Kairos looked down at his own body, observing how mana naturally cycled through it. Akin to blood, it flowed throughout his body. However, the two main differences were that it flowed far faster, and instead of many tiny and complicated blood vessels, the mana consisted of larger and simpler veins.
Kairos found it to be quite strange, as there was no physical sensation of the mana flowing through him, but he could definitely see that it was going so fast, that it was basically rampaging through his body.
Though he did remember when he attempted to put more power than he should into spells, his body felt the pain in response.
His plan now was to try casting spells and observing how the mana moved through his body. Though, he figured that his room might not be the best place to do it. He didn’t plan on actually casting the spells themselves, but accidents were bound to happen at some point, so it was better to be safe.
Kairos rubbed his chin and mulled over it.
On top of the walls sounded good, but there was also a guard, and he didn’t want random people watching while he was doing experiments. That led to him thinking of the roof of the building. Though he wasn’t exactly sure if Tiana had that reserved for anything. With that in mind, he got out of his room and walked to Tiana’s room.
Upon knocking, he only had to wait a couple of seconds before the door was opened.
Tiana opened the door and raised an eyebrow.
“What’s the problem?”
Kairos lost his thoughts temporarily but quickly recovered himself.
“Is it alright if I go to the roof? I want to test some spells.”
Tiana blinked a few times.
“Ah, sure. Do you mind if I come with you to watch? I’ve been needing a break because of the work piled up.”
Kairos blankly stared back.
“I would prefer to be alone.”
Tiana rolled her eyes.
“Just so you know, the work piled up is because of a certain someone that I delegated work to is slacking a little.”
Kairos sighed.
“Can you even really put all the blame on me? You were the one that said I only had to show up once a week.”
Tiana clicked her tongue.
“The leniency was a sign of respect! I didn’t expect you to actually take advantage of me like that!”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“Yeah, yeah…”
He then proceeded to walk up the steps, while Tiana followed behind him.
Upon noticing this, Kairos paused to turn around.
“You’re actually following me?”
Tiana tilted her head to the side.
“Didn’t you implicitly give me permission?”
The corner of Kairos’ lip twitched.
“…I don’t remember ever doing that. I assumed you were joking about coming up with me.”
Tiana walked on ahead unabashedly.
“Well I wasn’t, let’s go!”
Kairos let out a soft sigh before following after her. Tiana went at a relatively brisk pace, and Kairos decided to match that. Since there were quite a few floors to this building, it took them a decent amount of time to get all the way to the top.
Once they got to the roof, Kairos let out another sigh.
“Why do you even want to watch me, anyway?”
Tiana put both hands on her hips.
“Because I’m taking a break from working! Didn’t I tell you already?”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“Surely there’s something else more entertaining to do, right?”
Tiana shrugged her shoulders.
“Well I can’t think of any!”
Kairos’ eyebrow twitched. He didn’t exactly know what there was to do either, as Tiana didn’t seem to have any people she could consider friends here, and it wasn’t as though there was the internet.
“…Then could you at least sit a bit farther away from me?”
Tiana pouted.
“Tsk. Alright.”
Kairos did think that Tiana was going to be a bother in general, but there was actually another reason why he didn’t want her to be here. Because when he looked at her, he could see a nearly blinding amount of mana around her. But even more than that, was the fact countless strands of mana were gravitating towards her, almost like she was the center of a spider web.
Kairos had also noticed that one of the strands appeared to be coming from his heart, and towards Tiana. It was a very small one and something that Kairos ignored because it fit with the general random strands of mana everywhere. But now, he noticed that there was some sort of link Tiana had put onto him, and seemingly everyone else in the city.
As of now, he was on the fence. It definitely made him uncomfortable, but he didn’t know if it was actually something bad for now. If it really was something controlling, then it would give even more reason not to act up, as it appeared like Tiana had no hostile intentions for now.
Kairos let out a sigh as he walked across the rooftop. It was flat, while the ground was rough. There weren’t any guardrails at all, probably because people weren’t supposed to be there in the first place.
There was a light breeze that blew by, but other than that, there was only an empty blue sky.
That is, if you didn’t account for the large amount of mana flowing in the air because of Tiana.
Kairos took a deep breath. Observing mana in this state was like trying to observe the natural flow of a lake while it was raining hard.
Nonetheless, Kairos felt he might be able to do it, thus decided to focus on what he came to do in the first place.
To start things off, he began casting the pulse spell, and intently watched his arm as he cast it. The mana in his body flowed rapidly, bunching up in his hand. The mana began to compress and shine even brighter as it continued to coalesce there.
Then, Kairos stopped channeling the spell.
