"Phew! And now for the real test." Ron said before taking his wand out from his pocket.
He knew from his memories that Ron had never tried to cast any underage magic, at least not outside his house.
This meant that even if for some reason his deduction turned out to be wrong, and the ministry was able to pick up on his magic, he would still not be in too much trouble and wouldn't get anything more than a warning and maybe get grounded by his parents at most.
So there was no need for him to worry too much...
After taking a deep breath, Ron lifted his wand, pointed it towards a small rock in front of him and then flicked it while incanting, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
Almost immediately the rock rose up in the air following the direction of his wand. His heart sang at the feeling of being able to cast magic out here in the open and he wanted nothing more than to keep on going but he knew that it wasn't the time yet so he reluctantly cut off his magic and let the rock fall.
And then he just stood there... waiting.
A minute passed, then two minutes passed... and then five... but it was only when a whole ten minutes had passed without any owl sightings, did the tension in Ron's shoulder finally left him, "WoHoo!!" Ron exclaimed while jumping happily.
Then without waiting a single more moment, he let loose...
"Lumos!" "Stupefy!" "Accio!" "Protego!" "Petrificus Totalus!" "Expelliarmus!"
And he went on and on... with every single one of his cast being a success. He felt such a rush of adrenaline course through his body, at being able to cast his magic, that he wasn't able to contain himself...
It took a complete total of fifteen minutes before he came down from the high and by then his surroundings looked significantly different.
He also began to feel a little winded, and it only took a single glance at his status screen to find out the reason why...
MP: 30/258
While the spells themselves had been the magic-heavy kind, little by little they had added up and in the end, he was now down to almost one-tenth of his magic.
But it wasn't too much of a problem as he found out, much to his delight, that his magic recovery was quite exceptional.
In fact, when he calculated it roughly, he saw a single-point increase in his Magic Power every three seconds, which meant that it was just a matter of a little more than ten minutes for him to recover his magic completely.
"Uff! Still, that was quite fun..." Ron said with a satisfied grin before he shook his head and stood up straight.
"Alright! It's time to get serious now... so which one should I go for first," he mused while opening the drop-down menu for his skills.
[Charms Lv 5 (15%)]
1. Wingardium Leviosa Lv 5 (85%)
2. Lumos Lv 5 (78%)
3. Expelliarmus Lv 6 (90%)
4. Alohomora Lv 4 (88%)
5. Stupefy Lv 6 (25%)
6. Protego Lv 6 (35%)
7. Accio Lv 4 (40%)
8. Spongify Lv 1 (20%)
...
..
One interesting discovery he had made while reading the first-year charm book was that even just consuming theory about a spell increased its proficiency.
Not only that it seems that even if he had never cast a particular type of magic before, for example, the softening charm—Spongify, as long as he had read about its casting method and all the details regarding its function, he could still get the level one of that skill, which was just fantastic and he knew for sure that it would come incredibly handy in the future, 'For now, let's start with you...'
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 5 (85%)
There were two reasons he chose this one to start practising in.
The first one, was simply because this spell was on those very close to levelling up, and the second reason was that this spell was the kind that could become insanely useful in a fight if he could bring its level high enough...
"Now, Let's begin! Wingardium Leviosa!"
He began by casting the Levitation charm on a normal rock and then just simply began floating it up and down, but even after keeping that up for almost five minutes there was no progress in the proficiency percentage of the skill, so he decided to spice things up.
He began by trying all the variations in which he could use the levitation charm.
From trying to lift different materials, to lifting them to different heights, and then he tried moving them faster, moving them slower, he tried sending them up, down, left, right and in all kinds of complicated patterns.
He tried every single method that his brain could conjure up, no matter how stupid it seemed, and in the end... it actually worked quite well.
Almost half of the exercises he tried gave him some proficiency points, but the difference was how long it took for him to earn those points.
Some took twenty minutes to earn just three points while others gave him a point for every minute of that particular exercise.
But the most efficient exercise turned out to be the simplest and the hardest one. It gave him three points in proficiency for every minute that he could handle it.
The exercise was simply... heavy lifting, that is, by lifting the heaviest weight that he could manage with the Leviosa spell and then holding it for as long as he could at an appropriate height. In this way, he was able to train the floating charm at the fastest speed.
And it wasn't easy work, by any means...
Every single second of it was spent like hell, he felt as if he was lifting a hundred kg barbell with just one hand, making it a battle of mental will.
Every step of the way he had to grit his teeth and spend all his concentration just to hold on. He held on to his wrist with his left hand as his wand kept shaking due to the strain from maintaining his grip, and while he knew that it was probably all imaginary and that his wand wasn't actually that heavy... knowing it didn't help him much.
And even after all that, most times he wasn't even able to hold on for a little more than a minute...
In addition, he had to spend a few minutes recovering his mental strength and physical strength after each session of this exercise otherwise his results would degrade and he wouldn't even be able to last ten seconds.
But while it was an excruciating exercise, in the end, it was worth it as the rewards were just as sweet.
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 5 (93%)
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 5 (94%)
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 5 (95%)
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 5 (96%)
...
