'An explosion should shut them all up, right?' Gerald mused and gathered his magic. But then he reconsidered his actions and decided to act magnanimously. So he cast Sound Barriers on all of them! They were injured and could barely move. No worries about them getting out.

"Let's continue," he said, turning to the King.

"…Sure," the latter replied and took out an old-looking book. A Cultivation Manual.

"Let's start with the basics," Robart began. "Cultivators' powers are divided among different Realms depending on their power levels. They are called Foundation Establishment, Spirit Accumulation, and Nascent Soul."

He pointed at a certain page in the book and said, "Above them is still the Golden Core Realm, but I can't tell you much about it, since nobody reached it yet. Should you ever reach the threshold we can talk about it then."

"Hmm," Gerald nodded seriously, gesturing to the man to continue.

"Alright! The first thing you have to do to begin Cultivating, is to enter a special mental state, usually with the help of meditation, to unlock your ability to sense Mana. Now, I know everyone can already feel Mana naturally, but this enhances that feeling, letting you 'see' Mana more clearly."

"It is the first step on the road of Cultivation." Robart took a short pause to take a sip of water and then continued, "You might not know it, but our Souls are the ones that manipulate Mana around us, allowing us to make magic spells. Before beginning Cultivation, the Soul is called a Mortal Soul, since it's the natural state of common folk."

"It is also the weakest and most wasteful state you can be in. By casting spells this way, a lot of Mana is wasted due to weak control. According to the records of our ancestors, almost all Mana is expelled without contributing much to the spells at all."

The King continued his explanation for a while longer, but basically what he was saying was that, if you imagine Mana as water, then casting spells is like trying to water a tree. It's just that, if your Soul is weak, then out of your bucket(body) full of water(Mana), you are trying to take the liquid out with a strainer.

As you might expect, water will drain out in an instant, leaving you with only a few drops to water the tree. That's where the Cultivation comes in.

In the beginning, in the Foundation Establishment Realm, you refine your Soul so that instead of moving water with a strainer, you compress it, and form a spoon. Now, the refinement compresses the Soul, making it smaller and capable of scooping up much less water at once, but at least you now got barely any losses.

After hearing this explanation, it was like a lightbulb went on in Gerald's mind. He was always wondering how could Tabbris keep his Combat Arts going with so little Mana, but as it turned out, he just wasn't wasting most of it!

It was the same for the Guardians and the King.

And with a refined Soul, their endurance for spell-casting also went up by quite a lot. Now it all made sense!

But that was only the beginning. After successfully refining the Soul once, you have then officially stepped into the Foundation Establishment Realm where you can strengthen your foundation for further improvements.

"Alright, now that we got this out of the way, let's get down to business," Robart said and continued his lecture. By now the rest of the people calmed down and Gerald released the Sound Barriers, letting them listen to the man speaking.

"After the first refinement, the Soul is small, and so, if we want to make it even stronger, it has to be refined and purified further. However, as it has already diminished in size, we have to grow it first, otherwise, we risk breaking it, which might result in death."

The King then closed his eyes and demonstrated, "Gather Mana inside your body, compress it as much as you can, and when you feel the pull of your Soul, guide it towards it."

Indeed, just as the man said, his Mana gathered into a single point, and then under the watchful eyes of everyone present, it disappeared.

"Hmm?" Gerald squinted his eyes. Something didn't seem right. How can Mana just disappear? He experienced this once before when he found Tabbris' sister in that underground lake, and he was just as confused back then.

But then he noticed it! His Aura! The King's feeble Aura improved slightly! The vitality returned, though it wasn't much.

"Phew, that's how it goes," the man in question said. "Though this was just one cycle. Now I have to wait for my Mana to recover to do it again."

"Really? That's it?" Gerald asked skeptically. "That barely did anything."

"Hehe, that's how it is," the King laughed weakly. "We humans are not like Elves. Those bastards have much greater Mana stores and can Cultivate more efficiently. They also recover faster because their Souls are stronger than ours. But what can we do, life is never fair…"

"Then… How many times do you have to do this cycle to fully recover your Soul?" Gerald posed an important question. "What if the Empire attacks in the meantime?"

"My Soul? Well, a few hundred cycles should do it… I think," Robart answered, not sounding completely convinced. "Unfortunately the ritual we used and the Elixir of Life and Fire both place a great strain on the Soul. If I wasn't at Nascent Soul already I probably wouldn't have survived it both at the same time."

"Hundreds of cycles," Gerald gasped. Didn't this mean the man would need months to fully recover?!

"I know what you are thinking, " Robart said, noticing his expression. "There is a way to recover Mana faster."

'There is? Does he know about Mana Potions?' Gerald's mind immediately jumped to the secrets he was hiding.

"I'm sure you have heard about Ley Lines…"

"I have," Gerald confirmed, realizing they were talking about different things.

However before the King could continue, Crag Carre interrupted. "Your Majesty, are you sure…?" He clearly knew where the conversation was going.

"It is a great secret, yes, but I feel like he should know," King Robart answered. He turned to Gerald, "So, the Ley Lines… As you might have already figured out, the area around them is much denser with Mana."

"Yes, I have noticed that. There are quite a few of them underneath the city, correct? I have seen them when the barrier went up."

Robart nodded, his speculations being proven correct. "You have good eyes," he praised. "And yes, there are quite a few Ley Lines, both large and small, that intersect underneath Auralba. Specifically underneath the Palace." He pointed toward the floor to emphasize the fact.

"Where many Ley Lines intersect, we call that a Spirit Lake. It's a place where Mana naturally gathers in great concentration and it is the perfect place for Cultivation. As soon as I recover enough I'll go down there to heal my Soul as fast as possible," Robart explained.

Except for Gerald, nobody revealed many surprises at these words. It seemed like they all already knew. The only emotion he could decipher was a trace of envy on some of the Guardian's faces. Having such a nice place just under your nose sure seemed nice!

"A spirit Lake? Isn't that the place where I stumbled upon your sister? So she was Cultivating back then?" Gerald said towards Tabbris whose face twitched slightly at the question.

"Y- you found a Spirit Lake?!" Ewat Holt nearly jumped out of his skin, turning to Razor Northendark with a judging expression. "Don't tell me you were planning on claiming it all for yourself?!"