Johan had a list of things to figure out. First was fire mana and a spell or two related to fire mana. Then he would look into illusion magic to see if what Jen wanted was feasible, though he expected that to reign more into the realm of mind magic, which... He *did* have some idea of that, since it was written in a notebook by Nath, at least he assumed Nath wrote it.

The problem with mind magic was that it was, as he last remembered, illegal. Well, not illegal to learn and know, but to cast it was almost always illegal in just about every country. So even if he did enchant a cloak for Jen, if it held mind magic, and a different mage found out, it could result in her death, and maybe his own for casting it.

Either way, he was starting to work on fire magic once more. He had already been working on it, but had taken a break from it as he found himself too tired to really make much progress with it, at least in the days following his and Jens return to camp. This was not as much of a problem now, between rest and the fact that his sister had taken to talking to Pat about her issues instead of him, though he had felt a bit guilty about even though it did reduce strain on himself.

Although he had also been enjoying getting deeply entrenched into the spells he had been working on, he also knew that it would be better to take things a bit slower than he had been. After all, as much as he enjoyed playing with magic, he also knew that it was a necessity for him to properly rest. Besides that, he also only needed to work on Earthen Armor from that list that he had made. Coat of Light was something he would need to look into other resources to help him understand it more. Particularly something related to manifestation of light, something that Nath had made no notes about, making Johan assume that the old man hadn't studied it, or if he had, hadn't noted.

So for now, he would alternate between learning fire magic and working on streamlining Earthen Armor to make it better, primarily through refining the shape of it. With that in mind, Johan was working on becoming more comfortable with fire magic beside the fire. It was a bit difficult for him, mostly because like the other mana types he had previously worked with it had its very own aspects of movement.

It was a bit more flowy than water, but less so than wind. Like wind it didn't seem to stay in place, but unlike wind it was only a few spots here and there that had this issue. In that way it was similar to light, which often pulled out of control. It was also kind of like earth in the way that it was relatively easy to set it into a path. for the most part it would remain there, but it would also leak mana constantly, just like light and wind mana would.

After about an hour of messing around and relating it to other elemental aspects in his mind, he started to grow more and more proficient with it. By the time his allocated time of 3 hours had passed he found himself able to tell with about 80% accuracy where the leaks would occur, though there were no notations about how to fix the leaks. Perhaps he would need to see if he could find anything about that as well the next time he found a book or another mage to learn more about magic with. Worst case, he would just utilize mana blocks, though that was a bit wasteful it would still cost less than if he were to just channel fire mana as it leaked.

When he finished for the night he was ready to start looking into spells for fire magic. Spark was one he had already read about, it was a quality of life spell, it was only able to be used for lighting fires, and maybe scaring someone. It wasn't something that could do any real damage in most circumstances, though he could see that it could be immensely useful in traveling.

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Johan put it off for morning though and woke up Anne for her watch, and after a few minutes of talking, he went to sleep.

----

The next day, Johan spent his morning staring and drawing the spell form for Spark. It was marginally more advanced than bullet, though not by too much, since it was just manifestation in the end, much like bullet was. The only reason why it was a bit of a hassle was that the element of fire was somewhat difficult to find. That went for just about anywhere. It was easier to find in really hot places, like desserts in the day, or places where there were nearby active volcanoes, but unfortunately a forest was neither of those. Thus even though he had it ready for about 20 minutes, he could only manage to cast spark one time.

It was relatively quick, not at all surprising Johan given how simple the spell form was, the longest part was the gathering of fire mana. If he couldn't get faster and more efficient with the spell it would be entirely worthless. After all, in 20 minutes someone could probably light a fire with a bow drill, let alone the flint and steel that they already had.

Johan decided to practice it a bit on the road, since most of his practice consisted of him gathering fire mana, it didn't take much toll on his concentration. By the time they had exited the forest that emptied into the vast plains, he could already cast the spell in just 10 or so minutes. Still far slower than just using proper tools, but a major improvement nonetheless.

He had gotten better at simply casting it with less resources, something that came as one got more familiarity with spells, but also because he had gotten slightly better with gathering fire mana. It was as if something just clicked. He wasn't sure entirely what it was, but all of a sudden he was gathering just a bit more fire mana. maybe 10 or 15%. Not a huge amount, but enough that it was noticeable.

It was also around this time that he decided to stop with casting spark over and over, as it was starting to wear on his mind. Much like his other spells it took a toll on his mental energy. Almost like he could only cast the same spell a certain number of times before his mind needed time to rest. The odd part was that it also didn't impede his other spells in the slightest.

Markus decided to take a break for lunch today, apparently in a good mood since normally they just at dried or smoked meat and blackened bread as they walked along. Johan took the time to just relax a bit. He could feel his mana was about halfway to the point that he would be advancing next. Even though it had only been around 3 or so weeks since had last advanced. He knew that the fact that he had been in an area so full of life likely had some play in it, since it was well documented that plant life produced mana, similar to oxygen, but he also hadn't realized that it would be so rapid.

Nath had said that the path of a mage was very slow and often commented that he was growing at alarming rates, but Johan had only recently understood that. After he had met Clara and spoke to her about advancements he really learned a lot. After all, normally mages in the Construct state would take about a year or two between each Construct. Johan seemed to be easily 10 to 12 times faster than that.

It was a problem in its own way too though, since he hadn't yet found out anything about the next level after Constructs. Though he would be able to find out from a church of Knuth most likely... that seemed to be something he should look into as far as he was concerned. If he needed to give them something, well, he could always give them a copy of Naths book, he was famous right? Surely it had some value.

Johan could only think about what he would do next time he found a vault of knowledge, after all, it wasn't guaranteed that Hammer would even have a temple of Knuth, though it likely would given that it was a major city. He could only look forwards to it.