounding atmosphere.

1 minute...

10 minutes...

30 minutes...

45 minutes...

I meditated for almost an hour to get the feeling of mana. My mind’s completely empty now.

‘This feeling...’

I could feel it. A strange feeling I couldn’t describe on my skin. I tried to absorb it through the channel gates that I learned about in the magic lesson this morning. It’s not that hard to pinpoint the location of the mana veins and the gates when I meditated.

Slowly, the magic flows into my mana veins through the gates and across my whole body. The whole process took longer than I expected.

Now, it’s time to test my theory. I emptied my mind and searched through my whole body. And then,

‘It’s there!’

The lower and upper dantian! I located them!

I grew excited from my discovery and that was when-

“Ackk!”

Extreme pain hits my whole body.

Is this Qi Deviation? No, it should be mana deviation instead?

I quickly expelled the mana in my body but the pain remains and I fell unconscious.