You guide mana well for someone who's never wielded it before."
"The first positive thing you've said to me since I got here."
She smirked.
"Calm down. Like I said—your stats are comparable to a child's. Your control is just slightly above that too."
"Yeah, yeah. Fuck off. What's next?"
"You're going to test the full range of your skills. Channel your mana into different parts of your body. See if your gravity skill can be applied to yourself. Start with whatever skill you want."
I'll focus on Voidcut for now.
I kicked out casually, like I was knocking a rock down the road. Nothing fancy. I'd never trained in martial arts or anything back home, so trying something flashy would just make me look stupid.
My boot pointed forward—not at the ground.
"Voidcut."
And five meters away, space split open.
A gash about fourteen inches long and three inches wide hung silently in the air. No flash, no sound, no ripple. Just a perfect black line. A slit in reality.
I froze. Inside the tear—nothing. Absolute black. A void that didn't reflect light or shadow.
Then, without a sound, it zipped shut. Seamless. Like it had never been there.
I was still staring at the spot when Talia's voice broke the silence behind me.
"So it's true. That creature did cause the Maw to appear... and it's most likely the one keeping it open too."
I turned, brow raised.
"What do you mean?"
She crossed her arms, eyes fixed on where the rift had been.
"That's what the Maw looks like. Not as clean—more like it was torn open instead of cut—but it's almost the same. And when you used that skill, your mana laced the edges of the tear. If you had better control—if you could regulate the mana flowing from your body—you could maintain the rift. Keep it open."
"...Which means whoever or whatever opened the Maw is doing exactly that."
"Exactly. If we want to close it, we'll have to kill the thing keeping it open. And if it's not that—" she nodded to the sky, "—we'll have to go inside the Maw and kill whatever is keeping it open, because even if you closed it from this side, nothing stops it from being reopened."
She sighed.
Final boss, huh? And it has the same attributes as me? Cool.
"Continue."
I want to try one more thing before moving on to Gravity Bind.
This time, I reach for my mana again—but instead of guiding it, I just release it, letting it pour out through every part of my body.
Instantly, in a five-meter radius around me, hundreds of tiny rifts tear open the air, forming a perfect half-sphere. The ground beneath me isn't spared either—dozens of small gashes split the rock, some overlapping, merging into jagged, deeper scars.
And then there was the silence. Or something like it.
It isn't the absence of sound. It just got quiet all around me. Nothing comes from the rifts, or passes through them—not even sound. So all the noise from the outside world has to pass through the cracks between the rifts instead, like I'm hearing the world through cracks in a wall.
"That's actually kind of cool."
What? I turned around, expecting the princess to be outside the dome. Instead, she was right next to me.
"But don't use that attack if you have allies around."
How did she get in here I thought. In that painting in the hallway, she was kneeling on top of that ugly pig-goat thing, surrounded by tiny specks of light. Did she turn into light and travel through the gaps in the dome?
I turned forward again, focusing on my mana, which had been shrinking since the tests began. It's about half its original size now.
Let's try gravity next.
I focused on spreading it through my body, seeing if I could become the target. Could make for good training later.
"Gravity Bind."
"Ugh—"
The pressure was immediate. It felt like someone jumped onto my back. It became harder to breathe. My vision started fogging up, and right before I passed out, the effect vanished. I collapsed onto the ground, head still spinning. A shadow crossed my face, and I looked up to see the princess.
"Idiot."
I slowly sat up, heart pounding like a drum in my chest, my vision starting to clear. Then I carefully got off the floor, afraid that standing too fast would make me pass out like some anemic high schooler.
Can't train with that for a while.
Let's try just one limb this time. I sent all my mana to my left leg and focused on making the mana heavy. No chant this time, so the effect would be weaker. But it didn't activate the skill—just turned the mana into gravity mana.
'Gravity Bind.'
...Yeah, that didn't work.
Let's try this.
I moved the mana to the bottom of my foot and pushed it out through the sole, because so far, without physically saying the name, that's been the only way I've been able to activate my skills.
The spell activated, but it felt weird—like it was just around me, not attached to me. Like the ground was the target, not me. After a few seconds, the spell deactivated.
I have an idea.
I drew on my mana again—less than half of what I had when I started the tests. But the amount didn't seem to affect the power of my skills. As long as I had enough mana to activate the spell, the power stayed the same.
I directed the mana back to my leg and separated it into two parts—sending one to the sole of my foot and the other right below my kneecap. I then imagined them not being able to combine. I had a Will stat, right? I should be able to will my mana to do things. Maybe it's not high enough to activate the skill directly—but if the only way to activate the skill is to push the mana, then I'll push it against itself.
The two orbs of mana met in the middle of my leg and, just like I imagined, they didn't combine. So I forced them to push harder against each other and imagined the skill activating—and it worked.
The mana combined and pulsed outward, spreading through my leg, stopping right below my knee. I felt the pressure. I started walking around, and my foot was definitely heavier.
Ding.
I heard a sound in my head, and I immediately knew what it was. I summoned my status.
---
[Status]
Name: Aaron Davis
Race: Human (Outsider)
Level: 1
EXP: 0 / 100
Class: Singularity Weaver
Mana Affinities: Space, Gravity
Title: Summoned Scum
Attributes:
HP: 45 / 45
MP: 3 / 33 (+3)
Strength: 4
Agility: 5
Endurance: 4
Durability: 5
Intelligence: 11 → 12 (+1)
Willpower: 8 → 9 (+1)
Perception: 6
Luck: 5
---
So I can gain attributes without leveling up. That might mean physical stats too...
Time to train like Saitama.