Beyern focused on the fire mana he had created, practically ignoring Seria who was whining at his side "Why is the voice calling me Seria!?"
He put his hand on his slave's head, as if placating a child "It's obvious that my name was better." He said, completely different from his actions and facial expression.
To be completely honest, this entire debacle didn't mean much to him. But the fact that he actually overwrote her name in the system without her cooperation... It did bring a smile to his face.
Maybe it was a bit... Mean.
But his less than kind inclinations were what made him who he was today, so he felt no shame in it.
Even if he recognized it as not the most desirable of traits.
Funnily enough, it seemed that Seria was so involved in the pity party that she hadn't actually listened to his words, which kind of annoyed Beyern in all honesty. But, since it didn't matter to much, he let it go.
He wrenched her off of his body, and said in a somewhat uplifting tone "Stop being such a baby, think of the bright side, now someone who knew you can be led astray if you just revealed the name on your status."
"-Eh?"
"Your in a new era of your life now, think of it as you bursting out of you a cacoon like a butterfly- If you even know what that is- The old you in the slums has your old name, and the new you with me has the new name, okay?" He said with slight annoyance.
"-What's a cacoon?" She asked, in completely honest- Though slightly hesitant- confusion.
Veins instantly became visible on Beyern's neck "I'm not going to explain to you what a cacoon is, that's just a word- One that you should know, now get back to your jumping jacks!"
Seria retreated back automatically seeing his- Somewhat- faked, suppressed anger "Y-yes, right away!"
This brought a tear to Beyern's mental eye 'They grow up so fast, now back to pyromancy.' With a yawn he turned his eyes to his somewhat orange mana.
He focused on it, forcing his spirit onto it. Not smothering it so that it formed into something he willed it to become, but instead setting alight a spark to catalyze a spritual blaze with fire aspected mana as the fuel.
From his tests so far, the more condensed the fire mana, the more intensely the fire mana burned- But a 8:1 1 cm ball and a 1:1 1 cm ball of fire mana both lasted the same amount of time.
It was very... Interesting.
Beyern had also tested something else; If he could somehow bring all the 'Energy' of the flame to a single point, though he didn't have enough proficiency to try properly.
So, of course, he did the obvious; Condense the fire mana as much as possible and then burn it, since- You know- The second best skill he had was {Mana-packing}.
But it was sadly limited to 8.2:1 instead of his current maximum of 9.1:1, mostly because aspected mana was a bit more annoying to manage and compress, along with the fact that aspecting compressed mana was also more difficult.
He took out 3 mana in volume- 'It's actually getting annoying to think 1:1 mp in volume, let's replace it with... Mana Volume, mv for short.' So yea, he took out 3 mv of 8.2:1 fire mana.
3 times 8.2 would then be; 24.6 mp in total. Of course, this was not a good investment, but... This wasn't supposed to be an investment, this was an experiment.
The 3 mv was shaped simple into a bolt of mana, mimicking the magic missile exactly, before manifesting it. Then he spellified it partially, to preemptively weave in some mental power. Then, he set it aflame before letting it fly forwards.
It soared forwards without any stutter, journeying directly the way it was fired. Eventually hitting a tree, the burning bolt of mana burst with flames, rapidly dying out moments after it's blaze of glory, leaving a large, deep, scorched, hole.
The sight brought a tear to his eye, then he went through the motions of getting another spell.
'10-ish mp uncompressed, aspect it, form a bolt, manifest it, set it on fire, weave in mental power, spellify it, shot it out. That's what the book said, so let's see...' Beyern thought as he quickly followed the motions he mentioned, firing off a larger bolt of burning mana- Though it was honestly burning weakly in Beyern's eyes.
Hitting a tree, it left a large- Though not deep- indentation, loosening bark enough for a few pieces to break of in the confrontation, and leaving slight scorch marks, far less than the previous experiment.
===
Congratulations, Beyern, you have been recognized to have learnt the spell 'Fire bolt'.
