Previously, my lightning spells have been an even mix of air and fire, which was wrong. Since the spells are meant to be destructive, the balance should lean more towards fire. That will make the spell more destructive while needing less mana to cast.

Unfortunately, my understanding of fire mana doesn't have as much effect. Maybe if I can study some natural fire mana I might gain more benefits. It makes me wish that I had had the glasses when I went to the volcano.

However, I'm sure that I will get another chance, there are sure to be other volcanoes. If nothing else, the fire temple is built in a volcano and I have to deal with it at some point. There should also be other sources of fire mana that I can study, like sunlight.

Thinking of that, I take Lin with me and exit the castle to look at the mana outside. I was right, there are small amounts of natural fire mana within the sunlight. Also, there are massive amounts of water mana around the ship, but that isn't surprising.

The sun is currently going down, which is why the fire mana is so sparse. I am sure that it would be a lot more plentiful during the middle of the day. However, even with the small amount of particles, we are able to see its natural movement.

We also get to look at some naturally occurring light mana, which is helpful. Lin and I learn a lot about mana and we have a lot of fun doing experiments together. We keep going until the sun fully sets and the sky turns dark, but then something else appears.

Darkness mana appears once the light is gone and we get distracted by it. I am not as interested in the darkness mana, but Lin is completely enthralled. Her curiosity towards magic is far stronger than mine, but I have no plan to ruin her fun.

However, my interest is caught when the moon rises and new light mana appears. What really interests me is that this moonlight mana doesn't interfere with the darkness mana. They don't clash like I would expect them to, they even seem to get along.

The movements of the two different particles change and sync up when they are close to each other. It is a reaction that we haven't seen in any other particles, at least so far. Unfortunately, while we can observe it, we have no way of figuring out why it happens.

It is a mystery that frustrates me a lot and at the same time it thrills Lin. Her explanation is that if she knew the answers to everything it would be boring. While I can understand her point and even agree with it, it doesn't help with my frustration.

Eventually, we run out of experiments to try and there seems to be nothing left to learn. As Lin's excitement fades she starts showing signs of being tired so we return to the castle. When we return we find that the kids are currently eating dinner, almost a full day has passed for them.

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Lin and I eat a little with the kids and then go straight to bed to get some sleep. It turns out that Lin isn't quite as tired as I thought, so we have some fun before we go to sleep. I sleep for a few hours, then when I wake up I head down to take a bath and work on my core.

Core Upgrade Progress: Completed!

Core Upgraded from Rank 15 -> Rank 16!

Benefits: HP +5,000, MP +2,500, DP + 1,000! Evolution Points +50!

'So many evolution points! That's awesome!'

The rank up benefits are so much better than the last time I ranked up. This is even better than I was hoping for, it was certainly worth all the extra effort. I now have half the evolution points needed for the next evolution.

If things stay the same, that means I can evolve after ranking up two more times. If that is the case, then I actually have a path to become stronger through my own efforts. That is a relief, being unable to get stronger has been a worry for a while.

Now that I have a path, I just need to keep working on my core and walking down that path. The only thing holding me back is the rate at which my mana recovers itself. While I learned a lot about how natural mana acts, it doesn't really help.

Well, that's not entirely true, I can improve my mana gathering enchantment now. Meaning the mana gathering tattoo that I was planning can be improved as well. Unfortunately, the crystals are already engraved, that isn't something I can change.

I could improve the enchantments on them, but the rate they purify the mana is set. That means that increasing the mana gathering rate wouldn't do anything. In fact, it would increase the chances of something going wrong and damaging the crystals.

Now, I kind of regret doing all the crystals at once instead of saving some for later. I will have to wait until I can get more materials and make more crystals. For now, I head to my workshop and do some work on improving the gathering enchantment.

In fact, now that I think about it, I can improve most of my enchantments. I happily spend the remaining time until breakfast improving my spells. When I head upstairs I am surprised to find Lin is already up and sitting at the table.

When I walk over to give her a good morning kiss, I see that she is writing something. I quickly realize that she is writing down everything that we learned about mana. The kids wake up and when they join us we eat breakfast together.

While we are eating, I start discussing with Lin the improvements I made to my spells. Lin has also had some ideas and we spend the rest of breakfast talking about it. We came up with different ideas based on what we learned and sharing gives us more ideas.

By the time breakfast is done the table is half covered with Lin's notes. Thanks to their lessons, the kids are able to understand some of what we are talking about. With them asking questions, our discussion ends up turning into their lesson for the day.

In the end, my recent improvements of my spells and enchantments become outdated. Taking some writing materials from Lin, I start improving my spells again. Lin does the same and as we finish writing down the new spells we pass them back and forth.

This way, we can check each other's work for errors and possibly come up with more improvements. Out of the kids, only Mulan sticks around for this part, the others go to watch TV. Lin and I spend hours happily working on improving the spells and enchantments.