“Congratulations for completing the first year of your education, and also good of luck in becoming a apprentice mage. I have graded the talent spell you designed, and most of you did pretty good.

  I have written some suggestions near the bottom.

  I have said this many times before, but as you all will be completing the Initiate mage rank and finally getting the mana storage talent soon, maybe today, maybe in the future or maybe you already did.

  The assignment for this week is to work on the shortcomings of the designed spells and engrave it in your soul. There will be no classes this week. If you want me to check your designs after you improve upon then just come to this room and leave them on any desk.” Saying this he disappeared.

  Last week he had told us we have learned enough to design a spell, and as most of us except Delsa were Initiate mages we could engrave a single talent spell inside our soul. They work automatically so we could be pretty daring with the designs.

  I looked at the sheet of paper I had submitted to Edward.

  Perpetual sense 8X times the length of the soulspace.

  Mana sense spells worked by dispersing a small amount of mana in the surroundings, and after observing how the mana reacted with the surrounding the spell would feed that information to the brain.

  It allowed mages to observe any oncoming projectile, magical or otherwise, allowed the slowing down of perspective, which can be termed as slowing down time for everyone except the user’s brain, though this remains a highly inaccurate example the spell does work, allowed the caster to see mana in the real life and improve mana control by upto 3 times.

  Due to this Mana sense was a very popular talent spell.

  (Mana circles and spells are the same thing, though talent spells are different from normal spells in the fact that they are ingraved inside the soul while the normal spell are engraved on the soul)

  What did I do different then?

  The principle I worked on reduced the mana control increment to 2 times, instead it increased the range from 2 times that of the soulspace, i.e, 10m, to 8 times that of the soulspace, i.e, 40m, and let the brain automatically slow down when a projectile approached.

  This was actually not a popular choice as improving mana control was much harder than just engraving one or 2 normal spells to get almost as good of an effect.

  Though talent spells improve with the rank of a mage and the normal spells don’t, so the unique aspects of the spells keep improving beyond what normal spells can do.

  I saw that some errors had been marked in the designed circle with ways to correct them and some correct parts marked to improve them.

  Below a note was written,

  Good choice, with the amount of mana restriction bracelets you have worn till now your mana control is easily 10 times better than the second in line Theo, though I don’t know how you handle the pain.

  Though Reincarnators have a unfair advantage over traditional mages.

  Due to their souls being made to cross over worlds their souls have been strengthened and have changed, so they can handle half a spell more then usual.

  You can change the mana circle to use the full space and if you add the characteristics of a pure mana control talent spell to this it should improve the control increase from 2 times to 4 times.

  I stared at the note as a tiny grin crept up on my face.

  I looked sideways and saw Delsa and Adiel with the same small grin on their face.

  Adiel had also chosen the mana sense spell, though instead of the time slowing variation he had gone for the telekinesis variation. It allowed users to exert small amounts of force on any object. Though legendary mages with this ability were known to be able to lift thousands of people.

  As for Delsa, I have absolutely no idea what she did, but seeing the grin on her face it was surely something good for her.

  Both of them had started sitting and staying with each other more and more over the last year.

  Good for them I guess.

  I exited the class and made my way to the waterfall. It had become my new sitting spot since I discovered it. And perhaps due to the way the trees were surrounding it the sound of the waterfall didn’t go very far, which had made me encounter no students while I sit here.

  I removed the bracelet that was on my arm, the moment I did a feeling of freedom swept over me.

  This was the bracelet that was half as powerful as the one he had used on me back then, but now I could make a small mana circle almost instantaneously wearing it.

  As for what I could do after removing it?

  I kept the bracelet in the inner pocket of my robe and waved my hand.

  All the mana that I could safely use without making the mana orb I had made for the assignment unstable came forth and I made a magic circle almost 1 meters in diameter in barely 10 seconds.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  As soon as it was complete a small tornado was summoned in the middle.

  I waved my hand at it and it disappeared.

  While it was a little underwhelming the magnitude would change significantly with the amount of mana supplied in the circle.

  And also, magic circles were never meant as attack spells anyway, they were to do tasks that didn’t require brute force.

  A mage’s attack power all came from the talent spell we will engrave as mage apprentices, the one that transforms mana into elemental mana.

  One thing about elemental mana is that it instantly transforms into the physical element as soon as it exists the mage’s body, without hurting the mage of course, one’s own mana never hurt oneself.

  For example I will be carving a fire element transformation talent spell after carving the mana sense talent spell as I had already completed the initiate mage rank and the moment I did carve the fire circle I would become a mage apprentice.

  Anyways after I do I will be finally be able to do what had been the starting of my dreams after all this while. I will control fire!

  And the fire becomes hotter and harder to put out with each increase in rank.

  The process of talent spell carving was a lot different than anything I had done before.

  I had not even carved a real spell till now, only apprentice mages could do that.

  But it was not that hard, not after the oh so painful bracelets I had worn for so much time.

  The circle on the walls had disappeared, and the walls had turned a bit transparent from the usual black, This happened when the mage had completed the requirements to advance to the next rank and could begin the process of advancing.

