Encouraged by Cedric’s words of well encouragement. Lance had spent the next few days working on his project but it seemed that making or combining spells was much harder than learning new ones.

“Well, that was productive,” Lance muttered.

“Come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Nico tried to encourage him. “At least you got to… uh… know your… spells don’t work? Yeah, okay, it was bad.”

Lance sighed, rubbing his temples.

“But you gotta try again, man! C’mon, you just need to figure out how to make a feather float. Learning it is the easy part.” Nico flipped through one of the remaining books, his eyes suddenly lighting up. “Wait—look at this! Lesser Vibrative Platform. It’s a vibration spell that can hold objects midair.”

Lance perked up. “Really? Show me.”

“Oh… uh, it’s a tier two spell. I can’t cast it yet.”

William chuckled in Lance’s mind. “You could learn it if you tried. Just need to bump your mana core up a tier. A little meditation, some focus, and boom—you’d have access to some solid tier-two spells.”

Lance was suddenly wide awake. “Really? You think I’m ready?”

“No.” William’s tone was completely flat. “But hey, you don’t have much to lose… unless you completely mess it up.”

“Lance? Lance!”

Lance jolted out of his conversation, blinking.

“Yeah! Uh—what happened?”

“You were just staring into the distance. You good?”

“Oh, uh… yeah, just thinking.”

“Yeah, right.”

Lance quickly stood up, brushing it off. “Nico, I’m gonna go train. Thanks for the help. We can get lunch later?”

“Sure. I’ll grab Lyra and Kade too. Oh, and you should ask Oliver if he wants to come—he’s probably training in your room.”

“Alright.”

Lance was already halfway out the library doors

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Lance pushed open the door to his dorm room, expecting to find Oliver inside, but the room was empty.

“Huh. Guess he’s still training,” Lance muttered, tossing his bag onto the bed. He sat down and leaned back, staring at the ceiling.

“Good. That means we can talk,” William’s voice echoed in his mind.

“Right, about this whole tier thing. How does it actually work?”

“Finally, some curiosity. Alright, listen up.”

William’s voice took on a more serious tone as he began explaining.

“Your mana core determines the amount of lifestream you can hold and process. At Tier 1, your core can only handle basic spell flows—low-energy magic. The moment you try to push a spell that requires more lifestream than your core can handle, it either fizzles out or backfires.”

Lance nodded. “Makes sense. And Tier 2?”

“A Tier 2 core has a greater capacity. It can generate, process, and store enough lifestream for stronger spells. Every increase in tier means stronger spell flows and higher efficiency. This goes all the way up to Tier 9, but that’s ridiculously far off for you.”

Lance rolled his eyes.

“I’m just being realistic. The real game-changer happens at Tier 5, though.”

Lance sat up. “Why?”

“At Tier 5, you gain access to your life force. It’s more than just lifestream—it’s the essence of what makes you - you, you use it everyday to control lifestream . It determines your vitality and health, but in the hands of a skilled mage, it can also be used for healing, or—if you get really good—weaponized to disrupt enemy spell flows.”

Lance’s mind buzzed with the implications. “That’s insane.”

“It is. But that’s a long way off. Right now, your goal is Tier 2.”

Lance exhaled. “So how do I do it?”

“Simple in theory, hard in practice. You need to gather enough lifestream, condense it with mental will, and then—boom—your core bursts into a Tier 2 state. On average, it takes about a full day of meditation to do it properly.”

Lance groaned. “A whole day? I don’t have time to just sit around doing nothing.”

“Then you’ll love my shortcut.”

Lance perked up. “I’m listening.”

“Get a lifestream storage device. Fill it to the max, then meditate while drawing the stored lifestream into yourself. If you time it right, you can perform the breakthrough in half the time.”

Lance rubbed his chin. “That actually sounds doable. Where would I even get one of those?”

“That’s your problem to figure out. I’ll make it easier, Go explore the city and find yourself a a magic item shop. Though im willing to bet most lifestream storage materials are as rare on the material plane as they are at others.Be ready to cash in some gold, its gonna be expensive . ”

Lance groaned. “Of course it is.”

He glanced at the books scattered around his desk, then out the window toward the bustling campus.

“Alright,” he said, standing up. “Let’s go find a lifestream storage device.”