Seeing me in the room, my mother asked excitedly, "Are you ready for your mana initiation, Ethan?"
"Yes, mother!"
Honestly, I was very excited. Starting today, I would start my plans. I could also see the excitement in Sophia's eyes.
"Best of Luck, my son. I also have a surprise planned for you." father said.
I wonder what the surprise that father said was.
After lunch, father and mother got me and Sophia ready for the ceremony. We sat in our car, and our driver took us to the place where the ceremony was going to be held. I could see from the window that we were near a large dome shaped building.
From what I knew, it was the meditation dome for our family. It had a mana gathering circle carved under it. The closer you were to the centre, the more concentrated mana would be. It was used for the Zephyr family and their knights.
As soon as we reached the dome, I could feel the concentration of mana increase. It was to be noted that our family manor was in a location where the mana was already very high, so you could imagine the density of mana inside the circle. We passed by three sections of glass doors. After each door, the concentration of mana increased steadily.
We finally reached the centre. What I saw surprised me.
I saw a skull of what seemed to be a Dragon half buried in the ground. I was shocked, not because I couldn't believe the existence of a Dragon; no, I knew of their existence as the novel had Dragons in them, but because it was never mentioned that the Zephyr family had a Dragon skull with them. Dragons were very rare, and if they found out that we had a skull of their kin, they would remove our family's existence. Not even humanity's strongest combined could save us. Yes, Dragons were that powerful.
Seeing me stare intently at the Dragon skull, father spoke.
"This place is only allowed for direct descendent of our family. Our ancestors found this skull under this land. That's why they asked for this land as their estate, and this was the reason why our family quickly climbed the ranks of nobility."
Father allowed me to digest this load of information before continuing.
"This skull allows you to temporarily boost your soul power and thereby increasing your initial core size. Forming a core inside this skull also grants you an increased affinity with the wind element. And knowing how talented you are, by forming a core here, you would definitely surpass everyone, including your grandfather."
He had a proud smile at the end of his speech.
It made sense that every direct descendent had an affinity with the wind. It was true that genes could influence your affinities, but there was always a factor of probability with it. It was very rare for a family's direct descendants to have a fixed affinity for an element. It happened multiple times that a descendant of a major family had a different affinity than what his family for known for. Only the Zephyr family descendants had a constant affinity with the wind and could truly use the ancestral arts and polish them for greater power.
"Let's start the ceremony then. First Ethan, then Sophia. Go on Ethan, you know what to do."
I nodded and went ahead to sit at the centre of the skull. I felt my mind instantly clear up. Probably, this was the effect of increased soul power. I quickly folded my legs to sit and started concentrating on the surroundings.
I could feel the different types of mana in the environment. I started the second step of Mana Initiation. I willed my surrounding mana to come inside my body. I could feel mana gathering inside my body.
It was primarily of two colours being light green and yellow, signifying I had the highest affinities with Wind and Lightning. Maybe I had highest affinity with only Lightning, but the dragon boosted my affinity with Wind. I could also see Dark Green and Orange Red specks of mana corresponding to Nature and Fire.
After what I felt like the saturation of mana, I cut off the connection with the surrounding mana. I quickly started forming my mana core. There was only one way of creating a core, compress all the mana into a sphere. Well, until the protagonist appeared. He made his core in a different way after reading an ancient text from a ruin. There was a method written in those texts.
It was to create different cores for each affinity and then to orbit them like a solar system.
This would allow easier recovery of mana and more efficient use of spells. If you had to cast a fireball, you first had to access the fire mana from your core and then cast it. Suppose you had all elements combined into one, it would be difficult to separate an element and then use it. But the general method did allow an easier time while ranking up as compared to the ancient method.
The ancient method also had a passive of mana recovery where your mana would automatically recover over time. You could also meditate to speed up the process.
I meticulously created each core and started placing them in order to create a balanced solar system. My previous life Physics did help me a lot while approximating the positions of cores.
When I finally placed everything correctly, you could see a solar system of different coloured planets in my spiritual space near the heart.
I finally relaxed and let the outside mana rush into my body. I could feel a refreshing feeling wash over me as I enjoyed the bath of mana.
I slowly opened my eyes with a wide smile plastered on my face.