Grimvir began to concentrate on feeling everything that was around him, the shack, the woods outside, and more importantly, the mana all around him. He then began to use the meditation method to draw in the surrounding mana into this space. It took a while for there to be a noticeable difference in the space, a very thin grey haze could be seen, kind of. The very thin haze then became a light fog, then finally it turned into thick clouds, and when the mana cloud began to provide a bit of resistance to his blob like form, he started on the next park of the meditation technique.
Although Grimvir couldn't feel any wind in this space the thick grey clouds around him began to swirl around him. The faster they swirled the more they were pushed towards the unseen wall at the edge of this space. When the cloud didn't seem like it could swirl around any faster than it was, it began to be compressed, it transformed into a ball as thick as Grimvir's forearm. As he watched the swirling ball it began to change from a dirty grey color to a perfectly clear color, this signaled that the purification process of the mana had been completed and that the condensation of the mana was about to begin.
The clear cloud began to resemble a liquid, soon little droplets of liquefied mana began to rain down to the floor, soon joining the little bit of puddled mana that was let by his master. One day this space would be many times larger than it is now, the pathetic little puddle of mana under him would become a vast ocean with a terrifying depth, but toady it was only several time the size of his shack with a little puddle.
Now that he had some mana to work with, it was time to begin drawing his first rune. Grimvir's blob like body of soul power started to absorb the liquefied mana underneath him. The mixture of mana and soul power began to make his body glow a faint golden color. When most of the mana beneath him disappeared, he his arm like appendages on the crystal and began channeling this mixed energy into the crystal. Soon a little speck of gold appeared inside the crystal, with a little bit of time the golden speck was now the size of his palm.
Grimvir's blob like body of soul power no longer had a golden glow and now could be described as mist like instead of blob like. Looking at the palm sized beginnings of a rune filled him with a sense of pride, but using his soul power to create it left him feeling exhausted. After exiting his sea of consciousness, he barely had time to return the silver orb to its rightful place before he passed out.
Grimvir's woke up a little before sunrise, feeling refreshed. His body no longer felt weak, in fact he felt stronger than ever and had a desire to haul firewood or move rocks so he could move his body. But instead, he sat on his bedding and began to meditate according to the meditation technique he learned last night. The only difference is that he didn't enter his sea of consciousness, since he wasn't going to work on build his rune right now, it wasn't necessary. Instead, he just observed from the outside. The space he was in last night appeared to him like a bubble of light in a vast darkness, he could see inside, he could feel inside, and he could go inside with nothing more than a thought.
After an hour the little puddle of mana had grown slightly, and he wanted to increase it a bit more but too much meditation isn't good for a developing body. Especially since that little puddle of mana only looks small because a trick of perspective caused by the sea of consciousness. It was in fact several times the size an average level 1 acolyte should be able to create. This was due to him having a far stronger soul than normal from being a natural born soulmancer.
For magic users, the talent for magic comes from the soul, and how fast they can progress depends on the strength of the soul, while the type of magic they can use comes from the body. Soulmancers and necromancers who were born with powerful souls' progress far faster than others in the acolyte stage. And if a soulmancer or necromancer used spells and abilities to strengthen their souls further, they can greatly reduce the time needed to create their runes and advance. There are many would consider those spells and abilities as evil and corrupt.
But since this is only his second day of being a magic user, he hasn't had time to study magic or learn spells. With his morning meditation complete, it was time to resume his responsibilities as a hunter for his village. To start he would need to check his trap line and collect anything he caught, before processing it for meat and hides. If he still had time he could hunt for larger animals like deer and boars, he also wouldn't mind going back to the stream catching some trout.
Grimvir wasn't able to check his trap line yesterday, if he had he might not be seeing what was in front of him. The first trap he came to had caught something, it's blood and fur were splattered all around the trap, along with tracks made by a larger animal. It was a shadow badger, the hunters that taught Grimvir all called it a pain in the ass. It loved to kill, eat, and destroy anything it could, especially any animals caught in traps. Resetting the traps would be pointless, it would come back. Moving the traps would also be pointless because it would look for the moved traps. The only way to get rid of it was to kill it, unfortunately it smart enough to avoid most traps making it hard to kill.
Of the two dozen traps scattered around the area, except for the few that never caught anything, the rest were covered in blood and fur. The last trap in the line was not only covered in blood and fur, but it also had a big pile of badger shit on it. Although there is no proof that badgers are any smarter than any other scavenger, Grimvir chose to take it as a 'screw you' from the badger. He would have to dismantle all the traps and drag them to the stream to wash the blood and fur off them, and other stuff. and since he would be making a racket in the stream there would be no trout. By the time he was done with taking down the cleanup, he would have very little time to do any hunting, which means for dinner he would be having rabbit jerky or rabbit jerky soup. Another screw you from the badger.
Grimvir had already decided how to kill the badger, but he would need to hunt a squirrel or a bird as bait and a green death mushroom from the northern part of the woods. If all goes well, then this time tomorrow the badger would be dead.