A purple light gushed out of Syden's mana core and enveloped a few meters surrounding him. A sudden headache came to Syden.
'It is difficult for this body which doesn't even have mana to experience spatial awareness'
Spatial awareness was a skill used by all mages by releasing their mana in surroundings but in this skill, space mages had an advantage because of their spatial affinity and could perform it more accurately but for Syden it was as easy as flicking a finger but to do things like changing the trajectory of a spell or taking control over space would take very much mana.
After sensing his mana fluctuations a portal began to manifest. In the portal was a locker made of magic steel, in the middle of this locker was a device. By writing the correct symbol with mana will open the locker.
'It is good that I absorbed a mana stone that was in master's desk'
Before coming here Syden absorbed a mana stone for this task but the completion of the task was more difficult than preparing for it.
Using mana even before entering novice rank was more difficult than finding a pin in a small haystack because of the unrefined core.
Syden started gathering every speck of mana in his body towards his fingers. Sweat pearls started forming on his forehead. After a span of few minutes, he was drenched in sweat from head to toe. For people who haven't refined mana core all mana they absorbed was spread throughout their body to breakthrough, they had to piece together every speck of mana and push It into the mana core or use an artificial method.
After gathering all of his mana on his finger he started to move closer to the device and started making a peculiar sign on it. When the mark got completed, with a sound the locker opened and Syden fell to the ground because of mana exhaustion. With a smile forming on his dry lips he laid on the ground for some time.
After drinking water to satiate his thirst, he approached the locker with a smirk on his face and took out 20 low-grade mana stones with an expression of curiosity on his face while looking at a small booklet that was placed at the corner. Taking out the book from there and trying to open it, Syden was shocked as he couldn't open the book. Even after trying hard to open the book with every method at his disposal, he couldn't open it. While making a speculation that it was sealed with magic, Syden placed it in his room and started absorbing mana by touching the stones.
With mana inside stones being transferred to him, after some time stones began to change into dull grey color.
The change in color of the mana stone meant that it was exhausted and now was no more than a simple rock. When Syden reached the 16th stone he felt the mana in his body being sufficient for the breakthrough. Syden sat in the lotus position and started gathering the mana in his core.
With every speck of mana being gathered Syden felt very much mentally exhausted but he didn't stop as he didn't want to waste this chance. It became night from the evening when he successfully gathered all mana near his core. After taking a deep breath he started to push all his mana into the core.
With a sudden burst of mana from his core into his surroundings, Syden began levitating in the air. Beautiful colors were being integrated into his world tree and light purple color was being painted from the roots to its crown. The purple color then concentrated on one side of the tree while the other side was going to its previous grey color.
phew~
"If it went for any more time then I would have collapsed and suffered through mana deviation."
"Let's check the core"
Checking inside the core with an avatar made of mana identical to his appearance, Syden was happy and was filled with determination for his goal. While inspecting it he saw a different color of mana on the sides of his core which shouldn't be possible as he wasn't an intermediate tier mage. While getting closer to it Syden started to feel dizzy.
"Wha-what is happening?"
When the specks of mana started to move. Syden collapsed on the ground.