Several more days passed.
Aside from dealing with the tedious lessons at the academy, Helos spent most of her remaining time in front of that massive oil painting in the hall.
Like a devout believer awaiting an oracle, she stared intently at the woman in the painting who had her back to her, hoping to get even a tiny response.
But Sylvia seemed to have vanished completely. No matter how much Helos called out to her, even using freshly made cream cake as bait, the painting remained still.
It wasn’t until one evening, when the setting sun outside dyed the entire hall a golden red, that the long-silent surface of the painting finally rippled with that familiar watery shimmer.
“Finally decided to show yourself?”
Julius, who was sitting on the sofa wiping his longsword, looked up with a hint of mockery in his voice.
As his words fell, Sylvia’s translucent figure slowly emerged from the canvas.
But this time, the Great Slayer of Mages didn’t have her usual arrogant expression. Instead, her brows were furrowed, looking troubled.
“Master!”
Helos jumped up in surprise and hurried over.
“You’re finally out! How did it go? Did you figure out a way?”
Facing the girl’s expectant eyes, Sylvia was silent for a moment, then let out a soft sigh.
She floated down to the offering table, sat cross-legged, and didn’t touch the prepared snacks. Instead, she stared at Helos with an unusually serious gaze.
“Girl, I have two pieces of news. One bad, and one good.”
“Bad news?”
Helos’s heart skipped a beat.
“What bad news?”
“The bad news is—”
Sylvia extended a finger and pointed at Helos’s chest.
“That ability inside you… it’s in a very special state right now.”
“Special how?”
“It’s ‘sleeping.'”
“Huh?”
Helos was stunned. She wondered if she had misheard.
“Sleeping? You mean it… fell asleep?”
“Exactly.”
Sylvia nodded firmly.
“Its current state is like a slumbering behemoth. It does exist inside you, and it possesses terrifying power, but all its reactions to the outside world are just involuntary movements in its sleep—or rather… sleep-talking.”
She looked at Helos, a hint of helplessness in her eyes.
“You should understand what I mean, right? Like when someone talks in their sleep—they don’t know what they’re saying, let alone control it.”
“This…”
Helos opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say.
She had originally thought her ability was too powerful to control, only to be told now that it wasn’t even awake yet?
Then all that time she’d treated it as a trump card, she must have looked like a fool.
“So what do I do?”
Helos pressed urgently.
“How do I wake it up? Use mana to stimulate it? Or use ‘will guidance’?”
Faced with Helos’s barrage of questions, Sylvia showed a rare look of confusion.
She grabbed her light purple hair and shook her head irritably.
“I don’t know.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t know?”
“I really don’t know.”
Sylvia spread her hands helplessly.
“I told you, your ability is completely different from my spellbreaker bloodline.”
“My power comes from instinct in my blood, plus some technique. Using it is as natural as breathing.”
“But yours… it’s more like an independent entity living inside you.”
“To wake it, you probably need a specific trigger, or some condition I don’t understand yet.”
She paused, lowering her head in frustration.
“At least with my current knowledge, I can’t think of a safe way to wake it. The power of that thing is probably far greater than we imagine. If I forced it awake and it had a tantrum, ‘negating’ you, its host, out of existence, I’d have nowhere to cry.”
The hall fell into dead silence.
The light in Helos’s eyes dimmed instantly.
She had hoped this legendary Great Slayer of Mages could show her a clear path, but even she was at a loss.
Was she destined to sit on a golden bowl and beg for food?
Just then, a soft laugh broke the silence.
“Heh.”
Julius sheathed his longsword with a crisp sound.
He stood up, shrugged, and let out a mocking tone.
Looking at the gloomy ghost girl on the table, he shook his head and sighed in feigned disappointment.
“So after all that, you’re only this capable.”
“Some ‘Great Slayer of Mages,’ some ‘Last Spellbreaker.’ You talk big, but you can’t even solve a simple problem. Looks like you’re just a bragging old fossil.”
“What did you say?!”
Those words were like a spark dropped into a powder keg, instantly igniting Sylvia.
She shot up from the table, her light purple hair billowing without wind, her hollow eyes seeming to spit fire.
“You brainless sword-wielding lummox! What do you know?!”
Sylvia pointed at Julius’s nose and cursed.
“Is it my fault? This girl’s situation is unprecedented! Even the God of Magic back then would have been stumped! I’m already impressive for figuring out its state!”
