Cleaning his sword turned out to be therapeutic. Almost all of the blood had been washed off in the river, but having impaled a wolf up to the hilt, some gunk had to be scraped off with a whetstone. Curiously, the gunk fell rather easily off his swords despite having time to harden.

A sleepy Jax walked up to him and mumbled, “breakfast is ready.”

Breakfast was a quaint but plentiful fare of bread and eggs.

Jax grumbled, “let’s go, we need to go help with the expansion you proposed.”

Jay nodded and gulped down the rest of his breakfast.

Jay regretted offering to help expand the village. The trees were incredibly durable. Even with no experience as a lumberjack, taking twenty swings at a tree and getting only an inch into the trunk had to be absurd.

"Why are these trees so difficult to cut down?" Jay asked while biting back a snarl.

"Oh this is Halfy wood and sucks up and stores the mana around abnormally well. These axes we are using are actually enchanted to cut more deeply,” Jax explained

Somehow, even as Jax had even more trouble with the wood, he managed to maintain a jovial mood. Jay almost decided to scream curses, but that energy served him better in hacking at the tree in front of him. Plus having a fit of anger probably wouldn’t endear him with the people of the town.

"Ok," Jay grunted tiredly. "Jax do you know anything about magic?"

"Not much. Magic seems to make anything possible. I do know the best herbs and presumably the strongest monsters form near higher concentrations of magic. That’s why I trained my mana sight anyway. Go ask Magi Silvia if you have questions," Jax replied.

Some strain appeared in Jax’s voice, so Jay left him alone.

Cutting down just one tree took a chunk of the day. The foreman called for a food break causing many to let out groans of relief. The labor seemed to be back breaking for everyone.

“Thank you very much foreman. May I know how I should refer to you?" Jay approached the man who had been directing them.

The man offered him a bright smile, “oh just call me Genks. You work a lot more than some of the knuckleheads around here so I should be the one thanking you.”

Jay smiled back, “you flatter me Genks.”

“Well go and eat,” Genks shooed him towards the pot.

The line was short, luckily, and the chef scooped out a helping of stew and poured Jay a cup of water.

“You filter your water right?” Jay hated to seem condescending but he had to make sure.

“What do you mean?" The cook looked at him in confusion. "We get water from his lordship.”

Jay shuddered. Did the tyrant somehow control the water supply?

“Is the river water not safe?” He asked.

The cook shrugged, “anyone who tries drinking from even boiled river water ends up sick somehow.”

Jay groaned internally. At least dysentery wasn't an issue.

Break time lasted about a quarter of an hour, and Jay was back to hacking at the bases of the absurd trees.

“Seems like cutting down trees to sell should be a normal routine?" Jay asked Jax.

“Oh, well the King doesn’t want to 'waste' resources on sparing troops to clear the forest for us. His majesty is too busy at war with other countries and expects us to be happy that he expands the barrier at all.” Jax replied with his voice dripping with venom towards his king. “Thank you for alerting us to this opportunity.”

“Shut it Jax! Don’t risk having the Kingsmen coming down on us!” A random person hissed.

“No you should shut your mouth! They don’t care about us frontier villages. Why do you suppose they don’t even have a regiment stationed nearby us?” Jax yelled back.

The same person growled back, “you don’t know that and we don’t want to risk it.”

Jax fell silent and Jay went cold. The mentioned ‘kingsmen’ could only be secret police.

“Jax what do you plan to do?” He asked.

“I will become an adventurer!” Jax replied hottly.

Jay asked, “do they not have any requirements to start?”

“No but they do have ranks. I suppose I will start out as rank E as most do,” Jax explained.

The rest of the day went by in silence. Jay finally realized why he didn’t like the morning quiet of the village. They were all living in fear. How was he going to pursue any of his renewed passions? Even an attempt to gather knowledge would make waves and then face opposition.

Dragging the lumber back required much less effort, thankfully. The wood might have been difficult to cut down but was surprisingly light to carry. When dusk fell, Genks dismissed everyone.

Jay wasn’t sure whether to be excited or terrified to have an offer of help by Magi Silvia. A refusal to meet her could raise some eyebrows so he didn’t have much of a choice to at least hear her out. News probably traveled fast in such a small town. The gesture at least needed to be made.

Why did she even call out to him though? Not knowing how to regulate one’s mana intake properly seemed the norm. How else was Jay able to keep up with the villagers? The inexplicable randomness of the magi’s offer put him on edge. On top of the issue of randomness, there was no telling what learning mana intake entailed. What if the process required having the magi in his head?

Jay grabbed his swords. Going to a potential fight without even a weapon would be foolhardy. After a deep breath, he rapped his knuckles on the magi’s door.

