98 3.10 Space Magic - Part 2

"Yoru, I think we should go back now."

We were almost about to reach the academy's main building, and going there at this hour of the day wasn't a good idea. Firstly, because we would stand out too much, and secondly because I was afraid that I would have to deal with more of those thick-headed fools.

"Umhmm," Yoru said with a nod.

We turned around from there and started walking back towards the dormitory. It was still afternoon, so I wasn't sure what to do after this. I was planning to go to Zagan's space in the evening but there were still a few hours left before evening.

On the way towards the dormitory, I looked at the woods where I trained the combination of elements. The trees had somewhat recovered naturally, but it was really a bad idea to destroy them right before the fall.

The thought of going there and testing a few things came to my mind. I was unsure whether to go there or not, but in the end, I decided to go there and train a little. This time, without destroying the trees.

"Yoru, let's go to the woods over there. That is the place where I usually train when I am here," I said while looking towards Yoru.

"Okay, wherever you want to go," she replied with a wide smile.

It somewhat felt like I was forcing her to go wherever I want, but she didn't look unhappy with it. Instead, she looked even happier. So, without giving this matter too much thought, both of us walked towards the woods.

When we reached there, I was surprised at how fast everything inside the woods changed. My usual training spot that was once so familiar to me, now looked so different. Mosses had grown everywhere in the ground and the surrounding trees that once looked so rich with leaves, now looked so barren.

"Let's sit over there," I said while pointing at the ground covered in thick moss. The two of us then sat on the ground.

Today, the training I was about to do was somewhat like meditation. Instead of practicing with spells, I was trying to sense and manipulate the mana flow within me.

I closed my eyes and tried absorbing the surrounding mana in me. The rate at which I could absorb the mana was still limited but it had significantly increased compared to before. When my mana bank was full, I stopped absorbing more mana.

I was trying to test my precision in controlling the mana within me. The first thing I wanted to see was: if I could float in the air without Flare's support or not. I knew the feeling so now all I needed to do was handle the raw mana properly.

I tried concentrating the mana within me into the mana cloak so that I could use it to repel the surrounding mana and float. I could somewhat control the surrounding mana, but it was more like a wild horse, hard to control. While on the other hand, the mana within me was like a domestic horse, easy to control.

It was somewhat like trying to write with both hands at the same time. If I hadn't tried combining the elements before, this exercise would have been impossible for me. All the experience that I acquired through the labyrinth was also proving to be very useful.

When I was focused on manipulating the mana with my eyes closed, I could feel myself lifting up. Even though what I was doing was unusable in the actual battle, with proper practice, I was hoping to be able to perfect it slowly.

I slowly stopped manipulating the mana after which I returned back to the position where I lifted myself from. Usually, using the mana cloak at full power needed a lot of concentration so I changed back to normal.

When I opened my eyes, Yoru was just staring at me. Her stares felt awkward at the start, but after several days of the journey, I had grown somewhat grown used to them. Though I was still hoping she would stop doing that.

"Okay, now the next test," I said as I stood up and walked towards the center of the open area in front of us.

I picked a leaf from the ground and placed it on my right hand. I then tried using the Darkness magic on it. It was already dry, so nothing happened, but after I applied the fire magic with my left hand, the flames turned dark.

Like ordinary fire magic, dark flames also had no effect on its caster. But the leaf that was on my hand froze inside a block of magic ice. The process up until now was as I expected, but the real test was after this.

I followed the same process, but this time, I used holy magic instead of Darkness magic. Back then, Olive too used holy magic to break through the magic ice. So, I was hoping that the opposite elements with the same amount of fire magic as a catalyst would be able to counter each other.

It was a success. The flame turned greenish and melted the ice.

Up to this part was predictable, but I noticed something else that was odd. The leaf had turned green as if it was just freshly plucked. I was surprised because even with holy magic, it should be impossible to make it look this fresh after all this time.

"Well, I guess the fire magic intensifies the effect of holy magic."

"Umhmm… but the magic you used before looked cooler," Yoru, who was watching me the whole time, said.

"Yep, but in my case, enhanced healing magic will be very handy than attack magic."

Those were basically the two things that I wanted to test at the moment, and now that I was done with it, I decided that it would be the right time to go to Zagan's space. I was pretty excited to learn the magic that was going to be the handiest one to me moving ahead — space magic.

[Hey Zagan, is your nap over?]

[It's never over. Though I do take breaks sometimes. Well anyways, Hop in.]

With that, Zagan pulled me to his space. Unlike last time, he was outside waiting for us.

This was something completely new to me, so I prepared myself for what was about to come.

"So, for this one kid, you will need several metals like Mithril and Orichalcum... You will also need lightstones to store mana because you wouldn't want to lose connection with your space when you run out mana."

That sounded fair since the situations where I need to go all out could come at any time. Having something that could maintain the connection between spaces at those time would be nice, but…

"Where can I get those from?"

"Well, where else? We need to rob a few mines."

: Space Magic - Part 3