Regression of the Manaless Sword God

Chapter 3: Blessed by mana

Only after he was able to calm his heart did he let go of Eleanor. Separating from her a little, he took his time to carve her beautiful face into his mind. Her face at the end of her life was still resurfacing before him.

She was such a sweet and caring girl that she did not even hesitate to save someone as worthless as him, but now it was his turn.

Ethan removed the hand of the guard from his shoulder and said, "Umm, sorry. It was kind of sudden of me."

He did do that because of his desperation to see her again, but that wasn’t the same for all. For him, it had been decades since they met, but for her, it hadn’t even been a few minutes.

’Heck, it was. You could have done that when we were alone, you idiot.’

Embarrassed and stunned by this, Eleanor screamed at him inside her head. Ethan might not care about others, but she did. She was fine if he did that when they were alone, but doing something like that out in the open?

"Idiot." Eleanor softly spoke under her breath, too quietly for anyone to hear.

With the same burning red face, she turned away from him and, with a pout, spoke, "Go and wait for your turn. I will deal with you later."

She sounded as if she was mad at him and did not want to look at him at all, but even with that attitude, Ethan softly smiled. He knew she wasn’t mad or anything at all. She just couldn’t look him in the eyes after what he did.

’I missed this side of hers so much.’

"Alright, go and take your awakening."

"Now get back to your place, brat. You have already caused enough disturbance." The guard too finally had enough and pulled Ethan back, leaving the group to continue with the awakening process.

"Stay here with us, can’t have you go there to hug your lover again. Sigh~ kids these days, can’t even stay away from each other for a minute." He shook his head, exhaling deeply.

’Though, I was also the same back then. Love is a good thing, only till you get married. After that, you will see a side of your wife you never saw before. Let’s not forget to get groceries or I might have to sleep on the sofa again.’

Ethan didn’t mind staying there, he could get a good look at the other students too. One after another, they all went ahead and took their awakening.

The process of awakening started more than 200 years ago when the sky-reaching tower suddenly appeared in this world. Along with the tower came monsters and... mana.

The Earth was filled with mana and monsters. At that time, no one knew how to use mana, neither were they able to face monsters efficiently, that was until world stones appeared.

World stones were mysterious stones, different from normal stones found here. They were like slabs with runes imprinted on them. They weren’t abundant and randomly appeared in different locations.

There was no way to make them artificially and also no definitive place where they could appear. All of that was completely random.

The world stones were the things that helped people awaken their mana pool. You just needed to touch the stone and you would awaken. However, they were rare to find and weren’t long-lasting. They cracked after being used for too long, so to awaken more people, you would need a lot. Hence, they had a fairly high purchase cost.

Ethan watched intently as everyone who touched the world stone awakened their affinity and mana pool.

He also noticed different people from different guilds and academies closely monitoring the students who were taking the test.

They were there to recruit talented awakeners.

The mana pool one awakened had a grade, ranging from F grade at the bottom to grade A. The higher the grade, the more mana you had. It was directly proportional to the height you could reach. In short, if you awakened an F grade, you were basically doomed.

’You will be looked down upon if you awaken a low grade, how brutal will the world be for the one who didn’t awaken at all?’

Ethan then focused his attention on Eleanor. When he remained manaless, she was the opposite. She was hailed as a genius, the strongest awakener.

Her mastery of mana and the pace at which she climbed the tower were unheard of.

’There is still time left to clear the 50th floor. If I remember correctly, the highest floor climbed till now was the 40th floor. They weren’t able to clear that yet. It will take 2 more years before they can clear that floor, but they will be stuck on the 45th floor again. Eleanor was the one who led the team to clear that floor and succeeded, but even she wasn’t able to clear the 50th floor. I need to change that. I need to quickly reach, no... I need to surpass myself in a year. I can’t afford to waste time at all.’

As he was planning what to do from here on out, Eleanor’s turn had arrived. Even when he knew what she would awaken, he still felt unrest.

The mana pool was graded from F to A, but that was true for the rank that could be estimated. In truth, there was one more rank above...

"W-what is happening?"

"It feels so heavy and c-cold."

The moment Eleanor placed her hand on the world stone, the stone shook violently. In the blink of an eye, she was engulfed in dense mana all over her body as if it was forming a thick layer of protection around her.

Mana so dense and heavy that even without doing anything, she was making others feel suffocated. Along with the mana came snowfall. As if the world itself was reacting to her mana and her nature, it blessed the land with snow.

Then, in bold letters, came her mana pool rank and her affinity,

[MANA POOL:- UNIDENTIFIED]

[AFFINITY:- ICE AND WIND]

Above the A rank was the rank ’Unidentified’. A mana pool so big that it couldn’t be estimated. Some called this grade S rank, but that was for common people. For those who had climbed to the higher floors of the tower, this rank was called,

Blessed by Mana.