I studied how the brightness of the spark flickered, how long it took for it to fade, and how much I could change the activation word before it stopped working. Everything confused me, but at the same time made me feel more excited.

I slowly transitioned from observing the sparks that appeared, to attempting to affect them. I tested reaching out physically, calling out to it in my thoughts, and pronouncing the activation word differently. Of all the things I tested, pronouncing it differently was the only one that produced results. If I changed the pronunciation even just slightly from my usual manner of thought, the sparks stopped appearing. Even though it wasn't much, it was at least something to work on, so I still felt hope.

But after that discovery, I made no progress at all for several weeks. During that time, my excitement slowly reduced, and I was transitioning back to how I had been before the mysterious stone appeared in my palm. I noticed this but could do nothing to fight back.

At some point, I had reverted back completely. All I did was mindlessly summon those mysterious sparks. I had reverted back to a boring existence with no excitement whatsoever.

That was until a thought entered my mind one day, a very interesting thought.

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Are my sparks getting brighter?

I faintly remembered the sparks being slightly weaker when I first started summoning them. This meant that something was actually changing, even if slightly. That was the second time I tried to stand up in astonishment, only to have the perfectly smooth ceiling put me in my place again.

With my inspiration refilled, and a big bump on my head slowly forming, I began intensely summoning more sparks. I was eventually forced to slow down since summoning multiple at the same time seemed to give me horrible headaches, and I confirmed the pain wasn't from hitting my head because it sat more deeply.

And another question was added to the list!

I pondered several times why I wasn't growing bored of repeating the same word in my thoughts over and over but nevertheless kept on doing it. I knew it would take a lot of time, but eventually, something had to happen, something big.

I quickly lost time of how long I had been doing it, but years must have passed as the spark slowly grew brighter and brighter. It doubled in size, and again, and again. It kept on growing until it eventually stopped.

I noticed first when it had gone a couple of months without any change. I had gotten so used to steady growth that I was getting worried. But that worry didn't last long. As soon as I started observing it again, it suddenly moved. And you can probably guess what happened then.

Sitting down and rubbing my sore head, I studied the spark more deeply for the first time in likely years.