Paramount Magus

It's been three months since I changed my training routine, and well, all I can say is the results speak for themselves.

Especially in my weapon mastery, I've always loved that training the most, but with my new body enhanced by mana I can push like never before, and trust me I've been pushing.

Right now I'm on the ground barley able to breathe after training for the past hour and a half on spearmenship.

My hands were still bleeding from my repeated movements but I felt better then ever. Lately Alaric has been making me let him heal my hands, fucking old man, he tells me that it get in the way of our spars, but in reality he's just mad when blood lands on his clothes, or even worse one time it landed in his eye, I've never seen the man freak out as much as he did that day.

For someone who is a renowned healer you'd think he'd be used to blood a little bit more.

Anyways from that day on he's been cleaning them up enough not to spit blood, but by this point my hands were pretty banged up, to be honest my entire body is pretty messed up if you look at it as a whole.

Most of my scars are from my childhood, getting tortured by slave traders who thought they could own me, or even worse slave traders who knew they couldn't own me, and wanted to inflict as much pain as they could before discarding me.

So I had a plethora of tiny scars littering my body , only some spots are terrible though, my torso is pretty destroyed from extended torture, but on the bright side my hands are quite scarred from my new training routine and not slave traders.

Alaric implemented it a month ago and I've been enjoying it quite thoroughly, every Tuesday and friday I go into the woods by myself for the day and try to hunt mana beasts, theirs nothing here that could really outrank me, so it mostly comes down to skill.

But….the first few months were rough. I wasn't used to the ferocity of wild animals, compared to Alarics smooth and controlled movements.

So I got hurt. And by I got hurt , I mean everytime I came home I had a new scratch, bite mark or throbbing wound Alaric had to take care of.

So I basically turned my scarred body into an even worse mess, now my forearms and hands are littered with scars to match my torso.

Anyways that's enough usless thoughts, todays a very speacial day, an amazing day even. Because today I'm going to form my first circle around my mana heart, and hopefully become a twilight first circle magus, or atleast attempt too.

Most people have to make multiple attempts before finally successfully making their first circle. The multi tasking needed to complete the task of creating a mana circle is border line ridiculous.

It's a mixture of needing a strong will and to manage guiding the mana equally within the process.

Yesterday I finally gathered enough mana from the atmosphere into my body, just barley enough to condense a twilight ring around my heart, now I just have to start the process.

And I'm doing it without Alaric, for good reason of course. I wouldn't do it by myself if I didn't have plans to go to Liberta. But I have to gain a little independence when it comes to magic for the foreseeable future.

So I want to do this by myself, I already asked Alaric and he agreed to let me do it by myself, but I kind of lied to the old man because I didn't tell him about my plans to move.

Moving into a seated position and getting into my mediation pose I took a breathe.

"Phew"

The process of forming a mana circle is kind of complicated but not at the same time, it's fairly simple in theory, but it's hard to do.

The simplest way to put it is that your grabbing all the mana from your body, and some additional mana from the atmosphere and pouring it directly at your mana heart, and that's the easy part.

The hard part, is shaping mana into a circle that'll rotate around your mana heart. The main problem is the utilization of "Will", is needed to guide your mana into a proper mana circle and start its rotation, it's not something easily done, especially on the first try.

As for the shape? The reason magus use circles isn't that well known, but from my own conclusions I just think that with trial and error they found that a circle works the best for improving your mana heart, after all a mana circle acts as a kind of booster to your mana, it's an overall improvement, and quite a large one, but the main point is now that you have your "will" imposed on that circle of mana, you can finally command spells! Finally I'll be able to make shit blow up.

I wouldn't say that's the only reason I'm excited but it's a decent percentage for sure, I'm also excited for the improvement to my body, my weapon mastery will improve leaps and bounds after my body grows to a new degree.

I have to focus, these thoughts are distracting me.

Counting down in my head I prepared myself..

3

2

1

Go!

And instantly all the mana in my body was suctioned directly at my mana heart, and simultaneously I was drawing mana from the atmosphere.

It felt like my brain was splitting in two from trying to do these two difficult things at once but I had to focus.

I need to do this, and I need to do it quickly.

With all the mana at my disposal I stopped aborsing mana and focused on shaping the mana I had, I pictured a circle inside the right side of my chest, I willed the mana too converge into a thin and dim circle around my heart.

I could feel it, the shape was there, it was in my body I just had to will it to move.

So I used my will to attempt to start the rotation, I willed the mana to rotate around my heart.

Only to fail, and the mana dissipated into my body.

It's fine I expected failure atleast once.

So I willed it again, and this time it didn't dissipate.

But…. it wouldn't fucking rotate either, it's not working!

I don't understand, I'm guiding the mana and visualizing it aswell as I can,aswell as commanding it with my will, why won't it rotate?

I focused more, rotate! Rotate you fucking ring.

I let my breathe I was holding out and then with one final pushed poured all of my will into one command, one desire for that ring to rotate.

And it started to move.

"YES! GO, GO!! MOVE!

I couldn't stop myself from laughing, it was moving, it was working.

I was officially a twilight first circle magus, and then it hit me. The power, the pure mana circling around my body was too much for my body to handle all at once, I could feel it, I was gonna pass out. My vision blurred as my eyes rolled to the back of my head.

And then everything went black.

I woke up to the sound of Alaric swinging his sword, he was practicing by himself in the grass.

I guess I was moved while asleep once again.

Laying in the grass I couldn't help but realize how comfortable I was, I think another nap would be just right. But the recent events quickly flash through my mind and I shot to my feet and went towards Alaric.

Finally reaching him I simply said.

"Thank you for moving me while I was asleep, I have somthing important to ask you."

And without giving him time to say somthing snide I said.

" I want to attend one of Liberta's Magus Academies."

Alaric smiled and simply asked

"Which one?"

I was a little shocked that was his first question but I went with the flow.

"I'm not quite sure , I'd have to see both academies face to face to get a bigger picture."

Alaric continued training with the sword and said.

"Have you thought about this for an extended period of time? Or is this a split second desicion now that you meet the hidden requirement of having a fully formed mana circle."

Striking the iron while its hot I answered.

"I've thought about this for a while, I want to experience the world, and to do that I want to be unparalleled in magic, I want to be paramount. And to do that I have to attend where the best of the best go, and that's either Pollux or Castor."

Alaric smiled.

"For once we agree brat, I'll cover all the costs of your trip aswell as your tution fee, think of it as a parting gift of sorts, but in turn you have to attend Castor Academy, that's my only requirement."

I thought about it for a second and realized I had nothing to lose, and simply nodded my head.

"Good kid, now let's talk about that first circle you gained, I'm guessing you're excited but don't try to impose your will on anything just yet, lest you blow us both to bits."

I gave him a cheeky smile and tried to manipulate mana to become a fireball to show my generational talent, the only problem was, I realized half way through I had no clue how to do that.

"BOOOOM"

Ah shit.

"AH YOURE FUCKING DEAD KID!"

End of chapter 5.