Magic took an intelligent mind and a strong body to exist. Each one working in harmony with the other.
One existed to clearly control spells with ease and prevent them from spiraling into a dangerous animosity. The other existed to prevent the breakage of one's core, stopping magic from destroying a person from the inside out.
Technically known as Mana Poisoning, Ray thought as he read off the pages of the book resting in his hands.
'These past few days have really been difficult,' he pondered, turning over to the next page.
Ever since he had approached his father to learn magic, the two of them had been taking lessons together—long discussions about magical theory and practice. Sometimes, Ray even managed to convince his father to teach him a thing or two about sword fighting, though that seemed like a little too much for his current body to control.
During this time, his progress remained questionable. Still, there was no possible way for him to become a mage at the age of four without first maturing his core.
So he reminisced over this ideology during dinner, thinking deeply until he eventually fell asleep, thoughts circling endlessly around how to nurture his core.
Soon enough, he was forced to return to reading books. If there was a clue hidden within them, some sort of strange page concealed by a genius mind, then he would find it.
No matter how much he flipped through the pages, that genius was nowhere to be found, and there was no way to cheat the system.
Ray raised his hand and pummeled it down on the book resting between his legs.
"If there is no such way to mature my core before five," he muttered, "then I'll make a way."
Soon enough, with his heinous accusations aimed at the brilliant minds that had authored the books, he managed to devise a technique he found rather convincing.
Sitting on the floor of his room with his legs folded, he dimmed his eyes, ready to cultivate his core into maturity.
The theory was simple. Mages pulled Mana from their surroundings into their cores to be used for magic. That meant magic was derived from ambient energy... Natural energy.
This realization gave Ray a few more ideologies to think through. Since the magic cores of adults continued to grow stronger the more Mana they pulled in, then that should also mean that cores were nurtured by continuously drawing in nature energy.
But this process was automatic and painfully slow in children below the age of five. That fully explained why it was almost impossible to become a mage so early.
With this thought settled, Ray had taken notes on what to do next.
'Could it be that five-year-olds are no different from us?' he thought. 'Just like how a lion instinctively knows it eats meat, or how a baby knows to suckle at its mother's breast.'
'That means the difference between us and five-year-olds is the feeling of having a complete core. And with that feeling comes the instinct to pull more Mana into the core to be used for magic…'
Ray smiled deep within himself.
"What I lack," he whispered, "is the feeling."
With this single point firmly established in his mind, he sat there in deep meditation, searching inwardly for that sensation—the feeling of pulling Mana into his incomplete core.
For one, it was not easy. He had no idea what Mana felt like and no clue how to sense it in the first place.
So after a week-long stretch of trials and failures, he decided to deepen his search.
'If Mana is manipulated by the mind,' he reasoned, 'doesn't that mean I have to convince myself that I'm actually absorbing Mana? It's like the subconscious telling the body to move…'
Ray nodded slowly. Yes, something like this could work.
So he returned to meditation once again, deeply reciting commands for his conscious mind to instruct his subconscious to begin drawing in Mana.
At first, he felt nothing.
This was expected. Still, he remained patient and continued his endeavor.
It didn't take long before the day was wasted and he had felt absolutely nothing.
Going downstairs for dinner, he held onto a happy expression to hide the disdain beneath it, eating quietly with his family.
His father kept giving him skeptical looks, as though trying to see through his façade.
'He's not that kind of mind,' Ray mocked internally. 'He can't even see through transparent glass even if he wanted to.'
Ray took a long sip of water from his wooden cup.
The maid was no different. She paid no attention to him and continued eating her meal in moderation.
His mother looked stressed, clearly burdened by many things—adult matters Ray wasn't prepared to shoulder himself. He already had enough problems of his own.
'If only I were an elf,' he thought bitterly, 'maybe my closeness with nature would've brought some luck—'
Wait…
Ray's eyes brightened with realization.
Could it be? That this entire time, the reason he was unable to feel a single thing was because of the absence of raw, solid Mana?
For now, this was just another theory he needed to confirm.
The next day, he made sure to wake up before anyone else. He immediately left his room, exited the house, and headed toward the fields. Specifically to one of the large oak trees standing proudly there.
He sat beneath the tree, sheltered under its cool shade, and took his meditation posture. Drawing in a long breath, he began his routine.
To Ray, the reason he had been unable to cultivate Mana wasn't due to a lack of understanding, but because he had been in the wrong environment.
Up in his room, the only source of nature he had was air. Trying to grasp that physically was practically impossible. What if the same theory applied to Mana? Perhaps it was difficult to draw Mana from air because it was too dispersed—broken apart like atoms.
And the wooden floor he sat on was nothing more than dead wood. That wouldn't contain much nature energy, would it?
That meant the key factor he had been missing all along was pure, solid nature itself.
The leaves brushing gently against his skin from the soft wind, the rough bark he rested against—these were solid natural objects, emanating a much more easily absorbable form of Mana.
At least, that was what Ray believed.
Not wasting any time, he began his routine of convincing himself he was absorbing Mana. At first, there was nothing, only emptiness.
Then, slowly, there was warmth.
A sensation he could confidently say was not his imagination. A warm feeling bloomed in his gut, manifesting into a shape he wasn't familiar with.
Carefully, he poured more concentration into pulling Mana into his core, focusing on the sensation forming within him.
Moments later, the shape became vivid in his mind. It was a sphere, crooked and uneven, but unmistakably there.
With that confirmation, Ray pulled himself out of concentration, his eyes snapping open as he returned to the light.
His body felt sore, his face drenched in sweat, and his breathing ragged. This attempt had taken far more out of him than any before.
Nonetheless, a grin slowly spread across his lips as he spoke.
"Finally… some progress."