I woke up, to the sounds of a certain demon playing Grieg’s “Morning mood” inside my head on a flute. The thing was about 4 minutes long and Ralph played every second of it.

I don’t hate instrumental music, nor do I hate this piece in particular. What I do hate, is waking up in general.

“Should I check you for depression?”

“I am fine”

Anyway, it’s by no means the first time I had to sleep outside on the ground, which, quite frankly, saddens me to no end. This time, however, I don’t feel like I am about to die, I feel very great, in fact.

Anyway, let’s check the gains from the class!

Arcane Collector (legendary+, lvl 1)

Improves the user’s state of mind when dealing with things of magical nature. No further information can be accessed at the user’s level!

A wonderful skill, judging by the description and rarity. Let’s try it. It’s a passive skill, so I guess it will kick in the moment I try casting a spell?

Sure. Ralph restricted my ability to use Mana Insight, but I can still use it to an extent… Let’s give it a try!

...Woah. My. God.

This is awesome, this is just… awesome.

I feel that my vocabulary is insufficient to describe the feeling I am experiencing right now. It’s like I have never really been able to think before and just learned to do it. My thoughts are moving so fast, it actually scares me.

Let me show you… I created a single spell and fired at a tree.

*Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom*

The tree I fired the new spell at fell down and while falling down it was rained upon with countless fast, small and heavy projectiles, turning it into scrap and what was left of it flew into random directions.

With a wave of my hand, the wind around me blew away the big and the small fragments, some of which were as big as my entire torso. All the while the spell I fired originally began digging into the ground and it had already created a big hole in it.

Let me tell you exactly what happened. I just created a spell that consumed the mana from the atmosphere, ran it through itself and returned another spell that fired an icicle straight ahead.

When designing it, I didn’t even have to calculate anything or create any models, I didn’t have to test it, making it didn’t require me to intricately design the matrices, I just looked at my own experiences when making spells, looked at how mana behaved and applied it immediately to this spell.

Doing so didn’t even take me a second and just 20 MP. The second spell controlled the airflow around me. For it, I analyzed the spell that manipulated the airflow around me to reduce sounds that Ralph taught me and shaped it on the fly. This one cost me 1 MP per 3 seconds.

But look! Now the area around me is all ruined. It’s so close to my cave I don’t want it to look ugly.

What do I do? Hm… Lemme try it…

The dirt and the dust began gathering back to the holes in the ground and filling it up after I waved my hand again.

[You have acquired skill: Earth Manipulation (rare, lvl 2)]

So, it can be done like this? I am not sure how I just did it, I just felt like I could do it if I tried. I am not even sure what I just did.

[You have acquired skill: Wind manipulation (rare, lvl 1)]

[You have acquired skill: Water Manipulation (rare, lvl 1)]

[You have acquired skill: Fire Manipulation (rare, lvl 1)]

I didn’t even have to try. The skills just appeared the moment I thought how to do it.

What do I do with all this sawdust and the litter?

...All plants around me began to wilt and rot. It was a slow process, so I decided to speed it up, after adding some MP. The plants and every piece of wood that was left from the ruined tree turned into smelly slush in 30 seconds. There was a lot of wood too. It was a pretty big tree, a grown human male would need one arm to hug it.

[You have acquired skill: Domain of Death (rare+, lvl 1)]

It was a spell though? I made it so it would use death mana and cause the plants to die. I knew it would happen because I remembered how death mana caused necrosis in parts of my body in Ralph’s simulation. I guess it’s a skill now.

Obviously, the smell left is irritating. This patch of dead earth looks ugly still. What do I do now?

What if I try… this. Hm… Maybe it will work?

I spent more MP and the slush was absorbed into the ground. A lot of winds blew all over the place. Soon green grass began growing very fast on this desolate patch of earth.

[You have acquired skill: Domain of Life (rare+, lvl 1)]

It was a spell too. The way it worked was different from Domain of Death, so I guess the System only looked at the effects. I looked at how life-attribute mana was used for healing and then at the effects it had when I overloaded a living creature with it when I was experimenting with my Spring spell and thought on how to use it so it would cause accelerated growth.

At first, it probably caused the bacteria to multiply rapidly and consume the biological slush but then I used Wind Manipulation and it seems to have brought many seeds of various plants… I honestly don’t know what happened, okay?

Well, now this place looks nice and that’s all that matters.

“I guess making the bed will be simpler than I expected now, huh?”

“Sure. Just go to your cave for now”

“Why?”

“Because-”

I suddenly felt very dizzy and weak

“-When the effects of the skills wear of-”

MP: 83/279

“-You begin to notice the repercussions”

I fainted. Again.

…

“This is definitely not healthy”

“You fainting so often? Don’t worry. Your self-regeneration skill will easily handle it”

“No. I mean you playing Morning Mood every time to wake me up”

“Okay. I won’t do it anymore”

“I have a question. What is the average MP of a mage of my level”

“Around 30”

“So little?”

“Yep”

“Then why did I faint when I had around 3 times the full MP of an average mage of my level?”

“Because a lot of the MP goes into supporting its large size. Just like an elephant and a dog need different amounts of blood and oxygen to live and function normally, those with huge MP pools and those with small MP pools need different amounts of MP to act in full capacity”

“And does the amount of MP required to sustain the pool grow faster than the size of the MP pool itself?”

“Depends on the person. Your efficiency is surprisingly good, so you won’t have problems with the MP running out too fast. Though you’ll have to go through the ritual to solve your problem with VIT so the things stay this way”

“I see. Well, whatever. Let’s go make a bed at last. I haven’t tested out Collector’s Insight though. Should I?”

“If you want to faint again, go ahead”

“I won’t use it for that long”

“Yes. You won’t be able to. What is the level of rarity of Mana Insight?”

“It’s unique”

“And what about Collector’s Insight?”

“It’s legendary+”

“Unique, in general, isn’t that rare. Nor, usually, does it compare with the legendary grade. Active legendary skills require a lot of preparation to use and even if you have them, unless you have been trained to handle them, it’s not recommended to use them carelessly”

“Can you teach me how to use it?”

“Sure. Later though”

“Yes. It’s already night. I have to go to sleep”

“You have just-”

“Good night”