Days after days past and it's already been 6 days since Gideon started training Arthur. In these six days Arthur got a good grasp of mana and can now move it with just his will.
In the middle of the forest near the base during a cool afternoon a falcon came flying back. It gently landed on Emeliya's shoulder who was silently meditating.
Eleven rocks of around ten kilograms each were floating all around her in the field surrounded with trees. The rocks were big and of all shapes. They were levitating because of Emeliya's telekinesis.
"There is execution? Whose, when and where?" Emeliya transmitted to falcon directly through brain.
Hearing her friends answer. Her eyes jolted open.
"Are you positive?" Emeliya asked as she stood up slowly.
"Very good. Thank you for your help" Emeliya said as she gently caressed the falcon's feathers and rubbed under his neck.
Somewhere in the middle of the mountains.
"Yes, success!!" Arthur exclaimed inside his orb "Finally rank 2" all the dark brown muddy mana was now completely turned to dark red colour.
Arthur's consciousness closed its eyes as he exited his orb. He slowly opened his eyes to a pleasantly warm afternoon. There was a low bustling sound because of moving tree leaves as they swayed gently with the wind.
"I wondered who it was. Turns out you finally advanced to a rank 2 mage" a voice came from under a tree not far away.
"Why act surprised? Couldn't you tell from my mana signature." Arthur asked sarcastically.
Mana signature is a core part of a mage. It's like a unique fingerprint for each mage but with mana. No two mages in the world have the same mana signature. As mages get stronger and rise to higher rank they start to suppress their mana signature as much as possible and some stronger mages are able to manipulate their mana signature to change it completely on surface level. But underneath it's still the same.
"Why would I constantly check for mana signatures? It's so exhausting." Gideon spoke
But it was just a funny lie. The mages of Gideon's caliber are so strong and accustomed to mana that sensing mana signature becomes second nature to them. Its infact hard for them to not notice mana signatures around them for about a city wide area.
To Gideon it's actually easier to detect mana signatures to pin point precision than breathing.
"And what do you mean by surprise? Most of the mages are able to advance rank 2 if they just train. This is nothing to be surprised at all"
Though Gideon said that but he knew, advancing to Rank 2 in just about a week without mana crystals, though not impossible but is an incredibly taxing and commendable endeavour.
A major criteria for a mage to advance to rank 2 beside their practical skill is their mana density.
Mana density is so crucial that it's often regarded as the only sign of advancing to rank 2. With each rank the concentration of mana changes and so does its colour.
The only method to increase this mana concentration is through absorbing the mana in the surrounding or absorbing it from a mana crystals which are almost 4 times more effective than when a mage tries to ascend to next rank through just the mana from their surroundings.
And Arthur did this in just 6 days after clearing his mana channels for the first time in his life which was astonishing as this speed is usually of a person who uses mana crystals. Arthur overcome the gap through sheer hard work.
Gideon looked closely under Arthur's eyes which had dark circles. It was obvious that he was not sleeping well and is overexerting himself to exhaustion.
"Very good Arthur. Your progress this time is quite decent." Gideon spoke standing up as he slowly started to move towards Arthur. "But never replace sleep with anything. It dulls your senses and this lack of sleep can prove more dangerous than your opponent"
"Whatever. Why does it matter? I advanced to rank 2 quickly and that's what actually matters" Arthur shrugged off Gideon's advice.
"No it does matter Arthur, otherwise you would have just been dead now" Gideon spoke as he raised his hand and with a flick of his finger the flying wolf was cut in half who was mid air in an attempt to attack Arthur from behind.
The flying wolf's entire body was cut in symmetrical half from top to bottom and both halves of the wolf flew and fell on ground in front of Arthur from both left and right.
Arthur gasped sharply as his eyes widened at the sight of a corpse over 8 feet long wolf with short wings on its each half.
These wings were so short that it didn't allow the wolf to fly while maintaining a constant height above ground but they did help it to jump to unusually long heights.
He didn't even notice this wolf coming towards him. If not for Gideon, Arthur would have been dead already.
"Wild beasts are a product of nature. For that reason they have no distinct mana signatures which you can detect. You have to keep all your five senses sharp for not only fighting these wild beasts but for hand to hand combat too." Gideon said as he walked past the corpse and was standing right in front of Arthur.
