I Have 10,000 SSS Rank Villains In My System Space
Chapter 101: What Is Mana

Chapter 101: What Is Mana

After all the chaos had died down, the classroom slowly returned to a tense but manageable silence. The air wasn’t as heavy, though now and then, students glanced over at Razeal and Celestia. Everyone was still expecting something. Surely, Celestia wouldn’t just let that kind of disrespect slide, right?

But nothing happened. No outburst. No retaliation. Just silence.

Some felt disappointed. Others felt relieved. But either way, the tension had broken.

Professor Thalia didn’t comment on the earlier situation. She simply adjusted her glasses and stepped back to the lecture stand.

"Alright," she said, voice firm but calm. "Let’s move on. Today, we’ll talk about mana what it is, how it works, and why it even matters."

Her tone shifted slightly, carrying a hint of seriousness.

"Listen carefully. I know most of you already know how to use mana. Many of you are even better at manipulating it than I am, thanks to your backgrounds and natural talent. But" she raised a finger, "just because you can do something doesn’t mean you understand what you’re doing, or why you’re able to do it."

She gave a small, pointed smile. "All of you can sit, stand, run. But how many of you actually know you can do those things? Or how?"

Some students perked up. Most didn’t. A few just sighed and slumped deeper into their seats, bored already. But Thalia didn’t care. She had something to say, and she was going to say it whether they listened or not.

"So let’s go back to the beginning," Thalia said. "What is mana?"

She paced slowly in front of the board.

"Most of you were told mana is just a force or source of magic. A bridge between you and the world. A tool. A power you can bend to your will. That’s true... to a degree. But that answer is shallow."

A few heads tilted. A few eyebrows rose. Others still looked unimpressed.

"And the sad part?" she continued. "Almost no one bothers asking the deeper question. Not commoners, not nobles, not even most scholars. Everyone just accepts it. ’It’s just mana.’ They use it every day like it’s air. They train with it, they fight with it, they craft with it. But they never stop and ask, ’Why can I even do this? What even is this damn thing I’m using?’"

She folded her arms and looked out over the class.

"To most people, asking what mana is feels like asking, ’Why is an apple an apple?’ Or, ’Why is it red or green?’ Useless questions. Waste of time."

But her tone turned serious.

"They’re not."

Celestia, Selena, and a few others from the more inquisitive corners of the class leaned in slightly, silent and focused.

Arrogance and strength is one sided but curiousity and hunger for knowledge remins the same. Even if its Sainteess or Princess.

Thalia scanned the room but didn’t address anyone directly.

"Let’s start from the foundation," Thalia said, walking slowly across the front of the lecture hall.

"Mana is a type of energy."

She paused.

"Energy is not a thing. It’s not like a rock you can hold or a tree you can climb. Energy is a property. The ability to cause change. It’s motion, potential, interaction. It’s what happens behind the scenes."

She scribbled across the board again:

Energy: A property of things in motion, or something that could, in principle, cause something to move.

She spoke slower now, letting her words sink in.

"Energy is everywhere. Everything you see, everything you do, is a result of energy changing form. Fire, lightning, gravity, movement these are all expressions of energy. Mana is simply one of These types of energy."

"Alongside it, we have thermal energy, chemical, potential, kinetic, electric... You name it. Mana fits in this category. It’s not separate. It’s not sacred like most imagine it to be. It’s just a natural part of the system."

A few students looked genuinely engaged now, their boredom giving way to realization.

"But here’s the fundamental truth and it’s fascinating. Showing the brilliance of our ancestors, not just to develop, but to even conceive and solve something like this, given the right concepts. It’s a triumph of human intellect. Truly deserving of appreciation," Thalia said, holding up a hand. "Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Only transformed."

She looked around the room. "That’s the law of conservation of energy. So now what does that mean for mana?"

"It means the total amount of mana in the world never changes."

"Never increasing or decreasing."

A few eyebrows rose.

"No matter how much you draw from it through spells, rituals, enchantments it doesn’t go away. It simply shifts. You breathe it in, channel it, push it into a spell, and when that spell’s done, the mana doesn’t disappear. It disperses. Re enters the world. Dissolves into nature. Rebalances itself."

"Are you all getting the point? Mana use isn’t consumption. It’s transformation."

She tapped the board.

"Ohh also that’s why, despite generations of magic, we haven’t ’run out’ of mana. Because we can’t. It’s everywhere. It’s everything. It’s eternal."

Professor Thalia continued.

"So now the next question how do we use the energy? The mana?"

"Your bodies pull mana in naturally. Like how lungs take in air or skin absorbs sunlight. But there are other ways, too. Blessings, elemental cores, contracts, enchanted relics, mana stones, elixirs made from alchemical plants, even exposure to strong mana fields or leyline zones. Every method is just another conduit. Another tap into the cycle."

She paused, letting it sink in.

