Chapter 67: C67 – Advancement

With seemingly endless time to himself, Dirk was quick to dive into work. Every day his room would constantly flash with the lights of elemental mana. 

He made rapid progress with forming his new spells. Since his Earth Guard spell could be practiced anywhere, Dirk had made great progress with it. He was actually able to form a light piece of rock armor around his arm, one that could be reinforced by his large earth mana reserve. This success made Dirk feel accomplished. 

As for Dirk's improved fireball spell, that couldn't be practiced as he wished as it was a destructive spell, so other than forming the runes, he never practiced actually activating it and ensuring it worked. 

Luckily, this problem was solved when Ryker came back to replace the mana crystals. 

After draining their mana, the mana crystals were reduced to nothing more than a fancy clear marble that was disposed of by the room's enchantment. It wasn't long after this happened that Dirk's door opened, revealing Ryker's figure. Dirk stood from the chair that he came to prefer sitting in while practicing. 

"Father."

"Dirk. How's practice coming along?"

"I've improved. I have a question though. Is there a place where I can freely cast fire spells?"

"There is."

Ryker nodded as he dropped some fresh mana crystals into the bowl, filling the room back up with dense mana. 

"The first underground floor. There you'll find some open practice areas as well as isolated areas. Show them your key card and you'll be allowed into one of the isolated areas. It comes free with your 3rd floor room."

"I see. Thank you."

"Of course. I'll be back in four days to replace the crystals again. Find me if you need anything."

With that, Ryker left again. Dirk spent some more time in the room before finding his way to the practice area. 

The practice area was totally underground, and like everywhere else, all constructions were made from those enchanted metal bricks. Dirk was stunned when he learned that this Magic Pyramid extended several floors deep. This meant that the resources required to construct such a thing were even more astronomical than he first thought. 

After talking to a nice receptionist, Dirk was allowed into one of the underground rooms. 

The room he had was quite a bit larger than he first thought it would be. However, the mana density wasn't nearly as high, only a bit denser than normal atmospheric mana. 

This was a place to practice casting spells. Naturally, spells would usually be cast in a place that didn't have artificially high mana densities, like outside. It forced one to rely more on their mana pool. Of course, get a higher level room and one would be able to practice with high mana density as well. 

Dirk didn't worry about this stuff as he stepped into the room. On one side of the room there were some large metal tablets that looked like targets. These tablets were enchanted to take all kinds of beatings. The chances of destroying one were very low. 

Raising his hand, Dirk concentrated. The fire mana that saturated his body was sucked out, moving toward his hand like fiery snakes. 

Dirk watched every single particle and strand of fire mana congeal above his palm. Then, they went on to form three circles that stacked on top of each other. After this, the fire mana formed lines and runes that placed themselves along the lines of the circles. When these runes fused with the mana circles, they formed circuits that mana systematically flowed throughout. 

Until the circuit was completed and formed a closed loop, there would be resistance to forming the spell since the mana would want to fly out of control. One would need to control the mana within every rune and circuit until it was complete. 

Soon, Dirk was close to doing this. Out of the many runes within each circle, he had formed a majority. However, when he reached the end and formed the last rune, the mana circuit didn't close. It remained open as the loop refused to connect. Dirk frowned at this. 

This phenomenon meant that his circuit was messed up, and not just in one place. Several of his runes were incorrect or misdrawn. This would lead to a chaotic flow in the mana, and the spell would ultimately fail. In bad cases, the spell would go berserk and backfire. 

Before this happened, Dirk dissipated the mana, letting some of it release into the air while bringing most of it back into his body. Dirk's fire mana pool wasn't nearly as large as his earth mana pool. Any fire mana he expended would take a while to recover, so he recycled it despite the consumption of energy this took. 

With that, he began to ponder his mistakes. Pictures of the runes from the spell book Dirk scanned were displayed in his vision. Like that, Dirk created and overlapped runes, trying to find his mistakes. 

When he felt confident, he went back to form the spell. However, the second time wasn't much better than the first. He lost some fire mana as he dissipated the failed spell. 

This continued for a few hours. However, at some point, Dirk's fire mana pool ran dry. While he could pull fire mana from the atmosphere, it wasn't dense or plentiful enough to form the spell. He left the practice area with a downtrodden face. 

But he perked back up upon reentering his room. There, he went back to forming runes for his mana heart. In this, he was making reliable progress. 

..........

Dirk's practice went on for 12 total days. 

For the most part, he focused on enchanting while reserving time for spells. He continued to perfect his Earth Guard spell while actually coming to succeed in his improved fireball spell. 

These two spells, once completed, were logged by Dirk's AI. Dirk called them Earth Guard and Fireball 2.0 respectively. 

When this happened, Dirk felt thankful for his AI. His AI was extraordinarily useful in battle where he had used it a lot. Especially in the dungeon, he had frequently called upon his AI to cast spells for him in order to ensure reliability. 

Surprisingly though, when it came to the Earth Guard spell, Dirk couldn't escape having to half-cast it. The AI could log the core runes and circuits, but he had to input the parameters for it like armor placement and shape. Coming to this point, Dirk had thought about trying to form a spell that would cover his entire body in a single piece of rock armor. However, this brought up countless other difficulties that he wasn't willing to tackle at the moment. 

