Creating a mana channel was also simple: just drill it into your soul. As one might expect, it was also ridiculously painful. Few people could do it to themselves in the tower, and building all mana channels without help even netted a nice title.

The first channel was just a hole to give mana easier access to the place he would build his mana core, to facilitate building it. Theoretically, he could push mana straight into his soul without damaging it, and start from the core. However, moving mana through the soul made it loose power and efficiency, and raw mana was already weak to begin with. It was faster to build the a channel first.

His core would be at the same place as his heart, but in his soul instead of his body. Therefore, the first channel would be at his heart height, the closest possible to where the core would be.

Luke moved the mana touching his soul with his will and focused it at his chest. It took him a while to accumulate about a spoonful of mana there. The mana under his control only reached as far as a few millimeters from his soul, a distance that wouldn't change without a mana core. He also couldn't control too much mana at once.

For now, he simply lacked the willpower to do control more than that spoonful at once. Akira's mana waves, for instance, required her to push mana touching a side of her entire soul in a direction, hoping it wouldn't stop until it met the target. It was actually a feat of mana control and willpower for someone as young as her, though it helped that she wasn't trying to make the mana do anything useful, as that was the hardest part of working with it.

Luke would have to work on his willpower. He had never used it for anything magical... Hell, in the last two years or so, he had only used it not to cry too hard after a beating. There was no stat for it, but he was sure his was lacking.

He compacted the mana under his control much as he could—which immediately made him feel a pressure in the head from the effort—changed its shape into a thin drill the width of a hair, and started rotating it.

Then he pulled it into his soul.

The pain was terrible, but not the same as if he were drilling through his body. It felt like a particularly nasty toothache with a splitting headache. Enough to make it a challenge not to lose focus and to tempt him into stopping, but not enough to outright make him faint or scream.

Still, Luke had to stop himself from curling into fetal position to wait for the pain to go away. He had learned that not resisting made the it go away faster, but today, he resisted his cockroach instincts. Instead, he focused on his grandad's words.

He was a warrior, and he would persevere.

The pain didn't stop coming.

He kept pulling.

= - = - =

Using mana was tiring and Luke was no exception. He did manage to drill his soul up to where he would create his mana core, but it took almost two hours and he got so exhausted he could barely think straight from the powerful migraine he now had. He didn't even check the system icons on the bottom corner of his vision as he thought he might be incapable of even reading at the moment.

The newly drilled mana channel was no thicker than a hair's breadth. He would grow it after all his channels were built, but for now, that was all he could do.

His current priority was resting.

He walked the corridors of the large house with his eyes closed half of the time. He took the wrong turn twice, but managed to safely arrive at his bed. He didn't even take his clothes off; he just fell on the incredibly comfortable bed like a log and fell asleep at once.

= - = - =

A beautiful, young female voice pierced the darkness. "Wake up." The world shook.

Luke woke up being shaken violently by Akira Sakura.

Before even getting annoyed by her rudeness, he was assaulted by a splitting headache. The day before, he had thought it was just residual pain from his soul, but now that he wasn't as tired and could think better, he recognized it for what it was: willpower fatigue.

Willpower couldn't be quantified and was very circumstantial. When Sakura had said she could use 100 mana waves, she had given him an estimate. If she had been drunk, for instance, she would've done less. If she had been extra hyped, she could've done more. A hug, an offense, even feeling sleep could affect it, sometimes for a long time.

Likewise, finding one's safe limit was hard, and the limit itself could change depending on circumstances. With experience, Luke would learn to tell when he was nearing his limits.

Going beyond said limits gave the mana user willpower fatigue. It started with a headache that got progressively worse the more one used mana—or, in other words, imbued mana with their will. The more one kept doing it, the stronger the headache, up to the point they fainted. The worse it was, the longer it took to go away. From Luke's memories, he estimated his own fatigue would disappear in about a day.

The biggest issue with willpower fatigue was that it was ineffective on the long term. Continuing despite it might let you do more things in a short period of time, which was essential in some battles, but it took considerably longer to recover from fatigue than it would have taken to rest a little before continuing with one's work. It wasn't much different from people who suffered from burnout and had to stay months away from work rather than taking an extra hour or two of rest everyday, or a day off every week, to avoid the stress from piling up. Unfortunately, finding that perfect spot also took time and many mistakes.

