Five days later.
Alex was sitting down at the entrance of the cave.
He was breathing in and out in a certain pattern.
During the last few days, he had barely moved beyond stretching once in a while to avoid becoming stiff.
The breathing technique was anything but efficient. Most of the mana he breathed in was expelled back out, and since he didn't have a core, the mana he collected leaked out bit by bit.
This made his progress slow to a crawl. Still, he practiced hour after hour, whenever the light wasn't bright enough to let him read the botanic book properly.
Eventually, he gathered enough mana and began to form the core as per the book's instructions. It took him four hours, but he made it at last.
The process was rather simple and well explained in the book: gather all the mana needed, focus it above the abdomen, and then forcefully give it the form of a sphere.
He felt a cool sensation wash over him the moment the core formed, and he seemed to overflow with vitality and strength.
It was an understatement to say that Alex was overjoyed.
'Forming the core was supposed to be the easiest step,' Alex reminded himself, trying to stay humble.
Then, he felt something different.
It felt like a switch in his mind, and when he reached for it and clicked it, something appeared before him.
—STATUS—
Name: Alexander (Beginner Mage – 1%)
Age: 14
Mana: 100/100
Mana Gathering: Wind Gathering (Beginner)
Mana Control: None
Mana Sense: None
Elements:
– Wind (Beginner) (15%)
Skills: None
Alex was thunderstruck.
He didn't know what this was, but he could tell it showed genuine information.
'So, to form a core, I had to reach 1%...' Alex felt as if an invisible hand had slapped him.
He didn't know what the average was, but…
"Five days for 1%. At this rate, it'll take me a year, four months, and spare change to reach 100%. What a load of bullshit!" Alex seethed.
After taking a moment to breathe, he immediately grabbed the Windslicer book and started to read it.
The skill, like the book, was a simple guide on how to form and shoot wind sharp enough to slice.
Still, at the end of the book was a magical formula in the form of a circle that he was supposed to memorize.
The magical formula simply told mana how to behave, but for Alex, it all seemed like gibberish. Luckily, he didn't need to understand the formula to cast it, only to memorize it.
And so began the journey of learning to cast Windslicer.
After three days of practice and never succeeding, he was dejected, to say the least.
"Am I really this shit with magic?" Alex muttered, sinking into frustration, anger, and sadness.
Frustration because he couldn't do it, anger because he needed it to survive, and sadness because he seemed to have almost no talent for magic.
In a fit of rage, he started reading the book again.
After a careful reread, he noticed a paragraph just before the magical formula that stated:
"People start to be able to cast Windslicer after reaching 30% in the understanding of beginner-level wind magic."
Calling his status again, Alex looked at it.
—STATUS—
Elements:
– Wind (Beginner) (18%)
"Eighteen percent…" He realized why he couldn't cast Windslicer. His element level was off by twelve percent.
He started wondering how to increase his element level. Reading the same paragraph again, he noticed a word that made him understand what was missing.
"Understanding of beginner-level wind magic," Alex muttered.
"Understanding, huh…"
Alex realized that to increase his level of wind mastery, he had to understand the element itself.
'What is wind?' Alex thought.
Now he understood why he'd been struggling so much.
"I just wasn't knowledgeable enough about wind," Alex said, regaining his spirits bit by bit.
"How the hell can I use an element if I don't even know what I'm using!? Agh, I'm an retarded!" He was furious at himself for not realizing it sooner.
Then he asked himself again, "Then what is wind?"
'Wind is the movement of natural air,' Alex thought.
'Wind also has its own scale of effect, from a small breeze to a full hurricane.'
Alex continued his process of understanding wind.
When he felt stuck, he began moving his wind mana, trying to push the air to create a breeze he could actually feel.
Over the next two days, Alex kept experimenting with his wind mana.
Two days later, he was finally able to create small breezes of air using wind mana.
Letting out one last burst of air, he started to rest and looked at his status window again.
—STATUS—
Mana: 60/100
Elements:
– Wind (Beginner) (31%)
That last burst of air had cost him 40 mana, but now he had passed the threshold that Windslicer required.
After taking 30 minutes to recover his mana with Wind Gathering, Alex stood face to face with a cold wall, which seemed to look back at him menacingly.
He focused his mind on the feeling of moving wind, then summoned the magical formula. By condensing his mana and moving it through, he began to feel the air hum in front of him.
He held that feeling and then pushed forward, aiming at the wall.
The air seemed to split, and with a "swish," the wall in front of him was cut about 30 centimeters across and nearly 10 centimeters deep.
"Well, I'll be damned…" Alex couldn't believe he had actually done it, nor how much damage it caused.
"Hah! That's what you get for looking at me that way," Alex said to the wall, then froze.
'Am I going crazy, talking to a wall?'
It was a reasonable thought.
He looked at the status one last time.
—STATUS—
Mana: 50/100
Elements:
– Wind (Beginner) (33%)
Skills:
– Wind Slicer (Beginner) (5%)
He had finally managed to cast Windslicer, but it took too long.
"No human or beast will let me concentrate for two minutes just to shoot them some wind," Alex commented to himself.
"Also, god damn, it sucks mana like a bitch!"
He was shocked. With the amount of mana he had, he could only cast Windslicer twice in a row, then, he would need to let his mana recharge alone at a snail's pace or use Wind Gathering to help.
'It's been ten days. My supplies won't last much longer. I need to move,' Alex calculated.
'But I can't go out with how slow I cast Windslicer. I'll be dead the moment I meet a monster.'
He quickly realized his weakness but also saw a way forward.
"I'll stay one more day and focus on practicing Windslicer. I need to be able to shoot it in under a second."
So began his last day in the cave, trapped in a loop of spending all his mana, resting an hour to refill it, then using it again.
"Tomorrow… tomorrow I'll leave this damn place for good."