WolfWrites

The Undying Magician - Book 5 - Chapter 8

Added 2025-05-02 17:01:30 +0000 UTC

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Don't mind this. It's so that free readers can't see half the chapter.

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Nathan
Year 2851 | Month 5 | Day 1

Instead of sleeping over the night, I head over to the specially prepared lab within the suite. One that is far higher quality than the one I have back in the Undying Caverns despite being part of a freaking hotel.

And when I get inside, I immediately proceed to continue experimenting and training.

Whether it’s training for my mana arcs, training for my mana manipulation, or just working on new spells. I begin to make more progress here thanks to their tools than I made back in my own lab.

Especially for the mana arc training, because their devices here for that far surpass those found in the abandoned continents.

So good that I’m really glad they gave me one. Even if I’m pretty sure the reason they did that is to help me get to Class S as soon as possible.

After all, they’re wanting me to be a Tower Master in order to use my influence for the Magic Towers. And me reaching Class S would give more legitimacy for that role if I pass this trial.

That would actually be rather hilarious if I didn’t manage to pass the trial, making all their hard work fall to ruin.

Still, I want to pass for the benefits it’ll get me and the abandoned continent. Because those benefits are immense.

So I continue training, even as explosions ring out within the lab.

And ever so slowly, I manage to bring my mana arcs up a bit.

By now my mana arcs are nearing about five hundred. All because of the very useful training device I’ve been using since meeting with Arsen.

Which, while is only half of what I need to technically be considered Class S in terms of mana arcs, is a lot of progress for the time I’ve spent training.

As for my mana manipulation training? I’m starting to be able to manage half a spell without spell circles at least. To the point that I can set everything up, only for it all to end up crashing and burning when I finally set everything in motion.

Quite literally since it’s fire magic I’m training with right now.

I frown on the umpteenth failure. Because I just can’t figure out what’s going wrong.

The process I’m doing is a simple one. I set everything up so that I can just start the process like a row of dominos all falling over from tipping the first domino. And I do this by setting up the mana itself out in the air kind of like a magical script in a way. I force it into position and lock it with my mental control. Stopping the fire mana from doing anything and just barely holding it back.

Yet, whenever I finally set everything in motion, it always just crashes and burns. With the mana beginning the process I want it to do, only for the different processes to end up mixing together and just making a large explosion in the end.

Eventually I find myself making a call to Juan and asking him for help on this.

And his answer is actually very helpful.

Yet… it’s also rather depressing.

Apparently I’m doing things wrong.

One of the biggest aspects of a Class S magician’s strength is their processing speed. How fast they can work the mana and control it to do what they want.

Preparing spells to activate afterwards is just not possible from what Juan says. The mana gets tenser and tenser the longer it gets held in place. Especially for fire mana. So when it’s released it does so in a burst, completely ruining any setup made to create a spell.

And sure, the magician could just do the same thing as a spell circle and create a pathway for them to floor mana through that forces it into a certain outcome. But there’s literally no difference between doing that and making a regular spell circle.

It’s not really free manipulation of mana. Other than making the spell circle yourself.

I let out a sigh after the call ends and I stare at the table in front of me in the lab.

So I’ve wasted a lot of time. But at the very least this has improved my control over my mana. Making it not a complete waste.

Free mana manipulation itself is where the Class S magician directly manipulates the mana and does every step manually one at a time. No shortcuts. No skipped steps. None of that.

I kind of wish he told me that in the beginning, but apparently that was for a lesson.

To not take shortcuts.

It’s, according to him, a very common lesson to teach people training in mana manipulation. Although he said it didn’t really apply to me much since I can’t die.

The lesson is taught to make absolutely sure that new Class S magicians do not try to take any sort of shortcuts. Ever.

Also, it’s meant to be a single one-off lesson. Where they fail once albeit with a bunch of fail safes as most magicians usually have to keep them safe. Then they realize their error and stop doing shortcuts.

Meaning the only reason I spent so long trying is because I don’t bother with any of that safety nonsense.

Even Juan apparently didn’t realize it would take me this long to figure it out.

Damnit.

So I try again now, except without taking any shortcuts. Starting with a simple fireball spell.

I do the usual process of pulling my mana from my body before slowly controlling the fire mana to ignite the air.

Let’s start with a very small fireball.

I close my eyes while carefully controlling the mana, making a very tiny flame appear in the air in front of me. But I don’t open my eyes to look as that would break my focus. So I fuel more fire mana to ignite the air around it, expanding the size of the fireball.

All the way until I finally open my eyes to see a fireball floating in front of me about the size of a foot in diameter.

A smile spreads across my face at the sight of it.

Good.

I know I can’t do anything with this thing, and the fireball is even shrinking now that I’m not actively expanding it. But it’s still progress.

A lot of progress at that.

So without hesitation, I go back to work again, closing my eyes to focus.