Several weeks passed before Tundra returned to train with Kuroa. In that time, he had grown comfortable with enchanting objects. The act of enchanting itself had come easily to him, but creating neutral mana had been a different matter entirely. That process alone had taken weeks of effort before it finally felt natural.
Now, he stood on the foxes' world—Akao—waiting.
Kuroa didn't keep him waiting long. She appeared in a flicker of magic, looking mildly puzzled.
"Sorry for the delay," she said, studying him. "But… did it really take you a month and a half to get comfortable with basic enchantment?"
Tundra nodded. "Creating neutral mana was the difficult part."
Understanding dawned on her face. "Ah… that makes more sense. Your mana actively resists it." She exhaled, then continued, "I was planning to teach that later anyway. Since you're already comfortable with basic enchantment, let's move forward."
She crossed her arms lightly.
"You might be wondering why you can only infuse an object with as much mana as it naturally holds. The answer is simple—the object can't handle more. So, the next step is learning how to get around that."
Tundra tilted his head slightly. "Interesting."
Kuroa smiled. "It is. And the method is simple—change the object's structure."
She said nothing more.
Tundra paused, then crouched and picked up a blade of grass, turning it between his fingers. "Change its structure… huh."
Without hesitation, he flooded the grass with his own mana. The foreign mana displaced the grass's natural energy entirely.
He held it up. "Is this what you meant?"
Kuroa observed it for a moment, then smiled faintly. "Technically, yes. But that method destroys the object the moment it's no longer connected to you. Try again."
Tundra sighed and released the blade.
It immediately ignited and crumbled into ash.
He didn't react much—just picked up another blade.
This time, he formed a shell of neutral mana around it, trying to stabilize the structure and contain the excess energy.
For a moment, it worked.
Then the blade began to wither.
"Close," Kuroa said, "but not quite. Like I said—it can't handle more mana. So what do you change to make it capable of handling it?"
Tundra went still, thinking.
Then he picked up another blade of grass.
This time, he infused it with ki first before using mana to bind and stabilize the structure.
Kuroa's eyes narrowed slightly in curiosity.
"…Now how did you figure that out?"
Tundra didn't look up immediately. He studied the blade in his hand before answering.
"I assumed reinforcing the object with iKi would strengthen its ability to hold additional mana, considering that Ki is directly proportionate to power"
Kuroa nodded slowly. "That explains the result. But I told you to change its structure—how did you connect those ideas?"
Tundra glanced at her.
"Mana is a byproduct of natural processes. Ki is the natural process. So wouldn't ki be closer to the structure itself?"
Kuroa stared at him for a moment.
"…That's… correct," she admitted. "I didn't even teach you that."
She shook her head slightly, almost amused.
"I guess you've thought about ki more deeply than most."
Tundra gave a small nod. "I did. It never made sense for stars to have ki if it was only life energy."
Kuroa let out a quiet breath. "Observant."
She straightened slightly.
"Alright, let's move on. Next—multiple enchantments. Try applying more than one property at once. For example, sharpness and hardness."
Tundra nodded and focused on the blade of grass.
He infused neutral mana into it, sharpening it first. Then he attempted to make it harder—
—but the sharpness faded.
"…How curious," he muttered.
He experimented in silence for a few minutes, adjusting his approach. Eventually, he tried something different: instead of forcing both effects through the same mana, he introduced a second stream of neutral mana, assigning a separate function to each.
This time, it worked.
The blade remained both sharp and hard.
Tundra examined it, then glanced at Kuroa. "Is this the correct approach?"
Kuroa wasn't surprised. "It is. Do you have any questions?"
Tundra nodded. "Wouldn't it be better to use only one enchantment per object?"
"Yes," she said simply. "But that depends on the material."
She gestured toward the blade.
"Not every object naturally supports the property you want. Take flexibility and hardness—they conflict. If you start with something flexible but want a rigid weapon, you can't rely on a single enchantment. You'd need to layer properties—like hardness and sharpness—to achieve the result."
Tundra considered that, then nodded.
"That answers my question."
Kuroa smiled lightly. "Good."