The training hall was silent except for the faint hum of mana.
Kyle sat cross-legged on the padded floor of the training hall. His eyes were closed, his entire focus on the faint glowing mass hovering above his palms.
The skein glowed with shimmering purple light, its threads twisting and pulsing like veins of living mana. The glow washed over Kyle's face, tinting his pale features with a soft purple hue.
It's been almost a week now since Vice Principal Seris, his master, had given him the task to untangle the skein with his mana.
A lesson of mana control, patience, and finesse.
And for seven days, that's all he had done, trying to untangle it thread by thread, knot by knot.
Master Seris had told him it would improve his mana control, but that was an understatement.
It was almost maddening.
But he was getting there slowly... but there.
He had already untangled three-fifths of the skein, and each success felt like peeling away another level of impossibility.
