After the vacuum force appeared, my body instinctively raised its defenses.

Four of the White Crystals seemed entirely empty, and because all their power was contained in the space around the chair, their desire to refill ended up exerting itself on me.

It was trying to suck out my Psyka, which was a bit scary.

But after I calmed down, I started doing as Maxwell instructed.

Activating my Aura, I started infusing my Psyka into the air, expelling it with the fastest method I knew.

I couldn’t even generate a portion of the advancement formation before the Psyka was ripped from my control.

Like that, my Psyka formed streams that refilled the Crystals.

And it took no more than 20 minutes to deplete nearly all my energy.

My mind felt weak and disoriented. Psyka was directly tied to the mind’s ability to operate, so removing all of it should end with me passing out.

And sure enough, when I didn’t even have the energy to resist the suction force, the rest of my Psyka was whisked away. I fell unconscious, even as I thought I heard the ramblings of a crazy old man.

And the next thing I felt was a force that hit my head like a truck.

It felt like someone was force feeding me as waves of Magika slammed into my body. My mind was faced with a one sided barrage of Psyka while my body was hit with Vigor that made me feel like I was burning up and Mana which made me feel in tune with the world.

And on top of all that, as I was overwhelmed with Psyka that my mind couldn’t seem to process, my advancement began.

The Spark in my mind finally seemed to hit the threshold. But whereas my previous advancements ended with all my power being used to break through the barrier to the next dimension, my Spark instead began to revolve with more power.

I felt all the stars and lights within my mind begin to swirl like a vortex. When it did that, it felt like all of my thoughts were flashing through my mind, as if my brain were out of my control.

But at the center of it all was my Spark, which when faced with a mess of a host who couldn’t keep control of his own thoughts, was forced to step in and bring order.

And so my spark began to evolve, becoming what could be considered a second mind.

The Spark opened itself up to greater power, and as Maxwell had said, my mind became a bottomless pit of energy.

But the influx of energy was far too overwhelming. My Spark was bombarded from all sides as Psyka was forced inside the empty vessel.

Normally, it would take several hours for a Mind to passively refill its Psyka. It would pull on the Magika in the atmosphere and process it into what I needed.

But now, the pressure coming from the outside was so great that Psyka was forced inside without it being allowed to process things, like pressurized water shooting through a filter.

And consequently, my Spark was tempered, forced beyond its limits to become something better.

Of course, I had to deal with the effects. For one, my mind felt like it was going to shatter. I had a headache unlike anything I’d experienced before. But at the same time, I wasn’t sure if it could be classified as a headache.

A mindache? Whatever it was, it was overwhelming. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, like my thoughts were being scrambled.

However, things weren’t completely out of my control.

With my Spark being force fed energy, I naturally regained some semblance of conscious thought.

That’s when I heard Maxwell shouting from beside me.

“Write the formation! Use your Psyka!”

His words reached me loud and clear. Although my mind had a tornado inside of it, my senses were in fact stronger than ever.

So with my Spark, I made a decision and focused all of the Spark’s power on using my Aura to write out the formation.

Around me, blue lines were drawn in the air, flickering with complexity.

Shockingly, it only took me a matter of seconds to draw the entire formation.

Even after comprehending the entire thing, it would take me several minutes to write it out completely. But now, it felt so easy.

So I continued to draw more, even drawing the practice formations Maxwell taught me that were redundantly complex.

And so, thousands of different formations appeared around my body, glowing just as bright as the White Crystals on the device.

The Psyka in my mind was drained in the process. But with the influx coming from the Crystals, my reserves of energy cycled between plummeting and rising.

It was like my brain was breathing. It was unlike anything I’d ever felt. At some point, I didn’t even feel the pain anymore and simply devoted everything I had toward tempering my Spark and Mind.

How long the process lasted, I had no clue. My Spark was the only computer properly operating, and it was entirely devoted toward drawing formations, not counting the passing time.

So I seemed to only regain full consciousness when my mind was no longer turbulent, calming and solidifying like normal.

When that happened, I stopped drawing the formations. The influx of Magika was no longer able to overwhelm my mind, and my mind wasn’t so open to its power. It processed incoming energy like normal, and I returned to my baseline.

I stared ahead while regaining myself in a daze. I wasn’t even entirely sure what had happened when thinking back. It felt like days had passed.

“How do you feel?”

“...Fine.”

I responded habitually, as if nothing had changed.

But after regaining my faculties completely, I noticed several drastic effects.

For one, the sheer power of my Spark, and by extension my mind, was unbelievable. An entire magnitude higher, it seemed.

It felt like I would have no issue killing that gorilla from the patrol back then. Unlike before, I felt so much closer to it. My weapons would be able to reach it.

As for the speed of my mind, it had rosen accordingly. My thoughts flowed so smooth and with such volume that I barely felt like myself. And if I had to identify the difference numerically, I would say it multiplied by about half of my mind’s power, meaning a 5 times increase in speed.

