Despite the doubt Jane was feeling in the moment, his teacher was not trying to kill him. At first, he thought his teacher's rune was one that had no effect, but he eventually realized that it had disappeared altogether. His teacher had quickly taken his mana out of Jane's body, after all.
"Do you get it?"
"Teacher, why do you keep doing things so vaguely? Yes, I get it, but I don't think any normal person would."
"If you get it, then explain why I took the mana back."
'Let's see. I began to feel like I could... pull his mana? Ah.'
"Well, you would have lost it otherwise. After all, the mana began being tamed, right?"
"I admit, I was planning to keep it in for longer than that. Considering how much mana you have, however, it's no surprise that my control weakened so easily."
"Oh, that was why you started teaching me, right?"
Jane was always up for being petty towards his teacher, but there were better times to mock him for that specific event.
"Believe it or not, it was the reason I moved my show here, in the first place. I wasn't originally going to do a performance in this tiny village, you know?"
"Is there really that much mana coming from me? Like, enough for you to divert your whole caravan?"
"You've lived in it for as long as you've known how to sense mana, so it may not look like much to you, but the amount of mana constantly emanating from you is absurd. If a thousand of the world's best mages all engraved their soul cores into oblivion here, it would only be able to replicate half of the effect you have on this area."
Jane blinked.
"That's really serious, isn't it?"
"And what do you think I've been doing all this time? There's hundreds of magic tools actively concealing the area."
"Hold on. Is there some sort of organization backing you?"
"I said that I was one of the believers of the Grand Magician, didn't I?"
"That was a real cult?"
His teacher looked a little annoyed.
"It's not a cult, it's a legitimate organization of wizards."
"What's that?"
"You seriously don't know even that? An organization is—"
'Always trying to get one in, huh?'
"No, I mean a wizard."
"Oh, that's just a mage who belongs to an organization."
"Isn't 'organization of wizards' meaningless, then?"
"We're a group of wizards from other organizations, so no. We were already wizards before we joined."
"That... that's just a cult."
"No, no, the actual cult is somewhere else."
"Huh?"
Calex defended himself, but Jane seriously could only think of it as cult-on-cult conflict.
"Well, why do you think I concealed this place so well? It was to hide from them."
"Who?"
"An organization of zealots who worship magic. Because of that, they're unreasonably good at it, but they're also completely insane."
"And they're after me because of my talent?"
"How should I know? I'm not one of them. All I know is that they show up wherever there's a large concentration of mana. It's just that this time, I got here first."
"What about when you leave, then?"
"I'm obviously taking you with me, though?"
"What— I have a family, you know?"
"You have one sibling."
"That's an entire family, as far as I'm concerned. Unless I can take him with me, it would be impossible to go."
"Then you can just bring him along. He'll be safer in this village, but you can still bring him along, anyways."
"No, but why are assuming that I'm going?"
"Because I have to go, and you'll die fairly soon after I leave."
"Those zealots will get me?"
"Do you want to find out?"
"I'm going, then."
His teacher smiled.
"Good. Now, you'll have to be nice and polite to your travel companion, won't you?"
"Oh no, my teacher will definitely leave me to die if I don't."
"Don't worry, your master almost has enough room in his heart for an irresponsible disciple or two."
---
Ever since the first time he got left in the forest, Jane always made sure to remember the general direction of the village. This time, however, he wouldn't be walking back.
Jane stretched a little, before preparing his runes. Because it took effect and was formed directly on the body, internal magic would move along with the affected entity. In order to take advantage of this, Jane began constructing runes on his legs.
A rune to keep his muscles from tearing, named 'Reinforce Flesh'. A rune to keep his bones from snapping, named 'Reinforce Material'. A rune to increase the output of his muscles, named 'Strength'. He also tried putting a rune to supply oxygen— 'Breath'— into his legs, just to see what would happen.
Jane began walking towards the direction of the village. His steps felt light and easy, and his toes felt like they could dig straight into the ground. Next, he added a little hop into his step, gradually picking up speed. Then, he lowered his center of gravity and began sprinting with all his might.
His legs moved like pistons, kicking up clods as he ran by. The wind whistled past his face, stinging his eyes and pushing his hair back. Despite moving at easily inhuman speeds, his breathing was not even the slightest bit unsteady. His legs still felt completely full of energy, no matter how many miles he had crossed.
He ran up to a tree, and jumped slightly. With his other leg, he kicked the tree, splitting it straight in two. Dodging the falling remains of the tree, he weaved around the surrounding trunks at incredible speed. As he settled into his pace, he prepared to form another rune.
Right as he took a step, he formed a 'Force' rune underneath his foot as quickly as he could. By the time it was complete enough to have an effect, his toes were already scraping back the dirt straight into the path of the rune. Once his foot touched it, it was repelled strongly, forcing Jane to use quite a bit of effort to keep his gait under control.
On his next step, he repeated the process. This time, the rune was made a little faster, and he used it's effects a little better. Soon, Jane could incorporate the 'Force' runes into his enhanced running without any problems. It definitely increased the strain on his legs, but it was nothing the internal magic couldn't handle as of the moment.
'Hold on... wouldn't that work?'
Jane still did not have enough control over magic to fly, but he saw potential to do something similar. He took another step assisted by 'Force', this time raising his other leg a little higher. Compared to the previous angle at which he hit the rune, this time, he positioned it a bit under his foot. Attempting to take the step resulted in his foot being pushed upwards. However, this was exactly what he planned for.
As if he was trying to take the stairs two at a time, Jane both pushed himself up and propelled himself forwards with his feet. The accumulation of the upwards force caused his running to become a strange form of levitation, and then accelerated into becoming a strange form of flight. Jane aimed for the spot where the cover of the trees broke, and ran through it.
From here, the leaves of the trees flying by looked like a beautiful tapestry, dyed a little blue by the moon's light. The distance from him to the dark clouds was still significant, but he felt like he could reach them if only he tried a little harder. The only thing that he felt like was out of his reach was the bright moon in the sky, which watched over him mockingly. Instead of feeling discouraged, however, he took it as a challenge. He saw it, at the end of his path. That one day, definitely, he would be able to reach those things which seemed impossible before.