"In your fight with Matilda, you sensed the arrow over your head not because you detected their mana signature but because your five senses were in sync and your instincts were sharp. Never lose them and take proper rest"
"Ye..yes" Arthur agreed. Till now Arthur thought that mana was everything while not understanding the fact that real life battles are extremely unpredictable. Just a slight slip up can cost a rank 4 mage to lose to a rank 3 mage.
In terms of only raw strength the rank 4 mage can easily and completely overpower a rank 3 mage with no chance of retaliation but that is only if he defends or avoids rank 3 mage's attacks. If he lets himself be hit by one of the attacks of rank 3 mage he will take damage, severe damage or even lose his life in one attack if it's powerful enough.
Because the mage can be extremely powerful but he still has the body of a human unless he has specially enhanced his body with spells.
"So will we have a spar again today?" Arthur asked as he slowly stood up.
For last one week in the name of training the only thing Arthur has done is climb down the stairs with gideon sitting on carrier chair on his back.
Then meditating to control and get familiarise with controlling mana and at the end of the day they would do a spar.
"Did you forget already? Sit down and do the exercises to familiarise yourself with this new mana of yours. We will continue training after that" Gideon said as he went back to tree shade.
To practice their control and familiarise themselves with the mana from a new rank the mages usually do an internal exercise where they take out a small amount of mana from their orb and run in through their body in circles while slowly accelerating and increase the speed of mana circling in their body.
At high speed if they are distracted for a fraction of a second then that wild mana running at incredible speed inside their body will cause internal injuries. Which makes them vigilant and creates high stakes for training. Arthur suffered many painful injuries while moving that mana in a circle and losing his focus but after a week of practice he can successfully maintain the speed of his muddy brown mana at 20 meters per second inside his body.
Arthur sighed… but he knew how important it is to get familiarise with this new mana but in excitement of trying it out, he completely forgot about this daily mundane exercise.
Arthur sat down and closed his eyes again bringing out a small amount of dark red mana from his orb. Then with his Will he slowly started moving the mana all across his body in circles but this time Arthur felt an increased weight in mana. Though he expected the increase in weight, feeling it for the first time after using brown muddy mana for a week felt strange.
The slowly moving mana quickly gained speed as it started accelerating at a faster rate than Arthur intended. He tried to slow it down but this time it took him more energy to slow down the mana.
It was because of this increased weight that momentum of mana increased too. So Arthur have to adjust properly to control it without any problem.
He again started accelerating the mana but the mana still accelerated at a faster rate than Arthur wanted.
"So it's like this huh" Arthur thought as he stopped trying to move the mana at his own acceleration but started matching the acceleration of mana himself.
But to his surprise as he tried to match the acceleration. The mana started moving even faster, this cycle repeated itself 3 times that at this point it was getting harder for Arthur to control mana at this speed. Though the point of exercise is to gradually increase the speed of mana faster and faster that using it becomes just a matter of thought or even a reflex.
But at this instant the speed of mana was already 35 meters per second. Cold sweat started dripping from Arthur's forehead as he rapidly decelerated the mana. If the speed was allowed to increase any further then it could cause more internal damage and pain than when dark brown mana went out of control because the dark red mana was essentially of higher quality.
After several hours of this acceleration, deceleration and stabilization, Arthur finally was able to familiarise himself with his new rank 2 dark red mana.
Phew… he let out a breath of turbid air as he slowly opened his eyes. There was still an hour before evening sets in. Arthur expected this to be the time as he was not inside his orb so the time was in sync with his body.
Gideon opened one eye to look at Arthur.
"It seems you have finally grasped basics of mana manipulation"
"Yes," Arthur spoke excitedly
"Now I can sense mana, absorb mana to increase its density and manipulate it at will. But I still can't control how much mana I release when I attack. I end up emptying all my mana in one attack just because I can't control it properly"
Though Arthur have learnt and applied basics of mana manipulation well. He still can't control his attack because elemental Manipulation and Manifestation is a specialised branch for elementalist which he hasn't learnt yet.
In a formal school language, Arthur have only completed his introductory lessons.
"That's because you only have got control over your mana but elemental Manifestation and Manipulation are completely different." Gideon spoke as a smile emerged on his face "which you are going to learn now"
Hearing Gideon's words Arthur jumped up "Finally" he exclaimed as his eyes showed determination.