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 5 (100%)—> Wingardium Leviosa Lv 6 (01%)
Seeing his proficiency rise as if it were on steroids put a massive grin on his face and made him forget all his pain.
When he levelled up the skill, he noticed that it became a little bit smoother to cast the magic and even the massive rock he was lifting became somewhat lighter for him to lift, not giving him as much strain as before.
But he wasn't satisfied with just this level up. He was already quite close to the next level even before he began the exercise, so it didn't feel that sweet.
So he decided that he wouldn't stop today until he reached the next level.
Seeing that the weight wasn't enough, he just decided to add more heavy rocks lying nearby on top of the previous one to increase the weight, and then he just kept on adding them until they were enough to give him a hard time.
The increased concentration required to juggle the rocks to keep them from falling was just an added bonus.
And that's how he spent his time...
He would spend two minutes or so straining himself with as much weight as he could and when he was at his limit, he would stop and take a few minutes break to recover before repeating it again... and again.
After every few rotations of these exercises, he would have to take a longer break to have his magic power recover but still all in all he was making good progress as his skill was slowly but surely improving with every single minute. He also had to add progressively more rocks to feel the strain...
So much so that towards the end...he was lifting almost 250 kg of rocks, which was a lot...
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 6 (25%)
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 6 (26%)
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 6 (27%)
...
And little by little he was reaching towards his goal...
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 6 (85%)
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 6 (86%)
...
And in the end, just as he had fallen onto his knees and was almost on the point of reaching his limit for the hundredth time that day, with his magic, mind and body completely spent, the result that he had been waiting for finally arrived
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 6 (99%)
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 6 (100%)—>Wingardium Leviosa Lv 7 (01%)
"Hooh! Finally!" Ron breathed out with a wide grin as he fell on his back, letting the big tower of rocks tumble to the ground with a loud thud. "Haha!! I can't believe reached Level 7 in just a single day. It's now the highest level of almost all my skills so it's gotta have some amazing effect to it, shouldn't it?" he thought with a gleam of anticipation in his eyes.
And then after a short five-minute break, he was ready, not to go back to his exercise as he felt that he was done for the day, having already stretched his mind to the limit again and again he was now exhausted enough that only sleep could help him recover, but still, he was good enough to use a few rounds of spells.
"Now let's see, what you can do Leven 7 charm..."
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
...
..
"Hmm, That's weird... is there no change," Ron murmured with a frown of confusion on his face, "Ugh! This shitty system, not even giving me a proper explanation..."
But he didn't whine for too long and instead, he began repeatedly casting the spell, trying different ways to use the spell each time, to see if anything was different...
"Wingardium Leviosa!""Wingardium Leviosa!""Wingardium Leviosa!"
And he found out that the spell had indeed improved...
He could now lift almost twice as much weight, i.e almost 500 kg, and the speed at which he could manoeuvre an object had also doubled, and the spell also felt a little smoother making it easy for things to follow complex paths and his command over the object had also improved as the rock he was levitating followed his will almost instantly.
Oh, and most importantly, he could now float two objects at once now...
"But still, is that it..."
It was all well good but Ron had expected something better, something more... and so he kept trying and trying...
"Wingardium Leviosa!""Wingardium Leviosa!""Wingar—" He was so immersed in his casting that he didn't even notice which object in his surroundings he was casting the spell on and during this spell marathon of his, he stumbled upon something amazing, "Wait! Why is it already up in the air? I didn't even... complete the spell..."
Ron's eyes widened comically when he noticed that even without fully completing the incantation, the rock he was pointing at was already up... floating off the ground.
'Wait! Was that it!' Ron exclaimed inwardly, and then too excited at the unexpected reward he had stumbled upon he didn't wait and immediately tried it once again.
'Wingardium Leviosa!'
He cast the levitation for the hundredth time that day, but this time without uttering a single syllable out of his mouth.
For a second, nothing happened and he became a little lost wondering if it had been a fluke before.
But then slowly... ever so slowly the rock he was casting the charm on began rising into the air.
Ron's eyes widened as his heart began to beat rapidly in his elation but this burst of excitement broke his concentration and the rock fell to the floor, but he didn't care and just whooped in excitement, "Haha! This is even better than I expected. I can now cast silently! I am an elite wizard now!"
'Wingardium Leviosa!'
He tried it again and... again, on all kinds of objects from small to big and while in the beginning, the floating objects were a little wobbly and his concentration broke frequently.
But with each cast, he got a little better and began to be able to hold the silent cast for a longer duration.
And all this practice even got him some sweet proficiency points...
Wingardium Leviosa Lv 7 (03%)
However, it seems that proficiency points are coming a little slower now.
Regardless it was time to end his practice for the day as without him noticing the sun was now almost down to the horizon, and he knew that he needed to go back immediately or his mother would come looking, and he didn't want that.
'But all in all, this was a very fruitful day,' Ron had quite a wide smile on his face as he went back home.
However, what Ron didn't know was that this level-up wasn't the only surprise waiting for him that day... because before the day was over he would get one more reward, a reward that was going to lay the foundation for all his achievements in the future.
///