When the world reappeared around me, and I found that I was in an all-white room, I nearly had a panic attack.


    I could almost see it unfolding before my eyes.  I had somehow traveled back in time, back to the beginning of the tutorial, and now I had to live through the last week and a half, again.


    Game over. Try again.


    <Get a grip,> Samantha said. <It’s just an illusion ward. The Schema has to determine if we are worthy to take a C-rank Rune Master Profession away from the treasury.>


    As my mind calmed down, I noticed the table and chair in front of me. Behind me, I could see shelves full of various high-quality materials.


    Why didn’t you mention this before? Do the other skills have illusion wards?


    Samantha sighed. <I forgot how bad human memories are. I already told you this, back when you picked your D-rank class in the tutorial.  For particularly high-value items, the Schema will test people to make sure that we are worthy. This is actually a huge opportunity. Nothing to be worried about. You’re not in danger, relax.>


    You should have mentioned this was going to happen. What happens if we don’t pass this illusion ward?


    <I guess I should have.  If we don’t pass, we just get kicked out of the treasury, and we don’t get anything.  But that’s not going to happen. Now, take a seat and look at the Rune Pattern Blueprints.  This is why I had you put everything into Luck as you appeared here.  That way, the Rune Pattern Blueprints will be good ones.>


    <You should never say that the Atropos Schema is stingy. It rewards boldness, you see.  Challenging Rune Master illusion ward comes with an added benefit—if you demonstrate that you can complete one of the rune patterns that they provide you, then you leave with the profession, and with the blueprint in your Status Window. Now, take a seat, and let’s take a look at what blueprints we have to choose from.>


    Samantha could barely hide her excitement. I sighed, taking a seat and Identifying each rune pattern blueprint.


    Durability Rune Pattern Blueprint (C-rank)


    Explosion Rune Pattern Blueprint (C-rank)


    Invisibility Rune Pattern Blueprint (C-rank)


    Personal Mana Shield Rune Pattern Blueprint (C-rank)


    Isn’t that a little…uninspired? I couldn’t help but ask.


    I had weaker forms of every one of these rune patterns.


    <Not at all. In fact, this is completely predictable,> Samantha said. <With all the points you put towards Luck, the Schema is trying to make things easy for you. It is normally extremely difficult to form a Rune Pattern if you don’t know the composite parts, or the toned-down version of the same rune pattern.  Now, I suggest you pick the Invisibility Rune Pattern, in order—>


    I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Do you think I’m an idiot? You’ll start forming the Invisibility Rune Pattern inside my body, probably turn me permanently invisible as a side effect, and Petra wouldn’t stand a chance reading your mind. No way.


    <I was going to say that selling high-tier Invisibility Cloaks is a great money-maker,> Samantha said. <But in response, I’d like to add that as a C-rank Rune Master, it won’t be too hard to create the “on/off” switch that we were talking about. You wouldn’t be permanently invisible—in fact, the days of automatic aura suppression are almost over.  And you could switch off the Invisibility Rune Pattern whenever you feel like letting Petra root around your mind.>


    We’re not doing that one, I said. What’s your second choice.


    Samantha said, immediately. <I’m assuming you would be hesitant to sell high-explosives randomly, so the Personal Mana Shield is a good purchase.  Also, it requires Mana Orbs, to power it, which for anyone else would be prohibitively expensive, but you just need to upgrade your Condenser factory, and then it will take 101 Mana Crystals to make a Mana Orb.>


    Mana Orbs? I asked.


    <It’s not that hard.  The smallest unit of naturally occurring trapped mana is the Mana Bead, which is a bit smaller than a pea. Then there is a Mana Shard, which is a bit smaller than your fist.  One hundred Mana Beads are approximately equal to one Mana Shards. Next is a Mana Crystal, which is the size of a large watermelon.  One hundred Mana Shards are approximately equal to one Mana Crystal.  Then a Mana Orb, which is basically a crystal boulder four feet in diameter, which is equal to 100 Mana Crystals.>


    So…in order to make a Personal Mana Shield, I will need to carry around a boulder with me wherever I go?


