After the clerk came back, Oliver promptly paid 10.000 coins before starting the challenge.
The test itself wasn't that difficult, at least not for Oliver, you have to unravel a big ball of mana treads without snapping them, so everything in this test depended on how well you are able to sense the mana treads and how fine your control is, all of this had to do with mana affinity.
With Oliver's extremely high mana affinity he could control the mana treads better than he could do it with his own hands, and he couldn't just sense them, even saying that he could see them was a big understatement, he could see and feel them practically in 3D.
With all of these factors it wasn't difficult in the slightest for Oliver to unravel the ball of treads made from mana, doing it in real life with his hands and real tread would have been multiple times harder.
From the moment Oliver put his hands on the device and closed his eyes, it only took him about 30 seconds to finish the test and open his eyes again.
Everyone including the clerk was staring at Oliver with a blank expression.
The clerk was the first to snap out of his trans, he quickly opened the little gate next to the counter and dragged Oliver through it.
"Sir, I'm happy to report that you have passed the test with flying colors, please follow me upstairs to meet the boss."
"Okay, lead the way."
Oliver followed the clerk upstairs where he found himself in a long, big hallway with countless doors on both sides of the hall that looked all fairly identical, except for one, at the end of the hallway was one door that unlike the other doors had accents made out of gold. Oliver really didn't have to be a genius to figure out where they were going.
Oliver walked behind the clerk as he went straight to the wood and golden door, he then proceeded to knock, after about 10 second of silence a voice could be heard from behind the door.
"You may come in."
Oliver waited patiently for the clerk to lead the way, but to his surprise he didn't.
"I will be going now, you may proceed inside on your own."
After hearing this, Oliver opened the doors to see a fairly normal, albeit expensively decorated office with a single desk.
The man behind the desk looked to be fairly young, but Oliver knew that in the higher stages of magic age could be deceiving, the man didn't particularly fit his mind's image of a grand mage, but who was he to judge.
After Oliver stepped inside and closed the door, the man started to talk.
"Oliver Smith, do you know why I called you here?"
"I'm guessing it has to do something with the test I just took."
"You're spot on, I called you here to give you your reward, but before that I have a question. Do you know what a mana body is?"
Oliver was ecstatic when he heard this question, he could finally learn what a mana body was.
"No, sir, I can't say that I do."
"Okay then, listen well, the first thing you need to know is what a mana body is, until now what you have been doing when you cast a spell is taking mana from your core and directly push it out to form a spell, it works, but frankly it is like extinguishing a candle with a fire hose, extremely wasteful, and it has limited options. A mana body is a complex formation of magic arrays and mana tunnels made in your body which greatly reduce the waste you make wile casting spells, gives you more control over your own mana and lets you perfect spell beyond their limit. To put it bluntly, what you have been doing until now is nothing more than playing with magic, you just say the name of a spell, and it appears, the system is doing everything for you, what control do you have over your spells or mana itself, that's right none, a mana body changes all of this. It essentially takes you off training mode."
After hearing a slight pause in the man's voice, Oliver finally had time to think. After going through everything he had many questions, mainly concerning his cast speed enhancement and silent cast skill, he had no idea how they were going to work without the help of the system.
"Excuse me, sir, could I ask a couple of questions before we proceed?"
"Normally I would tell you to wait, but I can tell that it is eating you up, so go on."
"Thank you, my first question is regarding who needs a mana body, is it just mages or everyone?"
Oliver decided to ask the question that pestered him in his last life first.
"It would seem that only mages need it doesn't it, with that kind of name, but no, everyone needs it if they want to control their skills freely, all skills use mana after all even the warrior ones, even if it isn't much."
"I see, my second question is regarding things like [silent cast] and decreased casting time, if you have free control of mana wouldn't these be redundant?"
