Serie had originally assumed that Rowan would ask her for some especially rare or powerful magic.
She hadn't expected him to choose those three spells instead.
In Serie's eyes, none of them were particularly rare. You could even call them ordinary. The only one that was a little uncommon was the mind-control spell.
But even that didn't amount to much in her eyes.
"You'd better think it over carefully. I can give you one more chance to choose."
"No need." Rowan shook his head. "I think these three are perfect."
"In that case, hold out your hand."
Serie walked up to Rowan and looked up at him.
Rowan extended his right hand.
"Then I'll pass these three spells on to you." Serie took his hand and used a transfer spell to teach him the three spells directly.
Transfer magic was one of the very rare spells Serie possessed.
Once used, it allowed her to directly give magic she had learned to someone else, but she herself would lose those spells and have to relearn them from scratch.
Of course, to Serie, these three spells barely counted for anything.
She could probably relearn them in a matter of days.
Rowan, on the other hand, had just learned three spells with almost no effort at all thanks to Serie's help.
But learning them and actually being able to use them were two different things.
The prerequisite for using magic was possessing mana.
Without mana, even the best spell in the world was useless.
Fortunately, Serie was basically the ancestor of the entire magical world. Something as basic as mana extraction was child's play for her to explain in exacting detail.
Even an idiot could probably learn how to extract mana under her guidance.
According to Serie, there were two ways to extract mana.
The first was to convert one's own life force into mana.
The second was to absorb mana from the atmosphere and turn it into one's own.
Each method had its pros and cons, but the vast majority of mages used the second one.
Because it was stable and safe, it had become the mainstream method in the modern magical world.
As for the first method, it was considered heretical, because converting life force into mana was irreversible.
The more mana you converted, the faster your life force drained away, and the faster you died.
This was usually only used by people driven by deep hatred, or by fanatics who didn't care about their own lives.
Because its effects were immediate and dramatic, it could make someone much stronger in a very short time.
Most mages looked down on that method with contempt.
On top of that, Serie told Rowan that there was actually a third way of extracting mana—one considered the heresy among heresies.
That was squeezing the life force out of other people and converting it into your own mana.
This magic had been born from combining the first method with necromancy.
It had been invented in the mythic age by a mage who specialized in necromancy.
Though not long after he created it, he was killed.
And just to be clear, the one who killed him was none other than Serie herself.
Hearing that, Rowan vaguely understood something.
In the world of Frieren, elves lived terrifyingly long lives. Serie herself was an ancient being who had lived from the mythic age all the way to the present.
If that necromancer really had created a spell that extracted others' life force and turned it into mana, then what kind of target would produce the greatest amount of mana?
Humans?
Please.
Humans only lived about a hundred years at most. Even if you drained them dry, how much could you really get?
Sure, the necromancer could have tried making up for poor quality with quantity.
But the problem was that once the number of victims got too high, it would inevitably attract the attention of other mages and get him hunted down.
So the best target would naturally have been elves.
That was probably why Serie killed him. If you were draining her own kind for mana, who else was she supposed to kill if not you?
Elves rarely gathered together, and their emotions toward one another were often relatively distant for all sorts of reasons.
But that still wasn't any excuse for some necromancer to prey on them.
So that necromancer had absolutely not died unfairly.
On the other hand, after learning how to extract mana, Rowan had Hashirama carry the unconscious Minato and Kanae back to their room to rest, while he himself began trying to absorb mana from the atmosphere.
And then something strange happened.
The moment Rowan started absorbing mana from the air, the golden gate inside him trembled faintly.
Mana so dense it was practically liquid began pouring through the golden gate and into Rowan's body.
It was pulling mana directly out of the world of Frieren and feeding it into him.
Rowan could feel his mana swelling at a pace visible to the naked eye.
Good lord.
He really hadn't expected the golden gate to do something like this.
It shocked him.
Once again, he realized he had underestimated this artifact.
It didn't just let him travel between worlds. It was also a cultivation amplifier.
The speed at which it built mana was downright absurd.
At the same time, Serie's eyebrow twitched, and she let out a small sound of surprise.
In her perception, Rowan had previously possessed no mana at all. Yet now, on his very first attempt at extracting it, the mana inside him was expanding at a rate visible to the naked eye.
That rate of growth was far beyond anything Serie had expected.
"That's enough. Stop there."
Just as Rowan was sinking deeper into the rush of rapidly surging mana, Serie's voice suddenly rang in his ears.
Then, a powerful stream of mana entered his body and casually interrupted his training.
Rowan paused, then opened his eyes and looked up at Serie.
There was no doubt the person who had stopped his training was her.
Serie looked down at Rowan, who was still sitting cross-legged on the ground.
"I'm not entirely sure what was happening just now, but your training ends here for today."
Then she added an explanation.
"Your mana is growing too fast. It's already far beyond your ability to control."
Rowan's heart tightened. He immediately tried to control the mana inside him.
And just as Serie had said, he couldn't really control it.
Well, that wasn't quite right.
He could control it—but "control" was a generous word. It was nothing like moving it as easily as his own limbs. It was clumsy, difficult, and laborious.
Like trying to hitch a tiny horse to a giant cart.
Serie saw his struggle and gave him advice.
"Don't try to control all of it at once. Start little by little."
Rowan followed her instructions and tried controlling only a portion of his mana—about one-tenth of what he currently had.
This time, he managed to move it successfully.
It still wasn't smooth or natural, but compared to before, it was much better.