I knocked on the door to Farion’s office, Theo standing behind me.

  “Enter” Farion’s voice came from inside.

  We entered the room, and I was greeted with the sight of Farion sitting in the room with the lights turned off and the windows closed.

  “You called us sir?” Theo asked.

  “Yes, yes I did.”

  He grew silent for a moment.

  “What happened then?” I asked

  “I called you today, to give you a choice.”

  He took out 2 bottles that were glowing, one the color of glowing ember and the other a leaf.

  “Something really serious has happened, you all will be given the specifics later but all of you will need to fight in a war”

  Theo gulped.

  “The choice I give you is this, as my personal students I can let you remain here, you both will remain safe, and I will continue teaching you after the war.

  The second choice on the other hand...

  You will participate in the war like everyone else, but I will help you become quasi-mages today with no side effects.”

  Eleven suddenly emerged from my soul space, he could enter it ever since he bonded with me, he usually stayed on the tree that appeared in the dead center of the soul space after the bonding.

  “You should talk with Eleven before making the decision” saying this he sat back down and waved his hand as if to shoo us away.

  “No need” Theo started,

  “I will go”

  He was not hungry for war, he just wanted to become a quasi-mage sooner.

  I was the same perhaps...

  I looked at Eleven and he nodded at me.

  “I will go too”

  Farion stared at our faces for a few moments and a very slight smile appeared on his face.

  “Excellent, both of you have finished with choosing your talent spells I presume?”

  Both of us nodded.

  “Show them to me.”

  Taking out my diary from my robe I opened it and took out a neatly folded page

  Theo on the other hand, took out a book. We both handed Farion the circles we choose/ made.

  “Good choices from both of you… But Eric, may I ask why you choose such a spell?”

  “I need the extra mana sir, I can’t make anything bigger then a snake last more than a few minutes with my current capacity”

  He nodded.

  “Drink these potions and start engraving the talent spell, the moment you do start meditating and take in as much mana as possible.”

  He handed me back my page.

  I had pestered the librarian lady for quite a while in order to get help with this spell.

  I opened it and started revising the elaborate mana circle that was drawn on it, then I immediately entered my soul space.

  The walls were yet to lighten in color, as I had not completed the conditions in order to advance. But the moment I make the talent spell the conditions should be complete.

  I drew the magic circle above my soul, and then let it fall on my soul.

  And as the spell entered my soul I heard the now familiar click…

  The world paused for a moment.

  And then the walls started to lighten until they turned gray, I looked around the soulspace for a moment, my soul was covered in what looked like hundreds of magic circles, though it was indeed engraved with a hundred magic circles. The grassland was as serene as always and with the addition of the single tree in the middle, it looked like a oak tree, the place looked even more beautiful.

  I activated the spell I had just carved, the spell which will continue working till my death.

  Immediately the upper portion of my soulspace started to glow a little, and small amounts of mana started to automatically gather inside.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  This spell is a type of spell any competent mage was supposed to have as a talent spell, because it was automatic meditation. Who wouldn’t want to grow even while sleeping, mana recovery couldn’t increase the total amount of mana after all!

  While most just choose a spell that gathered mana from the outside I choose the conversion spell, the spells that converted energy into mana, because there were places where mana didn’t exist, and I never wanted to not be able to use magic.

  My spell worked by converting the slight amount of entropy, in other words heat, that existed outside the soulspace into mana, though right now the amount of mana it generated was barely 1 percent of what I could gather manually it should become 20 something percent when I become a Quasi-mage and be equal to meditation in total mana strengthening by the time I become a tier-1 mage.

  “Now drink this potion” Farion said as soon as I exited the soul space, In his hands was the red potion.

  I took out the cork from the potion, I smelled it and it smelled like a mixture of rose and apple? Anyways I drank the whole thing in a single breath.

  Surprisingly it was tasteless, almost like water.

  “Enter your soulspace and start gathering mana immediately” He said and I followed.

  Entering the soulspace I noticed that the ground was spewing out Fire mana, and it the mana inside the soulspace was slowly increasing in density, much faster than what was possible with manual meditation.

  I touched the walls, and started absorbing as much mana as I could, trying to attract as many mana orbs as physically possible for a mage apprentice.

  This gathering continued for what felt like hours, I almost fell into a trance.

  Suddenly I could not absorb any more mana, and I noticed mysel- I mean I noticed that the walls started darkening a little.

  I entered the soulspace, and noticed that the whole place had turned absolutely red, Filled to the brim with Fire mana, So much in fact that my soul was slowly being turned a shade of red.

