"Have you heard that several students were beaten by one guy that called himself Black Masked Man?"
"Yeah, my friend told me that guy is only targeting apprentice magus stage one."
"He called himself king of apprentice magus stage one, so of course, he will just be targeting them."
The next morning, news of Vale's actions as the Black Masked Man had spread throughout the entire academy. In just one night, Vale had beaten six students who were younger than him. One of those students was Excel, the younger brother of Alex, a student who had the same age as Vale.
As a result of Vale's actions, the academy had strengthened its night patrols to prevent such incidents from happening again.
Meanwhile, Vale was sitting on his bed in his room, laughing happily.
[Congratulation! You completed Chains Quest 1: Proclaimed yourself as a king of apprentice magus stage one.]
[You have received the reward: Ice Heart Meditation Technique (Black Level)]
[Processing the new quest … completed.]
[Chain Quest 2: Proclaim yourself as king of magic spelling magic level 0]
[You have mastered all magic at level 0. Make sure everyone knows you are the King of Magic Spelling at level 0.]
[Reward: Magic Radiation Stone (Gray Level)]
"Finally, I got a good meditation technique," Vale mumbled.
A good meditation technique was essential, especially for a magus who had no talent like him. Even though he thought the system was scary, he couldn't deny that it was useful.
"Chain Quest 2? Magic spelling? Nah, I will use the Black masked man identity again."
There were different ways to use magic techniques, but the most common way was to spell them. Imagine two magus who with the same level and the same magic technique fighting against each other. The one who could spell faster and more accurately would win the fight. That was how important good magic spelling was.
For apprentice magus, the magic techniques that they could spell were only at level 0. Level 0 was the most basic magic that might not be powerful but strong enough to kill ordinary people. The difference between apprentice magus stage one, two, and three was the number of magic level 0 that they can spell in a short time.
At the stage one, they could cast three or four magic level 0 before the mana inside their body was exhausted. Apprentice magus stage two could spell 10-15 magic level 0 before they needed break time. The last, apprentice magus stage three, could spell 30-40 magic level 0. That was how big the difference between each stage of apprentice magus.
Because of that, in every battle practice, Vale always used hide and attack strategy. His mana was limited, and the best he could do was beat one person and take a break until all his mana returned. Vale believed once he becomes apprentice magus stage two, he could beat apprentice magus stage three due to good magic spelling and effective magic level 0 combinations. After all, he was excellent at magic theory.
Vale wanted to try the new meditation technique, the ice heart meditation technique. Actually, meditation techniques could be used anywhere, but there was an effective place to use them. The magic gathering room. Magic gathering room was a room that had a magic gathering array in it. The magic gathering array was a magic array that could gather the mana from the surroundings and focus it in one place.
"I want to use the magic gathering room," Vale said to Mr. Branch Hawks, the teacher who was responsible for taking care of the magic gathering room.
"What's your name?"
"Vale."
Mr. Branch Hawks opened the book in front of him, page by page. After a while, he stopped and looked closely at the book. "Vale, you have one hour to use magic gathering room 1-star quality for this week."
Mr. Branch Hawks turned around and searched for a magic gathering room of 1-star quality that was not being used by anyone.
"You can go to magic gathering room number 53."
"Thank you, Mr. Hawks."
After saying that, Vale walked to magic gathering room number 53. There were 60 magic gathering rooms, all of which were divided into three qualities, which were one-star, two-star, and three-star. The students who lacked talent were given the allocation of time usage of magic gathering room 1-star quality. Two-star magic gathering rooms were for students who had ordinary talent, and high-talent students were given the allocation of time usage of magic gathering room 3-star quality.
A few minutes later, Vale arrived at magic gathering room number 53. The room was only 2×2 square meters, but Vale could sense the mana flowing around the room. The concentration of mana in this room was pretty good compared to the mana concentration in his bedroom. Vale quickly sat at the center of the room, crossed his feet, and closed his eyes.
Vale started the Ice Heart meditation technique. Meditation was an action to gather the nature mana into the magic heart core and use that mana to evolve the magic heart core that the user had. The magic heart core itself was something that differentiated normal humans from magus. The first step to becoming a magus was to create the magic heart core inside the human body. The magic heart core functioned to produce internal mana.
Imagine the magic heart core as a machine, and the meditation technique was something that could make that machine bigger and better.
Nature mana was wild, dangerous, and unstable. It was not suitable for humans to use that energy. Magic heart core could produce internal mana which was more stable and suitable for humans. The different between a good and bad meditation technique was the effectiveness of making the magic heart core better.
If Vale used the meditation technique that was given by the academy, he might need 10 years or even longer to get the chance of breakthrough to the next level, and he might fail on that chance. With the new meditation technique, he was most likely to enter the apprentice magus stage two in two months, and it would be faster if he used magic radiation stone.
Vale felt the mana around him was freezing, and slowly his magic heart core was absorbing the nature mana outside his body. The flow of mana in this room approached Vale, as if something inside Vale's body attracted the flow of mana.
After one hour of meditating, Vale opened his eyes. He could feel the magic heart core inside his body was bigger than before. The bigger magic heart core inside magus, the large magic pool that he had. If the magic heart core was the machine that converts nature mana to internal mana, then mana pool was a container to store internal mana.
Although his magic heart core was bigger than before, he had not reached apprentice magus stage two yet.