Breaking Old Habits is Hard

"Wait, are you telling me you learned how to take the image in your mind and turn it into mana and infuse it with your intent of what you want to cast?" Lillia asked, her eyes opened wide in surprise. She had never heard of such a crazy method. Even she only imprinted the image in her mind with her intent and used that while creating the magic circle, so it knew what to cast, and even that was difficult, but he… he went above and beyond!

"Haha, yeah. It was a crazy idea, but it worked. The hard part was taking my mental image and turning it into mana. I had no idea what I was doing, but for some reason, I felt I could do it." Blake explained while scratching his head.

"That is…. You are actually a one in a million genius…." Lillia sighed. She thought she could still wear the pants in the family a little longer, but it seemed her boyfriend in name only was already taking that away from her as well. Well, at least in some aspects. "Blake, what you are doing is something that even dragons can't do. It is basically incomprehensible to even think of taking a thought and turning it into mana. Merging the image into your mana flow is one thing, but it is only the intent, nothing more. But you are basically taking the entire concept of magic and driving it up another level. I knew humans had potential, but this is just crazy."

"Is it really that amazing?" Blake felt although it was hard, it was not that difficult once he had the idea in his mind. Something just clicked, and he was able to do it.

"It is. Can you cast it again?" Lillia asked. She was very curious as to how he did it. But most of all, she was worried it might be bad for his body.

"Yeah, but give me a minute to regain some mana. I was a bit lost in thought and forgot to limit my mana output which almost drained my entire mana pool." Blake explained as he slumped to the ground.

"Mmm…" Lillia squatted behind him and began rubbing his shoulders. "If you can control this, then you will become an amazing mage."

"I was hoping for that to be the case. But I still have many years to go before I catch up to you. Of all things, my mana pool is the one thing I can not rush." Blake said with a smile. He looked up at the girl hovering over him and felt like he really was liking this girl more and more. Right now, she was his driving force.

While he did not want to be weak, without her, he would not have made it this far so quickly. He owed her a lot and wanted to repay her, but he did not want to repay her with his own feelings. He couldn't lie to himself or her. He would wait until he was truly in love with Lillia before he told her so. Love, to Blake, was not something you just say. It was a meaning of how you truly felt for the person.

This was not to say that he did not like Lillia because he did. But he did not feel he was in love with her just yet.

A few minutes later, Blake stood back up and held out his hand once again. This time he was much more focused on controlling his mana output. As he closed his eyes and felt the image, he wanted to melt into mana and seep into his mana flow. A small flame suddenly appeared on the palm of his hand. Blake opened his eyes to see the flame that was no bigger than a candle flame dancing as if it was truly alive. Blake smiled as he looked at the small flame. "Perfect. This time it didn't explode."

"Wait….." Lillia spoke up as she looked at Blake in total shock. She grabbed his hand and then looked at him as she yelled out: "Where was the magic circle!?"

"Huh? I told you I turned it all into mana…."

"How is that even possible!? The magic circle itself is mana, so how!? How did you not show the magic circle when casting!?" Lillia was freaking out. Even she can only get the magic circles to dim to not bring too much attention to them, but this was just….

"Uhh? I told you already?" Blake was confused. He already told her this!

"Not fair! I want to do it too! We are not eating until I can do it too!" Lillia shouted. She was like a little kid who had her favorite toy stolen. She wanted to learn Blake's casting method as well. "Also! Tina, get over here. You should learn this too. If we can all use magic in such a way, we can venture out before the six months' time."

Tina, who was trying to cast a simple fireball, almost jumped out of her skin hearing Lillia call out to her. But when she heard she was going to learn a new casting technique, she almost started crying. She had yet to learn the original one yet! Now they were changing things on her!

The days were long after that. Between training physically, they only had a single meal per day while Blake trained the girls in his new casting method. Sadly Blake was not the best at explaining things, but he was doing his best to answer any and all questions.

After almost two months of this, a loud scream of joy filled the training room. "I diiiiiiiiiiiidddddddddddd it! Finally!"

After lots of grueling hours and many headaches, Lillia finally began casting magic like Blake. Sadly she was the last one, but this was only because Lillia was stuck in her old ways for so so many years. But now she was screaming for joy at the fact that she had finally broken her old habits and was able to accomplish what she thought was impossible.