By doing so, he felt a fairly strong pain in his hand. He could also see the cause of it, the mana he had brought towards his hand now began rampaging around wildly, before slowly flowing back into his body.
Kairos narrowed his eyes slightly.
Then, he decided to try it once more, but this time, he began casting as though he intended to narrow the cone of the pulse spell. An ability he gained because he upgraded its rank from F to E rank.
This time, it was quite similar. The mana bunched up like usual, except it was thicker at the base of his arm and narrowed down by the time it reached his hand.
Kairos stopped casting the spell once more, which caused the mana to begin rampaging around wildly. He attempted to calm that down, but could only do minimal prevention as he didn’t really understand how to manipulate mana. Though, he was trying to learn how.
He cast the pulse spell once more, but this time he cast it as though he wished to widen the cone. As Kairos expected, the mana was thinner around his arm but spread out more when it reached his hand.
Then, he once again canceled the spell while fighting to control the chaotic mana.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t much more proficient in controlling the mana than he was last time. As a result, his hand was now incomparably sore from all of the backlash.
Yet, Kairos didn’t stop. He then had the intention of casting one of his newly learned spells, the water spell. However, he suddenly stopped himself before continuing, as he realized that the spell essentially had no cast time.
By the time the channeling process started, was when a beam of water would shoot out. This spell was different from the others, because the actual channeling was when the spell would activate.
Kairos instinctively knew that he would be able to both make the beam larger or smaller as well as increase the volume of water that would be shot out of his hand.
He decided that if he really didn’t get a grasp on manipulating mana nearing the end of this session, then he would try using that one as well.
Kairos switched hands, and began casting the fire spell. When he saw a fireball appear at the end of his finger in his future vision, he stopped himself from casting.
This time, the mana began circulating at where his wrist was, almost like a gear in the middle of a system. Afterwards, there was backlash like with the pulse spell, but not as bad.
After that, Kairos began casting the gale spell.
This time, the mana began to gather at his fingertips. As Kairos continued channeling, he began to realize that the mana wasn’t actually inside him at this point, but coating over the tips of his fingers.
He then attempted to stop the channeling, but he was unable to retrieve the mana. In the end, it scattered about into the air. Kairos found it a bit annoying, but at least it wasn’t that much mana he lost.
He let out a soft sigh, realizing the journey ahead of him wasn’t going to be easy.
Kairos wanted to learn how to manipulate mana, thinking that if he understood how mana worked, then he should be able to cast any spell he wanted. However, just the spells he casted now, were far more complex than he imagined.
It was almost like a student in high school thinking that math couldn’t possibly get much harder, then were hit with the problems from a prestigious university.
Although they had a relatively simple overall pattern, there were many tiny things that Kairos didn’t understand.
Not to mention, he didn’t even really understand how to manually manipulate mana in the first place.
“So… when are you going to start?”
Tiana was off to the side, awkwardly watching on as Kairos essentially did nothing but move his hands in certain positions.
Kairos let out a sigh when he heard that.
“I told you there were more entertaining things.”
Tiana pressed her lips together.
“But you haven’t even cast any spells yet!”
Kairos shook his head.
“That’s because I’m not actually casting them. I’m trying to observe how they act while being channeled, then cancel them before they are actually cast.”
Tiana furrowed her brows.
“That sounds difficult.”
Kairos nodded.
“It is, but I plan on eventually learning it, even if it takes a while.”
Tiana put a finger on her chin.
“But if you don’t fully go through with the casting process of the spell, you won’t be able to see everything that happens, right?”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“Well yes, I suppose so. But at the same time, there’s only so much mana that I have. For now, worrying about how it looks after being cast isn’t the biggest concern if it prevents me from observing in the first place.”
Tiana let out a soft hum.
“Then… what if you didn’t have to worry about mana?”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“And how in the world would I be able to do that?”
Tiana raised her finger.
“One of my abilities lets me share mana with certain people! That way, you can cast without worry.”
Kairos’ lip twitched. From all of the mana around Tiana right now, he was fairly sure that was true. However, he still posed a question as though he was oblivious.
“But you only have a limited amount of mana as well, no?”
Tiana smirked.
“Heh, don’t worry! I have more than you think. One of my abilities helps me with that.”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“…Then I guess we can try it?”
Tiana nodded.
“Alright then.”
Kairos observed the mana tethering him together with Tiana. Out of nowhere, it began expanding unnaturally, while mana from Tiana’s body entered his.
Originally, Kairos only had slightly over half of his total mana capacity.
But in a matter of seconds, he already couldn’t hold anymore.
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
“…Wow. I guess we can get started then.”