Kai had mixed feelings while he took the stairs to reach his room.
There were a lot of questions in his head and lots of things to do. From the Mana Weaver to the debt, there were problems to solve, but first of all, he needed to awaken his Mana heart. Without it, he was weak and severely limited in what he could do.
The last time he had gone through awakening was decades back and back then, his master had guided him step by step as it was the tradition, but he could easily achieve it on his own with years of experience.
As soon as he entered his room, he saw Claire reaching the upper shelves that were in the corner of the room and wiping the dust off with a cloth.
She looked to be done with the rest of the room and at that, she had done a marvellous job.
The blood stains that were scattered on the floor were no longer there. The black filth that Kai spit was completely cleaned. He looked around the room and smiled. As he scanned the room, he saw the buckets of dirty water that stayed on the side.
Compared to how messy it looked before, everything was squeaky clean.
She must have been focused to not notice him, so he cleared his throat to let her know he was inside.
Claire swiftly turned around and looked at him.
Kai simply nodded with a satisfied face. "Good job," he said and gave one final look to the room.
Claire nodded in return. "It's all done, Lord Arzan. If you need anything more, let me know." She quickly collected the cloth in her hand and moved towards the opposite room to lift the bucket.
Kai watched as she lifted the bucket full of water with shaky hands and turned around to leave the room.
Before she could leave, his voice stopped her.
"There is something. Claire, can you stand guard outside and make sure I'm not disturbed? I don't want anyone to knock on my door for the next hour," Kai asked. If he got disturbed during the awakening, he might just make a mistake.
Since he was already relying on Claire, he might as well use her as a primary maid.
"Okay, I will be right outside."
She said and with the heavy load of things in both of her hands, she walked through the opened doors and closed them after putting the bucket down.
Now alone, Kai took one last look at the room.
He walked to the middle of the room and sat on the floor. Right where the ritual was done before, but the evidence of any ritual was long gone.
A part of him wanted to keep it up to study more, but the risk of anyone seeing it like Claire was too high. He could simply look for similar symbols later on.
As soon as he settled on the floor, he inhaled deeply. The pure mana-filled air filled his nostrils, and lungs, and then, found its way to his Mana heart.
Gradually, his focus on his Mana heart grew. He could sense how filled his Mana heart was compared to last night.
He knew that there was no better time to attempt an awakening.
As he took his next breath in, he closed his eyes and let his mind wander to his internal organs. Each breath filled his organs with mana and Kai almost lost himself in the sensation, before pulling himself back.
Regulating his mana through the Mana heart, he noticed something.
Although Arzan was mostly useless, his Mana heart was at a higher level than average.
After reaching the first circle, it could easily generate 12x mana compared to an average human. The normal was 10x, so it was pretty much a big advantage.
Such cores were hard to come by and he had the potential to at least be a Savant level Mage one day if he had worked hard and not died in an unfortunate accident.
The Mana heart was even higher than what he had in his previous life. No wonder he was a Duke's son. Nobles usually marry skilled Mages among themselves, so it would pass in their bloodline.
After all, a Mage son was highly likely to be a Mage too.
He briefly wondered whether the poisoning had been someone fearing Arzan's talent as a mage, but he dismissed it.
It wasn't time to think about such things.
Arzan was considerably late to awaken his Mana heart. Normally, Mages would start their training at the age of fifteen years old.
Still, the level of his Mana heart would make up for the lost time. With Kai's experience and spells, he knew of, he could even reach the second circle in the next few months and gain a better understanding of what elements suit his new body.
Though, he didn't know the level of Mages of this era. It would still be a time when spells were less developed, so he wondered about how they operated.
Deciding to give a visit to this Mage Actra, Kai thought back to the time he had awakened.
Back then, his master had helped him absorb all the ambient mana in the air because his control of it was just not good. Now, he had better control and also, a new method to awaken his core.
A method he had only found out a decade after his awakening and had lamented about missing out on it. Now, he could finally use it.
The way to develop the first circle was simple.
He had to let the mana flow inside his Mana heart continuously and with focused intent, move it in circles through the Mana heart. With that, the organ would ignite while developing the first circle around the core permanently.
Kai inwardly slapped himself as he remembered how it took him more than 12 hours to absorb enough mana to develop the first circle back then.
He had trouble with absorbing mana from the surroundings and only later down the line, he had improved.
Now, he could do it in well under an hour. Especially with the Quin Method of Awakening.
I only found the method in an old ruin. It never got popularised, though it's not easy either.
Normal methods of awakening would generally amp the mana generation up to 10x unless one has a higher level Mana heart like Arzan. It was a basic number for most Mages, and even though people had tried to increase it, it had become too dangerous for young Mages to keep up with.
Quin Method of Awakening was also an experiment to increase the mana generation in the first circle and one of the rare ones to succeed, managing to amp up to 15x.
Unfortunately, Quin, the Mage who developed it had been a recluse and he had died before he could share it with the world and no one had checked with him to even give him a funeral since he was working in secret.
Kai had found his skeleton and research in a ruin. It had been a strange sight for him, but now, it was going to help him out.
He inhaled deeply, letting his emotions sink in. With the breath he took in, pure mana filled his lungs. Then, Kai intentionally let mana run through his heart in a circle, filling it as much as possible.
He took another long, deep breath, and did the same, filling the Mana heart again and again.