===
With a smile at the fact he finally got some system-approved progress again, it having been days since the last time it happened, Beyern started to accumulate more mana.
But after a moment of him contemplating life while watching Seria training, he decided to drag her with him to make more money "That's enough, you can stop now."
-----
Beyern frowned slightly as he was in the middle of three beyklir rushing towards, luckily they weren't of equal distance to him so he could scheme something 'It's not do or die, so why not do it anyways?'
He drew his sword, quickly glanced at the two daggers adorning his belt for certainty, and tensed his body with a deep breath.
From what he could see, the second would come 3/4ths of a second later than the first, and the third would come 1/2nd of a second later. Not precisely those numbers, but close to them.
He put his vision between the two closer threats, attempting to get a feel for the position of both in comparison to him.
Moments later, the one to his right finally leaped, aiming to shed blood.
With a sneer, his sword pierced the beyklir's throat cleanly with precision equal to a wyvern flying through a gate.
Mean while his left hand ended up on the closest of the holstered daggers' handle, taking out Beyern's head quickly snapped in the direction af the mid-air beyklir that had just launched off.
With a slightly cautious frown he took out the dagger, then switched to a reversed grip, once again piercing a beyklir in the neck- Though less precise than he would like this time.
Beyern then quickly turned his head around, seeing a pre-jump beyklir, and paused for a moment while processing the situation, then stood tall.
'1, 2-' He thought- The numbers not really relating to seconds but instead a vague value of time he felt out a few moments ago- Then let his knees buckle, bringing him to a crouching position at a fast speed; Sponsored by gravity!
He retrieved his sword after taking up a reverse grip, allowing his hand to pass over his left arm for a moment. Before then letting it soar with a twist of the hand, returning it to a front-handed grip.
While that happened the saw the dumb little six-legged mammalian creation pass by above him, which obviously was a giant opening; Which he would not refuse.
So he accepted the free achievement by slashing open the beyklir open by the stomach.
After which the assumed carcass fell to the ground, limp.
Beyern wasn't totally sure of it's death, so after he got his dagger out of the 2nd beyklir, he went over and pierced the beyklir's neck before severing it's spinal cord all the while the victim tried to escape.
'I knew it was too convenient that it died by getting slashed through the stomach, as if stabbed in the head.' Beyern though while rinsing off the blood of his tools of choice with a piece of beyklir hide he had recently harvested.
"H-How did you do that? Aren't you a mage?" Seria asked from behind, a slight bit bewildered.
"Simple," Beyern said with a neutral smile "I'm just better than you."
He released a large, prolonged breath 'Finally over. That was nervewracking, how did I even get encircled by beyklir? They're not social creatures in any way, they should've already fought each other 'till all but one left before I even got here.'
He noted this oddity as but a sad reality caused by the luck of the draw, and quickly looked at his mana stores 'Good, good, if I'm prudent with my training and experiments, there won't be any problem doing a full conduit session tonight.'
With the snap of his hand, he ordered "Back to training Seria, okay?"
After making sure that his teammate had properly gotten to excercizing according to his wishes, he took out 1 mv of 7.3:1 mp from a ring; forming a plan to finally get 8-star {Mana-shaping}.
He could understand that {Mana-packing} was stuck at 10-star, since reaching initiate rank wasn't especially easy. But mana shaping had come with him from the early days, and was still stuck at 7-star.
Though- To be honest- It was at a way higher mastery than he originally expected it to be at during the first few days, but the past was the past, and Beyern had new standards.
He would obviously also practice {Mana-packing} on the side if possible, but right now {Mana-shaping} was the center focus.
How would he practice? Write letters with the mana; decompressing and/or compressing it when needed.
It would have a cool effect if he wrote words in the air as if his finger were a pen, or could just bring words into existence with the medium of mana overall.
Thinking of how much easier it would be for him to teach Seria how to read if he could create strings of perfectly readable words fluidly couldn't help but make him shake his head with a smile.