Even after a few months of starting on 3rd circle spells, I am still not able to cast it with just my mind like Mum and grandparents yet, and now that Dad is back and going to train with me, it is going to eat into my practice time for 3rd circle spells.

It is not that I am having trouble casting 3rd circle spells, far from it, even with the increased complexity, I had no issue memorizing the increased number of rune and their sequence.

The issue as it turns out to be my mana manipulation. Not that I am doing it wrong, the issue was my mana manipulation was not developed enough. Apparently, all the demonstrations and practice that I have been doing were just the basic level of mana manipulation.

And basic mana manipulation was not cutting it to mentally upkeep the increased number of runes along with their complexities. So for me to successfully cast 3rd circle spells, I needed to use my basic mana manipulation along with chanting and hand gestures to upkeep the runes while casting.

Seeing my own shortcomings and bringing it up with Mum. she then informed me on the levels of mana manipulation, which were Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. I asked what the differences were but Mum brushed off my question, and not to think about it for now, and agreed to teach me Intermediate Mana Manipulation. After testing me on my mastery of Basic Mana Manipulation and being satisfied with the results, started drilling me on the subject.

Where once I was satisfied forming a solid square shape with mana manipulation, now I had to form a cube, now all my mana manipulation had increased a dimension, from 2D to 3D. Triangles now had to be pyramids and circles had to be perfectly round spheres.

After the first day of failing miserably, I asked Mum what 3D shapes had to do with Intermediate Mana Manipulation, and she explained it as such.

“While the circle construct that contains the spell can easily contain the runes for 1st and 2nd circle spells, the number of runes used in a 3rd circle spell is pushing it for the circle construct. That is why with just basic mana manipulation, you were forced to supplement the spell with chants and hand gestures to keep the circle construct from collapsing.

In the case you want to do pure mental casting for 3rd circle magic, Intermediate Mana Manipulation is a must. The reason you need to practice all these 3D shapes is that from 3rd circle spells and up, you will need to learn how to overlap multiple magic circle constructs with different runes, and the better you master your mana manipulation, the easier time you will have casting, and it will pay dividends the higher you go.

You do not know how many mages do not bother training their mana manipulation beyond basic or the beginning of intermediate. They rather boast about how many powerful spells they have learned and supplement their shortcomings with foci tools and arrays, those are expansive, they will need to carry around more stuff and they will still cast slower than a mage proficient in mana manipulation.”

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After that, Mum then started bitching about her academy days where other noble kids from richer and more affluent houses would flaunt the newest foci tools from famous artificers, while Grandpa, like strict Asian parents not letting their children use calculators in my old life while I was at my friends’ house, did not allow Mum to use any foci tools and drilled Mum on mana manipulation as my previous Mum drilled me in my multiplication table… the horror.

But like Mum said, being proficient in mana manipulation paid dividends, and now unlike her lazier former classmates, she can now cast up to 3rd circle spells with but a thought and even cut short her casting time on 4th circle spells.

All of this brings us to now, at the end of the last day where I can purely practice Intermediate Mana Manipulation before my magic training time is cut short due to my starting aura training with Dad.

My practice with Intermediate Mana Manipulation has done wonders in improving the speed and power of my molecular magic, but compared to the examples shown to me by Mum and my grandparents, all the 3D shapes I produce are either, fuzzy, wobbly, or misshapen. It takes quite a lot of brain power to concentrate on all the faces of the 3D object I am conjuring.

I have been at this practice for months and I still have not mastered Intermediate Mana Manipulation. Which is rather disappointing.

Apparently, Mum notices me sulking and comes over to hug me, “What’s the matter sweety? Why so glum?”

It is at times like this that I feel comfortable reverting back to a child-like state and confiding my problems with Mum. I returned her hug and told her about my difficulty with Intermediate Mana Manipulation and my disappointment in myself for taking so long in my attempt to master it.

After hearing me out, she scoffs at my worries, “Silly child, do you even know what age other children start learning Intermediate Mana Manipulation? They start at around 15 years old, that is 4th year of the academys’ higher education, and Intermediate Mana Manipulation is counted as an optional subject. The fact that you already mastered Basic Mana Manipulation before your 4th birthday already makes you a genius, but don't let that get to your head, talent without practice is wasted potential.”

Ahh… schooling… again. Well, besides university in my old world, I have not experienced school life due to being home-schooled, who knows, could be fun. When I turn 8 in a few years, due to my family’s noble status, I will be sent to the Royal Academy in the capital for 4 years of lower education and 4 years of higher education.

From what I am told, it is not a rule, but nobles are obligated to send their children to the capital’s Royal Academy, which, unlike the other 5 academies in the country, the Royal Academy is apparently some Ivy League level shit where nobles and rich families send their kids.

I sure hope they are not a bunch of insufferable pricks like I always read in isekai stories back in my old world, who knows, I only have my family for reference and the way they interact with everyone, even the servants, seems pretty chill.

Mum buries me in her bosom and continues, “Do not be so hard on yourself, I know these past few years have been hard for you, but you are still a child and as a child, you should be playing. So how about when Dad is satisfied you can control your aura properly, we bring you into town for the first time.”

“Okay.” I said in a muffled tone into Mum’s cleavage.

My first time out of the estate, I will finally get to see the wider world!

I will need to put on my big boy pants and give my aura training 200% effort to get this over and done with.