Staring Into the Abyss

Al was stumped.

Utterly. Stumped.

.

.

.

Because he did not know what he was looking at...

Basically, before a mage reaches Core Formation, their so-called nascent core has yet to take a solid shape definitive of their cultivation. At this stage, what one observes when extending their senses into the core is something akin to a pool of water. This pool of water, and the area surrounding it, can be used to gauge into a mages cultivation, only at a superficial level though.

Through his years, Al had had the opportunity to inspect an assortment of such nascent cores, some through consent and others through force. While he wasn't as ancient as the many Tesseract Transformation powerhouses sauntering through this world, he was confident in declaring that he had seen enough to have a decent idea of the various cultivation methods commonly practised amongst mages, and how the nascent core looked within the mages that practised them.