Magic

It's been a few days since Ren returned from the BlackBox.

The first thing he did was lie to his parents about his magic talent. Yep, he feels like shit, but it's not like he can tell the truth.

What did he say?

"Yes, The Auntie's friend is very and gave me a talent tablet to awaken my talent". A talent tablet is a tool that forcefully awakens a talent inside a person. The problem is this would result in a lower grade of talent than usual but for the talentless, it was a treasure.

Why doesn't he buy it?

Because it was simply filthy expensive and even if someone had money to buy it there was usually no stock for it since it was a very rare drop from dungeons. So usually when the talent tablet appear it would be immediately bought by rich people to either give it to their subordinate or their descendants.

Of course, that's not the only use for talent tablets because it can increase your talent grade by one but you can only use it once and it won't work above B rank. Either way, it was impossible for him to get it.

"R-really? but... they don't do anything to you... right?", Although his parents are very happy that they cried but his mother still asks him.

"Don't worry mom, I helped them with some of their experiments and they said they are grateful for me so they gave it to me", This is not a lie but they didn't give him a talent tablet but money... yup, just money, since there's really nothing to give a talentless... I mean a FORMER talentless like me.

I don't reject though since his family needs urgently money so in some sense he's thankful. That's also the reason why he's not angry about it. Though it's not like he is going to be mad either since the experiment is just some simple test.

"I-I see... then did you thank them? you didn't forget your manner right?"

"Of course I did, I'm your son after all".

After that, they hugged him again, cried a little, and told him to rest. He didn't forget to give them the money. They ask about it but he just used the same reason and they believe it. They believe it because he's always a good child and even if he lied he always slipped a few important truth to make it seems like one so he never caught on lies. Although he was used to it he was still uncomfortable.

Anyway.

The result from his graduation test has arrived in his hands and he should say... it was all according to his expectation.

100 on theories and 0 on practicals. Totalling 50 which is just a right passing mark, fortunately. Otherwise, he would need to repeat class which is shameful. Though he's probably fine with it, he doesn't want to add another reason for others to insult his parents.

These few days he has been training his magic.

For some reason whenever he tried to utilize fully absorbing mana around him a strange feeling seem to creep onto him. A bad one. Though it didn't happen when he tried to absorb it slowly so he tried increasing the rate little by little until it was the perfect amount the feeling doesn't appear but he still absorbs quite a lot.

And as expected, the theories he studied day and night pays off. Although crude and he is still inexperienced, he can utilize magic until the 3rd circle based on his knowledge of circle structures and runes which is the language for magic.

It's like he's building a skyscraper because of his foundation (which is all the theories he learns) he's able to build a 3rd story building with ease. But of course, it was only in the form of bricks and cement since he was inexperienced.

What is a circle?

A circle is a kind of detached temporary mana container that used runes as commands to realize the magic. Each circle was created using an amount of mana. You can only write a single rune in a single circle. each circle has a fixed amount of mana limit and each rune consumes a fixed amount of mana. This is why there are levels of circles from 1st to 9th circles. You can also use the extra circles to amplify the former circles' magic. For example, if you use the 1st circle magic fireball and amplify the mana with the 2nd circle mana then its power would be equivalent to the 2nd circle magic despite it being 1st circle magic. Therefore higher circles can only be made after going acquiring the needed amount of mana.

As for what's beyond the ninth circle no one knows, because there's only one 9th circle mage from centuries ago. Now there are only 5 8th-circle mages and they are all old people, it was unknown whether they can break through the 9th-circle even more beyond that. The most genius he heard is a girl from a renowned family that reach 7th grade at the age of 20.

Welp enough thinking, more training.

Right now he's trying to consolidate his mana manipulation and contemplating which magic core he wanted to create.

A magic core is a mana container inside of all being that has mana. The magic core has different sizes, depending on your talents. The core shape usually varies depending on your personality, there's also an ethereal core and there's also a special case where the whole body is the core. Well, there are also those that create multiple cores but it's rare since usually, you can only create one core in your life.

To be honest, the best magic core is the whole body core, after all, it was faster to transfer mana to the body part he wanted when there was no distance at all. The problem is he doesn't know how to manifest it.

So he had 2 choices. One, he can let the magic core naturally, this means he won't create the magic core himself and instead let his body handle it. This is a subconscious way so the result is completely random but it has a chance for a body magic core. Though there's a chance that he won't manifest any magic core at that time he can just manually do it if he's forced to.

Or Two, he can 'try' to create things right now, and have a probability of failing and getting a completely normal magic core. Though he can just create the second-best magic core which is the ethereal magic core. Since this magic core can move freely inside his body but it takes too much work to manifest it and he thought it was too inefficient

Of course, he didn't hesitate to choose one. He prefers patiently waiting than ruining himself. Besides, he was already used to waiting and all the impulse he had was already gone since some time ago.

So Ren stopped thinking about it and decided to focus on training.

It was until later that suddenly the voice that he hasn't heard for a while sounded in his ears.

[Ren, I'm back!]