“Do you know what you have to do during the next stage!?” Mr. Andrew shouted. The mana brain circle had started making a loud whizzing noise at one point, which muffled his voice, making it hard for Alec to hear.

“Yes! Go on!” Alec shouted in answer. Hearing him, Professor Andrew nodded and clasped his hands together in front of him. When he did so, the thin mana threads coming from his hands disappeared. The mana brain magic circle started becoming smaller and smaller, eventually reaching the size of a particularly big watermelon.

As the process ended, the mana brain circle stopped mid-air and started spinning like crazy. Its glow became ever brighter, and the noise it made sounded like the rumbling of a gargantuan earth titan, or that of a black hole devouring stars. Alec’s mind started unraveling for the mana brain to connect.

This was the main, and the hardest stage of the mana brain engravement ritual. For a person to sync their biological brain with the inert mana construct, they needed to share their mana and mind with it. He needed to let the threads coming from the mana brain connect with his central nervous system. While doing so, he would be receiving an incredible amount of shock and pain from the mana brain.

This stage of the ritual was also the one that would decide the quality of his mana brain. The longer the person receiving the circle endured, the higher the synchronicity of the mana brain would be with the biological one. If the receiver was to endure the entire process, the mana brain would have the same mind stat as the actual brain. It would also grow alongside it, not falling behind in calculation power.

When Alec finally felt ready, he nudged the mana brain circle with his intent. Immediately, countless needle-like beams of light left the circle and etched themselves deep into Alec’s chest. From there, they followed the electrochemical signals sent from his pain receptors and started connecting with his brain.

“Agh!” Alec shouted. Right now, Professor Andrew had no further control over the ritual. Everything was left to Alec and the inert mana brain’s own semi-consciousness.

Each neuron inside Alec’s brain started firing like crazy, causing his body to constantly convulse and shake. Each gland secreted abnormal amounts of every hormone, and Alec started seeing hallucinations. He had completely lost his touch with reality, and his entire being had turned inward. If not for the focus potion, and some weird sense of being used to such pain allowing him to keep himself conscious, the ritual would have already prematurely ended.

But Alec held on.

Even though he wanted to give up, to go to sleep, as long as he felt like it was worth it, he would see it through to the end.

As the mana brain finished its assault, Alec’s back arched in pain. The magic circle floating mid-air was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Alec was left on the ground, frothing from his mouth and his lips cracked from lack of moisture. In what felt like hours, but were probably minutes, he was left exhausted and powerless. The fact that he would have to get other mana brains as he further progressed in his career as a mage worried him.

“Good job enduring Alec. That was spectacular willpower,” Mr. Andrew said as he patted Alec on the back. He wiped his mouth with a cloth and helped him sit down properly. “The other teachers were probably worried you wouldn’t be able to handle the pain and would get a semi-functional mana brain. I guess they were wrong.”

As Alec wiped his eyes to recover his blurry vision, a faint smile appeared on his face.

“Yes, they were. Thank you for believing in me,” he said. Professor Andrew chuckled at his gratitude.

“What are you thanking me for? I was sure that you wouldn’t be able to handle it,” he said before patting Alec on his back.

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Alec, on the other hand, didn’t find the Professor’s words to be unpleasing. They felt more like a light-hearted joke, no matter his intentions.

As he stabilized, Alec sighed a deep breath of relaxation and sprawled in his chair. When he searched the room with his eyes, he found Professor Andrew to have gone back to his own endeavors.

“How long until I can start using the mana brain?” Alec asked. He scratched his chest, then looked down to take note of the magic circle. The previously empty magic circle frame had been filled. It seemed to be the same as Professor Andrew’s. And if he had to be honest, Alec found it slightly cool.

The circle was ever so slightly rotating on his skin, which Alec hadn’t noticed before when he saw Professor Andrew’s circle.

“You can use it right now, check your mind,” Professor Andrew said without lifting his head from his work.

Hearing his words, Alec closed his eyes. When he did, he indeed noticed there to be something strange with his body. He felt like a new pair of muscles waiting to be tugged on had appeared right in the middle of his chest. At his behest, this new organ would activate and do its job.

Taking a deep breath, Alec reached out. It was a bit hard to get used to the exact mental motion he had to make. It felt like unfocusing his eyes voluntarily. However, when he did complete the motion, it felt like a whole new world had appeared in front of him. His mana had immediately dipped by 40%, which was a staggering amount.

But the feeling was definitely worth it.

All his worries had halved immediately. His stress, thinking load, and the continuation of bodily processes had been equally split between the two brains. His head was clearer than ever, and he actually felt smarter for once.

In his experience, neither the mind stat, nor the focus potions did that much in making him smarter. It was true that they quickened his thought processes, but experience and way of thought were essential parts of one’s wisdom. He could still create solutions to problems much faster than before, but those solutions were dependent on him, not his stats.

The mana brain, however, had changed his thought process entirely. When he wanted to think of a problem, both brains started exchanging ideas and evolving solutions at an impossible speed. This feedback loop was incredibly effective, but it was also very tiring on Alec’s mind. The ungodly amount of information created and discarded was hard to handle, so he could only keep up this kind of high-focus problem-solving state for a few seconds before he lost focus, even with the focus potion.

“You have to spend a lot of time getting used to the new brain. It can do any job your actual brain can. There are a lot of different ways to utilize it, and you should find out the best one for yourself,” Professor Andrew suddenly chimed in when he saw Alec sitting silently, seemingly in introspection.

“Yes. After confirming the assistant application tomorrow, I will give you the papers. Where can I find you?” Alec asked. Now that the Professor had kept his side of the deal, it would be his turn to honor the agreement.

“This is my timetable,” Mr. Andrew handed him a paper. It was filled with his classes for the rest of the month, until the mid-term exams. “You can bring them whenever you want. Don’t hesitate to disturb the class if you need to.”

“Uhh…” Alec hesitated as he glanced over the paper. “Sure. I will leave now.”

“Great. I have great expectations from you, Alec,” Professor Andrew said, which caused Alec to raise his brow. “You have great potential, actualize it. It might be attractive to linger in that state where you can become anything, but you won’t amount to anything unless you actually do something.”

“Thank you,” Alec said. He understood what Professor Andrew meant. Currently, he still lacked a specialization. Although he had wanted to focus on telekinesis, he needed the mana brain for that. “Now that I have gotten my mana brain, I plan on specializing in telekinesis. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Keep working on gravity,” Professor Andrew immediately responded. “It is the holy grail of our magic branch. As long as gravity magic is not recreated, telekinesis will remain a dead end. Moving things around without touching them doesn’t mean anything once you are facing demigods that can call upon pillars of fire or thunderstorms.”

Alec nodded without answering. For now, he was done asking questions. He excused himself and left the labs, heading back to the dorms. It was time for him to be the one answering questions.

While walking there, he kept his mana brain active to get accustomed to it. He also kept the internal discussions about what to say to his friends as an excuse.

He finally reached the dorm room and looked at the door. It seemed to emanate a suffocating aura.

Disregarding the constant bombardment of ‘You are a drug addict. Albeit a slightly different kind of drug. No need for excuses,’ notifications from his mana brain, Alec opened the door and went in…