Returning to my meditation, I focused not on my breathing or blood flow but instead on the faint feeling of mana circulating through my body.

  It was a trickle, so faint as to barely be noticeable. After all, my Will only had two points in it. Still, after years of meditating and being present in my body, as well as training my body and feeling its function, I was primed to feel the difference that came from doubling my starting mana potential.

  There was mana in the air, that much was immediately clear. I inhaled it, and I exhaled it. It moved through me the same way the breath did, connecting me to the world around me.

  The mana’s function within me was harder to grasp. There was obviously a less clear-cut biological answer about it, since I knew humans could live without mana from my first life. Without magic skills, did the mana simply reside in me, doing nothing?

  Yet, the mana was moving, following a path through my body not too dissimilar from my blood flow. It suffused me. The more my capacity grew, the more it would fill me, but to what end?

  I could think of a few potentialities, beyond just fuel for spells. Mana as a means to recover. Mana as a means to strengthen oneself. Mana as a means to subsist beyond biology and nutrition.

  Or perhaps it was the inverse. Perhaps the mana fed on me. It had to come from somewhere. Maybe all living things generated mana? Or it was some kind of symbiotic relationship?

  I sat with it, tracing the flow of mana in me. I stopped thinking, and just felt it, existing in the moment. Many minutes passed as I memorized the feeling.

  The breath was normally an automatic thing, but it could be manipulated. I could slow the breath, and I could speed up the breath. Each had a different effect on me.

  Blood flow was different. I couldn’t exactly will it faster or slower. Rather, it sped up and slowed down based on conditions affecting heart rate, like how much I was using my body. I controlled that as well, and could somewhat artificially replicate that with emotion, but the blood flow was reactive, rather than active.

  Which was mana?

  Did my flow of mana only alter in response to my skill use, from casting spells? Or were my spells empowered by direct control of my mana, and empowered through training?

  To answer that, the only information I had available to me was my System. In it, I had three stats: Body, Mind, and Will. I already knew these stats could improve through training. For Body and Mind, I hadn’t required skills to increase the stat; I had been able to train them directly, at least for the first few points. It stood to reason the same was true of Will.

  I returned my focus to the flow of mana. Since it was being exchanged with the world around me through the breath, I switched to a rapid, shallow breathing routine, which was more or less the opposite of what I did when training mindfulness. I repeatedly made short, active, controlled breaths; an over-breathing technique something akin to hyperventilation.

  My body responded, forcefully excited by the oxygenation. I didn’t want to do this for too long—it was possible to pass out if I did—but I tried to follow the cycle of mana in me as I engaged in rapid breathing, and it did seem like the mana was speeding up in its cycling.

  I allowed my breath to return to normal, tracking the mana as it slowed down to its usual pace.

  Promising.

  Another way to engage in over-breathing was by “gulping” air, taking big lungfuls in. Of course, the lungs needed to expel the air, too, and big exhales would likely allow the mana to exit my body as rapidly as it came in, achieving the same effect as short, rapid breathing. I played with that for a while, confirming that I could speed up my mana flow in this way, then tapered off when I began getting lightheaded.

  Now, could I speed up the mana flow in me without over-breathing, through pure willpower?

  After doing some experimentation that got me no further results, I called it quits for the day. I had spent enough time meditating for the morning and had things to do, especially given the previous day’s events.

  My chest constricted when I thought about Toldan, the recent events belatedly crashing over me. Though we weren’t as close as I was with Torra, he was my brother, and his loss did hurt. It was only my practice with meditation and mindfulness, then distraction, which allowed me to steel myself to the emotion and continue to function properly the night before.

  I headed to the fields, as we still had crops to harvest; as I looked at them, I thought about how our family would need less now, with one less mouth to feed. I took a steadying breath. I needed to mourn, but I also needed to be strong, which seemed like an impossible balance.

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  Normally, I would work the fields alongside family or some of the other villagers, but they were out on the goblin hunt. There was only so much I could do alone, particularly in a ten year old body, but with the men out hunting goblins, it was even more important I check the fields and make sure things were ready for them when they got back.

  By mid-afternoon, the lack of sleep from the night before caught up to me. I headed back home for some food. Hildan had drank himself to sleep, which was somewhat understandable given how much pain he was probably in while awake. Some of the other village women were in the house supporting Berrel, helping to put up food for winter and take care of Torra and Tomas.

  I made my greetings and caught up on the goblin gossip before making my way out back to lay down under the tree and catch a nap. With all my fatigue, it didn’t take long before I was drifting off.

