The Good Teacher

Krish gently waved his free hand, casting a spell circle centred on Marie's head. Through Guy's mana sense, he observed imperceptible changes occurring on her riddled brain, slowly bringing it back to a rosy, healthy state.

Right as the spell circle subsided, Krish tapped his walking stick on the floor, causing Marie to rise and levitate in mid-air. He turned around and started to hobble away, but was immediately stopped by Grace's bellowing voice.

"Where are you taking her?!"

Krish turned and faced the woman, who in turn shrank and scuttled behind Guy in fear.

"I am her Master. She is my responsibility, just as much as she is yours. So, I am taking her to recuperate," Krish explained.

"Wait!" Guy interjected. "I need an explanation. Anything at all. Why couldn't you have helped her? You KNOW just how dangerous trial-and-error-magic can be, yet you let her - your Disciple - go through with it? I hope you realise just how callous and irresponsible this is."

Krish stared directly at Guy with a pensive gaze. Although Krish wasn't manipulating mana in any way, a growing pressure started to bear down on Guy. It was purely through the man's presence and aura alone.

"You assume that every Master-Disciple relationship works the same as yours," Krish commented.

"I do not. BUT, I assumed that you, Mage Nara, would be different. I thought that Mage Nara would be better. I guess I thought wrong," Guy added with a dejected frown.

After another silent yet charged minute, Krish sighed and reached into the satchel hanging over his shoulders. From within, he retrieved a booklet and tossed it towards Guy.

"So far, there is only ONE guaranteed way to become sensitive to the waves of fate. It was the technique my Master taught me, his Master to him, and so on," Krish started.

Guy furrowed his brows and quickly flipped through the booklet. With every page turned, his gaze grew increasingly agitated.

"You should now understand why I chose this method," Krish reasoned.

Grace peeked from behind Guy and tugged his jacket, "W-What does it say?"

"I-It..." Guy bit his lips tensely before explaining. "To awaken the mage's sensitivity towards the waves of fate, the Master must forcefully suppress the Disciple's natural sensors, leaving them with only their mana sense. Then, the Master must pelt the Disciple with damaging attacks from random directions that must become increasingly fatal over time. The Disciple must naturally gain a sensitivity to these attacks to form a sort of precognitive ability by becoming perceptive to the waves of fate flowing around them."

Guy shuddered in just imagining the torturous process described within the booklet. In many ways, people can only affirm their existence through their senses. A person's reality is asserted solely by what their senses capture. In other words, if one's reality is a painting, the senses provide us with the colours to bring vibrancy to it. However, if one lacks all forms of their basic senses, not only will their reality lack colour, it will also lack form, or structure.

So, when someone is denied all of their senses, they enter a juxtaposing state of existential non-existence. Internally, they recognise that they are present and alive, but they are unable to verify this belief due to the lack of supporting external data. It is easy for someone to enter a heightened panicked state at this time. It would be truly grim to subject someone undergoing this torture to a battery of possibly fatal attacks!

"My Master literally broke me and reconstructed me, multiple times, for at least two months before I was able to sense the waves of fate around me. I didn't want Marie to suffer as I did, but I didn't know how to go about it. But then my Heavenly Eye saw something! It saw you and her working together and so I had to let her venture by herself," Krish smiled faintly

"Why didn't you just tell her right away? You could have told her the method instead of having her flounder like that," Guy retorted.

"I couldn't do that. I would be changing the sequence of fate," Krish spoke. "Her actions had an effect that may or may not be evident right now, but what she learned through her experimentation will eventually help her in the future. It's like this: In attempting something new, people often make mistakes and learn from them. These titbits that are the by-products of these mistakes can sometimes come to use at a later date. If I didn't let Marie make mistakes, I would be robbing her of expertise down the line."

"Besides-" Krish said while glancing at Markus, "If I had intervened, I would have robbed someone else of an opportunity to advance in their cultivation."

"Nonetheless," Krish said with a resolute tone before pulling the levitating Marie along, "I came here to retrieve my Disciple. I shall return her once she has recuperated. Do not disturb us!"

As Krish's figure receded, an awkward silence lingered in the room.

"G-Guy? Marie!" Grace muttered with a shaking voice. Guy noticed that she was actually, visibly wavering in a panicked state. Her eyes were enlarged with a blank gaze, and she was sweating excessively. Her breath was hurried - she was hyperventilating. Grace was undergoing a full-blown panic attack.

Guy immediately grabbed her and pulsed his mana through the woman's body to forcefully regulate her breathing. He pulled her into a gentle embrace and calmly patted her back, slowly lulling Grace into a stable unconscious state.