And on top of that, my Spark had essentially become a second mind.

This didn’t mean I had an entirely different set of thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Instead, it was more like multitasking had become true multitasking. I could focus on two entirely different subjects and trains of thought at once with complete clarity.

When I looked inward at my mind space, I could see the Spark revolving with glistening brightness. It was also several times bigger, so instead of being the size of a marble, it was now the size of half my brain.

I felt like a damn savant. I felt so clear headed that for a moment I wondered if I could cure cancer. I also wondered if, in the case I did cure cancer, I may also figure out how to eliminate the aging of the human body?

My train of thought stopped there, moving on to more important things.

Along with all the enhancements to my mind, which seemed like a top to bottom restructuring and renovation, my body had also undergone changes.

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For one, I could now feel the Vigor and Mana within me.

The Vigor made me feel stronger, as it obviously would. But I also felt my lingering wounds begin to fade much faster. My metabolism also increased, and in general, I felt healthier.

The benefits weren’t life changing. I don’t think I would be able to match even an Authority 2 knight in strength. Any knight around my level would still be able to fold me with ease like origami paper.

But I had been raised above the baseline, which came with comprehensive benefits that would make my life much easier.

The attainment of Mana, however, came with benefits much less obvious.

As I had felt earlier, I seemed to gain a certain attunement with the world. It was similar to Aura, except more mystical.

It was like I could more clearly feel the currents of the air around me, the moisture of the atmosphere, the temperature, the textures and attributes of the wood chair I sat on, the intensity of the light and sounds echoing through the room, and more.

One way of putting it was that I was gaining information about the world around me, but instead of getting that information through my senses, I was feeling it directly.

When I thought about how warlocks worked, I realized how this all operated.

Warlocks affected the world around them with spells. Well, the spells required you to collect information on everything you were going to affect. To create a little sphere of water, you needed to sense the moisture of the air around you, or pull water directly from a source.

If you wanted to muffle sound like Umara, you needed to sense the sound and cast a spell to affect that sound in a certain way.

And sensing things through the sensory organs wasn’t the same. Instead, when I focused on it, it felt like each of the different things around me like the air, the wood, and the moisture all had different types of mana bonded to them.

It was this mana that I sensed and, if I were a warlock, could affect.

That’s also when I realized that warlocks didn’t rely so much on their minds as they did their feelings, as odd as that sounded.

It was all exciting to feel and get used to. I felt like a completely new person.

At some point, I stood up and left the ring, moving around Maxwell’s study and utilizing all of my new senses.

I also thought about dozens of new things, exercising my mind with wonder. I barely felt like my mind was my own. It almost felt like its own entity.

In my stupor, I ended up walking about the study for half an hour, not to mention how long it took to do everything else.

So when I found myself looking at Maxwell, who stood there observing me, I zoned in and asked a question.

“Was this method of advancement standard in any capacity?”

“No. It was purely experimental. I derived this theoretical method a few years ago but never had anyone to test it with. Luckily, you’re the perfect person to do so with.”

“So you used me for one of your crazy ideas?”

“I did. In fact, the techniques you use to practice your Call are also entirely new, made long after I created the Call itself. But because I couldn’t practice it myself, it remained untested. So far, you’re proving all of my theories and ideas correct. I’m rather proud of myself.”

“Hmm.”

I hummed with narrowed eyes.

I was right. I was a guinea pig for this old man’s crazy experiments. While the results couldn’t be argued with, I didn’t really like being lied to and unknowingly risking my life and future.

But I didn’t say anything about it.

I very quickly realized that, besides the dirt cheap payment I gave him for teaching me, this was the price I paid for the power he gave me.

The Call of the Fallen Angel was, supposedly, one of if not the best Summoner Call there was. And he gave this to me.

He gave me the techniques to practice controlling my Aura.

He gave me the White Crystals to power my advancements.

He bought my coat which had saved my life on numerous occasions, a coat which I still didn’t know the cost of since it was so high.

Now, he had provided eight Authority 4 White Crystals, along with a ring device, to power an advancement that had brought me a dozen steps forward in power.

And he would continue to guide me in the future.

All that, just for being a guinea pig to some new ideas founded upon very tangible techniques and theories.

To say I was benefiting greatly was an insult to his generosity.

“John.”

He called, catching my attention.

His eyes were deep as he spoke.

“There has yet to be a single Summoner that has reached Authority 12. Did you know that?”

“No.”

I shook my head, quite shocked. As far as I knew, there were multiple Authorities 12’s in the Kingdom, and yet all of them were either Knights or Warlocks.

Maxwell himself had reached Authority 11, but something happened to bring him back down. Still, it seemed his ambition never died as he gave me an explanation.

