The academy

After hearing about the proximity of one of the three famed academies of magic, Nolan immediately rushed over to check it out. He had heard a lot from Noctus about the knowledge contained within these academies, and his goal right now is to learn more, get stronger, and perhaps even research the strange phenomenon that had occurred to his grimoire, which he kept by his side at all times in a leather grimoire holster attached to a rudimentary utility belt he wore on his waist - a token of apology from Noctus for having nearly killed him.

It was a very useful belt, with weight reduction magic and a small spatial shard inlaid into it, which allowed Nolan to use it as a storage space. Spatial shards are, as it's name suggests, crystals formed from the accumulation of basic spatial energy. These crystals were rare, and their price increased exponentially the larger they got. This was due to the fact that nobody had comprehended the concept of space due to its "abstractness" and lack of substance, and even the concept of distance was incomplete, despite being recorded in the royal archives. This results in the shards not being able to be manufactured in large quantities and they have to be mined from extremely rare natural deposits.

Arriving at the perimeters of the academy, Nolan realized that the academy wall in front of him was actually part of the city walls. Asking around, he found that the entire city was technically part of the academy, but actual academy buildings only took up 20% of the entire city.

To put this into perspective, the area of the town is around 6,000 square kilometers, and 20% of that is 1,200 square kilometers. The campus is mind blowingly huge, to say the least.

Nolan ran his fingers across the grey smooth stone brick walls as he comprehended the scale of the academy. The size of it made him excited. So much knowledge and power to gain from this vault of information. He realized his path forwards - getting into the academy and stay there to learn. This got rid of his feelings of aimlessness, at least for now - he had a goal to work towards.

The entrance exams would be held 2 months later, after the annual graduation ceremony, where graduates would present the public with a product of their own research and to show to future freshmen the wonders they would eventually accomplish if they joined the academy. With this date in mind, Nolan began training himself.

I should start honing my mana control and circulation. Wait. I have no manuals nor have I had any previous guidance on this matter…time to find Noctus.

Striding into the mage council building, Nolan moved at a brisk pace towards Noctus' office. He was given strange looks due to his outfit, which was not the uniform for those part of the mage council, but nobody stopped him. Noctus' office door was slightly ajar, and you could hear him grumbling about paperwork regarding the collapsed sensor room. Before Nolan entered the office, Noctus' voice had already rung out.

"Put the stuff on the right table please, Charlie."

As Nolan stood at the entrance to the office, perplexed, Noctus looked up. He wished he hadn't.

"It's you again…"

Please don't tear down my office this time…

"What do you want?"

It was obvious that Noctus wanted Nolan out of his sight as quickly as possible. But that was a good thing, since he would complete any requests Nolan had very quickly just to get him out of his face.

"I think I need some textbooks and whatnot regarding basic mage training…but I don't have money…"

"You think? I'd say you'd best tell people next time that you hadn't had any proper training before they put you in a delicate sensor room…"

Noctus stood up and gestured for Nolan to follow him, heading in the direction of the council library.

"Don't burn the place down…If you do, even I can't help you. You'd be in jail for at least 50 years."

"…alright thanks"

Slightly intimidated by the duration of imprisonment, Nolan swore to be very careful with his mana in the library.

===

Two weeks have passed, and Nolan had spent every single spare minute he had in the library, reading every single book he could get his hands on. Very luckily, he had managed to find a book regarding the application of mana usage on memory and the brain on the first day he was in the library, which he spent the next fifteen hours reading and experimenting with the knowledge the book held, managing to come up with a method to memorize and compartmentalize knowledge in his mental space. He had used slivers of mana to influence his mental space to form innumerable bookshelves that were infinitely tall, stretching into the blue, cloudy sky within his mind. He would organize every single bit of knowledge he learned from a single area into a series of books dedicated to that area, and store them on the shelves in his minds space. This did not take a lot of mana, but it was something that not many even attempted due to the risks involved. But Nolan did not have such risks attached to this action due to his mana channels that were able to bypass the blood-brain barrier within his body. Normal people would have trouble forcing mana out of their bloodstream and into their brain, which could potentially lead to veins suffering damage. Nolan's mana channels had be optimized by his grimoire when he fainted in the jungle, which allowed his mana to enter his brain, in turn influencing his mind space.

