The training ground sat at the edge of Kael's family estate like a forgotten promise, its stone markers weathered but still humming with residual magic that made the air taste like copper and old lightning. Yuuto arrived at dawn, when the city below was still wrapped in mist and the only sounds were birds and the distant clatter of market carts beginning their routes. The space was larger than he'd expected, a flat expanse of packed earth surrounded by walls that had once been pristine white but now wore decades of weather like battle scars.
Aria showed up first, her red hair pulled back in a practical braid that made her look younger and somehow more dangerous. She carried a travel pack that clinked with the sound of glass vials and what was probably emergency rations, because apparently she'd decided this training session might require survival supplies.
"You're early," Yuuto said.
"I don't sleep much." She dropped the pack near one of the stone markers and stretched, her joints popping in a way that suggested she'd spent the night pacing rather than resting. "Been thinking about what you said yesterday. About magic being a framework we can manipulate. The Academy taught us it was fixed, that deviation was dangerous because the system would reject improper casting."
"The system rejects nothing. People reject themselves." Yuuto pulled out a small notebook he'd picked up from a street vendor, its pages already half-filled with diagrams and notes he'd been making since returning to this changed world. "The framework adapts. It has to, or magic would have died out centuries ago when the first mage tried something new."
Lyria arrived next, moving with the kind of quiet grace that suggested she'd been trained in more than just healing magic. She wore practical clothing, leather bracers on her forearms and boots that looked designed for actual movement rather than appearance. Her staff was simpler than Aria's, unadorned wood that had been worn smooth by years of use.
"I brought medical supplies," she said, setting down a bag that was probably heavier than it looked. "Just in case the experimentation goes wrong."
"Optimistic," Aria muttered.
"Realistic. I've seen what happens when people try to force magic into shapes it doesn't want to take. The Academy has an entire wing dedicated to healing magical backlash injuries." Lyria's expression was calm, but her eyes had the kind of intensity that suggested she'd seen those injuries up close and hadn't forgotten them. "If we're going to break the rules, we should at least be prepared for the consequences."
Kael was last, which surprised no one. He moved like someone who'd learned to conserve energy, his sword strapped across his back in a way that suggested he could draw it in under a second if needed. The training ground seemed to recognize him, or maybe it was just that he recognized it, because his posture relaxed slightly when he crossed the threshold.
"This place hasn't changed much," he said, looking around with something that might have been nostalgia or might have been regret. "My father used to train here before the war. Said the wards were strong enough to contain anything short of a Rank A spell going critical."
"Good to know." Yuuto closed his notebook and faced the three of them, this makeshift party that had somehow decided trusting an Archmage from a century ago was a better option than continuing to run Rank F dungeons for moss samples. "Before we start, I need to establish something. What I'm going to teach you isn't safe. It's not approved by the Guild, it probably violates several regulations, and if you do it wrong, you could damage your mana channels permanently."
"Cheerful," Aria said.
"Honest. The Academy teaches you to stay within the lines because staying within the lines is safe. But the lines aren't real. They're training wheels, and at some point, if you want to actually grow, you have to take them off." He pulled up his status screen, making it visible to all of them. "The reason I can do what I do isn't because I'm special. It's because I spent decades learning to see the system as it actually is, not as it's taught."
Lyria stepped closer, her gaze fixed on the screen with the kind of focus that suggested she was trying to memorize every detail. "Your skill framework is completely different from ours. The way the abilities are categorized, the growth rates, even the base stats. It's like you're operating under a different version of the system entirely."
"Not a different version. A deeper one. The system you see is the surface layer, the interface designed for beginners. But underneath that is the actual framework, the rules that govern how magic and systematic progression actually interact. Most people never need to see it because the surface layer handles everything they'll ever do. But if you want to fuse skills, evolve them, or create something new, you have to access the deeper structure."
"And how do we do that?" Kael's hand had drifted to his sword hilt, not in threat but in what looked like a nervous habit. "The system doesn't exactly come with a manual for advanced users."
"You learn to feel it. Magic isn't just about casting spells or following formulas. It's about understanding the flow of mana, how it moves through your body and into the world, how it responds to intent and structure." Yuuto gestured for them to spread out, positioning them at roughly equal distances around the training ground. "First lesson: mana efficiency. You're all wasting energy because you're pushing mana through channels that aren't properly aligned. It's like trying to pour water through a kinked hose. Some of it gets through, but most of it just creates pressure that goes nowhere."
Aria frowned, her hand moving to her staff. "The Academy taught us circulation patterns. We practice them every day."
