The Refinement stage or process allows a Mage aspirant to raise the purity and increase their Mana capacity.
While I was meditating and practicing Refining actively for the first time in a while, I would find myself asking what was the point of expanding my Mana pool much more than it already is if I already have such a large one?
Regardless I'd shrug it off and keep at it. By refining my Core, I was strengthening the organ enough to be capable of purifying the world energy and Mana better to raise the quality of my spells.
This way, I could also increase the range of my mental abilities indirectly.
As I continued to meditate, I felt a strange, yet satisfying rush of energy enter through my left chest like a vacuum. By deploying my mental waves around me, I was able to draw and containe more amounts of Mana for my core to absorb, thereby hastening the contraction and expansion process by five folds.
Feeling my Core expland and brim with pure Mana was satisfying.
Eventually, I had my fill and stopped. I cancelled out my Wave, and the Mana that had been trapped inside the dome around me began to disperse around once more. At the same time, the rate of suction from my core drastically reduced until I completely stopped and got up.
I gave out a sigh and flexed my fingers, feeling my Mana veins rush with refine energy and nodded with a small sigh.
'I have created a truly exceptional Refinement process.
Even without actively trying to, the human body absorbs Mana particles from the air and slowly makes their way to the core to be compressed at a certain capacity. This meant one can still be refining without meditating, but this would take a long period as only mere particles can be absorbed by the body.
And yet, those particles take a while to travel all the way to the core. That is precisely what actively refining one's core does; it consciously hasten the particles towards the core by engaging the core like a vortex to gather all the particles inside of the body.
But by using my Mental Waves, rather than absorbing particles from the air, and then having my core slowly absorb them, i found a way to directly absorb Mana from the world energy directly into my core.
It had been a while I practiced magic and cast actual spells. With everything that had happened so far, I had either been preoccupied or simply disheartened by my lack of progress in that aspect.
Other than refining my Core every now and then, I hadn't even touched the old book and continued to transcribe its pages.
[Fire] with a single casual thought, a vibrant tongue of fire spontaneously combusted in my open palms.
VWOOSH—
Simultaneously, the lick of flame expanded and grew, burning and consuming the air like a devouring cloud of fire.
"My Sensitivity and Control have also drastically improved." Truly, indeed, the Mental Sphere was a blessing in disguise.
Until a few months ago, I would have second thoughts and struggle to maintain this high level of a Fire Conjuring without risking loosing control.
But now, not only were my flames more visibly vibrant and potent from the purity level of the refine Mana running through my veins from my core, but my sensitivity to each flow and current of before was like child play to my current capabilities.
I could casually increase and restrain the output of my Conjuring.
The vast burning cloud of flames shrunk and gathered, coalescing into a small round sphere, the size of a tennis ball. I added a slight rotation to the miniature ball of fire with a thin but densely packed wisps of wind, spiralling round the ball of fire.
Right next to it, I conjured a smaller sphere of water from tiny droplets, and a solid piece of earth around its orbit. Then exercising my control further, I pulled the sphere of water and piece of earth into the spiralling wind current, forcing them to rotate round the ball of fire like planets around a sun.
This was the current extent of my current abilities. I felt a single bead of sweat trickle down the side of my head, while I grinned widely despite the slightest strain I felt.
Despite the sizes of each of the sphere and elements in my palm, the quality and quantity behind each of them was no joke. With my current Mana Core and Mana purity we're far above my current Sensitivity and Control level. It almost took all I had to maintain this seemingly little display without loosing control. And this was only thanks to my exceedingly higher cognitive abilities.
My brain waves were just enough to make up for the minuscle amount of Sensitivity and Control I lacked.
But at the same time, I felt my Mental Core drain obviously, and quickly cancelled out each of the conjurings I was maintaining before heaving a deep sigh and falling to the ground on my backside.
I had small traces of sweat on my face, and my breathing was a little bit strained, bit i was still smiling regardless.
My body was at a great imbalance. My Core level surpassed both my Sensitivity and Control, and Mental Core capacity, as such this was the full extent of my capabilities.
For now.
Indeed. This was 'merely' what, I Reo Bellar was currently capable of with the current level of my abilities.
But it was clear...i could see it now.
The vast potential I had before me.
*
*
*
The last weeks of spring and the first months of summer went by swiftly with me steadily increasing my capabilities, and testing the limits of my abilities. I experienced the most growth in those few months, than I had ever before.
