'The first rule of mana operation: Mana cannot act upon its vessel.' - Principles of Sorcery

The common interpretation of this rule is that a sorcerer cannot use their sorcerer's hand to lift their own body.

At first glance, this seems similar to how one cannot lift themselves by pulling on their own hair.

However, there are subtle differences.

Indeed, a sorcerer cannot cruelly lift themselves by their hair. But they can grasp an external object, like a 'chair', and make themselves float by sitting in it.

Why is this?

Because growing hair is part of the sorcerer, part of the mana vessel. But the chair is not.

In his small room, Rosen was conducting this experiment.

First, he tried to vividly imagine two concrete hands firmly grasping the armrests, and forcibly lifting the chair beneath his buttocks upwards.

The result was failure.

No matter how hard he tried, the chair could not leave the ground.

This was not because it violated the rules of mana operation, but because it went against the fundamental cognition deeply ingrained in his mind.

Although the sorcerer's hand was condensed mana, having the form of a hand gave it the limitations of a hand.

The experiment having failed, Rosen immediately changed his imagining.

He began to imagine there was a pure rocket engine installed under the chair, with just enough total thrust to exceed gravity by a bit.

The result was still failure.

A stable rocket engine was far too complex and precise. He only knew the basic principles, but did not know the specific structure and parameters of the engine.

With such half-understood imagining, even if it did work, Rosen would not dare sit his buttocks on it.

He was mentally prepared, and did not get discouraged. He began the third experimental step.

The rocket engine was still concrete, fundamentally no different than the hands.

Since it was concrete, it had the limitations of the concrete.

So in the third step, he stripped away the concrete, leaving only a pure concept.

He stood up, and imagined a pure force evenly acting on his clothes and shoes, with a total magnitude just slightly greater than his weight.

In the next moment, his clothes and pants tightened slightly, and his shoes also began to push upwards, together pulling Rosen's body up.

Then, Rosen floated up.

"To the left."

Imagining the combined force as diagonally leftwards, as expected his body slowly drifted left.

"To the right....spin....accelerate....decelerate....haha, interesting!"

With this thought, a stream of information flashed through his mind.

'User has created the spell: Flight, recorded in Rosen's Book of Spells, can be activated for use at any time.'

Rosen immediately checked the spellbook, and there was indeed a new page, titled 'Flight'.

Looking further at the contents:

Flight

Spell Power: Extremely Low

Evaluation: Pure imagining devoid of the concrete results in near perfect mana utilization efficiency. But the total amount and intensity of the caster's mana greatly limits the spell effect.

Mana Cost: Extremely High

"How high exactly?"

Rosen tried to maintain levitation, mentally counting to roughly time it.

After about 10 minutes, the floating body struggled to maintain balance, swaying unsteadily left and right, seeming about to drop down.

'Reached the limit.'

Rosen immediately landed.

Upon landing, he felt dizzy, heavy headed and light footed, almost unable to stand steadily.

After resting on the ground for some time, he recovered to normal.

"Just hovering motionless, I can only last 10 minutes. If overcoming air resistance to fly quickly, mana consumption would definitely be even higher."

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"If reaching a galloping horse's speed, I'm afraid not even half a minute could be endured."

The consumption was indeed ridiculously high.

For now, Flight could only be an emergency spell, and could not be used for traveling.

After experimenting with Flight, Rosen then planned to follow the same approach to improve the sorcerer's handgun.

Because mana was insufficient, he closed his eyes and started meditating.

Yet another accident occurred.

The instant meditation began, Rosen suddenly felt something off about his sea of consciousness, as if there was some strange light and shadow.

But the Primordial Singularity meditation had already started, mana recovering quickly, the strange light and shadow flashed briefly before being obscured by a large mass of red light.

This red radiance swiftly intensified, turning in a flash into a somewhat condensed red orb of light.

Rosen did not hesitate to stop meditating.

"What is that thing?"

He carefully recalled, feeling it was like some wispy strands of light, somewhat similar to a glowing spiderweb blown apart by the wind.

But how could there be spiderwebs in his sea of consciousness?

Unable to figure it out, the abnormal condition of his sea of consciousness also made Rosen uneasy.

After thinking for a bit, he decided to try reproducing this anomaly.

First using Flight to deplete his mana until it was almost exhausted, then closing his eyes, reactivating the meditation technique.

But not the extremely intense Primordial Singularity meditation, just Tranquil Meditation.

Upon sinking into his sea of consciousness again, that strange light and shadow indeed reappeared.

With no interference this time, it persisted clearly and steadily.

At a glance Rosen saw what it was.

It was a sea of stars!

An endless sea of stars!

The miniscule points of light formed galaxies, those galaxies constructed clusters, and those clusters built up even greater and more majestic cosmic structures.

What previously seemed like a glowing spiderweb was composed of the massive cosmic structures formed by countless stars.

But the universe within his sea of consciousness was very different from the simulated cosmic maps Rosen had seen before.

