The next six months had gone by in a blast and Max had progressed by leaps and bounds in the matter of his magic. He was truly learning what it meant to be a mage or someone with magical blood. Through his Grandfather's lessons, he had been able to satiate his curiosity fairly easily. And through these lessons, he finally learned how to progress through magic in the way he wanted to.

First off, he had learned why his magic reservoir wasn't growing. It was something that progressed slowly throughout one's life and was something that couldn't grow through training and because he was young his reservoir was incredibly small and wasn't growing at a quick pace due to the fact that he had not yet gone through his first magical awakening. And yes I did say first. There was more than just one magical awakening. There was one at the age of ten and then one at fourteen and finally one at eighteen. And it wasn't necessarily that you couldn't train your magical reservoir it was just that you had to have awakened at least once which Max had not done yet.

Each magical awakening improved one aspect of your magic and after all three you would have a completely evolved magical system. It happened randomly and was hard to discern the first of the three because of people's lack of training beforehand because they couldn't train. For some strange reason, Max had access to something that was completely locked away from other people his age. He had a headstart and he was gonna use it. The growth of one's magical reservoir increased drastically throughout each magical awakening and though the increase of an individual reservoir increased throughout their age it got progressively better until they died. So effectively your magical power grows insanely throughout your teenage years and kept growing, albeit at a slower pace after you enter adulthood.

Now onto the more interesting information. Max's magical power could still increase though he was at a young age. He could practice magic and through this enrich his magic to levels that are not normally able to be reached when he reaches the age of 10. Magic was like a muscle the more you used it the stronger it got. The more he could achieve with his magic by using less of it. Efficiency and strength to say the least.

Now onto what he would be developing in the coming future. Max's Grandfather had said, after extensive questioning, that the path that max wanted to take focused on very specific aspects of magic or ways to use each aspect/category.

For the aspect of mind, he would want to focus on ingenuity for now and work his way through willpower than finally Manipulations and the areas he wanted to focus on in these areas were as follows:

Ingenuity had to focus on the increase of his memory and multitask abilities with more to come in the late future. Willpower was next because the protection of your mind was one of the most important magics out there. Having your mind read is not pleasant and can be something ruinous in some situations. Finally, the aspect of manipulation so that he could peak into others' minds and also focus on illusions.

Next was the body aspect, this one is a little more... complicated. First off was the Vococular/Vocal. Apparently, he had to focus on the Vococular for maximum effect of what he wanted but that was incredibly difficult. It meant that you had to have the charisma and will to call magic just by your presence and vision. It was very strange and was something he had to put on the back burner for now. Then there was Vocal. There was a method that didn't require chanting and seemed perfect for him since it was based on quick and easy-to-make noises. It was something called snap casting. It was a way to call magic to you just by making gentle or harsh sounds. Like a clap or a stomp or a snap or anything similar to those things. It was perfect for him and was something he had to start working on pronto. Secondly, there were Gestures/Proof of intent. This was rather simple. All Max had to do was focus on making small gestures instead of exaggerated ones. It would simplify the process and using these small gestures would help him with his control over his magic. Though the matter of casting with small gestures was a bit harder than trying to cast with exaggerated ones and those that could cast spells this way were known as subtle casters. Finally, there was Material. This was something that wasn't gonna be touched upon for a while so he didn't focus on it all that much during his six months of training.

Finally, there was the matter of the soul. For personal reasons Max decided to only focus on two of the categories of the soul because he believed faith wasn't something, he could use effectively. He first had to focus on determination/will to cast his magic more effectively in general and this was something he had to focus on predominantly due to the serious nature of its effects on his spells. Secondly and Finally there was the category of study. This category he was constantly improving and it had helped him grow the strength and efficiency of his magic quite a bit.

---

'Boy magic is tough' Max thought to himself as he stared at the three rubber balls in front of him that were gently juggling in the air. He was using gentle swaying gestures to move the balls through the air and was tapping his feet gently on the floor while swaying. His eyes were locked onto the balls and traveled with them, calling out to them, trying desperately to get them to move, and move they did.

Max gently wiped the sweat off of his brow and while doing so the balls stopped floating for an instance and Max desperately began to do his strange dance once more to keep them afloat. But alas, ten seconds had passed and the spell collapsed since he had deviated from the casting procedures.

'Well, that was the longest I've managed in a few weeks...' Max thought as he checked his watch to find that 5 minutes had passed.

'My Magic is becoming much more powerful after incorporating simple gestures and light sounds into my casting.'

'I understand it's quite obvious at the moment Max thought as he recalled the silly dance he had been doing moments before. 'But it is simply to incorporate everything into his practice routine and doing so with efficiency.'

'Hmm... Progress feels so good!' Max sighed in satisfaction.

