Mana control level up +1
Zack closed the book that he had in his hands and returned it to his original place.
It's been a week since Zack and the others saw Albert's demonstration for them.
A few things have happened since then.
Status
Name: Zack Mayima
Age: 18
Race: Human
Title: Bookworm
Class: Mage
Level: 8
Stats:
Strength: 9
Endurance: 9
Wisdom: 17
Luck: 10
Agility: 10
Inteligencia: 22
Charm: 11
Mana: 20/20
Skills:
Fast Reading Level 4
Memorization Level 2
Mana Control Level 3
Universal Traduction
Zack's reading is going well. Although he's still reading tier 1 magic books, and there's no sign that he's going to get out of there any time soon, his progress is remarkable.
While Zack was looking for another book of his level to read, his mind couldn't help but remember the demonstration that Albert gave them.
…
Are you ready?! Albert said as he stood in the middle of the room.
In front of him. About 20 meters away there was a training dummy and several randomly scattered aiming targets.
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In these moments Zack and the others were focused on Albert's movements, wanting to capture each of his movements.
For a few moments, the room was silent as the students waited to see their instructor's demonstration.
And then Albert moved.
That was it.
There was nothing else, no bright lights, no magic words, Albert just raised his hand and…
BOOM
The doll exploded.
No. Not just the dummy, the targets on the wall, they all exploded.
At that moment, Austin and the others realized how little they knew about magic.
…
Since then Austin, Shun, and Miyu have a renewed interest in magic and meditate every night. Austin was especially impacted, cutting down on the time he spent at the library and practicing meditation in the morning as well.
In this week Zack has realized several important things.
First of all, although his intelligence and wisdom have increased during this week, his increase was less than the previous week.
That agrees with several of the books he read that said the difficulty increased as your stats got higher. No one knows for sure what limit your attributes can go to, but that limit will increase as you increase in tier.
It has been theorized that the cap for tier 1 classes is 100 points, regardless of the attribute. For tier 2 classes it is 200 points, and for tier 3 classes it is 250.
With this, you can see that the higher the tier of your class, the lower the limit increase will be.
The cap for tier 4 classes is thought to be 300 points, but there have been so few throughout history, and none have voluntarily revealed their status, so there isn't enough data.
The second thing Zack noticed was that his endurance had increased. He hadn't done anything special, and most of the time he was reading, so nothing could explain that increase.
After carefully investigating his body, Zack came to the conclusion that the mana from his body was passively strengthening his body. The reason why his endurance increased and the other attributes did not, was because that was his lowest attribute, and therefore increase the fastest. As time goes by, the rest of his physical attributes should increase as well.
Yesterday Albert taught them the mana control method. For the others, this lesson was the first step to being a true magician, but for Zack, this lesson was of even greater value.
Zack had already learned mana control shortly after Albert's demo and had been practicing all week. Contrary to mana absorption, the conditions for practicing mana control were much more relaxed so Zack could practice even if he wasn't focused solely on it.
For Zack this lesson allowed him to appreciate the difference between a traditional magician and a combat magician.
Although in other respects combat mages may show deficiencies, their mana control is clearly superior. Albert's technique is fast and efficient and he tries to take advantage of the magician's mana in the best possible way, not allowing the slightest waste.
On the other hand, the mana control described in the books was not that refined.
Leaving aside the basic parts of the technique, traditional mages passively improve their mana control with the continued use of spells throughout their lives. After all, even if a mage runs out of mana he can just meditate and wait for it to regenerate.
For a combat mage, every drop of mana can mean life and death.
The second thing Zack noticed was that his mana control technique had gone up three levels in a week. In theory that is impossible.
Skills, any skill, take a long period of time to learn.
At the rate at which Zack is learning, it would be the equivalent of a first-year medical student becoming a teacher with over 10 years of experience after six months.
That is not an exaggeration. So far the person with the highest skill level Zack has seen was his teacher, and she was only level 7.
For a moment Zack stopped what he was doing and began to think about Miss Kaede.
Although Zack thinks his time in the magic tower was well spent, he can't help but think of his teacher and the rest of his classmates.
Until now he had not received news of what was happening to them, nor of what was happening in the outside world. All the news they receive is controlled, except the kingdom's recent numerous victories against demons which Zack heard from other casual library residents talking to each other, he knew nothing of.
Trying to distract himself from sinking into negative thoughts, Zack focused on the task he was going to do.
Cast a spell.
Despite the many spells that lurked within the confines of the library, Zack has so far held back from trying to learn them because his mana and control weren't enough.
Spells are divided by tier, tier 1 wizards can cast tier 1 spells, tier 2 wizards can cast tier 2 spells, and so on.
Due to the complexity of the spells and the time to perform them, a simplified version was created, faster, and with a lower mana cost, for the most useful spells according to the magic community.
What Zack is going to try now is not technically considered a spell, some authors consider that there is a lower tier than tier 1, tier 0. While others consider them merely practical applications of mana.
In fact, several books in the library are just compendiums of tier 0 spells.
It wasn't even hard to find them. The wizards who created these versions did so to make learning, or simply everyday life, easier for other wizards. And wizards who want to hide their knowledge don't consider it important enough.
Zack is going to cast a tier 0 spell.
The spell that Zack wants to learn is called Magic Hand. Its function is to create an invisible hand using magic that helps carry things.
Zack had already memorized the structure of the spell. In this world, spells are made up of nodes. The greater the number of nodes, the greater the difficulty to perform it. The nodes are linked by connections formed by mana in a specific order.
To cast a spell all a mage has to do is guide his mana to the nodes in the order of the spell.
Zack left the library and went to his room. His classmates had started to reduce their time in the library so he was currently alone. After reaching his room and asking that nobody bother him, he sat down on the chair and placed a pen on top of his table.
The maximum weight that he can carry in this spell is around 2 kg, meaning he can't lift something heavier than a book. A simple and useful spell in daily life, ideal for beginners.
Zack closed his eyes and mobilized his mana to form the magical structure. A pattern of the spell had formed in his mind.
Eight solitary nodes were floating in the void, separated from each other. Suddenly one of the nodes lit up little by little. When he had reached his maximum point of illumination, a white line came out of it and went towards the other nodes, illuminating them, connecting them, one after the other.
crack
Just as Zack was focusing his mana on lighting up the seventh node, one of the nodes exploded.
Zack opened his eyes, confused for a moment, and had a terrible headache.
Obviously, something had gone wrong.
When a mage fails to form a spell correctly, the mana spent deviates from its original path and the mage receives a backlash due to the failed spell.
Fortunately, the reaction caused by a tier 0 spell is not too serious. In the worst cases, such kickbacks can be fatal.
After reviewing his last attempt, Zack realized that the reason the spell went wrong was that he failed to control the amount of mana evenly, so as soon as there was insufficient mana to keep the nodes lit, one of them burst.
After a few minutes, the pain had subsided and Zack tried again.
crack
(This will take longer than he thought) Zack said in his mind as he endured the pain once more.