“You’re finally here. You know how long I’ve waited?” Magi Silvia opened the door with a look of disapproval.

“I apologize but taking--,” Jay started.

“No excuses!” Magi Silvia cut him off.

“Well come on in!” She motioned for him to follow her inside.

The furniture was sparse but a gigantic calendar spread out on one wall. ‘09/32/ AWAD 200,’ the calendar read. Well that might show why he didn't hear the uousos as years. What did AWAD mean though?

The magi eyed his swords, "have you finally cleaned your swords?"

Jay blushed and nodded.

He straightened his posture, “respectfully, Magi Silvia, thank you for your offer, but no thank you.”

“If you are talking about the elf you killed, then it’s fine. Elves mostly only ever come out of their forests as members of the guardians, an organization of murderers masquerading as justice. I saw you’re an otherworlder, but I haven’t told anyone,” Mage Silvia grouched.

Jay unsheathed his shortsword and lunged, holding his short sword at her throat, “how do you know that?”

“Your thoughts get carried along with the mana you bleed out," she paused. “You will die early if you don't regulate your mana processing either from being discovered or from internal damage.”

Jay fell into panic at the sudden discovery of his identity. Otherworlders were clearly persona non grata to at least the elves. Considering the vague reason the elf yelled, hostility of a lot of other people could also come down on him.

He needed to cut down the magi in front of him. She knew too much. His shortsword broke the skin of her neck, causing blood to trickle down. Killing her would only take a single thrust.

Then the horror of killing a defenseless woman hit Jay and logic came back to him.

“I apologize for my loss of control,” hanging his head, he sheathed his sword.

“Nice to see you don’t want to kill me. I do want to help you,” the magi sighed but somehow seemed unbothered.

Jay asked, “so learning to process mana properly would make my mind private once again, but why would not learning lead to internal damage?”

The magic smiled, “all in good time.”

She probably only wanted to reserve valuable information in order to leave him no choice but to come back.

The magi narrowed her eyes at his swords, “actually, let me see one of your swords.”

Jay scoffed, “what for?”

“I want to check something,” Magi Silvia replied unhelpfully.

She already grabbed for his short sword without his approval but Jay didn’t offer any resistance. Almost killing her just out of fear without provocation made him ashamed. Her hand bled expectedly when she tested his short sword’s edge with a finger. Without a word, she handed Jay back his sword.

“I suppose my hand bleeding would be something expected for you," Magi Silvia said while bandaging her finger. "I cast a shield around my hand so the blade should not have had any purchase. How did you manage to fuse your mana into your swords and in a way to create mana pathways in them?”

Jay was confused. Fuse mana with his sword? What was the lady talking about?

“I don’t know what you are talking about but these are simply steel,” Jay said incredulously.

“What is steel? Wait … a combination of iron and carbon? What is carbon? The solid form of mana had a use other than fuel for spells?! But that doesn’t make any sense, wouldn’t this have been discovered by now? Hmm, there is more than that though. Are those links?” Mage Silvia mumbled before raising her voice to a shout then fell into muttering again.

Jay almost didn’t comprehend what Mage Silvia said. Didn’t that make him even more like a light novel protagonist? Where was his damn harem then? A choked laugh escaped him. Almost twenty years have passed since he picked up a light novel.

“Oh those sneaky bastards, they silenced that part of the details of the research didn’t they?" She smirked and even more casually and declared, "as the situation stands you will be discovered and executed.”

Jay knew his day wasn’t going to end peacefully.

“Let’s fix your fluency issue with the language. Fluency would help you become a proper magi and blend in more,” Magi Silvia said.

Jay looked around Magi Silvia’s house more closely. A rather simple abode, only a more pristine version of Jax’s house with less rooms.

“You will call me master, and I will train you with mana regulation. I know you think this would be too good to be true, but I am betting on the fact that you will eventually help me topple the tyrants,” Magi Silv… master said.

Jay choked. Not singular but plural?

Master answered. “Yes plural. You have so many ideas in your head about how to go about it but it is too jumbled up. What exactly is a printing press?”

Jay tightened his lips and began thinking about the implication of carbon being mana. From possible effects on the periodic table and radioactive decay to how mana was in all biomass, there was a lot to unpack. The randomness and complexity would hopefully make deciphering his thoughts too difficult.

Master only smiled, “I am replacing what the elf did to you. The enchantment was left flawed and after a quarter of a year would eventually have led to a lethal backlash.”

Jay sighed in relief, surprised the elf didn’t manage something more malicious. The translation effect of the elf was basically kind of like a curse, but seemed tame to what he dreaded. Year?

“Yes, I am speaking English right now, though I understand you have some fluency in another language. In Japanese? That will be useful for analogies later,” Master confirmed.