"Markus! Jean!" Guy called out. "Help me take Grace back to her room, please."

The two kids nodded immediately, and one ran out to Grace's room while the other assisted Guy by fanning Grace as she was transported.

After laying Grace down on her mattress, Guy remained vigil for a while next to her. As he did so, he suddenly noticed a slight stirring surging from his core.

"It worked?" He muttered in surprise.

By experience, he knew that when using The Church's facilities to imprint insights into his students, if the student managed to assimilate them successfully, it would trigger his cultivation. The fact that he was being stimulated right now indicated that Marie had gained some insight through that treacherous experience. Whether the insight was relevant to her quest or not, Guy wasn't sure.

As he rode the stimulation, Guy's cultivation rose slightly. It still wasn't enough to push him over to the Internal stage of Foundation Establishment, but he could feel that he was nearing it. Along with the boost, Guy also received a small influx of data about Marie directly into his mind. Once again, it was in a cryptic form that somehow made complete sense to him. Unsurprisingly, the contents of this influx was primarily information Guy already surmised about the girl, vis-a-vis her adversarial nature. It also highlighted the irony in her character, given her natural affinity with an abstract subject such as Mathematics AND her general aversion to abstract schools of thought such as philosophy and the arts.

____

Marie's eyes burst open causing a sudden barrage of light to assault her visual senses.

"Ah!" She exclaimed and blinked vigorously as she tried to get accustomed to her sight, which was suspiciously more perceptive than before.

"What in the..." She muttered. It wasn't just her sight, her hearing had also become a bit more sensitive than before. Things sounded louder all of a sudden.

"Congratulations! You've advanced to the Middle stage of Mana Condensation realm," a sagely voice informed from behind her. Marie twisted in place following the source of the sound and was shocked to see her Master seated next to her.

"You!"

"Where's the respect?" Krish snorted.

Marie snorted back in derision and corrected herself sarcastically, "Master."

"Hmph! You should be grateful that I saved you before your brain turned into mush! What were you thinking? Doing something so crazy?"

"What choice did I have? Not like you- Master Nara offered anything useful?"

"That is true. Nonetheless, you did succeed just like I predicted!"

"Predicted? Oh, please! You barely- Wait! Succeed?"

"That's right! You've passed the first, and greatest, hurdle," Krish reaffirmed with a faint smile.

At that moment, Marie steadied herself and became more conscious of her surroundings. He extended her mana sense and started to cycle through her perception. First, she noticed that the range of her mana sense was incrementally higher, indicative of her advancement through a small realm. That didn't excite her as much as she had hoped though. What did excite her, was her sudden perceptiveness to a phenomenon transpiring around her.

"This!" Her eyes sparkled with elation.

"Do you feel it?" Krish inquired. "What do you observe it as?"

"It's so... weird!" Marie commented. "Woah!" Marie's eyes darted around. "Woah! What's happening?! It's literally like a wave! HAHAHAHAHA!"

Marie laughed hysterically with wonderment oozing in her voice.

From her point of view, when observing the so-called waves of fate through her mana sense, the world appeared silhouetted containing uncoloured, three-dimensional models of the surrounding objects. Intermittently, dispersing waves originated from these objects and spread outwards spherically, merging into the serene surroundings, before a nearly imperceptible wave reflected and collided against the source object. When she moved her hands, the waves generated were much more vigorous compared to when it was stationary. This was also the case when she spoke out loud.

"It's pretty... quiet," Marie commented. "I expected to be noisier given how, according to Master, the world is heavily influenced by these waves of fate."

"That's because this is isolated," Krish commented while pointing towards strategic corners in the room. As Marie directed her gaze there, she noticed that some surrounding waves were being sucked in towards points. "I've lined ritual formations around the cottage that essentially turns it into a vacuum chamber against waves of fate."

"You can do that?!" Marie exclaimed.

"Oh, child. This is just the beginning," Krish responded with a mysterious drawl in his voice.

____

A/N:

So far:

- Mana Condensation: Early -> Middle -> Late

- Foundation Establishment: Base -> Internal -> External

- Core Formation: First Half -> Second Half (Proper names will be revealed at a later date)

- Core Condensation (More details will be revealed at a later date)

- Tesseract Transformation (More details will be revealed at a later date)

There won't be any higher realms than this. I may add additional stages or divisions if things become too convoluted. I've found that increasingly segmented levelling mechanisms can sometimes make gauging strength easier.