  It looked as though my soul would resist the invasion, but the surrounding mana rushed in like mad dogs, and I felt really sharp pain everywhere, as though I was being burned alive.

  But it didn’t feel fatal or even harmful at all, it was like my soul was accepting it like some sort of growth pain. The pain felt a little good actually.

  And then slowly the last visage of white faded from my soul, it had turned into a bright red orb. As soon as it did the pain disappeared, and the walls started expanding.

  11m..13m..15m..19m..20m

  The expansion slowed down when the diameter of my soulspace reached about 19 m, and when it became 20 m it stopped expanding.

  A good amount of mana started entering inside the soulspace, and the red mana started thinning out and becoming more and more red, stopping when it became a bright red.

  The mana became a lot denser when you become a Quasi-mage, and the destructive power rose from the level of almost no damage to lethal.

  I exited the soulspace, and immediately noticed a difference in the world, the colors were brighter, the sounds louder and the smell of the flower on Farion’s desk was now noticable.

  And the distance at which I could use magic and perceive the world with my eyes closed had increased from the 80m to 160m.

  I looked besides me and was greeted by the sight of Theo sitting in front of a empty bottle.

  This kid is about to become a Quasi-mage too..

  It was almost unprecedented in the academy as far as I was aware, being allowed to become quasi-mages before the end of the year, and even being supplied a potion as help.

  “What are you waiting for? I am sure your hands are itching to try out your improved magic. Go outside.”

  I bowed in his direction, he had been an excellent teacher for the 3 months he taught me after all, and exited the room.

  I took a deep breath outside his office, I was happy today, I had advanced another step on the path of a mage.

  I entered the small garden attached to his office.

  I closed my eyes to feel the mana in my soul space, and then slowly extended my finger, there was something I really wanted to do ever since I gave up on the system.

  I aimed my finger at a boulder, and slowly made a fireball the size of my fist about 5 meters in front of my finger.

  “Go” I said for the sake of fun and then smashed it at the large boulder the size of a adult elephant.

  A small explosion occurred, and the boulder had slightly blackened.

  I made fireballs all around the boulder and continued to smash it with them, after about 50 fireballs, which was a lot more than what I could make as a mage-apprentice and as a system mage, the boulder split in 3 pieces.

  My heart started beating wildly, I had did it after all, though the firepower was a bit lower then the fireball spell under the system I could use fire mana in many more ways and for far longer, with my mana recovery speed and the automatic meditation spell working in the background I could continue with the same firepower for atleast half an hour, I had finally achieved a level of power that was comparable to what the system had offered me in the form of the legendary class.

  This was real magic.

  I made a small circle on the largest boulder fragment and started supplying it with mana, after giving the explosion circle about 20 fireballs worth of mana it exploded.

  The boulder piece further broke into smaller pieces.

  “You having fun destroying my garden Eric?” Farion’s voice came from behind, though I could detect any moving object in a 90 meter radius in all directions I still couldn’t detect when Farion appeared behind me.

  I looked at his smiling face.

  “I am actually, I was about to use a wind magic circle to throw out the smaller fragments outside though”

  “No need” Saying this he waved his hand, and all the broken pieces of the boulders disappeared.

  “I should be able to do that too now right?”

  “Yes, but only after you start changing your soul space towards a path to power.”

  I nodded.

  “Did you see where Eleven is?”

  “He flew towards the garden”

  “I should take my leave too then, to go wear the bracelets again”

  He shook his head at the mention of bracelets, when I sensed the urgency in his voice when he called me I didn’t bother putting on the mana suppressing bracelets.

  I was about to exit the garden, but Farion started talking again.

  “Take care of Laven along with Theo from now onwards, while he is a tier-1 mage you are obviously a lot more mature than he is, you lived for more then 70 years while he is barely 19 after all.

  While he doesn’t speak a lot that’s because of his childhood, He was a nameless orphan before I took him in. You have not known each other for long, but talk with him a bit more.”

  I nodded, he loved the disciple he took in before us almost like a father it seems.

  “But now I am curious, why did you take him in?”

  “I can see the soul spaces of the people I touch, it is one the spells I designed. I was roaming around our kingdom, I was about to leave Eldoria from the north to enter the kingdom of Frosthaven, near one of those towns he tried to steal my purse, I order to prove to my friend that even kids are not pure nowadays I viewed his soulspace.

  And what I found was so full of purity that I decided to take him in”

  “What did you find?”

  He smiled a little.

  “He didn’t even have a name, but had such an immense love for life that his soul was filled with little purple flowers, which I later found were called Lavenders, That’s why I named him Laven, the one with the big heart.”