Jay already tired of having her in his head.

“You will get your privacy back if you learn from me diligently. Now soak yourself in that barrel. You need to attain awareness of your core,” Master quipped.

The liquid inside the barrel she pointed out was a murky black.

Jay apprehensively lowered himself into the barrel. The liquid was strangely hot and cold at the same time. In fact, all the substance’s characteristics seemed to fluctuate. One second the liquid smelled heavenly, in the next second the liquid seemed putrid enough to knock him out. The liquid was viscous then watery.

[You must hold steady after we move on from the breathing rhythm. If you make a blunder, then you may cripple yourself for life. Now breathe in slowly in… and out… in… and out… in… and out….] Master began.

The first ten counts made Jay’s chest tight and felt awkward for another ten counts but by the twenty-fifth count his body settled into the pace.

[Reach into yourself towards your center. Yes, how you go about pushing aside your emotions temporarily should work.] Master thought to him.

Jay thought back to the most recent moment pushing aside emotions had been necessary. Stranded in a world of new and unfamiliar dangers, only having just killed an elf and potentially being persona non grata of the world were unhelpful facts. Contemplating their implications could have, no, would have killed him. After killing Jax, the three wolves would have killed him, if he stayed shocked.

Instead of simply having his bunched up emotions to push to the back of his mind, Jay found himself floating in a mix of black and gold liquid.

[The black and gold colors surrounding you is your mana,] Master explained in her thoughts to him.

The ‘mana’ flowed like a liquid. With a closer look, he noticed that the mana was tinted more yellow toward the center of his core.

[The black and darker mana around you is the result of not processing your mana properly. As you can guess your best quality of mana is yellow. You could go further and actually reach into your inner core, but I want you to take note of the largest current and follow along.] She directed him.

Jay followed the current, and it split into a seemingly infinite number, except not quite. Keeping up wasn’t impossible somehow. The branches numbered in the hundreds of millions. How did he know that and where did he recall that number from before? The rhythmic inflation and deflation of the branches clued him in. These were lungs. Some parts were discolored faintly.

[Yes you are looking at your mana ‘lungs’ right now. Some parts are strained, because you haven’t been managing them properly. You have been processing mana without consideration about shifts in how much raw mana your body produces. Your body naturally speeds up the processing, but the resulting delay damages you. Parts of your mana lungs get more raw mana to process then they can handle,] Master paused.

So what did he have to--.

[You must create a circular current in your core to hasten under your control. Then you will be capable of keeping your mana lungs from being overwhelmed, pulling mana from your mana lungs and into your mana stores faster than surges in mana yield can swamp your mana lungs. That isn’t a complete solution though. Your mana will be even less processed unless put through your mana lungs at least one more time, making the more complicated spells all but impossible,] Master explained as she interrupted.

Jay went back to his mana supply and looked around. Only smaller currents that only maybe eventually connected to his lungs existed. Looping his mana through his mana lungs did not seem possible.

[I will be guiding you in forming a mana channel back to your lungs from your mana stores. That is for another day though. Breath with the rhythm I will tell you to come out of your trance. Eventually all that I said will be instinctive for you but that is a long way ahead. The breathing tempo for leaving your trance is in and out… in and out… in and out….]

Jay did as his master commanded. The breathing pace helped him reverse the process from before and to become conscious of the outside world once again. Except, the reversing went too far. Suddenly all three worries he pushed away from before overwhelmed him causing logic and reasoning to leave him once again. A desire to lash out at the world roared in him. His core and swords responded.

[Jay what happened? What in Jadry’s name?] Master exclaimed mentally.

Jay tried to respond, but a swirling red haze of guilt, fear and anger engulfed him.

[Sorry Jay but I am going to have to knock you unconscious,] Master apologized.

A surge of purple slammed through the haze and into Jay, then he knew nothing.

An aching body greeted Jay when he rose back to the waking world. The magi had left him on a dumped on the floor and the room was in absolute tatters. The carnage began around his bared swords at his sides, scraps of the scabbards he appropriated hanging off. Nothing in sight was free of slash marks, but the chair had been reduced to kindling. The floor appeared to have an impact from something due to how the numerous gashes circled around him. The tub of mana was nowhere to be seen.

“Boy I suppose I should have taken more precautions, because you were dipped in the primordial energies. I failed to realize your swords were connected to your core but you really made a mess of my house didn’t you? Now I only have a little less than three-fourths of an uouso at most to teach you! With your mana processing under control, I might have been able to hide you, but either the kingsmen or the guardians will notice the mana scars from today. Ugh!” She lamented.

On cue, another piece of the rafter broke off and made a loud thump on the floor.