I spent a few more hours unlocking how to do this, and after that, it finally clicked. The flow became perfect. From my core, I could feel the mana flowing through my body.
This was it. I had crossed one of the hardest parts of the entire process, and now I could finally cast the spell.
I took a deep breath and then cast, "Wind Blade." I called out. I felt the mana surge through my body, connect with my imagination, and everything was fully set.
But as the magic exited my body, I didn't understand what happened next. Just when the wind blade was about to take shape, it exploded. The blast threw me back, my body slammed into the ground, and I rolled for a few meters before stopping.
My body screamed in pain, I felt dizzy, and my mana was in complete shambles. This wasn't a good feeling at all.
"Fuck, what went wrong?" I asked, getting up to my feet. Ignoring the immense pain in my body, I shook my head to clear my mind, then raised my hand again.
The pain screamed at me to stop, but I was a stubborn person, and stopping wasn't really an option for me, not now, not ever.
So I cast again, and yup, it happened again. I was thrown back, this time harder than before. The pain felt inhumane. I lay there on the ground with my head pounding.
I could feel it already, was almost at the end of my strength, and it was only a matter of time before I was forced to leave this space.
But with what time I had left, I would work it out. So I got up again, gaze hazy, eyes blurry, everything that could be wrong was wrong with me.
It was so bad that I felt a warm liquid dripping down my nose, my blood. Had it gotten that bad? Shit. I used the back of my arm to clean the blood and then looked up.
My mind began racing around for a solution, and after a third and fourth try, it finally clicked. I had one more chance to do this, and if I failed, that would be all for now.
But I knew what to do. In basketball, there was something called the follow-through, ensuring that you follow through increased your chances of scoring.
When I cast, I wasn't following through. I disconnected the mana flow the moment I felt the spell was cast, and that was what caused the explosion and backlash.
So the solution was simple, I had to follow through, keep the flow even when I felt the spell was cast. Keeping this logic in mind, I stretched out my hands again.
I took a deep, sharp breath and cast the spell. The flow was perfect, the execution was spotless, and the follow-through, I nailed it.
I watched as a blade of wind formed and shot through the air. It cut into the doll and came out the other side. When I saw this, I didn't celebrate, nor did I feel happiness. Rather, everything that had been keeping me awake turned off, believing their job was done.
Everything went black, and I was unconscious instantly. But regardless, I managed to learn magic, and that was all that mattered, I was a mage now.
[...]
Andrew's POV
I walked to the door of the room, my expression heavy, and there was residue of tears in my eyes. I quickly wiped it with the back of my hand and arranged my face.
I didn't want my new roommate to see me like that. He would surely ask, and it's not something I want to explain to him.
Honestly, Leo seemed like a good guy, and he actually cared for me, and that's saying a lot since we only met a day ago.
I unlocked the door and walked in. Leo was lying on the bed, his eyes shut. Was he sleeping? I shut the door and walked closer to him. His chest was heaving up and down heavily, and there were beads of sweat on his face.
Was he sick? I needed to know. I stretched out my hand and placed it on his forehead. There was no heat, but something else.
His body was saturated with mana, lot of it as well. I've always had high sensitivity to mana, and I could tell easily. Saturation of mana in the body like this meant an extreme use of mana.
Not just simple casting, he must have repeatedly worked the flow of mana all through his body. Very few people can actually do this. The skill and effort that went into this were insane.
Most mages simply direct the mana from core to the part of the body they want to cast from. It limits them, but it's the norm. If Leo is capable of doing this, then one day he might be able to cast with his entire body.
My eyes widened when I came to this realization. Leo needed to be a genius to be able to do something like this. Was he a genius I didn't know about? As I thought about this, Leo's eyes twitched and opened, locking right on me. My heart froze.
Leo's POV
My eyes shot open, and the first thing I saw was this overly cute boy looking at me, Andrew, and for a moment, I swear my heart skipped a beat.
Who the hell designed his character? There's nothing you can tell me to sway me, the person that made this game had some crazy fetishes. I'll die on this mountain.
I looked away from Andrew; keeping eye contact would just be weird. "What's up, Andrew?" I asked.
"Uhm, sorry, I just came back and I saw you sleeping, and, uhm, you were sweating, so I thought you were sick," he said, his eyes looking everywhere around the room nervously. Too cute.