Dirk's advancement in spells was definitely amazing. However, this was nothing compared to his advancement in enchanting. 

After these 12 days, Dirk was finally able to form the rune for his mana heart. 

The rune for Dirk's mana heart was comprised of several dozen runes that fused together, forming a large singular rune. After a while, Dirk had used his enhanced elemental comprehension to succeed in forming all the runes. Then, he practiced fusing them together. His constant advancement never ceased as he completed everything in one go. 

Coming to this point, Dirk was regretting not spending much more time on magic in the past. He had taken it as only supplementary, but now he was beginning to see how truly profound it was. His incessant physical training made him look like some kind of meatheaded brute. 

At least now though, he was finally coming to truly understand the world of magic. And when he finally dove in, the result was an unrivaled training speed. 

And now, he was going to take another step forward. With the rune complete, Dirk only needed to enchant it to his mana heart. While this would pose its own difficulties, it was nothing he didn't believe he couldn't tackle on the spot. 

Dirk spent an entire day relaxing, eating, and sleeping, recovering completely before closing himself up in the room once more. Here, he sat down in one of the comfortable chairs and got to work. 

Dirk looked off into space. Bringing his hands up, his fingers fluttered in the air, leaving behind traces of mana that came together to form runes. For several minutes, Dirk formed several dozen runes that floated in the air. Then, with waves of his hands, they all came together in a certain arrangement. Dirk then started connecting them one by one, forming one large complex rune. 

When he was done, the rune flashed as mana circulated through the entire thing. The rune held itself together in a formation of harmony. The only reason it would fall apart was if it lost all its mana or was intentionally destroyed. 

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Dirk looked at the rune with a smile. The rune was about the size of his fist, and yet there were so many intricate lines comprised of many other tiny runes. After a few seconds, this rune seemed to contract and expand on its own, almost manifesting its function. 

Closing his eyes, Dirk focused on his mana heart. His mana heart was a core of earth mana on top of his physical heart. Seeing this, Dirk moved his focus to the rune in front of him. Grabbing it, he pushed the rune into his chest. 

After the rune entered his chest, Dirk guided it to the mana heart. The rune was a bit bigger than the heart, but this was okay. Dirk recalled the instructions for this process in the Mana Heart Technique book and continued. 

Slowly, the rune floated to his mana heart. Then, the two touched. Earth mana was infused into the rune as the rune slowly wrapped around the heart, covering it up. What was left was a green core of mana with bright lines wrapped around it. 

But this wasn't all. Now that the two were on top of each other, Dirk needed to enchant the heart. He called upon his skill. 

Mana Resonance. 

This was a grade 5 skill that allowed one to bind mana to material. However, Dirk was using this to bind mana to mana. He hoped it would work the same way. 

As he applied this skill, the mana that constructed the rune began to fluctuate. At first it didn't work, only disturbing the mana of Dirk's earth mana heart. But after he began to sift through the frequencies, the rune started to merge into the mana heart, becoming one with it. 

Seeing this small success, Dirk was excited. He continued to hone in on the correct frequency with his AI. Finally, the two matched, and the rune was fused with the mana heart. This process took several minutes. 

When the fusion was done, Dirk shook a bit as his mana heart contracted. At first it was out of sync with his physical heart. But after a minute, the two matched up. The mana heart glowed as it beat alongside Dirk's physical heart, the two acting as one. 

Dirk felt ecstatic as he felt his mana heart being to passively accumulate. However, this wasn't the end. With this accumulation, Dirk found something within him change. He could feel his soul fluctuate, as if about to break through a barrier. 

Surprised, Dirk quickly closed his eyes, concentrating on that feeling. Back when Dirk had first come to this room, he found that there was a barrier between him and the Mana Dimension, a barrier that prevented him from easily casting his awareness into his soul. But now, Dirk felt his soul fluctuate. Riding off this feeling, Dirk spent almost half an hour casting his awareness into his soul. 

Then, he opened his eyes. What was around Dirk was not the barren metal room, but an ocean of mana. This was the Mana Dimension, and Dirk had entered it once more. 

Unfortunately, Dirk didn't have the time to bask in the wonders of the mana around him. He concentrated on his soul. 

A mage's advancement came with two different phenomena. The first was a change in one's Profile. The Profile reflected each person's mana level as Tiers, and upon advancing, one's Tier would go up. For Dirk, he was moving from Tier II+ to Tier III-. 

But there was a more tangible change as well. This change was usually different from person to person and the reason was because of the different mana techniques each mage trained in. However, across the board there were familiar phenomena such as a feeling of 'breaking through'. Dirk was currently experiencing this. 

The first two Tiers were considered the beginner stages. They were nothing more than an introduction. People who were Tier 1 weren't even considered mages, and those at Teir 2, unless they were at somewhere like the academy, also weren't considered true mages. It was only at Teir 3 where one would be recognized as having magical talent. This was due to the fact that neither Tier 1's nor Tier 2's had any significant mana manipulation or storage abilities. 

