Half an hour later, Amari rushed back to his room to practise the mana-control exercises SilverOak had given them. The faster he mastered mana-control the more time he had for everything on his list.
He shut the door of his fairly large personal space and brought out the tools for measuring mana control.
A needle and a thread.
Setting them down on the table, he began to review everything he had learned today. The biggest being that he wouldn't reach far if he didn't manage to restrain his mana when casting his spells or skills.
Much to his dismay, even the Rune classes he'd taken with Miss Ava quickly showed him that mana control was crucial.
For one, it was incredibly hard to even build the beginning structures of a simple rune, hence, a stable hand and mana control were extremely important. Any mistake with a single runic letter could easily lead to him losing a limb, or worse.
Amari set those thoughts aside and thought back to his other classmates.
Another thing he'd learned today was that the method for mana control wasn't set. It was just all about effectively using mana and ensuring there was no waste or aura leak. Those sparks of lightning and aura flashes from when he'd previously used some of his skills were just evidence of poor mana control, which he knew now.
Everyone had their own ways of effectively using mana.
Lind effectively used his mana by circulating it through his body from head to toe at a speed most people couldn't pick up. Miss Ava controlled hers by limiting the usage from the start, adding more incrementally as she was about to cast a spell.
This didn't directly help him but it gave him a path to head towards.
So for the next ten minutes, Amari stared at the needle and thread.
They were both magical items contrary to their mundane appearance. The needle was probably as strong and durable as an average non-magical sword, and the large roll of thread was capable of passing mana seamlessly.
"So let's see…"
Amari cleared his mind of all distractions and focused on the separated piece of thread in front of him.
He carefully lifted the thread up to the small hole within the needle, injecting just a bit of mana inside it but before he could even try and pass it through the needle, it had already exploded.
And that was the major problem with learning mana control using this method. Even the slightest extra mana would cause the thread to explode completely. Meaning, unless the mana to thread-size ratio was 1:1, he wouldn't be considered to have succeeded.
Amari sighed and cut out another piece of thread and started even longer before injecting any mana into it.
His access to these rolls of mana thread and he would probably not get anything again and would therefore fail his course.
'What a pain…'
He took his time, guiding the mana through his body slowly, leading it to the tip of his finger then injecting it into thread even slower than before… but
BOOM!
A small cloud of smoke erupted in his hands as the thread burst apart and Amari's face turned ugly, creasing at the sides. This explosion was even worse than the first time.
'This is going to be a long week.'
. . . .
A few hours later the curtain of night had dropped on the world yet Amari still hadn''t made any significant progress with regards to mana progress.
His roll of thread had gone down by half and he was only slightly less worse than when he first started.
He considered the repercussions and put away the thread, "Maybe it's best I stop for today,"
It wouldn't be a very good look if he somehow managed to finish the roll of thread on the same day he started practising.
"Why am I so bad at it though?" It never really occurred to him to ask that question, "Was it because I was raised by Demon Beasts or something else."
This was something to think about but Amari wasn't as worried as he looked initially. If finessing his way into passing, he would just do it with brute force.
"On the other hand, it makes sense why my mana always drains so fast in fights. I was on to something against those puppets, but looking back it was extremely wasteful use just to achieve a single effect,"
Amari jumped atop his bed then stared at the ceiling. Most of the blank spots in his knowledge had been filled a while ago, it was just an issue of his strength catching up.
"On the other hand, perhaps it's the system's fault," he considered placing a hand on his chin, "I mean, it's pretty much casting the spells for me. So maybe it keeps estimating wrongly and spending improper amounts of mana points on simple skills,"
He considered this thought for a little while longer and the more he did, the more logical the theory sounded.
"But in that case, I would have to change my style of… well, everything. I would have to assign new values of mana points to each skill currently in my arsenal and cast them myself, or at least tweak the system to fit these new numbers,"
Easier said than done. The more he thought about it, the larger his headache became. So he pretty much rearranged his to-do list again, then permanently pushed the thought to the back of his mind once and for all.
"I wonder how Belat is doing. It's been a while since I last saw him,"
. . . .
"Hey that isn't fair, you're cheating!" A whiny young voice yelled out in a vast green forest, .
It was nighttime, he was a Shadow Dweller Wolf, he was supposed to have the advantage, but he kept on losing!
"Hehe, you're so weak. Try harder little Belat,"
The massive pig-like creature trudged through the forest causing a ruckus for what would probably be miles.
"Hmph. Don't get cocky, Rint! I'm only doing this because I want to surpass my big brother. Otherwise I wouldn't even play with you."
Belat turned away from the boar, his relatively small body almost tripping, but he managed to stay standing.
Rint the Red Fury Boar said nothing, and looked at the wolf with a shadow of amusement on his face.
How fun would it be to eat him…