“I’m not quite sure I follow what you want me to do,” Phatagin complained from his hollowed-out tree. He had immediately climbed up there upon his arrival, and, at Charlemagne’s behest, was attempting to give a lecture on how his Momentum Core worked.

  “The interchange between momentum, chemical energy, and…whatever mana is made up of is quite a complicated subject. I myself have only worked out the most basic theories in my spare time. It is likely the only reason I was offered the Momentum Core Skill by the System at all. Ndiogou and I have had many conversations on the subject, and even though he understands what humans refer to as ‘science’ more thoroughly than I, he has yet to internalize his knowledge and convert it into the instinctual knowledge that seems to be prerequisite for the System to offer a Skill. I confess I am surprised that the human hasn’t been offered some sort of Core by this point…he is quite proficient with a number of concepts that seem important enough to be paired with a Core.”

  Charlemagne glared at the pangolin, sensing that he was purposely using many big words in order to get out of having to spend time working with the rooster. But if Phatagin thought that was going to work, he didn’t know Charlemagne at all.

  “Bawk,” he suggested.

  “No, no, of course I am not giving up,” the pangolin insisted. “There’s no need for me to recommence the Individual Battle Simulation to obtain more Skills right now. The breakthrough that I am lacking seems to be conceptual, similar to the bottleneck that you are facing. Perhaps our chat here today will grant me some of the insights that I need in order to advance my own Skills. That would be ideal, yes. But I imagine that I have spent a considerably larger amount of time working on these concepts than you have, since you are by nature more action-oriented, while I…”

  “Bawk,” the rooster interrupted.

  “I beg your pardon. I was getting a bit off track, yes. All right then, I’ll explain it as simply as I can,” Phatagin readily agreed. “My Momentum Core allows me to manipulate the kinetic energy of objects and even many creatures. Now, when I refer to kinetic energy, it means the energy that an object or creature is able to impart into another object or creature. For instance, the tree that I am in has no net kinetic energy: it’s not capable of running into anything on its own. Even internally, there is very little activity, but I yet lack the ability to slow down or speed up the internal processes of another being. I can, however, steal from myself if I am careful.”

  Charlemagne stared blankly at the pangolin.

  “Hmm, not quite there yet, I see. Well, let’s look at it using real-world examples. If Ndiogou throws his axe at me, he uses his muscles to generate energy, and this energy is imparted into the axe as kinetic energy. The axe is now hurtling toward me in a manner I find rather unpleasant, so I reach out with my Momentum Core and I take some of the energy that Ndiogou put into the axe. The axe slows down, of course, because now it has less kinetic energy. But just where did the energy go? Well, some of it is lost, this is true, but much of it becomes energy that I can store in my Momentum Core.

  Continuing our hypothetical, the axe that Ndiogou threw at me is still coming toward me at an alarming rate. I need to get out of its way. Well, with my Momentum Core, I can use the kinetic energy I stored within my body to accelerate myself out of the way. I have found, by the way, that there is a direct correlation between the mass of an object and the amount of energy it takes to move it the same speed. In other words, with the same amount of energy, I can slow the axe more than I can speed myself up. Is that quite clear?”

  “Bawk,” the rooster observed.

  “Well, I suppose that it is rather obvious when you stop to think about it. ‘Heavier things are harder to move’ is actually a clear and succinct explanation of this particular principle, yes. Now, what happens to the energy that I utilized to propel myself out of harm’s way? It’s gone, one would think. But that’s not true. Once I complete my dodge, I can then absorb my own momentum back into my Momentum Core. In fact, before I even had the Momentum Core, I had a separate Skill that allowed me to convert my own internal energy into kinetic energy directly, allowing me to fly through the air without needing wings. So, that is how my Momentum Core works. Is that fairly clear now?

  The rooster thought for a moment. It seemed rather simple: Phatagin basically using mana in a different form. Charlemagne decided to think of this “kinetic energy” as “speed mana”, which helped the rooster wrap his mind around the concept. By stealing others’ speed mana, Phatagin could restore his own, which he stored in a Core just like Charlemagne. Then, when he needed to go faster, he could tap into his stored speed mana for a quick boost. He could also store his own speed for later. But such a power was weaker than what the rooster already possessed. Why would he want to learn how to control this special speed mana when he could already control other types?

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  “Bawk,” the rooster asked, attempting to clarify.

  “I would not refer to it as ‘speed mana’, no. That’s rather inaccurate. Your mana appears to let you do all sorts of things that violate the laws of physics. It heals your wounds, augments your natural size and strength, and vaporizes your enemies. Honestly, this ‘mana’ you can use seems to be a catch-all power whose limitations are only based on your personal power and your imagination. As you grow, I imagine that you’ll find new uses for it all the time.”

