~ The Adventurer Chronicle 34 ~

... hit the ground with a resounding thud.
- And down he goes. Now this is what I want you to pay attention to" - she pointed at the fallen man - "When sustaining energy for a long period of time... any kind of energy, you have to keep an eye on your reserves. As we've seen here, he has been fighting holding an energy barrier, as well as offensively casting, and all of this stacks, faster than most people realize in the heat of battle."
She circled around him, but all he could was turn his head to follow her with just one eye open.
"See, everyone has limits, and while it is good to keep pushing them, it is unwise to do so in a life or death situation. You can usually push yourself over your natural limit, doesn't require any special training, just the will to do so. Who can tell the consequences of doing so?"
A girl in a blue dress shyly raised her hand.
- "Aliara!" - Neralda said point at her excitedly.
- "Well, when you push yourself too far you can fall to exhaustion. If physical you may be unable to move, mental you might pass out, and spiritual you risk your life."
- "Correct, but he was casting spells, yet his body is the one not moving, why is that? Also, why do we not immediately collapse as we hit the energy limit?"
The girl blushed slightly and indicated not knowing, but looking at the rest of the students, none of them seemed to know, so Neralda continued.
- "Thank you Ali, the reason is in the cycle of energy. We take energy from the universe, most of it comes from eating, but also we passively absorb from the environment. When you practice here, and reach your limit, your spells stop working because you feel safer not forcing yourself, but in battle, when something important is on the line, you will not hesitate to do it. But when going over, your body will go into a negative state, consuming bits of reserve it can spare. When the body feels the strain, it stops giving, and starts taking back. But since you can't give it what it wants, it forces you into an optimal state to take what it needs. In our case, that means the body needs to get energy burnt for mana, the interesting part is until he manages to recover a good amount of mana, any energy he gets is immediately taken to form back those reserves and recoup any losses. So for a big period he won't be able to cast, even if his life depended upon it, even if his body managed to move again shortly, he would still be running empty, and that is a dead mage."
Everyone observed attentively the explanation. Some looked a bit scared, started moving around as if checking their energy reserves.
- "So...