Soon, the Mana that was running inside his Heart started to speed up. Kai felt the particles brush against his insides as the inhalation and exhalation brought in enough mana to keep up with the pace.
Quin Method of Awakening simply focused on taking in as much mana as possible from the surroundings and spinning it in an anticlockwise direction. It would make the Mana Heart heat up and expand more, increasing the rate of generation.
So, Kai pulled as much mana as possible. An advantage of being in a world with abundant mana was that he had a lot of pull.
He kept taking from his surroundings and soon, Mana heart started to warm up.
He could feel the energy he absorbed moving within him in circle after circle.
Slowly, the rate of generation increased. From 2x to 4x to 7x to 9x. It was slow and gradual, but Kai felt all of it and gritted his teeth as an insurmountable pressure daunted his shoulders.
It felt like his heart was going to burst, but he kept going on.
Taking more and more mana, he reached the level of generation he desired and went even beyond that.
The next thing he knew was that the warmth turned into something better.
Kai's hands visibly relaxed as the first circle awakened.
"Finally!"
He cried out, taking deep breaths and clutching his chest. Not only had he been able to improve his mana generation by leaps and bounds, he had managed to get it to 17x instead of 15x.
It was probably due to the level of his core, but it was the most pleasant thing that could happen to him.
Sweat trickled down his forehead as he smiled.
He finally had a permanent circle of mana around his Mana heart that was generating way more mana than before.
He opened his eyes slowly. The feeling of power flowing within him gave him goosebumps as he sat up.
It feels like forever since I felt so good.
He took a deep breath in. Inhaling all of what happened in the previous minutes.
"Astrum Octavia!" Kai said aloud for him to hear and raised his hand, the palm facing towards the fireplace.
Last time, the spell hadn't worked, but this time, he had an awakened Mana heart.
He felt the mana rush into his hand, powering up the simple spell structure he conjured and activating the spell to fire up the centre of the fireplace.
It only took more than a second.
"Aha!" He looked at the logs of wood that burnt with fire. Kai's eyes glimpsed with happiness as he realised that he was no longer a Non-Mage.
He could slowly develop his circles to become a Magus again.
But before that, he had things to do.
Standing up from where he was, he rubbed his hands in his tunic. The warmth of the room already got under his skin, making him feel cosy. The fireplace looked much alive, and Kai's inner emotions were just as similar.
After taking a good look at the simple spell he cast, he was satisfied.
He needed to let Claire know that she didn't need to guard the door anymore. With a confident stride, Kai walked out of the room.
Creak!
Kai stepped outside his door.
"Claire-" As soon as he was about to tell her she could leave, he saw her. On the floor. She lay unconscious.
Initially, he wondered if there was some sort of an attack again, but he soon understood what had happened. He sighed.
Claire must've stayed too close to the door that he had accidentally pulled in her mana as well to awaken his core.
***
The window of the library cast a dim sunlight over the neatly arranged shelves.
The library wasn't extensive, but it had a few various subjects that Kai was interested in— History and Geography.
Both could help him get a better understanding of the city.
Kai stood among the rows, his fingers tracing the titles of different books. His brow furrowed ever so slightly, being in the depth of his thoughts.
His mind continuously raged the questions about how he was going to deal with the massive debt that hung around their heads for the time being. It was going to be a pain.
The thought itself made him want to run away and simply focus on attaining more power, but it didn't feel right.
Moreover, the advantage of using his powers as a noble and a lord lingered in his mind. If he solved this one problem, he could use it to get more funding for his projects.
Fundings were always necessary for what he had in mind and this was the easiest way to get it.
Kai observed Claire's assistance from afar. She was in deep thought as she continued to pick a few books from the shelf. She turned to look at the back cover page and the front and then shifted it to the other stack she had built.
He had ordered her to find a few history books.
Though, now that he thought about it, he had no idea whether Claire was even literate.
Shaking his head, he looked at her.
"Claire," Kai called her name. She quickly turned around with another book still in her hand. "How are the people living in the city these days?"
She handed the book over to Kai and took time to think about his question. She paused but replied, "The cold bites everyone, my lord. In my neighbourhood, one man succumbed to the harsh winter. Aside from that, the food is short during this time of the year. From what I've heard here and there, a lot of people are planning to migrate. Some even went already."
Kai thought of what she said for a moment. The winter was the biggest problem for the people. It had always been for centuries. Even in his time, winter hadn't been particularly nice, especially with Snow Fiends and Ice Wyverns coming out from their slumber.
"Then why not use Heat stones? Is it because they're a bit costly? I believe that a collective effort can afford larger ones that a whole street can use. People might find some relief."
He let his thoughts out but soon halted as he saw Claire's perplexed look.
Her frown deepened as Kai stopped talking and she said, "I'm not familiar with Heat stones. I haven't heard of them before. Do they alleviate colds?" Her weird look made Kai blink his eyes.
"Never heard about stones that emit warmth? People use it to stay warm, especially during winter."
Claire's eyes fell back onto Kai. The look on her face stayed right where it was. She had no idea what that meant or how that was used. Kai was sure of it.
"I have never heard of such a thing-"
"People just endure the weather apart from fireplaces?" Kai questioned back. He was, too, confused with what she was saying.
Claire nodded, giving an unfortunate smile.
It was then that he realised that the Heat stones hadn't been invented yet. Even if they were, they weren't as widespread.