Quill was starting to get used to the academy.

  After a couple of days, he had fallen into a routine before class officially started the next week. He would train with Rhena in the morning and go to the academy library in the evening. He found himself staring at it now. It was different from the rest of the buildings, akin to a cathedral used for religious purposes more than anything.

  The suns had already set, and the lamplights on the pathways guided Quill to the entrance. Inside, there were tens of thousands of bookshelves lining the first floor, with the rest making up the walls of the mezzanines above. It reminded him of Haref's library. He wrapped around the books before he picked a few of them out.

  ‘White Crafting.’ That was the title emblazoned on the cover. Normally, books like these were made for commercial mages, the ones that specialized in artistic and creative pursuits of magic rather than fighting, but it was going to prove useful for the specific spell Quill had been trying to make for the past few days.

  Before the end of the month, Lai had made it clear she wanted him to come up with a solution for his mana problem. He skimmed through the pages with an analytical gaze, hoping that something here could push his mind to what he needed. There were pages outlining the details of how to craft and shape objects using White Mana, but there were no references to White Scripting.

  That was a given, of course. Scripts of spells cannot be shared amongst mages, even among those who share the same Aspect. Though the symbols used for any given Aspect are the same for every mage, the Scripts themselves are incompatible with any other mages aside from the mage that created them.

  The same spells will vary in their Scripting orders and sequence, even between two similar mages with very similar spells. Each mage’s mana system was different, and each Script would correspond differently to mana depending on its position relative to the mana vessels and Core.

  This is why Scripts of spells themselves are not written in books, as one mage cannot just replicate the Scripts of another mage and make it work, without having the risk of blowing up the library and killing himself in the process. It would be more beneficial to instead outline the general structure of the spell itself, and that was what these books did.

  Still, the book was going to be an immense help. This was going to do well as an outline to create a ‘Mana Container.’

  Quill picked up a few more books before spotting a familiar face through the tables. It would've been a miracle in itself if he couldn't spot from the crowd; he was reading a book at the far corner of the library. Despite his initial impression, Quill developed a sense of curiosity. Giants don't usually read books, if at all.

  Quill inched along the halls before walking out the backdoor of the building. The wind greeted him before he turned to the open fields in front of him, the patchy training grounds separated only by walls of trees, each lit up with a line of lamposts.

  He started along the path, and along the way, he found Narrah practicing her Green Aspect magic against a round-shaped target dummy. The object itself was a magic ball of some kind, an ‘Absorber’ that was capable of eating a set amount of magic from a source. It was fairly used as a target practice here in the academy, to gauge magic strength above anything else.

  Narrah stretched her bow, pouring aura over her arrows, before her eyes then turned and took notice of Quill. She dropped her stance before she waved at him, a strange innocent smile stretching across her face. Quill only waved back before continuing along the path, finding a field all for himself.

  Quill was always better off learning about magic in isolation. It had been that way for hundreds of years, and it wasn't going to change now. He didn't really loathe the company of Rhena and the others, but he knew more than anyone how their chatter could take him out of focus instantly.

  He breathed the evening air before he plopped to the patch of grass, and with a few Scripts, he conjured a Mana Light to help him read over the contents of the books. It took him a few minutes before he was able to pour the contents into his head, and when he finished, he raised his hands again to write Scripts.

  Half of the Scripts were similar to his Marble Puppets and Liquid Stone. It was the same symbols of ‘forms’ and ‘shape’ he had written a hundred times. What was different here was the action Scripts, where instead of creating an object that actively changed shape with his command, he needed to replace it with a rigid Script instead, like the ones found in White Ball.

  Once the Scripting was finished, Quill immediately pressed onto the canvas with his mana to activate the experimental spell. Energy flowed through his arms before eking out onto his fingers, forming a shape faintly resembling a large White Ball the size of his hand.

  The first step was easy, and he had already gotten this over the past few days. But now he had to pour a portion of his mana into the newly formed Container to test out if his theory was right.

  He wrote a Script to pour his mana into the make-shift Container. Slivers of White poured from his palm before seeping into the Construct, flowing into it as if he were moving mana from his Core into another Core. And it worked. The Container in front of him absorbed all of the mana he pushed into it, effectively storing mana for him just like the Bluefae Amulet.

  There were still many questions running in his head, a few of them wondering how long the Container would hold or if the mana inside would decay over time in quality or quantity. He pushed past them, making space for a silent triumph. He did it. With this Container, he could use it as an excess storage and pull from it as a resource for his summons.

  Instead of celebrating, Quill shattered the Container and reiterated on the Scripts again. Exterior mana was different from interior mana in the context of density, and if he were to use this Container to store huge amounts of mana, he needed to make it larger than it was.