"The Academy taught you one pattern. A safe, simple, universal pattern that works for everyone at a basic level. But it's not optimized for you specifically. Everyone's mana channels are slightly different, shaped by their body, their experiences, their natural affinities. Using a generic pattern is like wearing shoes that are the wrong size. They'll work, but they'll never be comfortable, and they'll slow you down."
He pulled out a piece of chalk from his borrowed pack and began drawing on the ground, creating a diagram that looked like a cross between a circuit board and an anatomical chart. "This is the standard circulation pattern the Academy teaches. Notice how it flows in a perfect circle, hitting every major channel in sequence. It's elegant, it's balanced, and it's completely inefficient for anyone who isn't a textbook example of average magical aptitude."
Lyria knelt beside the diagram, tracing the lines with her finger. "But this is how we've always done it. Every mage learns this pattern. If it was inefficient, someone would have noticed by now."
"They did notice. A century ago, we knew this pattern was suboptimal. But it's easy to teach, it's safe, and it doesn't require individual customization. After the Age of Heroes ended, when the Guild system was rebuilt, they prioritized standardization over optimization. Easier to train a thousand mediocre mages than ten exceptional ones." Yuuto drew a second diagram beside the first, this one with irregular loops and branches that looked chaotic compared to the perfect circle. "This is what an optimized pattern looks like. It's messy, it's asymmetrical, and it's at least forty percent more efficient than the standard."
"Forty percent." Aria's voice had gone quiet, the kind of quiet that suggested she was doing mental calculations and not liking the results. "That's the difference between Rank B and Rank A. That's the difference between clearing a dungeon and dying in one."
"That's the difference between being competent and being exceptional. And it's just the first layer. Once you optimize your circulation, you can start working on skill fusion, evolution, and eventually creating entirely new abilities that the system has never seen before." He straightened, brushing chalk dust from his hands. "But we're not starting with fusion today. Today, we're starting with learning to feel your own mana flow and identify where the inefficiencies are."
Kael looked skeptical, which was probably healthy. "And how exactly do we do that? The system doesn't give us a readout of our circulation efficiency."
"Because you're not supposed to need one. The system assumes you'll use the standard pattern and never question it. But if you learn to pay attention, you can feel where the mana is flowing smoothly and where it's meeting resistance. It's like learning to notice a pebble in your shoe. At first, you don't feel it because you're not looking for it. But once you know it's there, you can't ignore it."
He walked over to Aria first, gesturing for her to cast a basic spell. "Fire Bolt. Rank F. Something you could do in your sleep."
She raised her staff, and the spell formed with practiced ease, a small sphere of flame that hung in the air before dissipating. It was clean, efficient by normal standards, and completely wasteful by Yuuto's.
"You felt that, right? The moment between forming the spell and releasing it, there was a pause. A fraction of a second where the mana was building pressure before it could flow into the spell structure."
Aria's eyes narrowed. "I've always felt that. I thought it was normal."
"It is normal. It's also inefficient. That pause is mana hitting a restriction in your circulation pattern, backing up until there's enough pressure to force through. You're losing energy in that moment, and more importantly, you're losing speed. In a real fight, that fraction of a second could be the difference between hitting your target and getting hit yourself."
He moved to Lyria next, asking her to cast a basic healing spell on a small cut he made on his own hand with a knife he'd borrowed from Kael. The spell worked perfectly, the wound closing with a faint green glow, but Yuuto could see the same inefficiency in her casting.
"You're compensating with raw power. Pushing more mana through the spell than it actually needs because your circulation can't deliver it smoothly. It works, but it's exhausting you faster than necessary. By the end of a long dungeon run, you're probably running on fumes while your party members still have reserves."
Lyria's expression had gone very still, the kind of stillness that suggested she was thinking back through every dungeon run she'd ever been on and realizing he was right. "I always thought I just had lower mana reserves than other healers. The Academy tested me, said my capacity was average for my level."
"Your capacity is fine. Your efficiency is the problem. You're burning through mana twice as fast as you should be, which makes it look like you have half the reserves you actually do." He turned to Kael, who'd been watching this entire demonstration with the kind of focus that suggested he was already trying to apply the concepts to his own casting. "You're different. Your circulation is actually pretty good, probably because swordsmen tend to develop more efficient patterns naturally through physical training. But you're still using the standard pattern for your enhancement magic, and it's creating a bottleneck."
Kael activated a basic Strength Enhancement, a Rank E spell that made his muscles glow faintly with red light. "I don't feel a pause."
"Because the pause is in a different place. Your physical channels are optimized from years of training, but your magical channels are still following the Academy pattern. So the mana flows smoothly until it hits the point where it needs to transition from magical to physical enhancement, and then it stutters. You're probably used to a slight delay between casting the spell and feeling the full effect."