    <Jarek, at some point you’re going to need to start figuring these things out yourself. Especially if you don’t want to have to count on me to tell you what to do. Many higher-ranked Rune Patterns play with interdimensional space somehow.  For the Personal Mana Shield, you have two main options. You can either create an interdimensional space that will house the boulder-sized Mana Orb, or you can use a Refined Mana Orb.  If you take a Compressed Mana Orb and then compress it again, you get a Refined Mana Orb.  That way, you would be carrying around a Mana Orb compressed to the size of your fist. Most people who go this route turn their Personal Mana Shield into a breastplate, with the Compressed Mana Orb in the center of the breastplate.  We should do the breastplate version for this test, because it is slightly easier, and there is no point in taking unnecessary risks.>


    That’s rich, coming from you. How many unnecessary risks have you made me take?


    <Those were calculated risks, Jarek. Anyway, you need to work on asking better questions. The real issue with a C-rank Personal Mana Shield is that a Mana Orb is prohibitively expensive for you. As a matter of fact, basically every C-rank rune pattern here is too expensive for you.  Fortunately, though, once you learn a C-rank rune pattern, I can help you downgrade it to D-rank.  I have a feeling you won’t have the chance to use a Mana Orb as a personal shield for quite some time.>This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    <Now, let’s get started.  Start by learning the Personal Mana Shield Rune Pattern Blueprint.>


    As I learned the blueprint, I quickly realized that I was completely out of my league.


    The first, most obvious thing that stood out to me was that I was now expected to form three dimensional runes.  It turns out every rune that I had already learned also had a three-dimensional form.


    Until now, I had been using my Rune Master’s Knife to trace all my runes.  But now, the Schema was currently treating me like a C-rank Rune Master.


    This granted me one key new ability—the ability to guide unattributed mana freely outside of my body in a neutral state.


    <Most magicians have specific affinities, which means that when their body produces mana, it has specific attributes. Air, Water, Fire, Void, and so on,> Samantha explained. <As a Rune Master with C-rank External Unattributed Mana Affinity, you are able to send mana out of your body, but it must be unattributed.  This means the mana that you send out of your body will never be able to directly harm another creature.  Since the Schema is treating you like a C-rank Rune Master, you have a C-Rank Rune Master’s control of mana right now.>


    We spent the next half hour sending mana outside my body and controlling it.


    We ran several tests to see how much mana I could comfortably control outside of my body at a time—about 50 points of Mana.  Then we tested my fine control of mana, Samantha creating 3d images in front of me, and I molded my mana in the air to fit those shapes.


    As we practiced, I had a sudden thought. Once mana leaves my body, can it ever rejoin my Mana Pool?


    <That’s the thinking I should see from you more often,> Samantha said, proudly, and excitedly. <It only took you what, a half hour?  As I’ve mentioned, this is what I’m talking about when I talk about synergy.  Your level of Mana Control and External Unattributed Mana Affinity will allow you to keep about half of your Mana Pool outside your body.  If you ever give up your mental control of your mana, though, it will turn into ambient mana, at which point you won’t be able to control it.  So essentially, you can increase your Mana Pool by 50% by keeping Mana floating outside your body at all times.>


    Is this something any magician can do? I couldn’t recall seeing Petrov, Vasilia, or any other magicians storing mana outside of their body.


    <Of course not,> Samantha said. She sounded as though she were explaining something obvious. <If anyone could do it, then you would see everyone doing it.  People aren’t idiots…with some exceptions… and the sooner you get that through your head, the better.>


    <I’m assuming,> Samantha continued, <that you’re asking about the restrictions on this ability.  D-rank Unattributed Mana Affinity, and a D-rank-Mana Control, would allow people to control their mana and hold it outside their body, but their body would not recognize their mana while it is outside them.  You must have C-rank Mana Control and C-rank Unattributed Mana Affinity in order for this trick to work.>


    <Of course, in the Acclimated Worlds, many Magicians will attempt to become C-rank Rune Masters for this very purpose, but as you will see soon enough, it isn’t easy to become a C-rank Rune Master.


    <If you remember, Petrov has unattributed mana affinity, and likely a corresponding skill, since he was able to lend his own mana to boost River’s spell, Devil’s Cage, when you fought the Shade. If he can rank up his affinity high enough, he would likely also be capable of this.>


    <Anyway, now that you’ve been able to practice your Mana Control, let’s start marking our Mana Shield.>


    The main base of the Personal Mana Shield was a generic, glossy white breastplate, forged from Mithril.