“We Summoners are far behind the Knights and Warlocks. We are considered good for nothing more than being thinkers. While honorable, using our power for such mundane tasks is an insult to the majesty of Psyka itself. Our potential merely needs to be realized, and across decades I have been trying to forge a path to the top. My Call is the best simply because it utilizes an entirely different system of summoning, utilizing Psyka in a far more fluid manner that gives incalculable advantages.

“But that is only half the battle. The other half is the advancements themselves. I cannot explain it to you right now. You simply wouldn’t be able to understand. But just know that right now, you are several steps ahead of any summoner at your level. You could easily match Authority 5 Summoners an entire level above you. And yet, that is merely normal progress. It is every other summoner that has their growth and power stunted from the very beginning. Even I was not able to escape that fate. But you are the first to deviate from that path. I can already see the difference.”

Maxwell’s eyes glowed as he looked at me. It felt like he could see through me completely, his Aura blossoming with power I couldn’t fathom. Before him, there was nothing I could hide.

“Did you know that your Spark is different as well? The formations I have given you are all my own creations. Normal summoners have Sparks as well, but they develop only two throughout their lives. The first is started as an Authority 3 and finished as an Authority 5. And the second one is only created at Authority 10. But you will go through three phases of evolution, completing two sparks and then amalgamating them, evolving them, expanding them until they envelop your entire mind, ascending it to another level entirely! This will be done by the time you are an Authority 10! How could any other Summoner possibly compare?!”

“...”

I recoiled a bit at Maxwell’s aggression. It was a bit scary, but I completely understood him.

Summoners were too far behind. We were weak. Even with our power of the mind, across so many decades and centuries we had failed to figure out a better system and produce an Authority 12. Compared to the Knights and Warlocks, we were pathetic. And it was ironic since we were supposed to be the smart ones.

But Maxwell was paving the path all by himself, despite no longer being in his prime. He was devoting his life to finding the light at the end of the tunnel, something which nobody had been able to do before.

He was the saving grace of the entire Summoner class. It was no wonder he engaged in his study so fanatically. And compared to all that, who cared about lying to some random kid to test out the theories? The results would be worth far more than even his life.

I understood all this, and so my perspective flipped.

But after his excited outburst, Maxwell caught himself.

“N-Nevermind. Forget what I said. Look, the formations I’ve given don’t deviate that much from the standard. There’s minimal risk and I’ve run personal tests as best I could. I-”

“Maxwell.”

I called, putting a halt to his ramblings.

“It’s fine. I understand what you’re doing. So don’t worry about it. I’ll cooperate with everything fully. I’m okay with being the experiment.”

“...Are you sure? The risks are indeed minimal, but should something go wrong, it may harm your future and talent. What I do is for the future of the entire Summoner class, even going so far as to potentially be the last bolster of strength humanity needs to defeat the Scourge. But… you are your own person. I will not force you down this path, which may seem hypocritical considering my half-truths. But everything you’ve done up until now is completely sound. From here on out, I am no longer as certain. Are you willing to take the risks and place your future in my hands?”

He looked me in the eye solemnly, clearly concerned about my answer.

I could tell how important this was to him, but I wasn’t doing this for that reason.

Instead, when I thought about the Scourge and the prospect of defeating them, I realized that what I was doing was something with importance beyond myself.

This wasn’t just about getting stronger. It was about blazing a path to hope for all Summoners, maybe even humanity.

Because even if I had to sacrifice my future, I would provide crucial information that would allow other summoners to garner success where I failed.

History and success were paved through sacrifice. Ancestors before us would give their lives so that their sons and daughters could become better than them, live better than them.

What I was doing was no different. Maxwell had sacrificed decades so that his successor would be able to go farther than he did.

I had stepped into that role, now. However, there may come a time where I would need to sacrifice something in order to pave the way for someone else, because it wasn’t certain that I would succeed.

So I wouldn’t back down now.

I looked back at Maxwell with a strange sense of confidence.

“I’ll place my future in your hands, even if the outcome is uncertain. I just hope that I can meet your expectations.”

“...You already have, son.”

“...”

I froze up a bit as Maxwell looked at me with uncharacteristic love in his eyes.

But then his own eyes suddenly widened as he cleared his throat.

“My apologies. Forget that. Now, tell me everything different you feel. After that you can go home and rest.”

“...Sure.”

Deciding to look past that awkward moment, I did my best to explain everything I was feeling with my mind and body.

After that, I was let go. When I left the Polaris headquarters though, I saw that the sun was rising.

Checking my clock, I saw that nearly 9 hours had gone by.

“Damn. And he stood there for that entire time.”

I whistled a bit, impressed.

Since it was morning, school was about to begin, and I was no longer on vacation. Thankfully, I felt completely awake, like I had slept for two days straight.

So I went directly to the Magisterium where I finally got to see my wonderful girlfriend again.