The night's air stood crisp atop the top of the tower. The stars sparkling every now and then watching Alaric silently.
Alaric sat cross-legged in A web of ancient, glowing runes encircled Alaric on all sides.
In the middle of the circle, He traced down the runes from the book in his hand. the light blue colour of mana eminated as his fingers, as it formed intricate patterns into the ground.
"According to the thesis this rune circle should increase my mana gathering speed by twice when it's activated.... Shame."
"If I have the proper materials i could've quadrupled it."
"Enough chit chat."
Alaric closed his eyes before adjusting to a meditative stance.
As the silence took over Alaric focused on his body he could feel and visualise each and every part of his body.
His skin, muscles, nerves, bones and then finally his organs.
*Pump* *Pump*
He could hear it, The loud contractions of his heart sending blood to every part of his body.
Normally the mana in the body is stored in the heart of an individual. But when the path of magic truly starts is when a magic circle is formed.
If a person truly wishes to become stronger, he has to work the heart like a muscle. Through progressive overload, only when the heart is barely able to contain the mana inside, is a mana circle built.
Through concentrating a portion of one's mana and creating a ring of it around the heart does one becomes a first circle mage.
The mana circle around the heart synchronizes with the heart causing rune like symbols around it. As the body recognises the mana circle as a part of the body.
Almost like a second heart, It stores the mana inside, not only that the speed of spell chanting increases alongside the power of a spell.
The quality of the second heart determines how much mana it can store as well as how powerful the spell of the respective circle will be.
Then just like before through progress overload one once more creates another mana circle.
'At least that's what I've seen in this guy's memories.'
"I can feel it now though.' Everytime Alaric had emptied his mana he had and more the quantity of it slowly increased.
'The fourth circle is almost done too.',
He then activated the rune circle under him as he willed the mana around him to enter his heart.
An hour later, the fourth mana circle had finally filled up.
Alaric felt a suffocating feeling as sweat rolled down his forehead. It felt like if he didn't do something about the excess mana rampaging through his body he would die.
For hours he channeled the excess mana carefully creating a fifth circle around it before,
*Crack*
Even a single crack created in the process would break the circle entirely, making the the excess mana even more turbulent as it glowed through each part of the body causing widespread pain.
The circle flickered, collapsed and reformed again and again under Alaric's will. Each fail slowly destroying not only his pride but his body too, but as time went on the circle grew closer to completion.
Finally after hours of trial and error a low thud reverberated through the roof.
A blinding blue light shot out from Alaric's body as a resonating pulse flowed through his body from his fifth mana circle as he finally reached it.
His eyes snapped open, glowing a faint blue hue before he stood up and dust off his coat. A smirk on his face.
'Pfft Marius is gonna love this.'
'But before that there's something even better to try out mwahahaha.'
"I've been curious what kind of spells can I make combining this world's mana and my threads?"
'i didn't have the mana capacity to do it before without exhausting myself but I can do it properly now.'
[The threads of space, heed my hand and weave the world]
[Astral loom]
He took a breath as the mana surged when he raised his right hand.
A subtle light pushed outwards from him in all directions. At first the rooftop looked no different. But slowly if one looked closer faint white lines started to appear.
The pale white threads grew in the air with Alaric as the catalyst.
Alaric's fingers danced through the air, tracing invisible patterns. The threads responding twisted and moved in weird angles.
"Look at youu finally awake aren't ya?" As if responding to his question the thread moved half of his body up and down.
As he looked upwards he saw a small asteroid slowly moving in the night sky.
He snapped his fingers.
The plethora of threads turned translucent before slowly detaching from the building and making their way towards the sky.
Not before long through their connected senses Alaric felt that the threads had reached their target.
Alaric's eyes shone before he gave out a new command.
[Dismantle]
The threads on the asteroid dissapeared.
Not even a second later the asteroid separated into half, losing it's original trajectory as the two pieces slowly entered into earth's orbit.
"Oppsie, teehee"
It's not that Alaric's threads had cut through an asteroid hundreds of kilometres wide but instead what they had done was manipulate the space that the asteroid had occupied.
With the threads collective power they had weaved a small sub-space right in the middle of the asteroid, causing it to seperate into two.
"Though the mana consumption can still be adjusted and tuned the result is still satisfactory."
[Astral loom]
Once again thousands of threads emerged from his fingertips that on Alaric's command formed into a white sphere half the size of a building.
Alaric's eyes gleamed as an idea reached his mind. He pulled down into the core of the sphere as it's shape rapidly changed before changing into a giant sword.
