When he took the essence brew, the pill had already dissolved into aura. The essence brew quickly reached his stomach and transformed into aura as well. Together, the two produced a huge amount of aura in his stomach that was starting to burst out.
He quickly circulated it around his body. When he did that, the burning sensation disappeared. The aura was also a lot more tame than the aura in Aura Gathering Pills, so it was easy to control.
After he circulated the aura around his body several times, he started to bring the aura to his dantian. After a minute, all the aura had settled in his dantian, combining with the rest of the aura there.
The minute all the aura had settled, he started drawing the second circle around his dantian. This was the part where he needed the utmost concentration. This was also where he had the biggest advantage compared to typical Aura Knights.
Unlike the normal Aura Knight, Leo was a mage. He had built an ability to concentrate and focus no matter what happened around him thanks to his mind being strengthened by the magic.
He started drawing the runes that made up the circle. The second circle was a little bigger than the 1st circle that he drew, so he needed to draw for longer. It took him an entire hour to finish drawing it. Once the circle finished, it glowed lightly and shrunk to encircle the dantian. After it wrapped itself around the dantian, it solidified.
He opened his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. He had succeeded in his breakthrough. He had successfully become a 2nd Circle Aura Knight. After finishing his breakthrough, he now decided to focus on the next few things he wanted to finish before joining the academy.
The first thing he wanted to check was how well an Aura Gathering Pill would help him. He took out a pill and swallowed it. The pill immediately dissolved into aura. He quickly circulated the aura throughout his body with ease and brought it into his dantian in seconds.
He sighed. Even though the pill gave him aura that he could easily absorb, it was no longer sustainable to use. He expected that he needed at least 300 pills only to reach the Middle Stage of the 2nd Circle. He could no longer use Aura Gathering Pills.
Now that he had become a 2nd Circle Aura Knight, the simple manual that he had used to learn aura was now useless to him. He would have to buy a manual that taught him how to form his third circle and the circles after that.
This manual was going to be a lot more expensive than 1000 Starcoins, but that was because it wasn’t mass-produced like the one he had. This was not as important to buy since there was a huge chance that the academy had this manual.
The other thing he wanted to do was buy an Aura Technique for himself, but the academy probably had a collection of those as well. So anything that he was planning on doing regarding aura was put to the end of his list.
The only things left were training in magic and increasing his proficiency in Valkyr’s Descent. But one thing added to that – the compass. He wanted to find out what it was out of curiosity.
He took it out again because he had nothing better to do. He was planning on waiting till the aura in his body settled down before training in magic. When he took out the compass, he felt something weird happen in his body.
The aura in his body lurched forward into the hand that made contact with the compass. It was very momentary, but Leo caught this. When the aura entered the compass, it completely changed its appearance.
Leo left for the balcony and looked at where the needle pointed. It was still pointing west. He sighed and looked at the runes. He was able to understand the runes thanks to the knowledge the tome imparted him.
“When the sun sets and the blood moon rises, find my treasure.”
Leo thought about it. The blood moon was a phenomenon that was very rare. It happened every 5 years, and the most recent one was more than 4 years ago. He remembered seeing it at Solhaven.
There were still around 5 months left before the blood moon rose, so he had time. He finally figured out what the compass was with this. It was essentially a map. It was going to guide him to the treasure.
The only thing he had to be careful of was whether or not there was only one compass. If there were multiple people trying to find this treasure, then he would have to prepare for a battle.
He put the compass back in his ring and went back to his bed. He stared outside through the window. He was now a little bit stronger, but it didn’t really translate to his final strength. Every time he made any progress in aura, he was reminded that aura was not his main aspect.
He was a mage. He had to focus on training to be a mage. His natural inclination was toward magic, not aura. So for the rest of the month, he decided to only train in magic. He had made enough progress in aura for a long time.
He knew that as a 2nd Circle Aura Knight, he already held a huge advantage over all the incoming students. So even if he didn’t make any progress for the rest of the year, he was still going to be fine.
He sat crisscrossed on his bed and started practicing his magic. He entered his mind and plucked out leaves to practice. He realized that the tree had so many leaves that he wouldn’t even have to replenish them for a while.
Obviously, he would feed it some magic cores once he got his hands on them, but for now, he would focus on just training his magic and his spells. He knew the tree could handle a month’s worth of training from experience.
Morning came and Marcus woke up to see that Leo was already training. He looked at the 200,000 Starcoins on the bed and decided to make the most use of it. He went to the Thousand Treasure Tower to buy Aura Gathering Pills.
Now that he had access to these pills, he was planning on breaking through to the 2nd Circle by the end of the month. If he could do that before he reached the academy, then he could easily maintain his rank in the New Student Rankings.
He entered the tower and took 5 pills to buy and went to the counter. He bought them with the cash that Leo gave him as well as the money that he had left from his own savings. After this purchase, he was essentially broke, but it was worth it. He rushed to the apartment and started training.