Chapter 48: Mana stones
Camille moved to the blackboard hanging on the wall behind her. The soft click of her heels echoed briefly before fading into the attentive silence.
The white marker in her hand moved against the board, words forming in flawless cursive writing.
Core Formation
She drew two lines below the heading and explained while writing,
"You need two things to form a core.
Materials and technique.
First, let’s discuss materials since there is no use of technique without materials."
Her marker moved below the Materials heading as she split it into four further sub-headings.
Mortal
Tempest
Celestial
Primordial
Vlad immediately recognised the familiar headings. These were the four resonance stages of the elements.
"These are the four stages of elemental control..."
Camille explained about resonance, leaving the students bewildered and shocked by the terms that they had never heard before. Some students exchanged puzzled looks, others simply stared at the board as if trying to memorize every curve of the letters. Relatively, Vlad kept a straight face since he had already learned about it from Ren.
"Now, what you need to form a core is a mana stone carrying the same elemental affinity as you.
These mana stones can be found in dungeons, places with high elemental mana, or inside Elemental Beasts. They are also ranked from Mortal to Primordial.
A person who formed their core with a Tempest mana stone can use the elements of Mortal and Tempest level but cannot manipulate the elements above that level.
However..."
Her voice turned serious as she continued, "It doesn’t mean that you can certainly use all the elements if you make a core of high level. If your talent is low, you will only be wasting the resources.
Moreover, the materials can only help in allowing you to use the elements of higher class. The amount of mana you can accumulate within your core also depends on your talent.
For instance, if your talent is ranked C or below, you cannot access elemental energy above Mortal level or increase your core size even if you form your core using a Tempest mana stone.
Similarly, for B to A rank, Tempest is the limit of their resonance ability.
The people who awaken S-Rank talent can access Celestial elemental energy at their peak.
As for Primordial Elemental Energy, it is just a concept. No human has managed to touch that power."
She took a brief pause, letting the weight of her words settle over the room. The silence that followed was thick with contemplation.
"With the sole exception of the Legendary Knight, of course. But again, you cannot analyse that person with regular logical means."
Vlad immediately raised his hand the moment he heard the name.
"Yes," Camille permitted him to speak.
"Have you met him?"
"The Legendary Knight?" Camille asked, her eyebrow rising. Her face became immediately neutral again as she revealed, "I have only seen him once from afar during the War of Dragons. I was a young child back then, but that is a story for another time."
She looked at her watch. The glass face glinted under the classroom lights as she noted the time. It was almost the end of the lecture.
"You can receive mana stones from the academy from Mortal to Celestial level according to your talent.
All of you need to bring the materials to the next lecture. I will teach you the technique tomorrow.
That’s all for today. Thank you, class."
The students immediately rose from their feet as she moved out of the lecture hall.
"Thank you, Professor Camille."
Her explanation invited mixed reactions from the students. Even though she didn’t mention it, they all understood how valuable the mana stones must be. And since they were just commoners, would they be able to afford the treasures the academy might ask in return to purchase such precious materials?
"Well, that’s a lot of information to take in," Vlad stretched his arm as he closed the diary.
He had been writing everything attentively down in his diary during the lecture.
"Chloe, you awa—"
His words came to a halt as he saw an unexpected sight before him. The afternoon light filtering through the windows caught the side of her face, illuminating her focused expression.
Chloe was neatly writing down everything in her diary that was written on the board. Her posture was perfect, her hand moving with quiet precision. Once she had finished copying from the board, she began creating notes of the important points about the elements that Camille had mentioned.
The footsteps and chatter of the students slowly faded as everyone left the room.
It took her a few more minutes to write down everything.
"You done?" Vlad asked as she closed her diary.
"Why are you still here?" Chloe shot back at him with a question of her own as she placed the diary in the pocket of her blazer.
They were the only two still in the class.
"Waiting for you, of course," Vlad answered. He was leaning forward on the desk, his face resting against his fist, a warm smile carrying on his lips as he looked at Chloe.
"Don’t. I hate you," she said in her usual emotionless tone as she stood up.
Vlad released a heavy gasp, his lips parting in shock.
’She never got this angry when I joked around with her before,’ he murmured inwardly. ’Wait a moment...’
He quickly checked the date on his phone. ’There are still a few days left for her mood swing zone.’
While he was still contemplating the reason for her anger, she had already reached halfway from the desk to the exit.
He immediately jumped over the desk and reached before Chloe with a slide. The soles of his shoes squeaked against the polished floor.
"I won’t do it again. Please don’t hate me."
"What will you not do?" Chloe asked, her arms crossed.
"To joke around when you are seriously expressing yourself."
He was referring to the time when Chloe said that she wanted to protect him and he responded with a silly joke, and he had certainly hit the spot behind Chloe’s anger.
"And?" Chloe asked, her eyes locked on his face. She was waiting for the words that still hadn’t leave Vlad’s mouth.
"I’m really sorry, Chloe baby," he said, holding his ears in a genuine apology.
Elaria always called her Chloe baby in affection, so Vlad was also used to calling her baby; however, only when he truly needed to convince her for something. Every time he addressed her baby, Chloe’s anger would instantly melt away like mist under morning sun.
"I don’t hate you anymore," Chloe murmured, lowering her head before quickly walking out of the class.
