Standing inside the place, I shut my eyes and began to think. What I recalled from the game was that magic casting had three main parts. The first was starting the mana flow.
The core of a mage is where their mana generates from. The purer the mana you can generate, the better. To generate pure mana though, you have to have a lighter shade core.
The color of your core dictates the type of mana that you output. It system goes from black, purple, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, light blue, and finally white.
People born with anything from light blue to white are considered saints and once-in-a-lifetime prodigies. People born with blue and green are geniuses. Those born with yellow and orange are your standard mage.
As for those born with purple and red, they are considered low talents. Basically, they are capable of magic, but they are considered trash. They don't have a future in magic and would be stopped at two-star spells if they managed to push it.
As for black, a black core means you are disconnected from mana. There is no way for you to cast magic even when you have a core. You are simply talentless.
It was a cruel setting, but life was never fair and would never be fair. I knew that for one. Now, thinking about this core, if I recall the wiki properly, to be able to enter the academy, it meant you had a core of no lower than yellow.
Even orange was considered bad by the academy, and at best, you'd be put on the waiting list. So if I was in this academy, it simply meant that I was at least yellow with my core, maybe even green.
But there was no way for me to know now, actually, there was. Normally the core is checked as a child during certain tests, but a special device is needed for that. The academy should have one, but I can't just ask to use it.
Sadly, there wasn't any information on my files about my core, so that's a closed door for now. That aside, the second stage of casting a spell would be to use the spell.
When firing a gun, many parts are needed, the bullet in the gun, the chamber, the bullet itself, and the person shooting. When relating a gun to magic, the trigger is the spell.
It's what's needed to direct the flow of the magic, and once done well, the gun will be fired. Without the trigger, the gun basically doesn't fire.
So the spell is the trigger. I don't know how it works or how words could be the trigger for magic, but it has been a logic that has existed for the entirety of this world, and I do not plan to question it for them.
The third part of the spell is the intent, and though I called it the third part, it is one of the most crucial, if not the most crucial part of the entire spell. Intent and the proper imagination, when you combine the two, then you are ready.
It is like the gun again. A person needs to have the intent to shoot and take proper aim. If he doesn't have the intent and doesn't take aim, he can't shoot, and if he shoots regardless, he might shoot himself in the foot or someone else.
These three sections come together into the casting of a proper spell, in theory, that is. What matters now is if I am capable of putting that theory into reality.
With everything in my mind ready, I imagined a target, a wooden doll with a bullseye. I recalled a few wind spells because there were a few fight scenes in the game.
The most popular of all, Wind Blade. So I stretched out my hand, took a deep breath, had the proper intent and imagination of the wind blade.
But then, I couldn't feel my core. Yup, I had no idea whatsoever how to reach the dang thing, and now I was standing there utterly confused. What do I do?
"No, no, take a deep breath, Leo. We can do this," I said to myself and started trying. Time slowly trickled by as I fought to connect with my core and use mana.
It wasn't easy. Sweat formed on my brows, my breathing got heavy. The deeper I searched into myself, the more I felt like my body was getting submerged into freezing ice.
It was unpleasant, to say the least, but for some reason, I could feel it deep down that I was making progress, and no matter how long it would take, I would eventually get there.
And my feelings didn't lie, I found it. My mana. I immediately collapsed to my knees the moment I made contact. My brain had been pushed to the max and was banging like hell.
But I had to keep strong, because not only was I training, I was holding up the entire space. It rippled a bit as my head ached. This was the right time for me to leave so that I didn't hurt myself.
But no, I'm too stubborn for that. I got on my feet again, recalled the feeling I got when I made contact, and went in again.
This time it was faster as I found my core pulsing with mana. I had finally completed the first stage. A wave of relief washed over me; I was filled with joy. But then came the hard part.
I had to channel the mana through the mana veins. This was a semi-automated process because of the mana veins, but even the part I had to do was still excruciatingly difficult. It would take a ton of effort to ensure the flow.
When I got better at it, I could do it more easily. Now all I can hope for is that the body I'm in has a talent for manipulating mana.