"Half a second, maybe. I always figured that was just how the spell worked."
"It's how the spell works when you're using a suboptimal circulation pattern. Fix the pattern, and the delay disappears." Yuuto stepped back, looking at all three of them. "So here's the exercise. I want each of you to cast your most basic spell, the one you know so well you could do it unconscious. But this time, I want you to pay attention to how the mana moves through your body. Don't just cast it. Feel it. Notice where it flows easily and where it meets resistance. Notice the pauses, the buildups, the places where you're pushing harder than you should need to."
They spread out, each taking a position near one of the stone markers. Aria went first, casting Fire Bolt again and again, her expression growing more frustrated with each repetition. Lyria was methodical, casting her basic Heal spell on small scratches she made on her own arm, her face a mask of concentration. Kael cycled through his enhancement spells, his movements becoming slower and more deliberate as he tried to isolate the feeling Yuuto had described.
An hour passed. Then two. The sun climbed higher, burning off the morning mist and turning the training ground into a furnace of reflected heat from the stone walls. Yuuto watched them work, offering occasional corrections but mostly letting them struggle. Learning to feel your own mana flow wasn't something that could be taught directly. It was like learning to wiggle your ears or raise one eyebrow. You either figured out the mental motion or you didn't.
Aria was the first to make progress, which didn't surprise him. She had the kind of personality that didn't accept limitations well, and the frustration of feeling the inefficiency without being able to fix it was probably driving her harder than any encouragement could. Her Fire Bolt began to form faster, the pause between intent and manifestation shrinking from a fraction of a second to barely perceptible.
"There," Yuuto said. "You found it. The path of least resistance. Your mana is flowing through a slightly different channel now, one that's more aligned with your natural structure."
Aria's hands were shaking slightly, sweat dripping down her face despite the relatively simple spell she'd been casting. "It feels wrong. Like I'm forcing the mana to go somewhere it's not supposed to."
"Because you've spent years training it to go the other way. Your channels have literally been shaped by the standard pattern. Changing them is going to feel uncomfortable until your body adapts. But keep practicing, and in a few days, this will feel more natural than the old way ever did."
Lyria was next, her breakthrough coming not from her healing spell but from a basic Light spell she'd cast almost as an afterthought. The mana had flowed differently, smoother, and she'd frozen in place when she felt it.
"It's like a door opened," she said quietly. "I didn't even know there was a door there."
"That's the deeper framework. You just touched it for the first time. Most mages go their entire lives without ever feeling that, because the surface layer handles everything they need. But once you know it's there, you can't unknow it. Every spell you cast from now on, you'll feel that potential, that possibility of doing it better."
Kael took longer, his breakthrough coming in the early afternoon when the heat had become oppressive and everyone was exhausted. His Strength Enhancement activated with no delay, the red glow appearing instantly across his muscles, and his eyes widened in surprise.
"That's never happened before."
"That's how it's supposed to happen. The delay was never part of the spell. It was a symptom of inefficient casting." Yuuto pulled out his water flask and took a long drink, then passed it around. "You've all just taken the first step. Learning to feel your mana flow and identify inefficiencies. The next step is learning to permanently reshape your circulation patterns, which is going to take weeks of practice and probably some uncomfortable adjustments. But once you do it, you'll never go back."
They sat in the shade of the training ground's wall, exhausted and probably questioning their life choices. Yuuto remembered this phase from his own training, back when he'd first started pushing past the Academy's limitations. It was the point where you realized how much harder the path forward was going to be, and you had to decide if the potential payoff was worth the cost.
"I have a question," Lyria said after a long silence. "If this optimization is so important, why doesn't the Guild teach it? Why did they abandon these techniques after the Age of Heroes?"
"Because they're dangerous. Not physically dangerous, but politically dangerous. The Guild's power comes from standardization. They control who becomes a mage, how they're trained, what they're allowed to learn. If everyone knew they could optimize their own circulation patterns, create their own skills, evolve their abilities beyond the standard progression, the Guild would lose that control. So they simplified the system, made it safe and predictable, and told everyone that deviation was dangerous."
"Is it dangerous?" Kael asked.
"Yes. If you do it wrong, you can damage your mana channels permanently. If you push too hard too fast, you can cause a backlash that will hospitalize you for weeks. If you try to fuse incompatible skills without understanding the underlying framework, you can create something unstable that will hurt you or others. The Academy's caution isn't entirely unjustified. But the danger comes from ignorance, not from the techniques themselves. If you understand what you're doing, if you proceed carefully and pay attention to your body's feedback, the risk is manageable."
