# Chapter 27: 27
Radis stared at Huber, who was still unconscious.
She knew that he was a magic stone dealer.
But she never imagined it would go to such an extreme.
No, she couldn't believe it even when she looked at it with her own eyes.
—I can't believe it's that bad... even the Imperial Subjugation Squad wouldn't have collected that much after going to Monsterwood all year.
Without much thought, Radis picked up a yellow magic stone.
—…!
Again.
It happened again.
The yellow energy that had been flowing within the magic stone disappeared like a candle being extinguished.
And just like before, when the magic stone lost its light, it turned into dust.
Radis picked up another magic stone, this time with his left hand. And the result was the same.
Radis repeatedly picked up more magic stones as if possessed, and these simply continued to turn into dust.
After a while, almost all the stones had turned into dust and Radis was dumbfounded.
She couldn't believe it.
—What is happening?
Radis grabbed the hem of her dress and finally carefully picked up the largest red magic stone, the size of a fingernail, from Huber's secret hiding place.
This time, the light did not disappear.
She breathed deeply and forcefully as she calmed her heart.
And he concentrated all his senses on his fingertips.
After that, he slowly touched the magic stone once more.
When the tip of his finger came into contact with the stone, the light that had been fluttering within the magic stone grew larger and larger.
A warm energy could be felt in his fingers.
And beyond that warmth was a familiar sensation, and it began to spread within her from where she touched the magic stone.
This time he felt it clearly.
He felt like his whole body was getting hot from running for so long.
A vivid sensation of his bones, his muscles, waking up from a long sleep.
A feeling of euphoria so intense that it felt like I could touch the sky if I simply stretched my hand upward.
-…manna.
How long!
The mana he absorbed from the magic stone caused his entire body to vibrate with a strange hum. It was something familiar, something I missed.
-As?
She really couldn't believe it.
Purified mana cannot be obtained from magic stones just like that.
As far as she knew, mana could only be obtained through a long period of training the body until it could recognize the mana within the miasma, and this was only achieved through the insistent acceptance of energy into the body. It was a power that could only be obtained after a long and grueling training process that would make anyone want to give up.
Meanwhile, the red magic stone in his hand, whose mana had been transferred to it, slowly turned gray.
Then, it soon broke apart, crumbling and turning into dust.
Radis rubbed the dust between his fingers.
It was soft, like burnt ash.
It had really turned into dust.
—This can't be...
It was impossible.
What a magic stone contained was miasma: the power of monsters.
Just because a person tries to reach for lightning does not mean that they will gain the power of lightning. In the same way, a person can make a flame by using a flint, but that does not mean that he will gain power over fire. People cannot use the miasma if they do not have it within them in the first place.
One person could be electrocuted if they touched lightning, and another could be burned if they touched fire. If someone came into contact with the miasma, it would become poison to their body.
That's why people were afraid of the miasma. In her previous life, she had died from miasma poisoning.
Radis felt the mana, which heated his entire body, slowly seep into his system.
He carefully raised one hand and placed it on her abdomen, in the center of her body.
Perhaps inside there was a mana core that was not originally in sixteen-year-old Radis's body.
Its core had a lot of power.
-I can't believe it.
He only managed to create one mana core in his previous life, and it happened when he was already twenty-four years old. Even that was like a miracle.
That mana was something that the knights, who had trained for their entire lives, could not even handle without adverse effects.
On the other hand, Radis was never taught how to properly refine mana.
It was actually just a coincidence that he managed to create a mana core.
When his body was on the verge of collapse due to miasma poisoning, he felt a certain echo within his body that pulsed strangely.
As if he had two hearts.
The echo had allowed him to stand up once more when just a moment ago he was dying from miasma poisoning.
He felt as if there was a furnace inside his heart, and that furnace burned and purified the miasma to create another power that would allow him to live.
She instinctively felt that it was mana.
Even at that moment, Radis couldn't believe it.
The creation of a mana core was a great achievement in itself, and a knight who had become a mana user would be recognized for his skill and would henceforth be known as a mage knight instead of a normal knight.
Even so, he did not tell anyone about his ability to wield mana.
Because instinctively, she knew that it was not normal mana.
He couldn't believe that his abilities had increased by being able to extract mana from the miasma.
—It was strange back then too, but this is really...really ridiculous. How is it possible to absorb the miasma of an unrefined magic stone and transform it into purified mana?
Radis' body began to shake beyond his control.
—It's not possible. It just can't be.
Valiz