3 months later.
Fall is upon us, and it's getting colder.
I've been putting a lot of effort into controlling mana using telekinesis.
It is tough, but I've been able to do it.
I can use the ambient mana to light coat my body as a sort of second skin. This helps me reduce the impacts of incoming attacks and projectiles. By intertwining sections of my telekinetic barrier with mana, I can increase the force my barrier can receive before breaking. I've estimated the force I can withstand now is about double in comparison to only using my telekinesis. This is great, but it shines even more when I want to put up defensive barriers without expanding any mana. Since I can do this with ambient mana, it won't use up any mana from my mana core when I end up actually forming it.
Not only that, but I can mimic a mana blade now. A mana blade is a technique magic swordsmen use to reinforce their blades. With it, the more experienced swordsmen can cut through even the strongest metals as if it were bread. This enhances the sharpness in the same way I killed the wolves and increases the durability. Even better is I can further improve this technique by using my telekinesis. The only downside is that unlike mana coming from my core, ambient mana doesn't have my will imbued into it. This means I need to constantly hold the mana in place if I want the reinforcing effect.
By pushing ambient mana into my legs, I can boost my speed, and by concentrating mana into my eyes, I can see farther and react faster. However, the reaction speed isn't too important to me since I can already react almost instantly to anything in my telekinetic field.
I'm going to call that a T-field from now on, by the way.
Anyway, although I can sense and react to things in my t-field almost instantly, my body actually processing the commands my brain is sending out is another story. Luckily, by infusing mana into my arms and legs, I can speed up my body to match. Unfortunately, this isin't as good as using mana from inside my core, but it'll be better than forcing my limbs to move using telekinesis.
Regarding how much weight I can lift via telekinesis. It hasn't changed too much, I can now lift about a large sac of rice. My control has been improving by leaps and bounds, although I'm nowhere near I was at my peak. I still cannot practically use it in combat, but I've been focusing more on mana anyway.
Since my telekinesis naturally grows stronger, it's only a matter of time before it's strong enough to use as an actual weapon.
Now, that brings us to the present. Currently, I'm sitting on my bed with my eyes closed.
I've told the maids not to let anyone into my room and not to disturb me.
Why, you might ask? Well, I'm going to form my mana core today.
As I said, my telekinesis has improved greatly, and I can handle the mana in the atmosphere almost freely.
All I need to do is take that into my body and condense it.
I've learned that although a mana core is important, another thing that is essential to a mage is mana pathways. These are invisible lines that follow your veins, and they are essential in letting mana flow freely in and out of your mana core. Your mana core filters and stores your mana. And your pathways let it flow throughout your body. This allows you to bring it out of you to form spells or circulate it to enhance certain body parts, strengthening them.
I need to do two things: form my mana core again and repair my mana pathways. During my reflux, the mana went rampant inside me. It damaged most, if not all, of my pathways, so as soon as I finish forming my core, I need to let the mana flow through my broken pathways and make them nourish and heal those pathways simultaneously. This isn't automatic, and I have to guide the individual mana particles throughout my broken pathways manually.
This level of control is only possible inside of me and because mana is technically a foreign entity. I wouldn't be able to use telekinesis to perform such a delicate operation on my veins, bones, etc. Still, because I'm operating on my body, and mana is something foreign that my body doesn't naturally generate, it's possible.
So, anyway. Let's get this done.
Taking in a deep breath, I close my eyes and focus on the ambient mana.
Pulling the mana into my body, I slowly bring it to where my core should be. As the mana seeps into me, it's automatically filtered and has my will imprinted onto it. This is good as it means I can keep it inside me long enough for my core to form anew.
Sitting like that, slowly pulling in all the mana I could muster, I stayed there. I lost track of time until, finally, I had enough.
Slowly, I started forming the mana into a ball, squeezing it and making it as dense as possible. As the ball got smaller and smaller, it became more volatile, often fluctuating and threatening to explode out of me. Still, I grit my teeth and kept going. Using my telekinesis as an outer shell, I made sure no mana seeped out and started ravaging my body again.
Supposedly, the mana is supposed to slowly develop its outer shell naturally when you first awaken your core, but based on my research, there isn't really a known way to force this, so all I could do was hold on.
As time passed, I sat there, still. My entire focus on the mana in my body.
At first, nothing seemed to be happening, but then, finally, I noticed a change. As my telekinesis formed a second shell around the mana, I felt it gradually start to harden. The outside seemed to thicken, slowly taking over the surface of the mana ball.
At this point, I could feel the fatigue throughout every inch of my body. Exhausted, but if I stopped or fell asleep, I would die. Motionless, I let the mana slowly go through its tempering process as it got more complicated. As it slowly started to harden, I loosened my control over the core and started guiding some of the residual mana throughout my broken pathways. As it traveled through my body, I would reconnect any severed pathways and reform them so that they were stable. I had to make sure they could support the new mana as it flowed freely through me once I stopped controlling the mana in my core.
With my concentration split on both my core and my pathways, the pace was extremely slow. Even then, I couldn't keep track of time as I was using all my effort to make sure I didn't fuck up.
Eventually, my pathways were as good as I could get them, and I returned the extra mana to my core.
I scanned the mana core as I was doing this, and it seemed like the outer shell had finally finished developing.
Cautiously, I removed the telekinesis from the core and inspected my body.
As I let my telekinesis disperse, the mana started flowing from my core into my new pathways. Luckily, I did a good enough job, and it slowly flowed through my body normally.
I breathed a massive sigh of relief and collapsed backward onto my bed, slowly breathing out.
I would have loved to inspect the new benefits of my core and pathways, but the exhaustion was overpowering, so I decided to sleep first.
And with that, I closed my eyes.