"No, not at all, to cast a spell with a mana body 3 conditions need to be met. The first is to have the skill in your skill list. The second is to say the incantation, so not the name of the skill but a special phrase in a runic language, your silent cast skill still effects this. The third is to direct the mana through the right pathways and magic arrays in your body, the cast speed reduction still effects this part, in fact, it speeds up your internal mana's speed."
"I understand, but my situation is a little different, my cast speed reduction is 100%, how would this work?"
Oliver wasn't too scared to tell the residents of this world his secret, after all, these people only exist for as long as we do the tutorial.
"Hmm, that is indeed special. In theory your mana speed should become infinite at that moment but controlling it would be impossible for any being at that point, The best guess I have is that when you are controlling your mana and only then, it is going to feel like the world comes to a standstill until you are done casting, even you won't be able to move, only your mana, All of this is only a theory of course, the only thing you can do to know it for sure is to test it out yourself."
Oliver felt a little nervous about not being able to control his mana, but there was no use worrying about it for now.
"Anyway, now that you know the principle behind a mana domain, I'll now tell you what it can give you. The first thing, like I have already mentioned is the freedom to control mana of your own body but also a certain radius around it, this is what we call 'a true mana domain' this mana domain has practically infinite possibilities such as suppression, spell disassembly, sensing enemies, and many more things, the range and density of your mana domain isn't set in stone either, you can manipulate it as you like, granted you have enough mana, mana control and your mana body is high enough rank. There is also a second big advantage that comes with freedom of mana control, your skills will get a 'completion rating' which goes from 1-100% or even beyond that, but even I myself have never gotten there, the rating you get with the help of the system is 60%, which gets you 100% of the spell output, every percent beyond that gives you a damage boost based on the level of your mana body, even though you are going to get weaker in the short term because you need to learn a new form of casting and your spell completion rating is going to be low, in the long run you can't survive without it."
Oliver was stunned when he heard this, he didn't even know what boost his spell damage would get, but the mana domain alone was impeccable, being able to control mana freely around the body and use it to the freedom of your imagination was the dream of every magician.
"The last thing I need to tell you is how to create a mana body, the only thing you need to do is carve the mana pathways and form the arrays in your body, of course this can't be done just like that, you need a plan to follow. Most plans are the same, mass-produced, they should be decent for anyone, but you can also pay a magician who has a lot of experience to make you a custom one that fits your body best, these are called peak mana body's, all of these plans go from common to legendary. Not only the plan but also the creation of the mana body needs to be good, the higher the rank of the mana body naturally, the higher the difficulty of creating it is, most people have to do this themselves in their homes, but if you have connections in high enough places or have enough money you can rent rooms made to create mana body's or even get a magician with a high mana affinity to help you, but of course the last one isn't necessary in your case."
"So, now that all of that is said and done let's get to your prize, I'm going to give you a letter, if you give that letter to the head of the mage association in King's Landing, he can make you a custom Legendary mana body design, and he can provide you with a room to make it in, he's an old friend of mine."
Oliver was perplexed at the word Legendary, that meant he was going to have a peak Legendary mana body, he remembered that the last guy got a normal Epic mana body design and no such privilege to use a room, he couldn't help but stutter.
"Legendary?"
"Yes, I know how big this prize is, even I myself don't have one of those, I was planning on giving you an Epic one and sending you on your way, but your potential is way too good for that, I can't be the one responsible for messing up the foundation of such a prodigy."
Oliver didn't really understand what he meant by 'foundation' in this scenario, so he decided to ask.
"Excuse me, but what is this foundation."
"What I mean with that statement is that it isn't possible to try again at making a mana body, and that it determines a big part of the limit of your future growth, the only way to try again is to destruct your current mana domain, but that's practically the same thing as committing suicide."
After he got the letter, Oliver was about to leave when he thought of 1 last thing.
"Where exactly is this King's landing?"
"You don't have to worry about that, you'll know when you are in the main game."
Then he said his final goodbyes and made his way to the shop, still trying to comprehend everything he had just heard.