As he did a pulling action towards the threads the sword fell and phased through the tower.
Yet not a single sound was heard as the sword clashed into the building almost like it was all an illusion.
Before suddenly, the roof warped. A chunk of the giant tower was split away from the main building, yet there was no dust, no rubble.
Instead the contents of the part that was cut remained in place as the giant chunk floated in the sky. Creating a scene that was straight out of a movie.
'Tight Tight Tight that's what I'm talking about.' As Alaric sat on the rooftop that was upside down at his point he couldn't help but grin.
After flying away from the tower he did a pulling motion towards him the giant chunk that was floating motionless zipped towards him in a perfect arc before it suddenly vanished into thin air.
"Although it can't be held in a temporary thread dimension for long it'll still be useful."
'Alright one step closer to creating the final loom, cool ass powers coming soon...' Alaric smirked.
The threads making up the sword pulsed together with his heartbeat, he raised his hands one final time and clenched his fist.
The sword collapsed instantly before sticking themselves to the floating building. They then attached to the tower before snapping the two together.
No noticeable difference could be seen.
The threads slowly merged back into Alaric as he regained some of his lost mana.
'im barely at 30% capacity.... I'll have to use this as a last resort.
He turned back to the rooftop door just in time to see it crack open as a half-asleep Lysander in a loose school uniform hair a message as he blinked while looking at the floating Alaric.
Alaric smirked.
"Do you like that kid? Just wait a year or two and you'll be able to do even better. But not this one.... I'm gonna patent islt before those greedy archmages do."
The boy blinked slowly. "What exactly did you just do?"
"You won't believe this but... Magic! Ta-Da!" Alaric said with his arms folded out.
Seeing Lysander still staring at him he started his neck.
"It's just space magic kid... Nothing special, I'm just experimenting."
"Forget that. Your first class, coincidentally Magic theory is mine, so you better get ready and get to class or else you'll sleep on the floor." Alaric said while pointing at the rising sun.
I've got stuff to do myself so see ya!" Alaric said before grabbing the air and folding it around him, dissapearing.
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Marius POV:
In the teacher's lounge Marius sat quietly. Pencil in hand sketching down into a worn out notebook sunlight falling perfectly on his regal figure as he looked down in focus.
'The configuration of the spell could still be improved.... If we add a third rune and connect it to the rune responsible for mana consumption, I can cut down on the consumption by 20%. Marius muttered under his breath while sketching down the formula for [Heaven's might].
"Tch what's up with you mages and books.... Annoying." Riven who was eating a burger next to him asked.
" You barbaric savages will never understand." Marius closed the book before laying back onto the chair.
"Mhm *mom* *nom* you're a pretty mean guy like always." Riven unbothered continued eating, before suddenly---
*BANG*
The oak doors of the teacher's lounge flew open, nearly taking off the Hinges.
"Ladies! gentlemen! and Marius.!" Alaric announced arms wide and coat flaring.
"Your favourite professor is now one of the ELITE!"
Marius didn't even bother looking up as he looked at his watch. "Alaric.... It's barely 9 I've got a class in a while why do you have to do this to me?"
"Tch fuck that, take a closer look at me you moron."
Marius raised his eyebrow before finally reading Alaric's mana signature. He could see five rings floating around his heart pulsing with it.
"You.... You actually managed to break through?"
"Heh. Fifth circle mage Alaric Vyle put some respect on the name." Alaric said while adjusting his collar.
The hulking man with arms the size of tree trunks, finished his burger. Riven the battle instructor and a living tank grinned.
"Fifth circle ay? Whens the party!" Riven got up as he approached Alaric.
Holding him up by the waist he spinned him in the air. Before finally lowering him down.
"Congrats kid. Teme you promised you'll throw a party the day you break through? The day is NOW!" Riven clapped his hands excitedly.
'He's even more excitedly then I am.....'
"Fuck yeah. Fireworks,party, drinks and snacks you name it." Alaric smiled wryly while scratching his neck.
"Just don't invite that Elira... I'm still finding glitter over my body since last time."
"Uh, I'll see?"
Alaric coughed before speaking. "Ahem, as you can see it's time for me to give my first lecture. Duty calls."
Riven sighed in sadness before returning back to his seat.
"Fine... Whatever try not to fuck your first day up kid." He sat cross handed.
Alaric paused dramatically at the door, flipping his coat collar up.
"Time to give them another reason to fear Mondays."
________________________________________
As he stood in the middle of the giant campus of the academy he couldn't help but feel lost.
Alaric smiled wryly.
"Where was class 1-A again?"
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