Ashen Ascension: The Divided Flame-Chapter 70: Ability To Sense Mana Nodes

Nara explained refinement, then quickly moved on to the practical plan.

"You should give me the raw crystals you collect," he said. "I’ll take them out and convert them into refined impure for you. I’ll also keep some aside for our pool for Lily."

Ivor watched, calculating the pros and cons. Refining the impure material first meant less damage, and a faster absorption due to him not worrying about the impurities. He agreed.

"But there are too many crystals," he added.

Nara wasn’t offended. He seemed to have expected the complaint.

"I have a plan," he replied. "We can get them from the second and third layers of the scar. You also loot others, right? Some rich kids come in here."

Ivor paused his meal, drank a lot of water, and made himself slow down. The hunger after waking up made him too eager. He carefully closed the food box to save what was left.

He looked at Nara directly and asked, "Will there be a problem if I loot them?"

Nara nodded without hesitation. "Yes," he said. "They will come to hunt you."

"That’s okay," Ivor said, like commenting on the weather, not a threat. He stood, stretched, and looked past Nara into the trees, already planning his hunt.

Then Ivor looked back at Nara. "How do the others train?" he asked.

"Every awakened child is assigned a handler," Nara said. "Usually an Adept rank individual is appointed by the domain. The handler oversees their development, what they study, what weapon they focus on, how they spend their time."

He glanced at the sword resting near Ivor. "Most kids specialize early. Sword, spear, axe, bow, daggers. Once that choice is made, the handler builds everything around it. Forms, drills, sparring patterns. You don’t try to learn everything at once. You repeat one path until it becomes natural."

He continued. "They train against dummies first. Then controlled sparring. Basic movements over and over until they stop thinking about them. There are manuals for weapon forms and footwork. Stealth exercises. Terrain reading. Moving without sound. Learning how to enter and exit a fight properly."

After a brief pause, he added, "And reading. A lot of it. World history, mana theory, Umbra studies, healing plants, Scar regulations, even economics. Families don’t want fighters who only know how to swing a weapon."

Ivor absorbed it without comment, then said simply, "I need a sword training manual. And something on physical combat."

Nara nodded immediately. "That’s easy. I can bring those."

He glanced toward the darker stretch of forest beyond them.

"Can I come to hunt with you?" Nara asked. "Skeletons. You said you were going to hunt anyway."

Ivor noticed the two daggers at Nara’s waist. And thought that it would be a good time to observe how Nara fights.

"Fine," Ivor said. "But wait here for a few minutes. I will be back."

Nara blinked, then nodded. "Alright."

Ivor didn’t explain. He picked up Nara’s large bag and rushed back into the forest. Then quietly hid it high up in a tree fork far away. He made a small, secret scratch mark on the trunk to remember the spot. He climbed down, went back to his supplies, and changed into the black robe Nara had brought. The robe was a bit loose but better than his torn clothes.

He put on the belt, slid his father’s daggers into it, and folded the map carefully. He took his sword and headed back toward the clearing. Nara was waiting when he returned and briefly looked him over, focusing on the robe’s emblem and the daggers.

"You look like one of us now," Nara said.

Ivor didn’t respond to that.

He nodded toward the trees. "Let’s Go," he said.

They walked deeper than Ivor had ever been. As they went, Ivor realized he had been fighting only in the beginner area.

The first layer was huge, and he hadn’t even reached the middle. He had been hunting near the safe edges where it was crowded and the skeletons were common and easy to predict. This helped him learn, but it meant he knew very little about the Scar.

He had memorised the map and knew the important landmarks in the scar.

While traveling, he avoided other awakened by relying on his hearing and sense of smell. The air carried more information than sight ever could—sweat, lingering smoke, cooked food, even the faint metallic scent of poorly maintained weapons.

Each trace told him who had passed through and how recently. Without drawing attention to it, he adjusted their path, steering them toward narrower, quieter stretches of forest to make it difficult for anyone to track or intercept them.

Nara didn’t complain, which made Ivor watch him closely. Nara moved quietly and carefully, always watching the forest. He kept pace with Ivor.

However, Ivor knew Nara couldn’t sense things as well as he could, like subtle smells and sounds. Ivor felt he needed to test Nara’s awareness for their safety. Soon, Ivor sensed something: a faint scraping noise, the sound of a skeleton moving over hard ground. He felt the disturbance before he heard the sound of the bone.

He didn’t warn Nara. Instead, he slowed slightly and shifted to the side, letting Nara walk a step ahead. He kept his face neutral and his breathing steady.

They moved ahead, and a skeleton appeared between two trees. Its skull faced them with red glowing eyes, and it turned toward them as soon as they got close. The creature hurried forward, its joints clicking loudly and attacked immediately.

Nara reacted a half-second late. He reached for a dagger, posture tightening.

Ivor stepped back to watch both the skeleton and Nara. He used his Soul Sense, which instantly sharpened the world around him. He felt the skeleton as a hollow knot of movement and Nara as a warmer, heavier presence full of controlled motion.

Nara met the skeleton, holding his daggers ready. He was skilled, keeping low and moving to avoid the skeleton’s first swing. He used his left dagger to slightly push the bone blade away, while his right dagger aimed for a weak joint in the skeleton’s ribs.

He was competent and trained.

But he wasn’t fast enough for the unrestrained skeleton. Ivor saw Nara’s timing would fail. He felt it in Nara’s tense shoulders and catching breath when the skeleton sped up. Its second strike aimed low at the thigh, and Nara quickly pulled back, just avoiding the cut.

Ivor stayed back, letting the fight show him what he needed to know.

Then he felt something else.

Ivor focused his Soul Sense inward, though it was only meant to find others, not to see what was beneath the surface. But the moment he narrowed his attention, something clicked into place. He could sense mana inside Nara.

Not as a vague glow, but as structure. A circuit, faint but visible in his awareness, pulsing with contained blue threads. Ivor felt a sharp clarity and then a deeper detail emerged, like a diagram coming into focus.

Five nodes. Attuned and Active.

Ivor’s mind quickly registered five dense points on Nara’s mana circuit. This discovery, which he hadn’t known he could make, caused a sharp pain behind his eyes when he quickly withdrew his focus. He blinked and widened his awareness back to normal, but a dull pain remained.

As Nara fought a skeleton, Ivor kept tracking them, but his attention stayed on the fact that he could find someone else’s attuned mana nodes.

And if he could do it to Nara, he could likely do it to anyone close enough. He realized this gave him important information on how strong his opponent could be.