But this changed at Tier 3, and this change was accompanied by this feeling of breaking through. At Tier 3, one would finally be considered a mage because there was this phenomenon. 

This phenomenon came from the soul. Extensive research had been done by countless other mages, and the conclusion they came to was that there were certain leaps in power the soul would take as one's mana pool grew to certain sizes. As the mana pool grew the soul would grow to accommodate it. Of course, this was only theorized. However, when Dirk was pulled into that ocean of mana, he directly experienced this change. 

Dirk's soul drifted among the sea of earth, fire, and darkness. Normally, souls would take on the image of the physical body, since mind and body were usually one. But in Dirk's case, his soul took on the image of his past self. His self from Earth under his identity as SS-008. While the body of 'Dirk' resembled his past self, his soul was the real image. Comparing his soul and body, it was like looking at a young and old image of the same person. 

Dirk's soul, that of his previously adult self, suddenly felt a void be opened up in his chest. His soul was growing to accommodate more mana, like a vessel being expanded. This growth created a deep cavity in his chest. 

Not long after this cavity appeared, the mana in Dirk's physical body began to flood to it, crossing between dimensions to reach his soul. The mana in the atmosphere also spiraled toward him, like water down a funnel. 

Dirk watched as the mana heart rapidly disappeared from his physical body, along with it the rune. Seeing this, he didn't panic. This was talked about in his Mana Heart Technique, so he just went with things. As far as he was concerned, everything was going according to plan. 

However, he did start to panic when his mana heart completely disappeared, and the earth mana around him dwindled. He found that the void was only filled by about a third, meaning he needed much more earth mana. Dirk didn't know what would happen if he couldn't fill the void, but it obviously wasn't as optimal as if it were filled completely. 

However, just as Dirk was about to pull his consciousness from the Mana Dimension, he suddenly felt copious amounts of earth mana flood toward him. When the earth mana appeared, it was quickly sucked into his body and injected into the cavity in his soul, like an endlessly greedy beast. Dirk was pleasantly surprised, and he wondered what was happening in the real world. He figured it was his father that had coincidentally stopped by. After all, this was the day to replace the mana crystals. 

For the sake of his advancement though, he put away all questions.

With the earth mana around him, Dirk felt like it would be enough to fill the other two thirds of the void. However, another problem quickly cropped up. After filling about 60% of the void, it suddenly stopped.

'Hm?'

Dirk was stunned as he found that he couldn't fill the void anymore. He thought that he did something wrong and took a look. When he saw what the problem was though, he frowned even deeper. 

Along with the earth mana that filled half the void, there was another sliver of mana. This was metal mana from Dirk's specialization. Seeing this, Dirk knew that the rest of the void had to be filled with metal mana. The biggest problem was though that he didn't have any major sources of metal mana besides his mana heart that had been half filled with it. 

'Damn. The book told me to prepare adequate mana resources for the advancement, but I didn't think it would be this strenuous. I figured the Tier 5 mana crystals would be enough even though they had already been used up some. Looks like I underestimated just how much my soul wants.'

Within the Mana dimension, Dirk was feeling helpless. The Mana Heart book had given a rather thorough rundown of what to expect during advancement. It said that enough mana to fill one's mana pool twice over was the best amount of preparation. In this case, the mana heart Dirk had made was his mana pool, so enough mana to fill it twice should be enough. Dirk had assumed that the remaining energy of the Tier 5 mana crystal would be enough. And it was enough. But the true amount of mana needed proved to be much larger. The amount of mana intaken by him was at least 4 times larger than his mana pool. This was due to the depth of his soul and the void opened up by it. Plus, that was just earth mana. He still needed metal mana. 

Now, he was in a bind. He didn't have any metal mana besides the remnants in the atmosphere. But Dirk knew that the void opened up in his soul wouldn't last forever. It would eventually close up, and he could even feel it wanting to shrink. If he wanted to get the most out of this advancement, he needed to fill it before that happened. 

And he didn't lose hope. Thinking of something, Dirk reached some of his consciousness back into his physical body. One of his eyes opened, and in front of his sitting body, he could see his mother watching him from beside the pedestal and bowl. 

Meanwhile, Cecilia had been watching Dirk for a while now. Instead of Ryker, she decided that she would come and see her child. Only, she stumbled in while he was advancing. 

At first she wanted to leave and not disturb him. But when she saw that he was voraciously sucking in all the mana, and that even the dense mana environment wasn't enough, she quickly went over to supplement. Things went well after that, and she stayed to watch. However, when she saw her son's eye open and look at her, she was surprised. 

Cecilia was very powerful, unknown if she was actually weaker than Ryker. So when she looked at her son who maintained a connection to the Mana Dimension, she could feel the deep vortex that came from his soul. She could feel that odd state he was maintaining and knew that he was yet to actually complete his advancement. There was still a large void he needed to fill.

"Metal..."

"Hm?"

Dirk spoke, and Cecilia perked up with a raised eyebrow.

He repeated himself with urgency, looking her in the eye.

"Metal! Mana!"

 

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