"Oh, right. Sure, sorry that I woke you. By the way, how long was I out?"

Lin says "About an hour. You really had me worried."

"I'm sorry. Go back to sleep, I will wake you when it is time for breakfast."

Lin says "Alright. No more screaming though."

"Understood."

Lin goes back to sleep and I go back to my meditation to continue studying what happened. The first thing I try is my techniques to work on my core, but I end up disappointed. No matter what technique, or combination of techniques I try, nothing happens.

Since my techniques don't work it looks like my new core is something completely different. Of course, from the way it looks I was kind of expecting that to be the case. So, with no other options, I start experimenting with anything I can think of.

Unfortunately, I haven't figured anything out by the time it is time for breakfast. I end my meditation, wake Lin up, and then we go down to join the kids for breakfast. When we are done eating, Lin starts the kids' lesson and I go back upstairs to meditate.

By lunchtime I still haven't found a way to work on my core, so I go eat with the kids. After lunch I go back to experimenting, this time I try using mana to manipulate my core. At first it doesn't work at all, but when I try using fire mana I notice a reaction.

The fiery center part of the core absorbs the fire mana the instant it touches it. However, the lightning-like disc doesn't react until I touch it with lightning mana. Luckily, I have gotten really good at manipulating my mana so converting it is easy.

I find it odd that the sphere and the disc react separately when they should both be part of my core. From the looks of it, I can choose which element that I want to work on. I only hesitate for a few seconds, then I convert all my mana into lightning mana.

Fire is great, but out of the two I love lightning the most, so that is what I choose. As I feed lightning mana into the disc, it starts to spin slowly as it absorbs the mana. When I run out of mana it stops spinning, but the disc looks a little thicker.

Core Upgrade Progress: 2%

Considering that I used all of my mana, two percent is very disappointing progress. However, that was just me dumping my mana straight into the disc. It is possible that I can improve my progress if I can figure out my own technique.

I may also be making a mistake by only working on the disc, maybe I should be doing both. It is going to take some experimenting, but I am actually excited by that. This kind of experimenting will be fun, at least as long as nothing blows up.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Since I am out of mana, I take a break and head downstairs to eat dinner. Once the kids leave to watch cartoons, I discuss with Lin everything that I figured out. She doesn't have an opinion about my core, but she does about ways to use my mana.

She also tells me several times that I need to be careful, but I was expecting that. After all, she has heard some horror stories about me experimenting on myself from the goddesses. She even threatens to tell on me to the goddesses if she finds out I am not being careful.

Only after I have promised repeatedly does Lin leave to go read in the library. Once she is gone I head downstairs to take a lava bath and do another experiment. I am hoping that the heat and lightning of the bath will affect my core in some way.

When I get in the bath it is as relaxing as always, but there is no other effect. For the first little while, I just enjoy the heat and the massage of the lightning. Once my mana has recovered to about half, I start playing around with my core again.

I find out that converting my mana into either fire or lightning mana is enhanced by the bath. The mana is stronger after it is converted, it is being affected by the bath. This isn't exactly what I was hoping for, but it is definitely a positive thing.

I split my mana in half, the first half I convert to fire mana and the second into lightning mana. Once all the mana is converted I slowly feed it to my core, both parts at the same time. Basically, I want to see if the efficiency is higher if I work on both at once.

Core Upgrade Progress: 12%

Well, that is definitely more efficient than working on just the lightning disc. I used half the mana but got five times the effect, just feeding one is definitely wrong. Now the question is, how much of that is the effect from being in the bath?

The only way to be sure is going to be to try it with the same amount of mana when I am not in the bath. That will have to wait since it takes a while for me to recover my mana. I love having a larger mana pool, but it also means that my recovery speed is not enough.

Meditating helps speed up the recovery, but I really need to find another method. I've talked with Lin about this before, normal mages just absorb external mana. This gives them a faster recovery rate, but they don't purify the mana.

That means that their spells are less effective because of the impurities. My method may be slower, but since I use pure mana my spells are more powerful. I am not about to give that up, so I need a better way to gather and purify mana.

I know how to do that using an enchantment, but I don't want to rely on an item. It is too bad that I can't enchant myself, that would solve the problem easily. However, living things can't be enchanted, so that isn't an option I can use.

'Wait a minute! A living thing can't be enchanted, but something like ink can be! Doesn't that mean that a tattoo could be enchanted?!'

As soon as I have that thought, I can't stop thinking about the possibility. D&D had magical tattoos, and a few shows also had them, maybe it would be possible. Getting all excited, I quickly climb out of the bath and go running up to the library to ask Lin.

When I find her she is reading, of course, and she seems a little upset when I interrupt her. However, that quickly fades as I explain my idea and what a tattoo is. When I am done explaining, Lin just stares at me for a few minutes as if trying to decide if I am serious.

Lin says "It sounds like it would work in theory, but not for you. Would the tattoo even stay in place when you shapeshifted?"