Luke mentally slapped himself for not thinking about it. His grandad's life was on the life. He couldn't mess up like that.

"Wake up!" Akira yelled and shook him harder, which made the headache worse.

He opened his eyes, instantly regretting it as the light hurt his eyes. He had never had a hangover, but he was guessing this is how it felt.

"Your grandfather will leave in half an hour. Come say goodbye," Akira said and left at once.

Luke couldn't let his grandpa leave without seeing him, so he sat up at once. The sudden movement was yet another thing that shot a spike of pain through his head. He ignored it as best as he could, stood up, put on his geta, and left the room. A maid only a bit younger than the one the night before was waiting for him outside.

"Honored guest," she said while bowing slightly. "Should I bring you to the dining room?"

He was very unused to having maids. It felt positively weird to have another human serve him like that. "Yes, please," he said awkwardly. She started leading her. "Do you know what time is it?"

She pulled her sleeve and checked her wrist watch. "Half past seven."

The breakfast was supposed to be served at seven. He was very late. He hated that he wouldn't be seeing his grandad so much now, but there was nothing he could do.

While he was led to the dining room, he finally checked the system messages he had received the day before.

Skill learned: Mana Sense

Type: Magic

Rank: Uncommon

Level: 5 / 10

You can feel mana.

⠀

Skill learned: Mana Control

Type: Magic

Rank: Uncommon

Level: 3 / 10

You can control mana.

The two skills were easy to learn, but were uncommon-rank because not everyone in the tower bothered with them, as they knew the difficulties that working with magic brought and the time-sink it was. Mana Sense was already at level 5, though level 6 would be a little harder; it would require him to manage to feel mana with his eyes open. That would take some training, as opening the eyes made it way harder to focus on one's soul.

Mana Control was a bit harder to level up, but not too much. It would come with practice and he didn't need to worry about it for now.

Usually, messages about skills learned would've shown them at level 1, and then he would've gotten notifications for each level up. However, notifications only showed up after you had already read the related "skill learned" message. Because he took so long to check the two of them, they came already at a higher level and he got no notification.

He checked the next messages.

Milestone reached: First Magic Skill

You've learned your first magic skill.

Reward: +10 SP

Khan bonus: +1 SP

⠀

Achievement unlocked: First Magic Skill

You're the first human from Earth to learn a magic skill!

Reward: +100 SP

Khan bonus: +10 SP

Both messages had been expected, but there was more to the second than met the eye.

Luke had been wondering if other people had access to the system. It was possible, albeit unlikely, that no system user had ever done anything to give them physical or cognitive skills. However, he knew for a fact that Akira could sense and control mana to some extent, so she should've unlocked the achievement for first magic skill if she had access to the system.

That meant that either no one had access to the system, or whoever did couldn't use mana. But for someone to not unlock any of the three types of skills was almost impossible.

Now that he thought about it, his Pioneer title had already said he had been the first to get an achievement, hadn't it? He had been considering a lot of things about the system at the time, and the warning message left his mind in disarray, so he hadn't considered that. It was impossible that no one would the system would've been unable to get a single achievement for more than a month.

So, Luke concluded no one in the world but him had access to the system—or at least, if someone else had gotten access too, they had had it for very little time.

Why had the system picked him? Maybe because of his memories? Because of his Khan citizenship? Or had the same people who sent the memories found a way to give him the system first?

He had no way to find out and just took it out of his mind for now.

Milestone reached: All Kinds of Skills

You've learned skills of all three types: physical, magic, and cognitive.

Reward: +10 SP

Khan bonus: +1 SP

⠀

Achievement unlocked: All Kinds of Skills

You're the first human from Earth to learn skills of all three types: physical, magic, and cognitive.

Reward: +100 SP

Khan bonus: +10 SP

Those milestone and achievement had also existed in the tower, so they came as no surprise.

He finished reading his messages just as he arrived at the dining room.