Nathan

  Year 2851 | Month 2 | Day 3

  Or not.

  I feel bored out of my mind as I repeat the exercise given to me by Juan over and over again. One time after another. For hours on end. Even entire days in fact.

  To the point that I’m not even allowed to leave my lab or fight on the battlefields anymore.

  Which kind of exposed the whole ‘contracts don’t affect me’ thing to the other nobles. But they’re all too afraid of Juan to do anything to me. So that’s fine.

  What isn’t fine is Juan’s specific training method.

  It’s one that takes full advantage of my immortality while also not at the same time.

  I’m stuck trying to force mana out of my body without a spell circle but in a way that won’t harm my body. And if I do end up setting myself ablaze, I have to stop and restart entirely. But if I manage to get the fire mana out of my body without losing control of it, he just has me slowly bring it back inside of myself.

  Which I’ve never managed to do without setting myself on fire again.

  So I’ve just been sitting here in my lab setting myself on fire over and over and over again for entire days now. All while wearing fireproof clothes. Since that’s better than sitting in my lab naked for days doing this.

  The point of the exercise is to get my control over my own fire mana at an all-time high. To perfect it to the point that I never lose even the tiniest amount of mana from within my grasp.

  And after I’m able to do the entire exercise multiple times without any slipups, Juan wants me to create numerous spell circles of my own making before copying exactly what my most basic spells do in the spell circles.

  Without the scripts.

  With one formally crafted spell circle with scripts running on one side of me and one made by my own mana manipulation without scripts on the other to compare the two.

  Then the third stage of the training comes after I manage to copy a spell without the script. Which involves me doing it without the setup of a spell circle at all. Simply through controlling the mana.

  As for when I’ll actually reach the third stage?

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  Probably not for a very long time.

  And I mean a very long time.

  Considering how I can’t even get halfway through the first stage without burning my body from the inside out. I can’t even get the mana to leave my body in a way that’s different from how I do it with my spell circles. Which is instinctive and done through repeatedly using that trainer device to teach a user to make spell circles that I did when I was first becoming a magician.

  And even that is specialized just to make spell circles. So there are several things a Class S magician manipulating their mana wouldn’t do that someone does for those spell circles.

  I let out a sigh when I fail another attempt.

  This is both annoying and boring. And what’s worse is the fact that Juan isn’t even here to give me tips. He just straight up told me to work on this, said something about time being the only teacher for learning mana manipulation without a spell circle, and went off to fight in the war. Since he’s still technically expected to do that in our agreement.

  And if I had to guess, he feels doing it this way by leaving me to work on mana manipulation is a way to teach me even without being here to do it personally. Which is annoying but probably not wrong.

  I sigh again before focusing on my mana manipulation. Trying to go through it as carefully as I possibly can. But even with that, it takes me another week to make any sort of progress at all.

  That progress being at least getting my mana through my muscles and the rest of my flesh to the little magical membrane that runs along my skin.

  Getting my mana through that, however, is proving to be impossible. Without blowing it up, that is. Since that happens a lot.

  And has left my clothes rather damaged numerous times even with their fireproof nature.

  Because explosions are more than just flames.

  Right when I’m about to give up for the day to take a break though, a certain Class S magician walks through the entrance of my lab with a satisfied look on his face.

  “Good,” Juan says with a nod of his head. “You’ve reached the crucial point of the first stage. Things will get a lot easier after this.”

  I blink at that before narrowing my eyes a little in my skepticism.

  “Child, know that most magicians aiming to master mana manipulation never reach the progress you have achieved until they are at least fifty-five years of age,” Juan says, startling me with this little revelation. And boosting my pride a little bit. “Because even one mistake while practicing can end up with them dying a gruesome death or becoming crippled for life. And there are no simulations that can perfectly imitate direct mana manipulation.”

  Oh. So there’s no way for a magician to safely and securely train to master their mana manipulation.

  Which explains why there are so few Class S magicians around.

  If someone wants to become one, they have to fully master mana manipulation without a spell circle. And if they make even the tiniest of errors while trying to do so, they could die or lose a limb.

  Yet just looking at how many times it’s taken me to get this far alone… imagining having to do that without making any mistakes is honestly a little frightening.

  “Now I expect you to clear this next hurdle within a year, understood?” Juan says, shocking me again. Enough that I find myself gaping at him. “Good. While you practice this step, I expect you to continue your experimentation on the battlefield starting tomorrow.”

  I continue gaping at the man even as he leave my lab, closing the door behind him.

  Within… a year?

  That’s going to be difficult.

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