“Force all the mana in your body right above your stomach.” Yuna said sternly.

“I’m. Trying.” Dante said in between breaths.

Currently they were trying to form his mana core before he basically imploded from the pressure that his aether heart was generating. The aether heart he acquired was from a god, it was a cut above the rest. It generated ridiculous amounts of aether which in raw form is many times more powerful than mana, but this created another issue. His body had no way of storing anything it was generating which was forcefully saturating his body with aether, short term this was okay since it reinforced his body but long term it was horrible. The longer he stayed without a mana core, the higher the chances his body would explode.

The issue with all of this though is that making a mana core can take days for geniuses and weeks for average people. So Dante was going to have to form one even faster which was unheard of, but he had help from Yuna.

“Are you sure I can’t do anything?” Ryota said shyly from the side. He had noticed that they were trying to form his core which surprised him but when he walked forward, he finally saw the angry side of Yuna and decided to take a step back for the most part.

“No.” Yuna said without sparing a glance at Ryota.

—-12 hours later

“Kill. Me.” Dante said while heaving for breath, he never knew that focusing that hard and forcing mana to stay still would be that difficult.

“You’re. Telling. Me.” Yuna said as she was hunched over gasping also.

The process of making a mana core is simple but difficult. You have to force your mana to stay right above your stomach, and over time someone else would use their mana to form a coating around it. This process was straightforward but really dangerous to do alone or without trusted people.

“Congratulations on forming your mana core in record time.” Ryota said.

“Ryota I appreciate you watching over us, but could you leave for a little while so I can speak privately with my son?” Yuna said as nice as she could.

Ryota smiled while bowing and walked away, but not before grabbing his daughter who was hiding behind a tree watching fervently.

“We need to get a handle on your mana core, now.” Yuna said with urgency.

“I thought we just did!” Dante yelled.

“That puny mana core isn’t enough to keep you from exploding, we’re gonna have to strengthen it through multiple ranks before it can hold by itself.”

“I’m lost.” Dante threw his hands up in distress.

“Mana cores are classified by how much mana they can store, and yours can store a very small amount.”

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Mana cores are the basic way that mages are categorized, the higher tier your mana core translates to more mana capacity. Right now Dante had a literal tsunami of aether flooding his mana core and only a tiny little pipe was transferring it, needless to say it wasn’t nearly enough.

“How do we strengthen it?”

“Sit back down and just let me work, focus on directing all that aether towards your body so it nourishes your mind, bones, muscles and organs.” Yuna wasn’t letting Dante get many words in since she was so distressed.

Dante just nodded and began forcing his aether basically everywhere, but there was simply too much to infuse.

Slowly over the next few hours while Dante was nourishing his body, Yuna was reconstructing his mana core so the outer shell would grow and gain much more density.

As mana cores grow, they begin condensing mana so their core doesn’t overflow like Dante’s.

( A/N Think of it as ratios like 4:1 repeating, each time you want to condense you have to use four times as much for the next tier essentially, I hope that explains it)

As you condense mana the color will change and that’ll reflect the density of your mana. The colors go Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Silver, White and finally Black.

(A/N color spectrum with Silver, White and black, hopefully that’ll simplify it so it’s not confusing. ROY G BIV saying from school (: thank you)

Right now Dante was speeding through these ranks but as time went on it began to slow down considerably, it takes an immense amount of mana to condense but once you manage to do it? Its difference is like heaven and earth. It takes much less mana to activate a lower ranked spell but should you choose to put the same amount of mana into as it originally calls for, the spell becomes much more powerful.

The only downside to condensing mana is it makes you stop every so often to increase your mana regen, which is why it takes mages long periods of time to rank up when you get higher ranked.

“Congratulations on becoming Green Ranked.” Yuna said as she plopped back down from over exerting herself.

Dante stood up and started to infuse mana into his fist and instantly noticed how powerful he felt now, as he punched out a huge wave of air shot forward from a regular punch.

“Be careful, now the real fun begins.” Yuna said slowly standing back up.

“And that is?”

“We need to familiarize yourself with your new power and get Ryota to start teaching you basic spells that everyone should know.” Yuna opened a portal and pulled out a diary and began skimming through it.

“You’re with me on the weekends but after you learn the spells from Ryota you’ll be mine fully. It should take no more than a year to learn all of the spells but I expect you to do it within six months. When you’re with me I’ll be teaching you spatial magic and basic swordsmanship from my land, I’ll figure out a way to teach you basic time and gravity magic.” Yuna began spouting a whole itinerary for her son.

“Can I get a chance to go watch people fight?” Dante interjected.

“Why?” Yuna asked curiously.

Dante explained his eidetic reflexes to Yuna and the more he went on the more her jaw dropped.

“I believe there's an arena here we could visit sometimes and you can pick up some of their styles, but their styles aren’t typically high end. It still wouldn’t be a bad idea to broaden your repertoire.” Yuna nodded in agreement before pulling out the diary once again and jotting down some more information. Then suddenly she slammed the book closed and narrowed her eyes at Dante.

“Let’s get started.” This mere sentence sent chills down Dante’s spine but he sucked it up.

Thus began a hellish camp that would go on until Dante entered the academy.