He could move the rubber balls in any direction he wanted to. Up, down, left, right, any direction at all! And it didn't stop there. It went on. He could move other things as well. He could move small objects that didn't weigh too much but perhaps the easiest thing to move was paper. It would move and glide through the air with elegance and he could keep it up for nearly 10 minutes with a few dozen pieces of paper. But he chose not to use that as an exercise for strengthening his magic because of the lack of weight and size of the paper. Instead, he used it to practice control.

But after praising himself for his progress max gently collected the rubber balls and placed them into his toy bin before going to sit on his bed. The black sheets became crumpled as he sat down on them in a cross-legged position.

"Now the boring part," Max muttered before closing his eyes and focusing on his mind. He replayed the feeling of the magic spreading through his body and the surroundings and replayed it over and over again. He replayed the tingling sensation that had spread throughout his body when he spread his magical energy throughout his body. The feeling of it releasing through the light tapping on the floor. The way it pulled his power into order and began to command it under his will. The feeling of him gesturing and manipulating his minor spell effect creating constant motion that changed at every moment.

The method Max was using in this method was a method to increase one's memory through repeating a memory over and over again until it became ingrained into their mind. This specific technique was called visualization. A technique that could only work when constantly releasing a small amount of your energy into the surroundings. Though his Grandfather had mentioned it in passing Max held on to the snippet of information with an almost death-like grip. He slowly got more information out of his Grandfather with light questioning now and then and got the gist of the technique down.

After practicing it for nearly 2 months out of the 6 months that had passed he had made progress with his memory only slightly. He had managed to only ingrain one memory into his mind and that was the feeling of gathering his magic. He was now focusing on releasing his memory so he could do it within a moment's notice.

But during this particular time, something seemed off. Something was buzzing in Max's mind. A thought. A familiar white space seemed to envelop his mind and he felt his consciousness sink into this strange white space once more.

---

Grids surrounded him for as far as the eye could see. It was disorienting almost. Max looked around and confusion filled his mind.

'Why am I here again? Wasn't this just something that had happened to me when I was crossing over?" Max thought out loud, but his thoughts inevitably ended up echoing throughout the space as they did on his first trip here.

With every thought that raced in his head his surroundings shook with a strange energy. Something crossed Max's mind and with worry, his face became one full of concentration.

"IT'S GONE!" Max screamed as he sensed that his magic had seemingly disappeared. Anger filled his being and his surroundings began to shake with fury as it was guided by his mind.

It was then that something began to change in his mindscape. Something that wasn't necessarily good or bad but a change nonetheless.

His mindscape began to fill. Fill to the brim with pictures. Photographs in particular. They flooded the mindscape around Max and began whirling around him.

The pictures were filled with moments of anger in Max's life. Moments in which he had thought he was making no progress. Thoughts in which he was filled with despair at the thought of taking over the body of a young boy.

Max, after seeing these photographs, began to calm down. He realized something was happening that was greater than his anger and as he calmed so did the sea of photographs as they slowly fell to the ground in heaps of non-organized messes.

'Memories' Max thought as the sea of photographs slowly seemed to stir like waves in an ocean.

'These are my memories. My Mindscape... Is this how I train Ingenuity? By manipulating my mind space?' Max questioned before focusing his thoughts on the photographs in front of him.

'Separate' Max thought and as he did so the MindScape listened.

Each photo flew away from the other and soared into the sky forming a sky filled with twinkling photographs that resembled his memories.

'Rise' Max thought as he floated through the air and reached out to touch one of his memories. It was one of him as a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. A period of time in which he wasn't really around but it was there nonetheless.

Max touched the memory, and like static electricity, he was shocked and sent whirling through the air into a void of thoughts.

---

"Young master you must listen to me at once. You must learn how to read before you fall behind." An old voice said as the surroundings came into focus. It was his butler and teacher, Sir Leon, Knight of Libraire.

"No!" The younger Max barked as he turned away and began to run but before he could get very far he felt the friction of his feet against the ground lessen as he found himself running in place. He tried to run away as fast as possible but found himself moving backward towards Sir Leon. It was at this point in time that Max finally got to take a good look at Sir Leon, his loyal teacher, and treacherous teacher.

He stood at about 5 foot 8 inches tall and wore a sharp and elegant suit that fit in with the formal look and feel of the room they were in, that being a classroom. He looked like an average person, with brown hair and dark eyes, except for one thing. He had pointy ears and large eyes that reflected light in an almost star-like manner. He was an elf. Not an elf of the mystical lands outside of Lockthar but a true born and bred elf of the place the Blacklock's had called home for the entire span of their reign of money.

"You. Must. Learn. Young Master." The elf said with a look on his face that showed the deep care he had for Max but also the sternness that had to be presented at the moment.

---

Max came too in his room in his cross-legged position and found that he had a new memory ingrained in his mind. The memory of Sir Leon teaching him how to read. It was crystal clear in his mind, everything from the minute grains in the wood of the writing-table in the classroom to the calm and kind elf knight that was teaching him.

Max felt a grin appear on his face as he thought of the white space, once more entering it.

'This is gonna take a while but boy is this gonna be fun' Max thought before beginning to get to work.