Awful weather to be in.

Ace had finally had enough of waiting, he willed the steady stream of Aether that flew through his spirit meridians into his mana veins.

As the purple stream of Aether flowed through his spirit meridians into his mana meridians, It was twisted and transmuted into a light blue liquid that seeped out of his fingertips.

"Is this mana?"

Ace asked himself, with hopefull expectations brewing in his eyes.

"Hahaha ~ it is mana." Ace burst into a delightful laughter.

"After all those days of endlessly digging through my core, I've finally gained access to mana!" Ace suddenly felt melancholic.

"After all that hard work to gain access to you, let's see what you can do."

The minute amount of mana in his hands felt like drops of liquid with virtually no mass to speak of.

Ace first decided to swirl it around in circles around him to see how good he could manipulate the drops of mana.

Boom!

The drops of mana went surprisingly fast around him, making them look like blurs of light around him.

As Ace watched the drops of mana zoom past him he suddenly had an idea.

He continued letting the drops of mana around him spin round I'm circles, only this time instead of just putting one or two drops, he outputed as much mana as he could out the tip of his fingers and into the circle of mana around him.

«Mana shield.»

"Ha! I made a mana shield, Now I have something to protect me from the rain during my soul injury, Though it's not that sturdy."

It truly was weak, In fact Ace could easily part the shield of mana using just only his hands.

Sure the mana shield could protect against a light rain shower but anymore than that was too much.

As Ace continued pumping mana to the shield, the particles of water that seemed to be a very light liquid started to get thicker and more viscous almost honey–like in texture.

"OoOoh, this could work if it keeps going like this might turn into a solid."

But just as he said that, the stream of mana fell to the ground.

This was because as the quantity of mana grew denser it lost the quality of lightness it once had.

Ace trying to salvage the situation, willed the mana to float back up but this time the ascent of the mana was slow and choppy.

"ugh! Such a bummer, I hope that this is not all mana can do."

Because Mana as a word has connotations of both construction and creation, so Ace hope that the capabilities of mana were not all bark no bite.

"Since using mana as a liquid is a dead end, how about making it into a solid."

The idea of turning mana into a solid seemed very visible in Ace's mind, as the only difference between the current liquid form of mana and a solid was tighter atomic bonds.

Like Ace had learnt in physics in his previous life, the atomic bonds of a solid was more tighter than a liquid, so all he had to do was tighten the atomic bonds.

Ace heightened his perception down to the molecular level of mana, and willed together the loose atomic bonds of mana, aiming to turn the gooey piece of mana into a solid.

But that was were he encounteree a problem. The molecules of mana were getting closer together and solidifying but it was doing so at a very slow rate.

By the looks of it Ace was probably gonna consume a large amount of mental energy before a little bit of the mana – that was on the floor – solidified.

In consideration of that Ace gave up trying to turn it into a solid but instead tried to do the reverse and turn it into a gas.

This time his attempt was successful, with the gooey piece of mana diffusing into a thick mist.

"That's amazing and all but what can I do with you?"

Ace asked himself as he made the light blue mist to fly towards him.

The speed of the mist was suprisingly quick arriving at his side in a split second a lot faster than it was in it's liquid form.

Ace struggled to think of a use for it, as he lay his hands on the floating piece of mist.

"Huh? ~ the texture of this feels just like how I thought a cloud would feel,"

"Is it perhaps because of it's density?" Ace wondered.

To put that conjecture to the test, Ace ordered the cloud of mana to spread out as thin as possible.

Just as he expected as the cloud of mana grew thinner his hand could go past through it like normal mist.

A smile graced Ace's face because of his discovery, akin to a child who was winning at a game he created.

But just as Ace was lost in his own world fooling around with the capabilities of mana, The world around him started to hum with power.

The low frequency vibration that buzzed all around the dreamscape jolted Ace out of his reverie.

"What is this?" Ace asked himself, puzzled.

BBoom!

Just after Ace finished speaking a loud tremor reverberated throughout the dreamscape.

"What in god's name is that?" Ace screamed in terror, his eyes wide open as he looked up at the sky.

The sky had been shattered.

In place of the battered asteroid that sat in the sky a black hole had appeared sucking up parts of the dream world.

Instantly Ace ran out of the open space ducking for cover as he ran into the academy.

"Where's Apeiron? he's gotta see this, I don't think something like this is supposed to happen."

Ace thought to himself as he made his way through the academy halls.

Although the halls were now crowded with people frozen in time unlike before, Ace was too far gone in terror to pay it any heed.

Ace slammed open the door to the class Apeiron was in before.

"Why is there a black hole outside?!"