In the real universe, the brightness of the stars was more or less the same, basically homogeneous.

But in the universe of his sea of consciousness, one red star was extremely, extremely bright, brighter than the combined brightness of all the other stars.

Next to this red star, there was also a small blue dot, its brightness also considerable.

Although far from comparing to the former, it was still brighter than the rest combined.

Following that, Rosen saw a third, even smaller silver white dot, its brightness not comparing to the first two, yet still brighter than all the rest combined.

Seeing this scene, a line from the Principles of Sorcery immediately flashed through Rosen's mind.

'Visualization is a strange resonance between the soul and the visualized object. Although no one knows the principle behind the resonance, some common traits have still been summarized.'

'The closer to the visualized object, the more concrete and precise the visualization, and thus the stronger the resonance.'

So the situation was clear.

The red star was the Sun, the azure one was the planet beneath his feet, and the silver white one was the Moon in the sky. The other points of light were the countless stars in the heavens, and the darkness between them the empty void. It was just that the resonance with the latter was far too weak, making it hard to manifest.

So another question emerged.

"But my visualization was of the Primordial Singularity, so how did it become the cosmos?"

He quickly figured it out.

"The Primordial Singularity of creation is long gone. What exists now is precisely the current cosmos!"

"So the fiery nature of my mana is because my resonance with the Sun is strongest."

"No, not a fiery nature. In my cognition, the Sun is no source of flames, but a nuclear fusion furnace. So my primary nature should be called 'Fusion'."

"The fire of fusion is way more awesome than chemical fire, so I possess an exceptionally high intensity of mana."

"Aside from the Fusion nature, there is also the world beneath my feet, and the silver moon, and the sea of stars, and the dark void between the stars. It's just that the resonance with the latter is too weak to manifest."

So he had an extremely composite nature, or perhaps an omni-nature.

Finally the question came, knowing all this, what practical use did it have?

After careful consideration, Rosen thought: "Aside from better understanding myself, no immediate practical use for now."

His understanding of mana and spells was still too little.

As the Tranquil Meditation progressed, mana steadily recovering, the dim sea of stars in his sea of consciousness gradually brightened, with the Sun brightening fastest of all.

In but a blink, the red sunlight swiftly expanded, once again obscuring the sea of stars, becoming a vague mist of fiery red.

Both Celeste's Notes on Sorcery and Principles of Sorcery stated:

"When clear visualized forms appear in the sea of consciousness, the sorcerer has entered the low stage."

Rosen felt the visualizations in his sea of consciousness could already be considered clear, just obscured by the intense sunlight.

So his mana should be...probably...most likely...at the low stage.

"But having just entered the low stage, my total mana seems a bit low. Feels much weaker than Celeste's."

"Or could it be I haven't reached the low stage yet?"

Unable to figure it out, he simply stopped thinking about it.

In but a blink, dusk had arrived.

Rosen immediately halted his training, and started preparing dinner.

Rome was not built in a day, masters were not made overnight. He was still young, no rush for immediacy.

Soon, dinner was ready.

With a fat wallet, ingredients were naturally high class.

The prepared dinner was not only lavish, but aromatic, colorful, and appetizing. Just looking was enough to make one ravenously hungry.

Considering Sirendis was busy with her thesis, Rosen neatly packed the food into the newly bought silver platters, covering them with shiny silver lids.

With a thought, five bright and polished silver platters floated beside him, arrayed in a neat circle, steadily following his footsteps up to the second floor.

'Knock knock knock~~'

"Come in."

Entering, Rosen saw Sirendis curled up on the new leather couch, elegant brows slightly furrowed, seemingly pondering over something.

Beside the desk were stacks of wood-grained paper covered in writing, and large amounts of drafts messily scattered about. On the floor around the desk were also rolled up discarded drafts.

Aside from that, there were splotches of spilled ink on the desk, a feather pen worn down to the nib, and a teacup drunk down to the dregs nearly fallen to the floor.

It seemed Sirendis had hit a bottleneck in her thesis.

Glancing at the drafts, his eyes nearly spun from the variety of symbols. He knew his current level was of no help.

He walked over, tidying the desk, then neatly placing down the platters.

"Mentor, I've heard the world of thought is like a maze, with many dead ends. Endlessly hammering away may not yield results. Perhaps taking a step back to relax body and mind may open up new horizons."

As he spoke, he lifted a cover, revealing a dish of thick goose liver pâté, its rich aroma instantly spreading out.

The worried look on Sirendis' face vanished. With a 'thud' she jumped off the couch, and disregarding his protests, forcefully kissed Rosen on the lips.

"My dearest pupil, having you here is truly wonderful."

Rosen smiled wryly.

But thought inwardly: "If you're going to kiss, do it longer. I can hardly respond to such a brief peck."

Of course just thinking, he did not dare actually do so.

By comparison, he still preferred being with the dignified, serious lady-like Sirendis.