Although Burning Hands, like Magic Missile, is a Level 1 spell, it consumes far more mana.
It's easily the most energy-hungry spell he knows so far.
That also made practicing it much harder.
Fortunately, he had a Secondary Core Spell Slot.
It takes a little over two days to swap, but before starting on Burning Hands he'd already removed Magic Missile from that slot.
Losing the slot's boost made Magic Missile noticeably less smooth to cast—and it dropped back down from a three-bolt volley to just two.
The trade-off, though, was worth it: with the slot now empowering Burning Hands, his practice efficiency shot up.
"Boom!"
A crimson fan of flame tore through the icy wind again, a sea of fire roaring over the frozen ground.
Repeated blasts had long since boiled away the snow here; damp earth steamed in pale curls, and within a ten-meter radius the air stubbornly held a hint of late-spring warmth against the bitter cold.
"Level 1 Spell: Burning Hands Lv2 (19/20)"
One step from lv3.
He felt out the "magic chalice," the external emblem of his class, still trembling faintly within him, and could only sigh.
It had shivered along with him for two straight days of Burning Hands drills, constantly giving him the illusion that a breakthrough would happen "any second now."
He truly did feel the threshold to level 2 drawing closer—like a sheet of window paper that would tear with a poke.
But when it would actually tear didn't seem to be up to him.
Whatever… stick to the plan and keep practicing.
He'd do the work and leave the rest to fate.
After checking on the chalice, Gauss sat down to eat while his mana recovered, and cracked open a book.
In this world, no matter your profession, you read.
If you're a spellcaster, you read even more.
Some professionals drift away from study because long hours of reading don't yield instant results—a short-sighted mistake.
Gauss used every spare moment to fill his head.
He rotated among a few kinds of books. First were foundational magical theory—understanding the nature of mana and tightening casting logic.
Second were spellbooks and applied manuals—learning spells and little casting tricks. The one in his hands now, Battlefield Spell Use: 17 Streamlined Castings for Handling Ambushes, explained how to size up situations in the wild and shave down cast times for a rapid counter.
Third were the "fun" reads: popular hero tales and biographies. Gauss doubted those farm-boy-slays-the-dragon episodes, but they still taught him cultural and historical context.
He also liked practical encyclopedias—his "cookbook," monster index of common monsters, guides to wilderness poisons—Monster Lore, an atlas of behaviors and weak points, and so on.
All of it was genuinely interesting.
On Grayrock Town's icy stone walls, the fur-swaddled guard captain crunched along the ramparts.
Fires flickered in the wind, giving the garrison a little warmth.
"Eyes up!" the captain's bark rolled along the parapet.
A few young sentries straightened at once, sweeping the blank snowfields with exaggerated vigilance.
When the captain's bootsteps faded, their taut nerves eased and the muttering began.
"What a winter…"
"Yeah. We've got twice the patrols of a normal year. My wife's mad—worked all year and we can't even relax at year's end."
"Shh. I heard a bit of inside news—don't spread it…" One older-looking guard lowered his voice, which only hooked the others more.
"Say it. We won't blab."
"My lips are sealed."
"Word is they've tightened the city defenses because the Winter Hunt went badly. Supposedly they ran into some serious monster—lots of bronze-rank adventurers died…"
"Don't tell me—the Green Dragon Queen from the forest—"
"Hey! Watch it! If that came out, the Guildmaster would— ahem. You get it."
At the mention of Guildmaster Eberhard, they clammed up; no one wanted to tread further.
"Forget it, lads—enjoy the scenery."
Through the viewing slit, the far snowfield snapped into focus.
"Ha, that 'weirdo' is reading again…"
"Can't believe it—wearing so little in this blizzard, and he can still concentrate? Doesn't he freeze?"
"Well, that's why he's a bronze-ranker at his age and we're still grunts."
"Right in the heart, man…"
For safety's sake, Gauss practiced barely a hundred meters from the wall.
The sentries had long noticed the "weird guy" who blasted fire over and over in the snow, then sat and read.
They didn't understand it, but they respected it.
If they were bronze-rankers with money in their pockets, they'd be eating, drinking, and chasing girls in town—not trudging out here to suffer through drills in the cold.
Gauss could half-feel the eyes from the battlements, but he didn't care; his mind was sunk in the lines of the page.
When his mana refilled, he shut the book and stretched.
"Again."
Time slipped by in focused practice.
As the sun dipped and dusk stained the sky, the message he'd been waiting for finally floated before his eyes.
"Burning Hands Proficiency +1"
"Level 1 Spell: Burning Hands Lv3 (0/50)"
As the fan of flame flared from his hands again and billowed across the clearing, the spell model within him shifted—subtly but solidly.
More efficient. More condensed.
At last, Burning Hands had crossed into Lv3.
That wasn't the important part—sooner or later, it was going to happen. What mattered was…
He felt the magic chalice that outwardly embodied his class. After days of trembling, it finally changed.
The complex runes coiling over its surface blazed with white light.
It felt like the energy inside had overfilled the cup and was battering at an "invisible wall."
And then, at some moment, with power at its peak, the chalice seemed to find the perfect outlet for release—and metamorphosis.
"Bzzzz—!"