After cleaning my house, I started feeling for my mana again. I spent the night watching the stars and meditating in hopes of getting behind the vague feeling I had that night. I actually haven't really slept the past days and only did my meditation training at nights, that really seems to be enough to cover for my sleeping need, even [Quick Sleeper] seems to rise in proficiency. A few days passed like that and I've been in this world for a month now.

!!

Aah~ What a blissful moment.

[Mana Manipulation]: You can feel and control mana.

[Mana Circulation]: You can circulate mana through your body. This will not only allow better control but also strengthen both you and your mana quality.

I'm not sure how to describe the feeling of mana, right now I would say it feels warm.

I look down at my chest, I can't see anything yet but I can clearly feel my mana now. It is gushing out of my heart with no signs of stopping. If I had to visualize this feeling it would be like the Super Saiyan aura in DBZ.

I wonder if it was always like this since I already had the stats Magic and Intelligence. Or maybe those stats didn't fully activate before I had the Magic Circuits? Anyway, I should try and suppress the mana for now. I can't have it leaking all the time. Yosh!

I'm somehow managing to keep it all together in my heart, it does feel wrong though. And I don't think I can keep this up endlessly as it's already pretty shaky as it is. But I should now try and circulate my mana through my body.

I'm not sure about other benefits, but when I cast a fireball, I don't exactly want to shoot it out of my chest. That's why I should at least try and create a 'mana vein' to my left hand for now.

"Huuuu"

Just barely. It's really wobbly, if that makes sense. I think having raised my Magic so high might've been a mistake in hindsight. It would be much easier to control a small about of mana, but this is what I have to work with right now. I'll try and focus on the control for a while before I raise my stats again. As long as I don't enter the deeper parts of the forest or fight a thousand men on my own there shouldn't be any normal situation that would get me killed.

I want to be able to keep my mana controlled in any situation, so should I try and move a bit first?

"Kuh! Fuuck!"

I felt like my left arm blew up just now! There doesn't seem to be a problem, I still eat one of my trusty herbs to be sure. Mm, feels all better again.

I should try again I feel like it could work now!

* * *

It's been about 2 hours now. No Luck.

I've certainly improved but not by much. Maybe I'm doing it the wrong way?

Instead of raising the difficulty, how about I cut off my senses? [Meditation] has never led me astray so far. Though I still am trying to get behind that dreamy-like state I enter nights.

I cut off all my senses except for mana and enter a meditative state. Slowly I extend my mana along my left arm towards my hand. It's still feeling wobbly, but I can quickly get it to a stable state.

Eh? Isn't this actually the same as during the nights? At night I cut off all my senses except my eyes. This time I cut off everything except my mana.

"Huuuu"

I open my eyes, and as I thought, even like this I can keep my mana stable. It's a success!

BUT! Why can I see the sun rising?! Didn't I close my eyes for only a few minutes? Almost a whole day passes in the blink of an eye! What if...

I quickly check the date, sure enough, I only have a week left before school starts again. So, I didn't just spend one but two days like that! I have to be more careful with trusting my skills.

At least I have a basic level of control on my mana now.

I should try and cast some magic. A very basic waterball should be fine.

I concentrate on the image of a ball of water that gets pushed with enough force to damage a tree. To not do anything dangerous I use only a small amount of mana. And just like that, I shoot!

"..."

Nothing. It seems like I failed? I'm sure that's how using magic was described, that's to the circuits all I need to do is imagine it, more or less. No, maybe it worked and my mana just wasn't enough? I may have humidified the air slightly. I did get the casting skill, so it should have worked, right?

Um! Let's use more mana this time.

I concentrate once again and sure enough!

CRASH!

I destroy a good number of trees outside the barrier. This... I succeeded, but at what cost?

"Uugh..."

I have a headache, not because of the forest, I probably spent too much mana at once on this stupid waterball. I also fell on my butt from the recoil. It's getting better again, but things didn't exactly go as planned.

I have to put some practice into this as well, right now I either use too little or use too much mana.

I spent the rest of the vacation like that, in the end, I was finally able to properly move around in my day-to-day time while circulating my mana. I won't be able to fight yet but the days of magic swordsmanship are getting closer!