Chapter 25 – Academy (11)
If last night had given me a thread, today handed me a word for it.
Resonance.
"—and that is why mana stones in common lamps must be periodically discharged," the lecturer droned at the front of the hall.
We were in "Mana Applications: Everyday Enchantments." In theory, the closest thing this world had to engineering. In practice, the old mage sounded like he'd been hired specifically to make enchantments boring.
He held up a cut mana crystal fixed in a brass socket.
"This standard lamp crystal," he said, "holds mana in a stable pattern. When the pattern is agitated—say, by pushing too much mana in too quickly—"
He pushed a short burst of mana into it.
The crystal flickered, humming faintly on the desk.
"—it becomes unstable. If resonance occurs—"
Another pulse. The light stuttered faster, the hum deepened.
He cut the flow. The crystal steadied.
"—it may crack," he finished. "Or, in extreme cases, explode. As first-years, you will not be attempting controlled resonance. That is for later."
Quills scratched dutifully.
I didn't write.
I stared at the crystal.
Resonance.
Back in my room, I had an iron nail, some copper wire, a dull mana crystal, and a headache. No new materials. But when I'd shoved mana through my coil in ugly square pulses, I'd already seen a hint of magnetic coupling.
If resonance mattered, maybe strength wasn't the main problem.
Maybe the *shape* was.
At the board, the lecturer drew a curve. A smooth wave.
"Mana sometimes flows in cycles," he said, tapping the chalk. "Up, down, up, down. Oscillations. Patterns. These can be dangerous, but controlled cycles have many uses in advanced enchantments."
So: oscillation. Pattern. Waveform.
My hand finally moved.
I didn't copy his example about "safe discharge rates." I sketched my own:
– Waveform vs. field strength.
– Dirty pulses = weak, noisy effect.
– Smooth cycles = better coupling?
"Milton," the lecturer said suddenly. "You are either deeply inspired or quietly planning an explosion. For the Academy's sake, which is it?"
"Thinking about resonance, sir," I said.
He sniffed.
"Think without touching anything that belongs to me," he said. "Now—"
His voice blurred back into background noise.
By the time class ended, I was more wired than after any sword drill.
***
Afternoon training burned the edge off.
Garen made us run, as usual.
Rion drifted up beside me halfway through the laps, breathing hard.
"You've got that look again," he panted. "The 'I've found a new way to suffer' look."
"Just an idea," I said.
"If it explodes near the dorms, I'm blaming you in my will," he muttered.
By the time we finished, most of my thoughts were drowned under lactic acid.
They came back at night.
***
The first-year dorms were split: girls' wing on one side, boys' wing on the other, with a common hall in between that locked down hard after curfew.
I made it back just as the bells were dying away.
Rion's door, right next to mine, was halfway open. He lay on his own bed, a book over his face, one arm hanging off the side.
"You experimenting tonight?" he mumbled when he heard my steps.
"Thinking," I said from his doorway.
He peeled the book down just enough to squint at me.
"That's worse," he yawned. "Experimenting is how you blow things up. Thinking is how you *decide* to blow things up. If the walls start glowing, I'm sleeping in the common hall."
"I'll try not to invent anything structural," I said.
He waved a hand vaguely. "Wake me only if Garen dies or the food gets better."
"Those are the same level to you?"
"Obviously," he muttered, already drifting.
I left him and stepped into my own room.
Door shut. World shrank to a bed, a desk, a candle stub, and the junk I'd claimed as a lab.
One iron nail wrapped in copper wire.
One loose nail.
One mana crystal.
One tired regressor.
No new materials.
Just a slightly better brain.
I sat and picked up the coil.
"Alright," I told it quietly. "Round two. No new toys. Just better thinking."
***
I set the coiled nail flat on the desk and slid the loose nail beside it, point almost touching.
Candle lit. Flame steady.
Mana crystal in hand. Eyes closed.
Last time, I'd flicked mana like a bad light switch.
On. Off. On. Off.
Square pulses. Sharp edges. Lots of waste.
The chalk curve from lecture rose in my mind.
Up. Down. Up. Down.
I pictured my core as a spring, my channels as a loop. The crystal as a weight hanging on that loop. Instead of jerking it, I imagined nudging it into motion.
A smooth rise.
A smooth fall.
Mana responded.
Slow at first. My channels dragged, unused to this kind of pattern. Then they found it, like a wagon wheel settling into grooves.
Flow in.
Flow out.
A crude sine wave.
I guided that flow into the copper wire.
For a few breaths, nothing obvious happened.
