Once I entered the library, I looked around for the books that contained information on the basic elemental. There are four basic elements: fire, water, earth, air, and nature which are the building blocks for most advanced magic spells.
While looking at the books, I wanted the one that would give me the best chance of winning the academy's start of the year tournament. In only a month, I knew there was no way I could master a basic element even with my SSS grade talent.
If I train in air magic, I'm sure I could increase my speed or maybe the speed of arrows in a month if I practice hard, and fire magic will provide me with the strongest firepower but I'd be lacking in the rest of the aspects of combat. I won't be able to fight outside a body of water with water magic; it's too lackluster for a tournament with only streams on the stage; on the other hand, earth magic will provide strong defenses and the ability to change the terrain and Nature magic focuses on control most people use this magic as a building block for life magic.
I decided to pick the book on earth magic after thinking about it for a while. Since I have great up-close fighting skills from years of training with top-class trainers with strong defenses, no one will be able to stop me.
After taking the book to one of the tables in the corner of the room, I began reading the introduction to earth magic.
The user can perform magic that allows them to cast spells and feats through earth and rock.
Earth magic comes from stones, minerals, crystals, and gems of the land. Can be limited without the earth.
Self-control, discipline, and restraint are essential. Unconscious, emotion-influenced, impulsive, or reckless use of this power can be disastrous.
The introduction doesn't seem to contain anything I didn't already know, I thought to myself before flipping to the next page. On this page, it was described how to circulate your mana through your body, sending it into the earth in the hopes of manipulating it.
I went to the training hall for earth magic after reading the same page multiple times. Basically, it's an empty room without a floor so that we can reach the ground, along with a formation to reset the room to its original state. Mages among the guards would have learned basic magic a long time ago, so they rarely use this room.
To begin with, I'll try to raise a rock wall I thought to myself. Circling my mana and sending it to my feet, I lifted my foot up, and stomped down on the ground, while sending an image of what I wanted to accomplish to my mana. After seeing the results of my attempt, I was shocked. I didn't think I would be able to master earth magic in a day but all that happened was forming maybe an inch-high bump on the ground before the formations in the room reset the earth back to being flat.
As I sighed, I realize how much I underestimated learning how to manipulate mana. I repeated this repeatedly until I was completely depleted of mana. I leaned against the wall for a moment to catch my breath and rest. On the bright side, my poorly constructed wall could reach about a foot high unknowingly to me at the time, this was a monumental achievement most people cannot even leave their bodies without their mana on their first day of training.
I estimated it would take me about two hours to fill my mana core, after experiencing how much mana my core was absorbing from the atmosphere. As my stomach growled, I checked the time and realized it was time for lunch, so I went to the dining hall.
Upon arrival, I saw my father William, mother Caroline, and two younger siblings, Mary and Andrew already at the table eating their meal.
As I took a seat at the table, a maid brought me a plate of food. Roasted pheasant with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, green beans, and corn.
As I was starving after all the training I had gone through today, I quickly devoured my food. When I finished, I looked up at my father across the table and asked him.
"Father, do you have any tips for me for controlling my mana? I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked".
He looked up from his plate with a calm look in his eyes and said.
"Michael, today I'm too busy to watch over your training, but I can give you a tool to help you learn how to control the amount of mana you use"
As my father finished, the ring on his index finger slightly glowed, and a small black stone appeared in his hand, He continued
"Michael, this stone is called the gluttony stone, and no matter how much mana you pour into it, it will never break. It changes color depending on how much mana is used, so you can use it to practice how much mana you use for a spell"
Then my father handed me the stone. Grabbing the stone, I tucked it into the pocket of my pants and said "thanks, dad."
Hurriedly finishing my meal, I went back to my room since my mana core wasn't full. seeing it had only been 45 minutes, I decided to see if I could speed up my mana recovery by focusing on it. Therefore, I laid down on my bed and tried to sense the mana in the air and will it towards me. It took me about 30 minutes before I noticed a difference. However, I kept practicing, and in the end, I estimated I had reduced the time needed to complete the task by about 10 minutes.
I let out a Sigh after I finished filling my mana core. I guess even this will take some practice I thought to myself.
I then removed the gluttony stone from my pocket and put in the smallest amount of mana possible, and my stone glowed a very faint yellow color. Practicing until the evening, I finally got the stone to glow a solid yellow with my mana core currently being only at class 1 making the stone glow a solid yellow color took around 5 percent of my total mana to accomplish. As I was exhausted from spending my mana core, again and again, I crawled into bed without dinner.