"You don’t create mana. You join the flow."

"And yet most people don’t understand any of this. They cast spells, swing swords laced with magic, and channel power through their veins... without ever asking where it comes from, or what it is. And as my students it would really be embarrassing if you all didn’t either"

"Alright!! let me give you an example or maybe ask you a question," she began, her voice calm but sharp. "How are you all able to run, walk, or move your body at all? Where does your physical energy come from?"

A student in the front raised his hand lazily, arms crossed but listening with interest. "It’s food, right?"

"Correct," Thalia nodded. "Food. More specifically chemical energy. Food contains chemical potential energy, stored from various sources and made available through natural processes provided by the world around us."

"Like we consume food, and inside it is energy energy that’s been stored through various means. Plants absorb sunlight, animals eat plants, and the energy is passed down the chain. That’s all part of how this world works. You eat it, you break it down, and your body transforms that energy into movement, strength, heat. Life."

She leaned slightly on the podium.

"Now, let me ask you this why are monsters so much stronger than humans? Physically, I mean. Even without training, monsters are naturally more powerful than us. Meanwhile, we rely on mana training, aura control, and years of conditioning just to get close. Why is that?"

The class stirred. Some students looked at each other. A few muttered under their breath.

"We all know beasts naturally possess aura," Thalia continued. "It’s innate to them. For us, aura is a discipline. We train in it. We refine our bodies to channel it. Mana is tied to magic. Aura to physical strength. Almost everyone here knows that."

She looked at them one by one. "But have any of you really thought about why they are stronger than us? And no, ’because they’re monsters’ isn’t an answer. There must be a reason, a mechanism. So who wants to try?"

There was silence for a moment. Then the same student who answered earlier spoke again.

"Is it their body structure? Their biology? Or... maybe the monster cores? We still haven’t figured out exactly how those work. Maybe that’s why they’re strong."

Thalia gave a slight nod. "A good guess. But let’s narrow it down. I’m not talking about monsters from other dimensions, with elemental alignments or strange powers. I’m asking about normal monsters. The common ones found in our world. Not rare ones those without elemental affinities or mana sensitivity. Why are they physically superior?"

At that, the class collectively looked stumped.

Thalia smiled. She had expected as much.

"It’s the food," she said simply. "The food they eat."

That earned a few confused looks.

"As many of you already know, food plants, meat, all living matter contains energy. Energy is constantly being transferred. It changes form. When monsters consume that food, they’re absorbing that energy into their bodies. It builds their aura. It strengthens them purely physically."

Students looked thoughtful now. Some frowned. Others tilted their heads, not fully convinced.

Is that it? they wondered. Is it really that simple?

Of course, they knew about high-tier monster meat. They knew rare alchemical herbs could boost aura. They’d eaten expensive meals designed for physical recovery and enhancement eveb specially created portions. But it never seemed to make that much of a difference.

Seeing their doubt, Thalia’s smile widened slightly.

"Let me ask you this," she said, her voice dropping to a softer, more curious tone. "Do you know how much food an average human consumes over a hundred years? Let’s say someone who practices aura regularly, maybe even trains for combat."

A few students blinked.

"Maybe... 2 or 3 kilograms of food per day?" someone muttered.

"The actual number," she said, tone flat but deliberate, "is around 200 to 300 tonnes of food. That’s what a normal person eats over a century.

"And that’s not even someone in serious training," she went on, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear. "That’s just your average person going about their normal life. No aura, no combat, no reinforcement conditioning. If you’re a professional adventurer, or someone pushing their aura to higher levels? A thousand tonnes over a lifetime isn’t that unusual."

A wave of shock passed through the room.

"Two to three hundred... what?" a student blurted, like his brain had short-circuited.

"Tonnes," Thalia repeated. "Not kilograms. Tonnes."

"Are we really eating that much? That’s insane"

"What the hell are we, black holes?!"

Their voices weren’t loud, but the disbelief was clear.

Thalia chuckled under her breath.

After some seconds.

"And now," she said, sweeping her gaze across the room, "you’ll all probably be surprised to know that a fifth-ranked wild bear monster yes, just your standard forest-type consumes anywhere from 300 to 400 kilograms of food in a single day."

A murmur rippled through the students. Some raised eyebrows. A few snickered quietly. But Thalia pressed on.

"Not a year. Not a month. A day," she emphasized, holding up one finger. "And that’s just the average. If the bear is slightly stronger than normal say, an elite within its rank it can go through 700 to 800 kilograms a day. That’s by hunting anywhere from fifteen to twenty lower-ranked monsters daily."

She paused, letting that sink in.

"And for comparison, a fifth-rank bear weighs easily one to two tonnes sometimes even more. Now imagine one of the world’s largest sea beasts creatures we’ve documented to consume hundreds of millions of tonnes of organic mass daily. The sheer energy they absorb is enough to level a mountain if converted directly to force."