I raised the range of my Mental Wave to surprass ten to fifteen meter radius at maximum, and fully got accustomed to its effect whenever I deployed it.
My Mental Core expanded and my Mental capacity drastically increased, pushing a step forward my cognitive abilities once more.
From there, I raised my my Mana Sensitivity and Flow Control, bringing my overall abilities to substantially equal balance among each.
This development led me to see exponential growth in Magic.
[FLARE]
A burning ball of fire erupted next to my shoulder, the size of a basketball with a short wave of my hand.
[CONDENSE]
The ball shrink ever slightly.
[IGNITION]
The shrunk sphere pulsed and exploded inside itself, as the passive heat it permeated drastically increased, and the body was encased in what resembled a sun's corona, that licked the air, burning it.
But I wasn't done.
[COMPRESS]
I focused once again, the ball shrunk.
[IGNITION]
The power doubled once more.
[COMPRESS]
[COMPRESS]
[COMORESS]
...
My voice coldly repeated, feeling the energy of the shrinking spell continue to rise. The color of the accumulated flames increasingly kept growing lighter and lighter, with each cycle of ignition and compressing i forced it to undergo.
Eventually, the flame was a searing hot, bright yellow ball that boiled the very air I breathed and seared the environment just by being there.
Feeling a trembling pressure against my mind, and the strain ultimately build up, I fought to retain control of my breathing and disregard the pressure building up in my head.
Thankfully, the boiling heat of the miniature star next to me somehow assisted to clear my thoughts.
I gnashed my teeth, and squeezed the words out with a hoarse breath.
"[...C.. COM...PRESS]"
The ball yet shrunk again, and it's pressure rose simultaneously with the one in my mind doubling equally. I felt my Mental Core drain drastically, as control slowly ebbed away from my consciousness.
"S... just seven...fo...lds, huh," by the time the pressure became more unbearable and before my Mental Core reserves hit the red, i quickly dismissed the boiling ball and fell to my knees, hitting the dry leaves and twigs.
"Huff...Huff..." I fell forward, and supported my upper body with my hands against the ground. My chest felt heavy and was heaving, as I forced deep breaths through my lungs. With the burning sphere out of the way, it felt easier to breathe.
The air had never tasted so sweet and sparkling before.
The weighty pressure against my mind also slowly decreased till it was well within manageable. And then slow but potent mental exhaustion slowly settled in.
My hands were trembling as my plans were sweaty. My Mental reserves were less than half their full capacity, and I felt my forehead throb now that i dismissed the sphere.
I was in the forest experimenting on a new idea I had been nurturing for a while.
I still had zero access to spells and decided to tailor spells that suit my personal needs and standard. By applying both the characteristics of Conjurings and Spells, I was on the verge of creating a whole new different type of aspect of magic, from the sun of two parts.
But even with the Mental Sphere spell, I was still far from accomplishing that goal and was ultimately still lacking.
This time, I managed to recreate the effect of the spell I had in mind, but as for the process of manifesting the Conjuring-spell, I faced numerous drawbacks and failure.
The idea was to create a concentrated point of flames from Mana using both the characteristics of Conjurings and Spells, but this also brought along its own share of complications.
There was how I had to be careful about the ratio balancing each attribute of the two different aspects, namely spells and conjuring, but with my exceptional control, i had long already resolved that aspect.
The current problem lies in how long it takes for me to manifest the spell and charge it up till its desired output.
I couldn't do it all once at a thought, and as such had to breakdown the process, and execute each one by one, repeatedly.
This time I had to double the power by igniting and folding the energy and heat over and over, but my control and mental waves could barely hold the power and pressure after seven 'folds' and cycle.
Hence how I was here.
"Goddammit. The problem still lies in the current level of my abilities," indeed that was true. My Mental Core and reserve just weren't large enough to accommodate such power and pressure, as the power of the spell increases drastically with each 'fold'.
Calming my racing heart and mind, I took in a depth breath, and seized control over my spiraling emotion and composure.
My abilities can only improve in time.
Fortunately for me, I had plenty of that.
In five years, I would experience growth far more than I could imagine.
***
AUTHOR'S NOTE: we've reached the final chapters of Volume one, and in a similar manner you can say Volume one ends here. The subsequent chapters were initially supposed to be attributed as a side story five years after this chapter, but I changed my mind amd decided it to be the Epilogue of Volume one instead. But just because I mentioned side story doesn't mean it's a filler arc. The effects are directedly related to the main story as a smaller event in passing.