  “Bawk,” Charlemagne answered before sinking deeper into thought. The rooster thought so hard that the Squiggles took notice of his efforts.

  Charlemagne brooded in silence for some time, trying to understand how this ‘speed mana’, or momentum, could possibly make his Ember Core stronger. He already had three very powerful types of energy at his command: mana, radiation, and fire. While radiation was a fairly situational energy, seeing as it was so rare, he used the other two all the time. Maybe Phatagin was correct and he just needed more experimentation with his mana so that he could replicate the way that the pangolin used his mana to steal the speed of his opponents. With that, he bawked a quick order to Phatagin to stay put and stormed off to the Individual Battle Simulation. It was time to stop theorizing and start applying some theories.

  When Wave 1 started, Charlemagne didn’t even bother to block his opponent’s attacks. Relying on his innate combat sense and powerful Skills, the rooster bobbed and weaved around the room, attempting to force his mana to reach out and freeze his opponent in its tracks. However, all he succeeded in doing was to encase the erstwhile creature in a mana shield that it had no chance of breaking. The accident did give the rooster as much time as he needed for experimentation, so it was not entirely a bad thing.

  The rooster made innumerable attempts at coaxing his Ember Core to rob his opponent of its momentum, trying different approaches as he sought to understand the deeper principles of this strange “speed mana”. But it was all in vain. He was completely unable to make the Wave 1 opponent slow down even the smallest fraction. Oh, he could and did create more and more elaborate mana constructs, and he even managed to develop a spherical mana shield that collapsed in on itself, but nothing that he tried directly affected the creature itself. At least, not noticeably.

  After over half an hour of fruitless attempts, Charlemagne felt the tiniest tug on his senses from the Pyro Skill that had fused into his Ember Core. Somehow the fused Skill had managed to affect the caged Wave 1 monster, even if he couldn’t exactly tell what it was. Reinvigorated by this success, the rooster continued trying different things. He learned a few small lessons on increasing his skill at manipulating mana, but nothing earth-shattering. That is, until he discovered that there was a natural barrier that prevented him from reaching inside the monster and directly manipulating the mana within it.

  It was a strange sort of field that he had never before encountered. Usually, his Skills didn’t work on other living organisms at all: their mana belonged to them just like his mana belonged to him. There was, of course, ambient mana up for grabs all around them, but that was a completely different principle. The barrier that prevented his mystical senses from penetrating into the Wave 1 creature’s interior was like an unbreakable mana shield that was almost completely undetectable. In fact, he never would have noticed that it was there if he had not specifically been flooding the area around the trapped monster with his own mana in order to conduct more tests.

  As soon as he realized it was there, the only logical thing for the rooster to do was to try to break it.

  Another long round of experimentation began. This time, the rooster was more in his natural element. His attempts to steal the other creature’s “speed mana” felt amateurish by comparison with the elegance that Charlemagne moved his mana around: testing, probing, and observing every reaction the field made. It was a maddening endeavor. Half the time the field felt like it was not even there. For instance, shooting a mana ball attack at the weakest possible setting showed that the mana field would not stop his attack. He experimented further, finding that his claws and beak would also not trigger the field. They did, however, cripple his opponent, putting the entire experiment on a timer as the simulated creature slowly expired from simulated blood loss.

  While the poor monster lay there on the ground, panting, Charlemagne continued to experiment. His mana shields could pass through the creature’s field as well, so there would be no problem if he decided to crush his opponent with a shield bubble in the future. That was good to know.

  The only thing that seemed to be blocked was any attempt to reach inside the other creature and manipulate its mana or anatomy directly. This seemed to violate some sort of rule, as the shield instantly reacted quite strongly, forcing the rooster’s mana back away from his opponent’s body. He had been trying to force the creature’s body to slow down all at once, but the strange field instantly rebuffed the attempt. Once more, Pyro tugged at the rooster’s subconscious as if it were trying to say something, but the rooster was not listening. He squawked in anger and tried to force his way in again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Finally, after what seemed like forever, he managed to move so quickly that the field was unable to respond in time. The rooster had been attempting to steal a tiny bit of the creature’s mana as a test, and he in fact did not manage to steal any at all. But it had moved: he had pulled it toward him for a split second.

  And that was enough, it seemed, for the Squiggles to both chastise him and reward him.

  Forgetting everything else for the moment, Charlemagne instantly forfeited and raced back to the dormitory. He had a lot of work to do.