  I gathered mana for a while, in order to replenish what I had lost and started working on the talent spell while feeling happy, after all the first of my dreams was so close to completion that I could taste it.

  …

  Soon a week had passed and the class was about to begin again.

  I had submitted the magic circle twice this week, once after first editing it and secondly after correcting the errors he pointed out in the first one.

  I was waiting to receive his feedback once more before going ahead with the engraving.

  Edward appeared on his seat right on time.

  “Good morning everyone” He began.

  “Everyone amongst you is ready to truly begin your paths as mages. I have reviewed everyone’s talent spells and all of you are ready to engrave them, all of you are also ready to advance to the mage apprentice level, so in order to ensure your safety all of you will be doing both under my supervision today.

  Here are the talent spells you designed” He tapped his staff and a sheet of paper appeared in front of me, on it was the talent spell I had designed.

  “And if you turn the page you will find the mana conversion spells, you will be engraving them both today”

  I turned the page and sure enough there was another mana circle drawn there, this one I had not seen before. But it was just as complex as the mana sense spell.

  I had wondered about the great advantage of mage initiate rank over even the natural mana storage talents, but when I asked the 2nd floor librarian she told me that overall the naturals were still much better than the ones who had once become initiate mages, because the naturals found it easier to breakthrough to new ranks as compared to others. About 15 percent easier to be exact.

  Edward told us to start engraving the talent spell we designed first. I

  I entered my soulspace and started controlling the mana present into the mana sense spell circle.

  As soon as the pattern matched the real engraving could happen.

  To engrave this circle as a talent spell I had to surround myself, aka the soul, with it and then let it slowly sink inside without letting even a single line change.

  To most students this would be a monumental task, and the appearance of any flaw could change the effectiveness of the spell completely, which made the presence of Edward a blessing as he could help stabilize the spell.

  But for me it was quite simple, after all even Edward himself had acknowledged my mana control as much better than normal for my rank.

  When the circle was complete I brought it closer to my soul, and soon as the 2 touched a electrifying sensation, kind of like blood returning to a limb after sitting in a wrong posture for too long.

  I surrounded my soul completely with the circle, and then slowly shrunk it till it was touching my soul completely.

  Then, paying attention to the structure of the circle I slowly continued to shrink it.

  As soon as the circle was completely inside my soul it felt as though I heard a click, the surroundings immediately felt a little brighter, the grass in the soulspace greener and the floating mana with a little more tinge of red.

  I exited the soulspace and saw little white speck of lights floating around. I could see mana now!

  When I paid attention I could also see behind me without turning my head.

  I saw a fly flying inside the room, I imagined the fly slowing down, and it actually did slow down, not by much but I visibly felt the difference.

  I was the only one who was done, Edward nodded at me and then closed his eyes, perhaps to make sure of the other student’s progress.

  I turned the page and started remembering the mana conversion talent spell.

  After maybe 30 minutes the last student opened his eyes.

  As soon as she did Edward started speaking.

  “All of you managed to complete it without my help, excellent” A smile appeared on his usually nonchalant face.

  “Now, I will help each one of you individually to become mage apprentices as the mana conversion spell is much more complex than the ones you designed.” He said and beckoned the student on the first row to come forward.

  “Eric and Theo, you 2 can just engrave the spell on your own, be careful and you should be easily able to engrave the spells”

  Ah yes, Theo, this kid.

  I am the one who is called the madman but he is the one who truly deserves that title if you consider that he is really a kid.

  When he discovered that my mana control was improving drastically he started pestering me, Seeing his passion for magic I told him about the mana restraining bracelets.

  I asked me for the weakest one I had, and when I said it is really painful after a while he just said that he can handle it for magic.

  This fucking madlad wears it for 5 hours each day, which while being much less then my constant usage of stronger bracelets was much more respectful for a god damn 12 year old.

  I could not have handled half the pain for 10 seconds if I was his age, and this kid goes around wearing it for 5 hours daily.

  I shook my head and started the engraving process, which while being of a much more complex spell I managed to handle.

  The moment I felt the click sound again I felt time freeze, then the whole soulspace started shaking, the wall started blackening while moving further and further away from me, it stopped when the diameter of the soulspace was about 10 meters.

  Then the mana orb that had allowed me to use mana outside the soulspace till now dissolved into nothingness, and the white mana that only had a tinge of red till now turned completely red.

  A huge amount of bright red mana suddenly surged from outside the walls and rushed inside, only stopping when I felt a sense of being full.

  The moment the soulspace stabilized I exited the soulspace and summoned my mana from the soulspace, which mage apprentices could do naturally, the amount of mana mage apprentices had also became fixed, to grow as mages in the future requires the growth of mana as well, though the recovery of mana no longer requires manual gathering of mana, it had become automatic.

  As soon as the mana exited my body a huge smile came on my face.

  On my finger floated a small flame, made without any mana circles or the influence of system, something I had spent so long on..

  This,

  This is magic.

  End of Vol.1, The beginning of a journey