FALLEN ORACLE

**Chapter 5: Meeting the Headmaster Again (6)**

This modest display board once again refreshed Chen Yi's understanding of how low the Celestial Race could sink – there was no bottom to these brutes.Headmaster Morin, besides his decades of devotion to magical research and teaching, had led a very simple private life. He was an old man with extremely low material desires. His single, lifelong dream was to be recognised by the gods and ascend to the upper realm.Now, he had indeed reached the upper realm he had so longed for – but in a form he himself could never have imagined.Chen Yi recalled the solemn ascension ceremony at the Holy City of Catlerai and the tears of emotion in the old man's eyes that day. The Celestial Race had made the headmaster's lifelong pursuit look utterly ridiculous.He could picture the headmaster stepping through the Star Gate into that abandoned warehouse – the "lower realm entrance" – only to face a group of upper‑realm mages waiting for him. Without a word, they would have murdered him with cruel magic and refined his body into a mana core.Unquestionably, this "Thomas Kaeln" was either the "Great God Kaeln" who had communed with the headmaster, or a descendant of his.According to the heartless classification of these Celestials, Headmaster Morin – who had communed with him – was the "private property" of the Kaeln family, giving them the right to sell the refined core.And not only Morin – all the ascendants of the past, including Radik, had likely met the same fate.This private auction hall on B5 of the Lower Realm Management Office was probably a place for the noble families who conducted Divine Communions to trade – including the trade of magical products made from the remains of ascendants.Reading this, Chen Yi clenched his teeth so hard he thought they might c***k. His body trembled uncontrollably, yet he had to keep anyone from noticing anything unusual.In truth, if the two guards could have seen the terrifying expression on the face of "Lynde" – who was turned away from them – they would immediately have sensed something wrong and triggered the alarm.At that moment, Chen Yi longed to burst into mad laughter and blast the entire auction hall – and even the whole of Redblade Avenue – to pieces with his magic.But he knew he did not have that power.Whether as "Lynde" or as Chen Yi, he had only one choice now – to endure.Over the past year or more, Chen Yi had gradually developed a method to combat his impulsive emotions.Whenever he reached the brink of collapse, he forced himself to imagine two scenes: one was Lisa's final night in the bamboo grove; the other was the image of Tiya, struggling against the agony of the Heaven‑rank Stone's extraction, yet still managing to smile at him.Their sacrifices gave him the strength to go on. It was precisely so as not to let them down that Chen Yi demanded of himself to always act rationally and never recklessly.Even so, it took him a great effort to regain his composure.From now on, Chen Yi had to analyse the information on this infuriating and despairing display board.---The foremost question raised by this board was: *Why could the bodies of ascendants – including the headmaster – be refined into mana cores?*From past experience, only magical monsters contained mana cores. Why did humans have them too?Moreover, the more powerful the monster, the higher the grade of its core. Accordingly, it seemed that the headmaster, as the strongest mage of the lower realm, possessed the highest grade of mana core.Were humans and monsters really so similar?Chen Yi realised he needed to change his perspective. Over the past few thousand years, the Fallen Race had taken for granted the process of "killing monsters – refining cores – crafting staves," but had never questioned where the mana in those cores came from.At that moment, he recalled his discussion with Headmaster Morin in the library's rare‑book room, about the circulation of mana.In his paper, the headmaster had argued that after a mage drew mana and cast a spell, the mana eventually returned to the Magic Net.Chen Yi, however, had proposed a different hypothesis: that after a spell was cast, the mana simply disappeared, making mana a non‑renewable resource.Then a new thought struck him: *What if both his and the headmaster's hypotheses were wrong?*If the mana neither returned to the Magic Net nor vanished without trace, then where did it go?Combining what he had seen in the Lower Realm Management Office, there was only one answer: *it went into the caster's body.*With this insight, two opposite flows of mana gradually became clear in Chen Yi's mind:- Lifeforms in the lower realm drew mana from the surrounding Magic Net to cast spells. After casting, the mana entered the caster's body.- Lifeforms in the upper realm drew mana from within themselves to cast spells. After casting, the mana dissipated into the environment, eventually returning to the Magic Net.Thus, the Heaven‑rank Stone could extract mana from a Fallen Race body, and the Celestial Race could refine a Fallen Race corpse into a mana core – because their bodies contained mana.The same applied to monsters. If they too drew mana from the environment, then their bodies would also store large amounts of mana.But neither the monsters of the lower realm nor the Fallen Race could use the mana stored inside their own bodies. They could only draw mana from the environment.Consequently, the more a person used magic, the more mana accumulated inside them.And the more powerful the mage – using spells that consumed more mana – the faster they would accumulate mana, the greater the total they could store, and the higher the quality of the core that could be refined from them.So the "kindly gods" who taught relatively high‑level magic to lower‑realm mages through Divine Communion were not only maintaining the fraud of mana extraction and their own perfect image.By learning more advanced magic, the Fallen Race mages could store mana faster – and thus the "gods" could extract greater benefits from them.It was like raising livestock: to get a good return, you must feed them regularly. The upper‑realm nobles were "farming" the mages of the continent of Alpha, periodically "bleeding" them for mana.The intent of the Celestial rulers in manipulating the political situation of the lower realm now became clear:Only war would force more people to use magic extensively, causing them to accumulate mana quickly, which the upper realm could then extract during Divine Communion.And to avoid over‑exploitation – exhausting the "herd" – they would also mediate when necessary.That was why the continent of Alpha had only ever had two nations, the Kingdom and the Duchy. That was why the continent could never experience a truly devastating war, nor could it ever enjoy lasting peace.