Masteries and you

You could see Beyern sitting close to a campfire, the moon up in the sky, focusing to a maddening degree on his index finger.

And then for a moment, a blue-ish light appeared on it, the next it was gone, like a wisper in the wind.

Beyern couldn't help but smile slightly, as a screen announced his achievement.

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Congratulations, Bayern, due to your continued effort and hidden talent, you have gained the Mastery 'Mana-manipulation'.

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Beyern quickly called out his status.

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Bayern

Skills; Necromancy (lvl 0)

Masteries; Mana-manipulation (Rank 0, 0-star)

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He was going faster than Beyern had expected, for the talented it took around a day to get their base mastery, the foundation for other skills and masteries. If you were average, a few days. He had gotten it in a few hours.

This called for a celebration, though he was sadly still in the wildernes, and he cared more about staying silent and not attracting anything dangerous than the fact he got a mastery in (Maybe) record time, he wasn't sure, there wasn't much information about such things in the town he lived at.

And why would there be? They were more worried about protecting the village from the local monsters, not whether some long-dead genius' record was broken, they would never even see such a person in their lives.

But from Beyern's understanding; It didn't matter. He was starting late in the race, while others have been practicing magic since they were ten. If he was going fast, then that was good, and he would not complain about it. But he would still go faster if he could.

Now, he had to considered how to increase his Mastery, 0-star wasn't enough for him to get 'Mana-shaping', he needed 3-star at minimum.

From what he remembered from his lessons from an elderly mage that came to the orphanage from time to time-

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A man, his hair and beard grey, walking with a cane, came over to the playing children "Hello everyone!" His tone was friendly, a smile shown on his lips.

"Mr Simmons' is here!" One of the children yelled while running towards him, halting the game of tag.

He patted the first child to arrive on the head "Haha, Beyern, always so inquisitive, what do you all want to learn about today?"

All of the children said their own suggestions, the most popular one being 'Masteries'.

"Masteries?" He asked, loudly, as to make his voice heard over the cacophony. What he heard most in response was 'Yes', and that meant, the majority had decided. This was democracy at it's finest.

Though Beyern wanted to know human anatomy, since Darnel Simmons was the only person in this town who knew anything about surgery. And that day, he recognised that democracy was good for most, but he was more important then them, in his own mind. But that's a story for another day.

"Alright, settle down children, I can't teach properly if you're all roudy." He said, his words quickly causing the children to silence themselves. Even if they didn't get what they want, it'd happen another day.

Simmons nodded slightly "Good, now; Masteries. Let's go from the beginning;

A Mastery is made available to you if it is related to your class, like a swordsman will be able to get the 'Swordsmanship' mastery. A wanderer can get 'Walking'. A mage can get 'Mana-manipulation', as you can see, there are many masteries.

But mastery has a different system of progress compared to skills with their levels. A mastery is put in stars and ranks, after every ten stars you gain, you will be able to gain a rank, after which they will dissapear for you to gain again. But you could build up even further before you rank up a mastery for a better effect after you rank up.

But, unlike skills, which advance from achievements related to it and continuous use. Only when you push your boundries, and do your best to do something hard relating to the Mastery does it increase at a faster pace."

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Darnel Simmons was a nice old man, who taught him and the other orphans in his own time, he quite liked them, though it's sad he died when he was younger.

His killer even confessed proudly about it 'What did that weirdo say again; Bonus track, bonus track. Got a ride or die b****, I think you get the gist. And when you let me out, I'm gonna blow a little kiss. Consider this my confession, admissible in court. I killed Darnell simmons for sport

It's good that he actually got put down, was nice to watch the cremation personally.'

Shaking off that dark memory, Beyern remembered the last few lines 'I need to push my boundries, but how do I do that?'

Again, he never really realized how little information about magic was out there.

Mana manipulation was the manipulation of mana, so he had to try to manipulate mana beyond his current limits?

'I found it almost impossible to release that small bit of mana outside my finger, maintaining a bit of mana in the air might work?' Beyern thought, he was honestly not sure.

He quickly drew a small amount of mana out of his manapool, and made it orbit around the heart while drawing more and more mana, slowly building a ring.

It took some time, though easier than expected, it being obvious {Mana manipulation} was putting in the work. He quickly made sure to thank it mentally 'O' {Mana manipulation}, unlike others, I recognize your effort, and thank you for it. May the gods bless thee.'

About 10 minutes later, the orbiting ring was set up.

Beyern was proud of his extremely smart idea, since he could only pull out a small amount of mana at one moment from the gate, so he had to find a way to keep mana while drawing it out, since the small amount of mana he put out could not be safe in the open air.

Now all that was left was to pick a spot in the orbit to break the loop, and have the entire ring follow in it's footsteps- 'Hey, why is this thing resisting me? I'm the one maintaining it's form, so why is it resisting?'

Though the resisting force was small, he could feel it, but he had no clue why it had manifested. Though it troubled him he knew so little about the rules that bound mana, the force could not resist him for any longer, and collapsed.

He quickly put both of his index fingers close to eachother, though not touching.

The ring broke, one part of it splitting off, and like a snake, slithered up towards Beyern's right shoulder, then down through his biceps and then triceps, the remnants of the ring following behind.

At the end of it's journey, it arrived at the hand, then choose to go toward the index finger as it was commanded, easily breaking through the skin, and increasing the amount of mental power demanded of Beyern exponentially.

The about a quarter of the stream made it through between the two index fingers, a centimeter between them, each moment Beyern putting in all his mental resources, before beyern fell to the ground.

He took some deep breaths, realizing that all that mana had just dissapated into the world around him 'A bit of a waste.' He thought, before a screen popped up again.

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Congratulations, Beyern, due to your staunch concentration, and work around to your mana circuit's size, 'Mana-manipulation' has gained 1-star mastery.

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'Worth it! It was all worth it!' He wasn't sure about others, but his advancement, with around 15 minutes of practice, was rapid.

He took a few more deep breaths, allowing his mind to rest, and then he went to creating a new ring.

It was noticeably easier to make it, though not faster, he it was easier to manipulate the mana, not increasing the size of his 'Mana circuit', as the system called it.

But it was even easier to maintain the orbiting mana, on a different level, though not that much bigger than, compared to taking mana through the mana circuit.

Another 10 minutes later, a proper ring of mana had been formed once more, flowing around his heart in orbit.

'I probably should do the pass thing, maybe something else would work too though? The ring seems like a sort-of unique concept, let's make another.' And so, he made another, larger ring, around his heart, this one taking 12 minutes to make due to the increased size.

Though it took a large portion of his mental resources to sustain both rings, it wasn't impossible to do other things. But he wanted to properly do something cool, so he decided to just discharge the bigger ring, trying to maintain it out of his body, but letting go the moment it was too much.

He decided to bring it out a different way than the two times before, he choose to just guide it out through the chest.

He split off a part of the ring, and let it snake forwards towards the front of his chest, using all the available mental power to force it to burst out through his skin.

If you looked at that moment, you could see a small push against his shirt, with a light-blue light shining through. And as you could conclude, this meant that Beyern couldn't push his mana through his shirt.

He once again took a few deep breaths, letting his mind regenerate the mental energy he had just spent.

He waited for a moment, but since no notification came, he sighed and started to think of something else to do.