Then the iron core under the coil began to hum.
Barely. A faint tremor under my fingertips where they rested on the desk. The loose nail twitched, lifting and settling in time with the rhythm in my chest.
The candle flame leaned, straightened, leaned again, not randomly, but in the same tempo.
I opened my eyes.
Same nail.
Same wire.
Same crystal.
Different waveform.
Better result.
"Hello again," I murmured.
[ System ]
[ Mana Circuit Theory – Progress: 19% → 27% ]
[ Insight: Waveform control affects mana–electromagnetic coupling efficiency. ]
[ Passive Technique Unlocked: "Resonant Flow (Basic)" ]
An icon pulsed faintly at the edge of my vision.
[ Resonant Flow (Basic) ]
– When you maintain a smooth, periodic mana flow, waste decreases slightly.
– Long-term channelling becomes less tiring.
– Comment: Discovered by not smashing mana like a hammer for once.
I sighed. "Rude."
I let the flow taper off and flexed my fingers. They tingled, but less harshly than last time. My channels ached, but in the "used" way, not "abused."
Same junk.
Something better.
***
Next test: sensing.
Back on Earth, we used instruments to measure fields. Here, my best sensor was my own body.
Knights learned to coat blades in aura. Mages learned to "feel" dense mana in the air.
If mana and EM fields really coupled, a changing field near my skin should tug at my aura. My nerves should complain.
I pushed the coil and loose nail aside and laid my right hand palm-up on the desk.
With my left, I set the mana crystal nearby and closed my eyes.
I spread mana in a thin layer over my skin, looping from spine to shoulder to fingertips and back. Not thick. Just a film.
Aura coat, but delicate.
When the flow steadied, I picked up the coil and held it just above my hand, not quite touching.
Resonant Flow, small pulse.
On.
Off.
On.
Off.
At first, the only sensation was my own aura buzzing.
Then:
On—
A faint ripple. Like someone plucked a spiderweb laid over my skin.
Off.
On— ripple.
Off.
I smoothed my aura, making it as steady as I could. The ripples stood out clearer against the calm base.
Wire + mana → changing field → charges twitching → nerves → me noticing.
"Got you," I said softly.
[ System ]
[ Mana Circuit Theory – Progress: 27% → 34% ]
[ New Skill Unlocked: "Field Sense (Prototype)" ]
I checked it.
[ Field Sense (Prototype) ]
– Type: Sensory Technique (E–).
– Effect: When your aura is spread thin over the skin, you can feel strong or patterned mana–EM fluctuations nearby as faint ripples.
– Drawback: Overuse may cause headaches, tingling, or the sudden urge to explain things with unnecessary diagrams.
It wasn't much.
No explosions. No divine revelations.
But it was new. Not in the sense of "no one has ever done this," but in the sense that *I* had never reached this point in any previous loop.
Old regressions had been all panic and steel.
No time to sit with a nail and ask, "What else can I squeeze out of the same pieces?"
I leaned back and let my aura thin out, then spread it again, this time lightly over my whole body.
The room tingled back.
The mana in the walls hummed like distant wires. Deep below, in the foundations, I felt a slow, powerful pulse from buried ward crystals — the Academy's guts.
Through the right-hand wall, a softer rhythm: Rion's breathing. Just the way his body disturbed the ambient field, a faint rise and fall.
Further away, to the side of the building, I caught a sharper pattern.
Pulse. Pause. Pulse. Pause.
Some Staff campus student was still practicing, flinging the same spell over and over in a training hall.
At my current level, it was all vague and muffled.
But it was *there*.
[ System ]
[ Mana Circuit Theory – Partial Objective Complete: Sense external field patterns. ]
[ Progress: 34% → 38% ]
I let the aura sink in again and rubbed my face.
Old regressions never got this far.
Back then, every day had been monsters, assassins, cultists, political nightmares. Survival ate curiosity.
This time was… slower.
Danger still loomed somewhere ahead, but the blade wasn't on my throat yet.
[ Regression Memory – Passive Effect Active. ]
[ Note: Earlier loops did not reach this stage of theoretical development. ]
"Yeah," I muttered. "I noticed."
I blew out the candle and lay down.
In the dark, the faint afterimage of System text hovered in my thoughts.
Same world.
Same basic starting pieces.
But here, now, I'd gotten something better without adding anything new.
And for once, I actually had time to think what that might mean.
For science.
For magic.
For whatever the hell waited at the end of this regression.
Sleep dragged me under before I could decide which one scared me more.