The examination date was neither soon nor long of a wait. The event was set to be two weeks away on the day of the summer solstice. Only a few weeks before the mage academies would start the next year with a fresh new batch of recruits.
John didn't mind the wait at all, in fact he was overly excited about it. But since he had no currency to allow him to purchase a night at the many taverns and hotels with rooms open, so that meant until he started to make money he would have to return to the wilderness once more.
John tapped his foot on the ground with some force and was instantly propelled dozens of feet through the mass of traveling citizens. Not to long after he started propelling him self did he reach the exit. The wilderness called out to him and he obliged.
Two hours later...
In a cave deep in the forest sat john he was rapidly absorbing all of the elemental energy around him through his pores. He isolated dark and wind elements, he drew them towards his back and made the flow through his meridians he lost a bit of the energy as they flowed through the meridians they refined the energy while also strengthening his meridians. The energy flowed into his the crystal they merged with the previous energy inside and then were slightly compressed making the large amount of gaseous energy a few small liquid drops on each side of the crystal.
He felt the energy leave his crystal without his permission, it flowed directly to his meridians and as it flowed through them he felt the liquid refining his meridians and after all the liquid was expended, he felt a minute amount of energy being drawn in by them. And this time without having to control the energy it went through the newly developed pathways and refined its self with the cycle repeating its self. The second cycle was finished after an hour, where as the first only took thirty minutes. The meridians were strengthening which increased the energy being drawn in automatically, which in result strengthened them again and doubled the amount of energy able to be drawn in as more energy was drawn in the more storage had to be made for it so some of the energy was used to start expanding the tiny crystal.
Since he no longer had to focus on drawing the energy in he started to focus on his his mind strengthening. He started to meditate and allowed for some of the energy he was dewing in to be rerouted to his mind and thus creating another pathway in which he could easily flow his energy. He felt a headache coming on as soon as the energy entered his mind. He frites his teeth and continued with the process, the energy neared his mental sphere and split in half as he used half to assault the sphere. The attacks slowly increased the thickness of the sphere until it had finally reached the desired density. The rest of the energy transformed into a knife and carved the desired runes. He only finished three before the energy had been drained completely. The three runes where the mind rune, the body rune and energy rune. These runes formed and immediately after he formed them he felt a tether of energy connecting is mind to his body and to his energy and these tethers strengthened every second until they were like steel beams connecting them together. As soon he finished solidifying these bonds he had managed to drain all his mental energy and passed out.
*Authors note: these runes are some of the core runes of this formation, but there are also other core runes that have powerful effects as well and then each of the core runes have minor runes to increase their effect and stabilize the more complex runes, but these minor runes also have to connect the core runes together to make it one complete formation. Some of runes the are also usable separately without the formation and work to their full extent and others only work at their full potential when added together.