  * * *

  Goblins, surrounding me. I was barely fending off their blades. Blood pooled at my feet. I struck as hard as I could but my blade kept missing, or slowing down at the last second while they easily rebuffed my attacks. The monstrous laughter from the evil little green bastards taunted me. They all came at me at once, sword tips flying towards me, too many to parry—

  I awoke with a gasp, breathing hard. A nightmare. Unsurprising, I supposed, given the past day’s events. I was sure to have gained some amount of trauma from it all.

  My heart thudded, and I took a big, cleansing breath, then pursed my lips and let it out slowly. I did this a few times, trying to calm myself, and noticed something.

  Huh.

  I did that again, a little more exaggerated. A massive, gulping breath, as quickly as I could, followed by a long, slow exhale. I turned my focus inward, towards my mana cycle.

  It almost feels like I’m affecting the balance of mana in me.

  Changing the balance of mana in me seemed like a step in the right direction, but I was kind of feeling like I was deflating with this particular breathing pattern, losing internal mana pressure.

  So… what about the opposite?

  First, I emptied my lungs. Then I slowly started sucking air between my lips. I took my time, like I was drinking the air through a straw, filling and filling and filling my lungs, collecting the mana from the air. Then, as my lungs neared full, I opened my mouth and exhaled hard.

  Immediately, I started sucking air again. Slowly, evenly. I lengthened the inhale to a twelve count, then again forced the air out in one hard exhale, quick as I could, before repeating the process.

  It was mildly uncomfortable, but I didn’t feel like I was over-breathing. I can keep this up.

  One repetition turned to ten as seconds of breathing turned into minutes. I kept going. Something was happening.

  Breath in slowly, and collect the mana. Then purge the air quickly—but hold in the mana.

  Inhale with control, and gather the mana. Pack it in. Fill myself.

  Now: exhale, hard. But don’t let the mana escape. Contain it. Make it mine.

  As the minutes passed, a heat started to rise in my body. In terms of oxygen, I felt more or less fine, but something was happening with my mana. Its natural cycle had been interrupted, and as a result, I was successfully accumulating it.

  But my body was not able to hold this much mana. The heat turned into a fire within my belly, and I started breathing hard, trying to purge the excess.

  It’s too much. I feel like I’m going to pop.

  Now I was fully over-breathing, hyperventilating outside of my own control. I needed to exhale more, to get rid of the mana, but I couldn’t focus. I had no outlet. I didn’t have the skills.

  My head swam, my consciousness losing the battle between my out of control breathing and the overflowing mana, and my vision went black as my head hit the ground.

  * * *

  I awoke for the third time that day, but this time with a splitting headache.

  “Well, I’m not dead, at least,” I muttered as I clutched my head to try and stop the pounding in my brain.

  I checked in with myself physically, and it seemed like falling unconscious had allowed my breathing to steady out and slowly bleed off the excess mana.

  Right. Maybe I don’t try that again.

  Except, as I focused on my mana flow, I couldn’t help but notice that it felt… better. Like the mana was moving more easily within me.

  Wait, did I…

  Pulling up my System, I couldn’t suppress a whoop of excitement.

  My Will had reached three.

  I did it! I figured out how to train my mana without a skill!

  Rushing to my feet—and temporarily swaying, given my headache—I started pacing, considering what I had learned. I had figured out a breathing technique to gather an excess of mana from the air. Not unlike stretching my physical body would improve flexibility, stretching the limits of my mana capacity strengthened my mana flow. In turn, I seemed to be able to store a bit more mana.

  It was very likely that I could do it again. I just needed to be careful to only take it so far, then inverse the breathing pattern to even out, so that I didn’t overdo it and possibly injure myself beyond what was recoverable. It wasn’t that different from exercise. If I always went as hard as possible, to complete failure, I’d inevitably hurt myself. I didn’t need to do that to advance and make progress. If I trained to near failure, stopping when form broke down before I hurt myself, I would still grow.

  I was sure that this sort of progression had a limited potential, though, just like all my training did. I would plateau, like I had in advancing my Mind, once I found the natural limit. If I had to guess, I assumed that my limit would be related to the available local mana, where eventually I couldn’t achieve a higher concentration internally because each over-full exhale was losing as much as I could take in. Beyond that, I would need a real means of training my Will directly, likely through casting actual magic, which would require a skill.

  For the moment, though, I had a path forward.