Thalia smiled as some students began furiously scribbling notes, while others looked increasingly interegued.

"Think about that for a second. Just try to comprehend how much energy that is how much fuel its body converts, constantly. Is it any wonder creatures like that possess strength beyond comprehension?"

She gestured slightly.

"As I’ve already said energy transforms. It flows from one form to another. Food becomes strength. Strength becomes aura. Aura becomes dominance."

A few students twitched their lips, struggling to take it seriously. It sounded absurd. Ridiculous even.

But then again maybe it wasn’t.

They had been fed high-rank monster meat by their families. They’d consumed elixirs made from rare beasts. But the quantities were always small, carefully controlled, hard to digest. Most of the time, special potions had to be prepared just to make it consumable.

And they were expensive.

Even if the theory was true if strength really did come from energy intake then it still didn’t matter much. Humans simply couldn’t match the consumption levels of massive beasts.

But none of them could come close to devouring 300 kilograms of flesh in a single day.

One student raised a hesitant hand. "Professor... even if that’s true, isn’t it kind of impossible? I mean, we physically can’t eat that much food. Those monsters have huge jaws massive bodies."

Thalia nodded. "Correct. Your body isn’t built for that kind of intake. That’s why specialized energy-synthesizing potions exist though those, as you all know, are absurdly expensive."

She turned, writing something briefly on the board. "Still, even if we can’t replicate their intake... we can atleast learn something from it."

"Next time you encounter a monster in the wild, I want you to imagine something. Picture this every day of that creature’s life was a battle. It ranked up by consuming others. It survived by hunting."

Her gaze moved across the room.

"That means at least one fight a day. Likely more. So if that monster has lived ten years... that’s 3,650 battles. And it survived all of them. Either by winning, or by escaping."

A stunned silence overtook the class.

"And most of you," she added with a small smirk, "haven’t even fought a hundred live battles outside simulations."

Most students looked away. But some just sneered.

"That’s the reality of this world," Thalia said softly. "It’s a good thing most monsters lack true intelligence and act on instinct alone. Because if they did possess human-level intellect...? Our chances of survival would plummet."

Then, she clapped her hands together once. "Anyway. Back to the main point. Let me ask you a question: Why is it that we can’t simply absorb mana forcefully?"

A few students looked at one another. Thalia smiled patiently.

"I’m not talking about regular absorption. I mean why can’t you just force a sixth-rank mana crystal into a third-rank body? Or have a powerful mage seal their energy inside you and boost your strength artificially?"

A boy in the middle row raised his hand and spoke without waiting to be called. "Because the person’s body would explode, Professor."

Thalia raised an eyebrow. "And why would it explode?"

The student hesitated this time. "Um... because the body can’t handle that much energy?"

"Yes, but why? There has to be a mechanism behind it."

He blinked, then fell silent.

Thalia stepped forward.

"Let’s use an example," she said. "Anyone know how old cannons used to work?"

No one answered, so she continued.

"Iron cannonball, iron tube. And inside? An explosive powder called explodium. The cannon fires only when that powder ignites, releasing massive energy to shoot the iron ball forward."

She drew a quick diagram in the air with mana-light. "Now imagine if someone used too much powder. Or fired the cannon repeatedly without rest. It overheats. The pressure builds. And boom the cannon explodes."

She looked around. "That’s what happens when you try to force energy into a body unprepared to manage it. Mana doesn’t explode on its own it’s the use of mana that generates heat and pressure. That stress, when too high, rips you apart."

Another student raised their hand slowly. "So... it’s not about having mana, it’s about not being able to circulate and manage it?"

"Exactly." Thalia pointed at her approvingly. "It’s not just about storage it’s about movement. Flow. Conversion. A narrow pipe cracks if you try to run a river through it."

The room grew more focused.

"Now for the bigger question," she said. "Why can some people hold more mana than others? Why can some cultivate vast reserves while others can’t hold more than a bucket’s worth?"

Whispers and guesses flitted around. One girl finally spoke: "Bloodline?"

"Yes, It’s all tied to talent. More specifically, bloodline."

She began to pace slowly.

"The purer, rarer, or more unique the bloodline, the more mana the body can tolerate. It’s in the genes. A body designed by nature to hold more power. But that’s not the only factor."

She paused.

"There’s also healing capability. See, your body won’t explode the moment it takes in too much mana. What happens is damage small tears, strain, breakdowns over time. Especially when that mana is used."

"But if someone has extraordinary healing potential if their body can recover from damage faster than it accumulates then they can push much further than the average person."

Thalia looked over the classroom one more time.

"So yes mana capacity can be influenced. But it’s not just about having a large vessel. It’s about whether that vessel can survive the pressure. Whether it can heal from the strain. That’s what makes the difference between talent... and tragedy."

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