Mana wasn't a thing of distinct qualities; it was ever shifting in purpose. entirely dependent on the mage's mind and will to deliver an effect. Otherwise it flowed through a dozen pathways that coiled and travelled throughout the body. Eddies upon eddies flowing in a constant cycle. Collect one and you might find it soft, collect another and perhaps it would be rigid. There were feelings I couldn't describe at points when I'd bothered with the exercise. Each expressed with their own uniqueness but in the magnitude of the horde they were trapped in uniformity.
I didn't know if one eddie provided a greater effect than another. I couldn't have possibly known because I was easily in possession of dozens of millions. All focused on their ontological dance.
All I knew for certain was that whenever mana was applied, it did sothing.
Whether that was twisting reality or breaking it entirely. It was more than power, though power was all that I cared for. It was the capacity to play god within your own microcosm of the world. To see your desire made reality within the constraints of the ethereal chains clamped to your soul. I could only do things that affected my body. I had tried to nd Aira's wounds or fatigue to no avail.
I couldn't summon fire, nor could I move dirt (except through muscular application).
Even then, my magic was ridiculous.
The deal with the orc gave a spell I couldn't have hoped to match in a reasonable tifra. It also chose the direction of my path, and only in the case of becoming an archmage could I change that.
I was under no illusion that I'd attain such heights, but it was nice to dream.
That ant manipulation, considering all its intricacies, needed to be approached as an adaptive process. Understanding whether the mana needed a firm hand or a gentle guide, as well as where, was paramount if a mage desired to hone their control.
They could've just forced it like I did before Alvir taught otherwise, but that was a losing battle. The greater the mana needed to exhaust the body, the more you had to control at once.
Why make it harder than it had to be?
My body could handle much more now than when I started. Which ant that with my spell I could overpower adults of decent conditioning and essence infusion. Yet, if you looked at the ratio I could use, you'd think I was regressing.
My mana reserves grew much faster than my tolerance, and now? Now I couldn't even use a percent of my mana.
It was grating, but it was reality, and one I didn't know how to change with my lacking education.
Stronger was stronger though. To focus on a floundering aspect when everything else thrived was just perfectionism's whispered protests. It was a waste to spend ti thinking on it when I needed to focus on training.
Just had to hope that the droplets would fix that issue.
So many paths to travel, yet I chose to pursue them all at the sa ti. Foolish perhaps. But versatility was a mage's greatest asset and I didn't have the luxury of working on one thing at a ti.
Control, blood manipulation, bone growth, droplets, sparring, hunting, and so many Words.
All got so love by the end of the day.
Thank all the gods that I completed awake. Otherwise I would've never been able to maintain so many aspects at the sa ti. It left a lot of ti to think too! When I was training in sothing that didn't need all my focus.
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Like what weapon would actually suit .
Realistically, I should've switched to a blunt weapon. With sothing like a warhamr I could've utilized all my strength without the worry of breaking my weapon hanging over my head. Considering it was my only spell? That'd be imnsely useful.
Problem though, I had no training in blunt or heavy weaponry.
I'd be starting from scratch, and I was pretty good with a sword at that point...I wasn't so foolish as to believe that would translate well to a greatsword. But I was considering it.
Forging one would've been out of the question if I didn't have Umi's funds at my disposal, so why not take the opportunity?
It wouldn't work great with my proportions but I could more than muster the strength to wield a weapon like that with my spell. It'd just take so ti to adapt.
The idea of being a pugilist struck my mind. I did knock that rat around when the demon purged my mana into the strengthen spell. And snapped its neck with a hug.
If only I could handle the mana required to replicate that feat, so many problems would be solved.
Hmmm...were punch and kick Words I could incorporate into a spell? They were concepts attached to the body. Technically it should work.
Sothing worth looking into if I ever got to the point where fisticuffs were feasible.
That required training, and more training, and more training.
At least I got used to how dull mana training was (courtesy of trying to get my droplets to actually work). Could go the whole night without a break on one thing. Chipping away at the wall of progress, waiting for when I'd make so kind of breakthrough.
And I did.
I'd spent most of the night trying to trace the first Sentence of my spell. Just a few inches away from a proper iteration.
Spells were a bitch.
Slowly, I was tracing the Words in the three dinsional space of my soul, repeating the sa lines over and over and slowing it down so that I could fully grasp the shapes needed. I needed it to be perfect. Words weren't like linguistics where you could have different styles.
They needed to be uniform and without flaws.
Which was frustrating since I could copy the Sentence almost exactly, but that small difference ant it dissipated and did a whole lot of nothing.
So fucking frustrating.
Ah well.
I'd keep trying to mimic the combination of Words in my spirit or soul-space or wherever the fuck I was writing. Getting closer each ti to making it a proper mimicry.
If amorphous control of mana was fluid in its application, spells were designed to be more of direct action. From how Alvir described it, it sounded a lot like coding, with the Words needing to be arranged in a way that made the spell. Words were definitive in purpose but they molded themselves as much as they could to the intentions of the caster.
Why care for sothing so complicated when you could just push your desires into mana and get the sa result? Firstly, you wouldn't get the sa result. Strengthening myself using just mana ant I was stressing bones and ligants in a way that I wasn't when using the spell. Secondly, the mother of all reasons. Efficiency.
With all the mana that my body could tolerate, I could maybe increase my strength by half again for an instant. I was working with instinct on that tric considering an instant didn't give much ti to actually test.
With a word I could probably do about five tis that, considering my experience with nd and awake. But with a spell? Well, I'd already gone over how much strength I could attain from testing my tolerance.
So getting more spells? That was a priority. The fastest possible way for to figure out how the fuck I was going to survive and it couldn't have been complicated. Arr'koro said I'd figure it out on my own. No offence to myself, but I had to assu he thought I was an idiot since he had no way to actually asure my intellect. Which ant the answer was obvious.
This was an obvious answer if I'd ever seen one.
So I traced away, getting closer with each attempt to perfecting the Words and hopefully coming upon so kind of epiphany. I didn't expect it to happen in that mont. I'd been trying this since I first got the spell nine months ago, and for it to occur in such a dramatic ti would be ridiculous–
GIVE STRENGTH
I pushed the words through and they were Words.
Knowledge poured into my brain. A command to reality that I required strength. Not a question or suggestion, but a demand. An offering of mana that couldn't be refused to trade in favor of my desires, and my desire was to beco stronger.
I felt an insane amount of power course through my body for a mont. Only a mont.
It left as soon as it ca, but in that instant it was so much more than the amount of mana I used warranted. I let out a calming breath as I swayed, a large smile graced my face before I collapsed onto my bed and passed out.
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