“Yes, yes, you’re the most impressive.”
Julius nodded dismissively, his expression more infuriating than any insult.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that you can’t teach her. Since you can’t, stop wasting her time and go back to sleep in your painting.”
“Who says I can’t teach her!”
Sylvia was so angry she nearly ascended on the spot.
She knew the bastard was using reverse psychology, but her proud ego wouldn’t let her slink away in defeat.
“I can’t solve the waking problem right now, but—”
She took a deep breath to calm herself, then turned and locked eyes with Helos, declaring loudly:
“I can help her build a foundation! As long as the foundation is solid, even if that power suddenly awakens later, she’ll be able to control it better!”
“Foundation?”
Helos, who had been feeling disappointed, suddenly perked up again.
Like a drowning person grabbing a lifeline, she rushed forward eagerly.
“What foundation? Please, Master, tell me!”
Seeing Helos’s thirst for knowledge, Sylvia’s vanity was finally gratified.
She shot a triumphant glance at Julius, then resumed an air of profound mastery.
“Ahem.”
Sylvia cleared her throat. Instead of answering directly, she floated in front of Helos and extended a finger mysteriously.
“Girl, let me ask you something.”
“Do you know what mana is?”
“Huh?”
Helos blinked.
She had expected Sylvia to teach her a world-shaking ultimate technique or some lost ancient meditation method.
But instead, the question was something even a three-year-old would know.
What is mana?
Did that really need asking?
Though Helos was a “useless” person without mana, she had grown up reading in the duke’s mansion and was now an elite student at the Royal Magic Academy.
This kind of theoretical knowledge was child’s play for her.
“Mana is just the elemental particles floating in the world, right? They’re the basic energy that forms the magical system.”
“Through human guidance, they can be converted into mana, then channeled through spells or runes in specific arrangements to create various magical effects. Depending on the attribute, it can be divided into—”
Helos recited the textbook definition without thinking.
“Stop, stop, stop! Hold it!”
Before she could finish reciting the long theory about elemental interactions, Sylvia waved her hand impatiently.
“Who told you to recite a book? I’m not here to test your theory.”
Sylvia rolled her eyes.
“I’m not talking about those rigid definitions written on paper and studied to death by old scholars.”
She reached out and grabbed at the air, as if catching something invisible.
“I’m talking about… real mana. The kind that flows, breathes, and changes in every corner of this world around you.”
Sylvia leaned in close, her hollow eyes fixed on Helos’s, and said slowly:
“Forget the book knowledge. Just by yourself, can you ‘see’ it? Or can you ‘perceive’ it?”
Faced with Sylvia’s soul-piercing question, the confidence on Helos’s face froze.
She opened her mouth to say something but found herself speechless.
See?
Perceive?
For a “Cursed Girl” born with the “curse of silence” cutting her off from all mana perception, that was a pipe dream.
In her world, mana was like air.
She knew it existed, but she had never truly “seen” it.
She could only confirm its presence through the needle twitching on alchemical tools or by seeing others release fireballs and ice spikes.
As for that subtle perception?
Sorry, that was the privilege of mages, not her, a commoner.
After a long silence.
Helos finally lowered her head, ashamed but honest.
“I can’t see it, and I can’t perceive it.”
“Exactly!”
Unexpectedly, upon hearing this, Sylvia didn’t seem disappointed. Instead, she slapped her thigh with a triumphant smile that said “this student can be taught.”
She raised a finger and wagged it in front of Helos.
“If you can’t see it, how can you fight it?”
“It’s like battling an invisible enemy. If you don’t know where it is, even with a divine weapon in hand, you’ll swing blindly like a blind man, and it’ll toy with you to death.”
Sylvia floated into midair, looking down at Helos, her tone turning serious and solemn.
“To become a qualified spellbreaker, the first and most important step—”
“Is not learning how to destroy.”
“It’s learning how to ‘observe.'”
“We need to make that shapeless, flowing mana hidden beneath the surface completely visible to your eyes.”
Sylvia pointed at Helos’s eyes.
“Let’s start from there.”
“From today, forget all the useless theories you’ve learned. I’m going to teach you how to use your instincts, your intuition, to rediscover this world full of mana.”
A dangerous smile curled at the corner of Sylvia’s lips.
“It’s going to be painful, you know.”
“Are you ready, my apprentice?”