It's been three months since I changed my training routine, and well, all I can say is the results speak for themselves. Especially in my weapon mastery, I've always loved that training the most, but with my new body enhanced by mana, I can push like never before.
Right now, I'm on the ground, barely able to breathe after training for the past hour and a half on spearmanship. Ragged breaths came out of my mouth, my heart still pounding. Short wheezes sounded. I was trying my hardest to catch my breath.
My hands were still bleeding from my repeated movements, but I felt better than ever. Lately, Alaric has been making me let him heal my hands.
He tells me that it gets in the way of our sparring, but in reality, he's just mad when blood lands on his clothes. Or even worse, one time it landed in his eye. I've never seen the man freak out as much as he did that day.
For someone who is a renowned healer, you'd think he'd be used to blood a little bit more.
Anyways, from that day on, he's been cleaning them up enough not to spit blood, but by this point, my hands were pretty banged up. To be honest, my entire body is pretty messed up if you look at it as a whole. Most of my scars are from my childhood, a past better forgotten.
I had a plethora of tiny scars littering my body; only some spots are terrible, though. My right shoulder is one of them, with the giant X-shaped scar.
I had new scratches every day from Alaric's new training plan. Luckily, he healed them quickly before they scarred.
Alaric implemented it a month ago, and I've been enjoying it quite thoroughly.
A couple of days of the week, I go into the woods by myself for the day and try to hunt mana beasts. There's nothing here that could outrank me, so it mostly comes down to skill.
But… the first few months were rough. I wasn't used to the ferocity of wild animals, compared to Alaric's smooth and controlled movements.
So I got hurt. And by I got hurt, I mean every time I came home, I had a new scratch, bite mark, or throbbing wound Alaric had to take care of.
So I turned my scarred body into an even worse mess. Luckily, Alaric healed everything major.
Anyways, that's enough useless thoughts.
Today's a very special day, an amazing day even.
Because today I'm going to form my first circle around my mana heart, and hopefully become a Twilight first circle magus, or at least attempt to.
Most people have to make multiple attempts before finally successfully making their first circle.
Yesterday, I finally gathered enough mana from the atmosphere into my body, from my meditation sessions.
Just barely enough to condense a twilight ring around my heart.
Now I just have to start the process to form it.
And I'm doing it without Alaric, for good reason, of course. I wouldn't do it by myself if I didn't have plans to go to Liberta. But I have to gain a little independence when it comes to magic for the foreseeable future.
So I want to do this by myself.
I already asked Alaric, and he agreed to let me do it by myself, but I kind of lied to the old man because I didn't tell him about my plans to move. Moving into a seated position and getting into my meditation pose, I took a breath.
"Phew"
The process of forming a mana circle is kind of complicated, but at the same time, fairly simple in theory. its just hard to carry out.
The simplest way to put it is that you're grabbing all the mana from your body, and some additional mana from the atmosphere, and pouring it directly into your mana heart, and that's the easy part.
The hard part is shaping mana into a circle that'll rotate around your mana heart. The main problem is the utilization of "Will", which is needed to guide your mana into a proper mana circle and start its rotation. It's not something easily done, especially on the first try.
A mana circle acts as a kind of booster to your mana. It's an overall improvement; each circle changes you on a fundamental level.
But the main point of your first circle is now that you have your "will" imposed on that circle of mana, you can finally command spells!
Finally, I'll be able to make shit blow up.
I'm excited.
I wouldn't say that's the only reason I'm excited, but it's a decent percentage for sure.
I'm also excited for the improvement to my body; my weapon mastery will improve leaps and bounds after my body grows to a new degree.
I have to focus; these thoughts are distracting me.
Counting down in my head, I prepared myself..
3
2
1
Go!
And instantly, all the mana in my body was suctioned directly into my mana heart, and simultaneously, I was drawing mana from the atmosphere.
It felt like my brain was splitting in two from trying to do these two difficult things at once, but I had to focus.
I need to do this, and I need to do it quickly.
With all the mana at my disposal, I stopped absorbing mana and focused on shaping the mana I had.
I pictured a circle inside the right side of my chest, and I willed the mana to converge into a thin and dim circle around my heart.
I could feel it, the shape was there, it was in my body, I just had to will it to move.
I poured all my mana into the circle, trying to get it to hold its shape.
I used my will to attempt to start the rotation. I willed the mana to rotate around my heart.
Only to fail, and the mana dissipated into my body.
It's fine, I expected failure at least once.
I tried again only to fail twice in a row.
So I willed it again, and this time it didn't dissipate.
But…. it wouldn't rotate either.
I don't understand.
I'm guiding the mana and visualizing it as well as I can, as well as commanding it with my will, but why won't it rotate?
I focused more before starting to yell in my mind.
Rotate!
I let my breath I was holding out and then, with one final push, poured all of my will into one command, one desire for that ring to rotate.
And it started to move.
"YES! GO!!
I couldn't stop myself from laughing. It was moving, it was working.
I was officially a Twilight first circle magus. I had gained strength.
I wasn't weak anymore.
I was a magus.
I could feel it, the mana seeping into my body, improving it more, changing me on a level unknown before.
and then it hit me.
The power, the pure mana circling my body, was too much for my body to handle all at once.
I could feel it. I was gonna pass out.
My vision blurred as my eyes rolled to the back of my head.
And then everything went black.
***
I woke up to the sound of Alaric swinging his sword. He was practicing by himself in the grass.
I guess he moved me while I was asleep once again.
Lying in the grass, I closed my eyes for a second, bathing in the sunlight.
I was exhausted.
But the recent events quickly flashed through my mind, and I shot to my feet instantly.
I had to ask Alaric now.
I went towards Alaric. Reaching him quickly, I started to talk.
"Thank you for moving me while I was asleep. I have something important to ask you."
And without giving him time to say something snide, I said.
"I want to attend one of Liberta's Magus Academies."
Alaric smiled and looked at me pensively. He stayed silent for a while before speaking.
"Which one?"
I was a little shocked that was his first question, but I went with the flow.
"I'm not quite sure. I'd have to see both academies face to face to get a bigger picture."
Alaric continued training with the sword and said.
"Have you thought about this for an extended period? Or is this a split-second decision now that you meet the hidden requirement of having a fully formed mana circle?"
Striking the iron while it's hot, I answered.
"I've thought about this for a while. I want to experience the world, and to do that, I want to be unparalleled in magic. I want to be paramount."
I took a breather, and then continued to speak.
"And for that to happen, I want to follow in your footsteps. I have to attend where the best of the best go, and that's either Ashborn or Nagravar."
Alaric smiled.
He let out a loud sigh.
"For once we agree, brat."
He tapped his sword against the grass a couple times.
"I'll cover all the costs of your trip as well as your tuition fee. Think of it as a parting gift of sorts, but in turn, you have to attend Ashborn Academy. That's my only requirement."
I thought about it for a second and realized I had nothing to lose, and simply nodded my head.
Ashborn must've been where Aleric attended.
"Good kid, now let's talk about that first circle you gained."
Alaric put his hands up as if telling me to chill.
"I'm guessing you're excited, but don't try to impose your will on anything just yet, lest you blow us both to bits."
I gave him a cheeky smile.
I tried to manipulate mana to become a fireball to show my generational talent, the only problem was, I realized halfway through, I had no clue how to do that.
"BOOOOM"
Ah shit.
"AH YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD KID!"
End of chapter 5.