Aria was staring at her hands, watching small flames dance across her fingertips without conscious effort. "The Guild is going to notice. If we start casting more efficiently, performing better in dungeons, someone is going to ask questions."
"They will. Which is why we need to be careful about how we present this. We're not teaching forbidden magic. We're not breaking any explicit rules. We're just optimizing our personal casting techniques through dedicated practice. The Guild can't forbid that without admitting they've been teaching suboptimal methods for the past century."
"Political chess," Kael muttered. "My father used to play those games. He was good at it. It still got him killed."
"Then we'll be better at it than he was." Yuuto stood, brushing dust from his borrowed clothes. "But that's a problem for later. Right now, your homework is to practice what you learned today. Cast your basic spells, feel the mana flow, and start identifying all the places where you're meeting resistance. Don't try to fix everything at once. Just notice it. Awareness is the first step to change."
They gathered their things slowly, exhaustion making every movement deliberate. Yuuto watched them leave one by one, Aria first with her travel pack that still clinked with unused emergency supplies, then Lyria with her medical bag, and finally Kael who paused at the training ground's entrance.
"This is really going to work?" he asked. "We're really going to be able to do what you do?"
"Not exactly what I do. You'll develop your own style, your own specializations. But yes, if you stick with it, you'll be able to do things the current Guild system says are impossible. Whether that's a good thing or not, we'll find out together."
Kael nodded and left, and Yuuto was alone in the training ground with the afternoon sun and the lingering taste of chalk dust and old magic. The stone markers hummed their quiet song, and somewhere in the distance, the city was going about its business, completely unaware that three adventurers had just taken their first steps toward breaking the system that governed their entire world.
His status screen chimed softly, a notification appearing in his peripheral vision.
[Teaching Quest Progress: First Lesson Complete]
[Students: 3/3 achieved initial breakthrough]
[Reward: Skill Evolution Unlock Available]
[New Skill Available: Resonance Teaching (Rank A) - Temporarily share your optimized mana circulation with a student, allowing them to feel the correct flow directly]
Yuuto smiled. The system was adapting to his intentions, recognizing that he wasn't just trying to make himself stronger but to raise others as well. That was good. That meant the framework he'd helped build a century ago was still flexible enough to accommodate new purposes, new paths.
He was about to leave when his status screen chimed again, this time with a different tone. Not the friendly notification sound, but something sharper, more urgent.
[System Alert: Anomaly Detected]
[Threat Level: Low]
[Source: Unstable Dungeon Core - City Sector 7]
[Estimated Time Until Critical: 48 hours]
[Recommended Action: Investigate and stabilize or destroy core]
The training ground suddenly felt colder despite the afternoon heat. Unstable dungeon cores were rare, usually the result of a dungeon being damaged or improperly cleared. If one went critical inside the city, the resulting monster outbreak could kill hundreds before the Guild could mobilize a proper response.
Yuuto pulled up a mental map of the city, trying to remember where Sector 7 was located. The docks, he thought, or maybe the warehouse district. Somewhere with a lot of civilians and not much in the way of defensive infrastructure. Perfect place for a disaster.
He needed to tell someone. The Guild, probably, though explaining how he knew about an unstable core that their own detection systems apparently hadn't flagged yet would raise questions he wasn't ready to answer. Or he could tell his party, bring them in on this, turn it into a training exercise that happened to also prevent a catastrophe.
The system chimed again, a third notification appearing below the first two.
[Optional Quest Available: Prevent the Outbreak]
[Objective: Stabilize or destroy the unstable dungeon core before it reaches critical mass]
[Reward: Unknown]
[Warning: Failure may result in significant civilian casualties]
[Accept? Y/N]
Yuuto stared at the notification for a long moment, weighing options and consequences. He'd come back to this changed world looking for a purpose, for a way to rebuild what had been lost. This wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind, but maybe that was the point. You didn't get to choose your purpose. You just had to recognize it when it found you.
He selected yes, and the quest locked into place with a weight that felt like responsibility and possibility in equal measure. Forty-eight hours to prevent a disaster. Plenty of time, assuming nothing went wrong.
The training ground's stone markers hummed a little louder, as if they could sense the shift in the air, the way the stakes had just gotten higher. Yuuto picked up his notebook, tucked it into his pack, and headed back toward the city. He had a party to gather and a crisis to prevent, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he was already calculating how to turn this emergency into a lesson his students would never forget.
The Age of Heroes might be over, but apparently someone forgot to tell the dungeon cores.