Bottleneck

For the following days, explosions sounded on the mountain from morning to night.

" AGAIN! YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT! IMAGINE!!" Rumius heard mistress Isadora screech from behind him. He gritted his teeth in frustration. 

' I know that goddammit!' 

He raised his hands again, feeling for the heaty hum of mana from his chest. He willed it to flow through his arms and collect at his fingertips.

" BOOOM!"

Another shockwave echoed throughout the mountain plain. Mistress Isadora stamped her feet. 

" NO! NO! NO! I TOLD YOU TO IMAGINE!" she screamed, causing Rumius to flinch and gnash his teeth even harder. 

' Can't you see I'm trying?' He wanted to shout back. But he knew it wouldn't be entertained. Since the day before, Mistress had instructed him to transition from chanting to chantless casts while maintaining the same level of power and precision in his magic. And so far, it wasn't going too well. 

Rumius heard his Mistress suck air in between her teeth, creating a hissing sound. " How many times have I told you, imagine the outcome! You must envision what you want to happen!" Her voice was taunt with annoyance. 

Rumius was struggling to keep himself from lashing out.

" And I've told you as well, Mistress, that there simply isn't enough time! I can't clearly imagine anything in those few milliseconds of time! It's impossible!" He said as calmly as he could. 

" Pfft, impossible?" 

Mistress Isadora raised her left hand, which faced the open grass field that ended with the vast expanse of forest that the two of them had been using as a shooting range. 

At a word, a massive, concentrated gust exploded from her fingertips. It rushed across the plain and hit a tree on the opposite side. Even from so far away, Rumius could see the tree getting shredded into confetti. 

" Impossible?" Mistress Isadora repeated. " You're just not not trying hard enough. I've let you use chants for two days. In which time you've used the same spell tens of dozens of times. Do not tell me that it is' Impossible' ." she spat.

" Again!" 

Rumius, with his tail between his legs, grudgingly got back into position. 

Several blasts later, he ran out of mana and not a single one of them had met expectation. 

Mistress Isadora threw him a recovery potion and began to talk as he drank. 

" Sign…let's end it here for the day. How fares your research into your unique magic?" She asked in a displeased tone. 

Rumius gulped down the rest of the greenish liquid and brought up a hand to wipe his mouth.

" Not…good." He signed. If there was anything more damning than his current predicament with the wordless chant, it was his inability to make a breakthrough with his unique magic.

Hearing this, Mistress Isadora frowned. 

" I hope you realise how most people make a breakthrough with their unique magic after a month of receiving it. You've had yours for six."

" You've read all the books that I've given you?" 

" Yes."

" And all the papers on the known types of unique wind magics?" 

" Yes." 

" And even then, you could not figure anything out?" Mistress Isadora said the line with so much disbelief in her voice it almost sounded mocking. 

Rumius found it hard to meet her gaze. 

" Yes." He mumbled. 

He was thankful when no more questions came to him. 

Mistress Isadora signed. 

" Well, then I'm afraid I can't help you with that. Unique magic comes from within. If you don't find the spark, then it's possible you may never awaken it at all." She said. " And I can't do anything if you don't have the talent." 

There was a clattering sound as she began to pickup the emptied potion flasks on the ground. " You can have the rest of the day to yourself. There's nothing I can teach you with you at your current level." 

When Rumius tried to protest, all he got was a look of mild disgust.

" You don't even have the most basics of basics down, how are you going to learn anything?" She questioned with a quizzical look. 

" Then…..I'll…" the arguments died in Rumius's throat. 

" Then could you at least spare me a bottle or two of recovery potion?" He pleaded.

Mistress Isadora seemed to consider his request for a while before handing him all the last three fully filled ones. 

" Take them all. " she said before walking off and vanishing some distance later, leaving Rumius alone on the grass with himself, the wind and his thoughts. 

Rumius looked down at the three flasks of greenish liquid and a strange urge to squeeze them as hard as he could came over him. He carefully placed the flasks on the ground and sat down next to them. Looking up at the sky, which had always looked so boundless and beautiful and free, Rumius suddenly felt its size from a perspective which he had never thought of before. 

Right now, Rumius felt unbelievably small. 

' Screw that woman! Why do I need to take that shit from her, anyway?' He thought, wiping his eyes. They were a little wet. 

' Screw her. I can do this my way.' 

' Yeah, that's right, I can do this without her easily! I'll show her that she's wrong!' 

Rumius sniffed and stood up. He felt the wind rustle his hair and as he inhaled. It made its way directly into his lungs, helping refill him with calmness. Rumius took several more of these invigorating deep breaths. 

' Damn it, that sucked.' He sniffed after he had calmed down. ' I can't believe I let her words get to me.' 

' But she is right that I'm stuck on both fronts. How am I going to get out of this one?' 

He thought on it for several moments. 

' I can't tackle both problems at once. It'd be better if I simply take them one at a time.' 

He decided to tackle the chantless cast first. Not mastering it meant that Mistress wouldn't teach him anything more. While not awakening his unique skill only meant that he wouldn't be able to access a powerful weapon. But that could wait. The former couldn't. 

' And at least for tackling chantless cast, I have a lead as opposed to the other option where I don't even know how to begin.' Rumius thought.

' Now that I think about it, the problem is with my imagination, it's it? I can't instantaneously form the picture of the impact in my mind because there are too many factors to keep track of and too little time..'

Rumius raised his hand toward the forest and only recited the basic chant of the spell, not giving anytime to even run the chant through in his head or fully create the image of the future he wanted. This was chantless casting. The ability to cast a spell instantly at the moment its name is called.

Basic, yet deadly. Ubiquitous, yet one hell of a challenge. 

" Blast."

The attack sailed through the air and dissipated to nothingness several hundred metres before it touched the highest peaks of the trees. Another failure. But this one was carefully calculated.

Rumius brought his hand to his chin and slowly began to pace. ' Just as I thought. I only managed to from a vague image. I need it to be more concrete….' 

' Wait! What if I just go see the actual impact myself?' 

Rumius swiveled towards the dense forest, realising how despite firing off spell after spell and drawing up imagination after imagination, he had not thought to actually see the impacts of his spells up close. 

It felt like a perfect solution. 

' If I can store the image in my mind, I can simply bring up the image every time I use a spell! Wouldn't that be so much easier than imagining every outcome from scratch? This could work!' 

Rumius wasted no time in gathering his potions and dashing off, flying across the field at breakneck speed, adrenaline pumping through his veins with the intensity of an engine. 

It was only after it was too late that the thought occurred to Rumius: 

" Why didn't Mistress Isadora do this in the first place?"