With this newfound memorization cheat, Nolan's goal in the 2 months was to read and store the contents of the entire council library in his mind space. It did not sound very humanely possible to read every single book and memorize its contents in a 50 floor library within the span of 1.5 months, but Nolan could sweep through a bookshelf containing around 50 books within 15 minutes.

Approaching the deadline he had set for himself, Nolan sweated as he ran around on the 48th floor while reading. He was attempting to train his mana control by increasing his physical abilities through mana reinforcement, while using his mana to enter the contents of the book he was reading into his mindspace. By now, his mindspace library was filled with tens of thousands of books. Nolan only had 2 weeks left of the 2 months, and he was almost done with inputting all the books in the council into his mindspace. He would spend the remaining 1.5 weeks to sharpen his mana control and application to various elements, not that he hadn't been training while he was reading, and his mindspace library would take care of any written tests he may have to face.

The reason why "may" was used here was due to the volatility of the entrance exams. The three magic academies often switched their entrance exams around to test participants, and pure physical exams were not uncommon, where participants would face off against each other in magic duels, or blast dummies, or hunt beasts in the surrounding forests.

Having internalized all the information in the books of the council, Nolan thanked Noctus and shoved a few grilled meat skewers into his hands, which Nolan had bought from a friendly food stall owner he had encountered in his 2 month training period. Departing for the surrounding forest, Nolan steeled himself for the grueling mana training regiment he had designed for himself. Although Nolan had abundant internal mana, exceptional external mana absorption speed, high casting power+speed, his mana control was something horrific. He had zero clue what was an acceptable output of mana for any circumstance, which was seen in the destruction of the council's sensor room. Even now, in the forest, where Nolan felt at home, when he had tried to catch a rabbit for dinner earlier, he had completely obliterated it with an insane amount of mana channeled into a fireball. Although the power output was impressive, higher order mages utilized precise control and foresight of mana flow to fuel delicate higher order spells…though there was always an alternative of completely overwhelming your opponents using an abundance of mana with higher order spells specialized for such mana consumption. However, competition for entrance into the academy was fierce, and Nolan had no choice but to hone his mana control if he was to enter the academy through the exams. Despite Nolan's mana control being terrible, such a fact was only limited to his external mana control. His internal mana control could be said to be perfect, perhaps due to his mana core, which no other mage had. Of course, Nolan could cheese the entire exam by using just his internal mana, but if people noticed, and it was probably fairly obvious given the mana sensing capabilities of any capable mage, it would cause a great deal of trouble for him. Nolan shuddered at this thought, imagining himself being strapped to a dissection table as researchers cut him open to investigate his core.

So, Nolan began training his external mana control. His excercises involved the manipulation of neutral mana, an unfinished idea he had gleaned from a book in the council library which stated that this was possible, output of of mana converted from external mana, primed external mana manipulation (environmental mana made non-neutral after a mage has excercised influence on it) and advanced conversion of external mana between different elements. He would leave the neutral mana manipulation for last since it was the most complicated, and he started on the remaining topics. For every day of the 1.5 weeks, Nolan made sure to practice mana manipuation during every moment of the day. He even used external mana control on toilet paper to wipe after a poop just to test himself.

After a week had passed, Nolan was subconsciously manipulating his surrounding mana, both neutrally and influentially, even while he was sleeping. Anyone that saw his training progress would agree that he was a genius in the truest sense of words. A monster, even, to have reached such attainment in mana application and control over the span of 2 months.

By the end of the 1.5 weeks, Nolan was no longer sleeping on the rocky floor of the jungle. He was sleeping on air. Condensed external mana that formed a soft surface through a lattice composition of alternating neutral and influenced external mana particles. He had done this subsonciously due to his mind feeling discomfort from the rocks on the ground.

Waking up to the gentle sun rays of dawn, Nolan stood up from his comfy bed of mana, which dissipated behind him as he cleaned his teeth using external mana, picking small grains of dirt from his pearly white teeth. Sweeping his gaze around the forest he was going to be leaving today, and hopefully not come back anytime soon, Nolan felt abnormally tall. Looking down, he found that he was accidentally floating from his subconscious manipulation of external mana. He was very relieved that he was still in the forest with nobody around, otherwise they would consider him a very strange mage…how embarrassing.

Nolan made his way back to the city and to the bustling square in front of the academy entrance. Hundred of people had already signed up at the booths, leaving their mana signature on a unique board. Nolan quickly did so as well and waited for the exams to begin as he sat down on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the busy square…