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  Again, he activated the revised Scripts, this time creating a Container a size larger than his head floating in front of him. Just like before, he poured mana into it, and in his excitement, he almost drained half of his Core empty before he shook his head. The Mana Container worked like a charm, storing the mana inside. There weren't any problems so far.

  Quill grinned through his victory before he then summoned Pen to his side, white chunks of stone appearing from nothing before coalescing into a Puppet. It was then that he realized that there was a gaping problem: how would he take the mana from the Container and use it for his Puppets? As far as he knew, he had no way of commanding the mana inside the make-shift Core.

  It was different when mana was inside the body. He could freely use Scripts or even a mental command to do it, but not when it was outside in the environment. The mana was basically a wild element now, free and unleashed by his Core. He had no way of commanding its behavior.

  Hours passed with Quill treading back and forth between the library and the field, picking up books and returning those he’d already read. There were many books on commanding external mana, but in the end, it was still a large field in and of itself. It was going to be a few more days until he’d grasp it thoroughly.

  It was different from his Liquid Stone spell. He was only able to create it in the heat of battle solely because it was an extension of his Marble Puppets spell. This new spell required complex Construct creation, along with an extended understanding of wild mana. All this to say, it was really hard creating a Complex Spell.

  “You going home anytime soon?” A voice spooked him from behind. It was Narrah, tapping over his shoulder, sweaty and ragged. He almost swore that her branches looked like devil's horns, but that would be strange to point out.

  “Not yet.” Quill turned back to the Container floating in the air, his attention only sparing a few seconds for Narrah. “I still haven't started with the Scripts for mana control, and I need to at least get the basic foundation now.”

  “...the library is closing.” Rognor arrived behind Narrah, the glasses on his eyes really not fit for a giant like him. “The librarian was starting to get angry, saying that she’d already warned you thrice in the past couple of days.”

  Quill sighed before he dissolved the Container and stood up. “What kind of academy closes its doors to hardworking mages? Is the Circle really this incompetent?”

  “It’s… already midnight.” Rognor said.

  Quill stared at the sky. “Huh.”

  Quill followed Narrah and Rognor past the building, giving the librarian a sneer before he made his way out and back to his dorm. Rognor and Narrah invited him for dinner, but he remembered something he needed to do. He waved them goodbye before entering the dorm, climbing the stairs and opening the door to his room.

  Food was tempting, but it could wait. He fished out his Holder from his burlap, producing the Cores he had received from the ceremony earlier in the week. He had forgotten all about them, tucked away in his pocket dimension. Only earlier did he remember that his Iron Core couldn't handle a third Complex Spell until it would advance to Bronze.

  He pulled himself a chair before dropping the Cores to the table. They shimmered in different Aspects of mana, prisms of light oozing from the pile of Cores right in front of him. In a way, these Cores were manifestations of his efforts these past few weeks. It was about time he was rewarded for them.

  One by one, he reached for them and absorbed them into his body. It only took a few seconds before the warmth in his chest blossomed.

  Just like before, he needed to distribute the energy of the absorbed Cores to the five Attributes pulsing on his chest. With a train of thought, he eventually settled on pouring two-thirds of the energy into his Magic Attribute, and the rest split evenly to his Strength and Constitution. A fairly balanced Attribute split with emphasis on Magic.

  When the warmth had finally settled on the respective Attributes in his mana system, a welcome feeling of bliss poured and flowed all throughout Quill's body.

  The wear of his muscles disappeared entirely, entirely replaced with a sense of power, almost as if he just finished a month-long workout. He then stood and jumped on his feet, and with every motion, his ankles sprang him higher than he ever could before.

  The most surprising thing was his Core, though it wasn't all that surprising if he was being honest. He closed his eyes and materialized the shape of the Core in the darkness. He could see the newly improved Magic Attribute brimming at the surface like waves. That was the effect of Attribute advancement, and he couldn't wait to use it in a fight.

  A faint smile settled on Quill's lips before he produced his Register.

  Quill stared at his Magic Attribute. It had already advanced to Bronze. Though he couldn't feel it as much, his manapool must’ve even grown deeper. Along with this, his Core was almost to the precipice of Bronze. He only needed a couple more Cores to absorb until he could start cultivating mana for his future Bronze Core.

  All this to say, Quill was excited. Every day he was growing as a mage, and he relished in the feeling. He had almost forgotten the feeling of steady advancement, something that was lost to him when his power plateaued at Emerald back then.

  A prick on his neck then shook Quill from his trance.

  He turned to the window, a bead of sweat dripping down his face. There it was again, the feeling, the change in the air. In the night sky, night birds cawed and rushed away in a flock.

  This was the second time he’d felt it.

  Thanks for reading!