    Mithril is real? I asked, vaguely surprised.


    <You’ve heard of Mithril?> Samantha’s shock actually exceeded my own, for once. <What do you know about Mithril?>


    I thought back to what I had read. It’s a lightweight, sturdy material. It showed up in The Lord of the Rings, over fifty years ago. Why?


    <The Mentalist Cooperative wouldn’t play that long of a game,> Samantha said.  <And you told me earlier that you have legends of elves, dwarves, fey, vampires, and werewolves, from well before the Mentalist Cooperative would have started influencing your world.  I think I mentioned my theory earlier—it’s likely there used to be portals between your world and another world, one with a bit more ambient mana than your own, but those portals were closed.  That in itself isn’t that surprising.>


    <I’m not sure how to put this…> Samantha spoke slowly, and somewhat unsure of herself. <C-rank materials are extremely valuable.  This breastplate, as it is, would likely sell for over 10 million coins. Once it’s turned into proper equipment with stat bonuses, it would be worth over a hundred million coins.  Any planet that has access to C-rank materials before Acclimation likely has access to B-rank or even A-rank materials now that the Schema has cracked the World Core. And it’s virtually impossible for the world that used to be connected to Earth to be Acclimated—the Schema could have followed the mana trails hundreds of years ago, and then Earth would have been discovered ages ago.>


    Samantha talked quickly, but there was one part that stood out to me.  Wait, what? What do you mean, the Schema cracked the World Core?


    <Didn’t you ever wonder why the world is changing at such a fast pace? Mana is flooding the environment, but where is the mana coming from?> Samantha sighed. <The Schema isn’t all-powerful, and it isn’t nearly strong enough to inject vast amounts of mana into hundreds of worlds.


    <Let me start at the beginning. Before life first formed on your planet, billions of years ago, the World Core first started to form at the very center of your planet. It converted heat into Aether, and the Aether seeped through the planet’s core, mantle, and crust, sparking the first life form.>


    <Not long after, that life form died, and when it did, the World Core pulled that ambient Aether back towards it. Basically, like gravity, but with magic.  Over the years, on most planets, this becomes a feedback loop. The World Core sends out little bursts of Aether, and then the bursts of Aether create more life, which then procreate and eventually die, feeding the World Core even more.  In the case of Earth, as far as I can tell, your World Core used to guard its Aether extremely preciously. This is why virtually the only mana present on your world was in life forms themselves, before Acclimation.


    <Your World Core, then, was able to benefit from abundant life on your planet for hundreds of millions of years, likely without releasing a single burst of Aether.  As a result, your World Core has been storing huge amounts of Aether, and is likely a high-grade or even Peak-grade World Core.>


    <What the Atropos Schema does, then, when it appears on new planets like yours, is it creates cracks in the World Core.  Higher leveled creatures tend to have more Aether inside them, more life force.  With every creature’s death, then, the Atropos Schema siphons off a portion of the Aether before allowing that Aether to return to your World Core.>


    <For a planet to have access to a C-rank material before Acclimation, the World Core would have evolved completely differently compared to Earth’s.  There would be much greater leakage of Aether.  In fact, it would be similar to the amount of leakage that your world is experiencing, now.  It is rare for a world to naturally release this much Aether before being cracked open.   Now, if the Schema decided to crack the World Core of that other planet open even further, then that world would likely have B or even A-ranked materials, which is enough to make any superpower in the Atropos Schema go crazy.>


    <Along the same lines, if your myths are true, then the elves and dwarves would have had at least hundreds of years to cultivate on a mana and Aether-rich planet.  Their battles will look very different compared to the battles that you are facing. I don’t know if you can really imagine that…>


    <Think about it this way.  The Schema has limited the monsters that have appeared on your planet, and even when the invaders come, the Schema won’t let anyone above level 100 in, and they won’t be able to carry C-ranked weapons or equipment or items.


    <With the elves’ and dwarves’ world, it is likely that the kid gloves will be off.> From the way Samantha said it, I could almost hear an itch, a yearning, in her voice, as if she wished to see that war.