There was only a few more days until his first semester at Aether Academy started, and Rai was trying to figure out what to do to prepare for it.

It wasn’t like he wasn’t ready. He knew that he’d done a lot of sparring and fighting, so he was ready for that aspect of learning. His lessons from his aunt also helped him learn a lot about magic, including a lot of things that many of the students who attended wouldn’t know. Though, the nobles probably would. Rai’s only worry was that he was missing something, a feeling that he was all too familiar with.

There was also the question of extracurriculars. Rai and Sin already discussed that they would join the Archaeology society, or create it if there wasn’t already one. Rai needed to explore the ruins that his mother told him about if he was ever going to find his father. If being part of an exploration society made that possible, then he would do it. Sin wanted to join because of the ties between her mother's death and the Ancients.

Suddenly, a memory smacked him in the face, yelling at him to remember it. The weird phenomena on Rai's first day in the capital city. He recalled the old hobo who gave him two books.

Sat on his bed, Rai pulled the two books out of his seals with a flash of lightning. He placed them flat on the bed. Living, Breathing Mana and A Discussion on the Flow of Mana and its Place in Spell Formations. They were two relatively thin leatherbound books with no authors. It struck Rai when he found them. They were distinct from the books offered by the other merchants. Those books were far thicker, and very extravagant looking, with most of them hosting golden engravings for the title and author name. The other major difference was the emphasis on the author’s names on the other books, they were often written to be larger than the book’s title.

Rai decided to read the one that sounded difficult first, to get it out of the way. The one about the flow of mana.

The first part of the book talked about all of the things Rai already knew, such as the way mages flow mana in their body through their mana channels, then shape that mana and grant it attributes to cast spells. The next part of the book, however, was far more interesting. It talked about the possibilities of ‘reversing the flow’.

One of the segments in the book stuck out to Rai.

⌈In theory, it’s possible to completely cancel out a spell. If one was able to perfectly reverse the flow of their mana, and calculate the attributes of a spell coming at them, they could attribute their own reversed mana with the opposite attributes of the aforementioned spell, cancelling it out. It might even be possible to simply reverse the mana flow and overwhelm the spell with more mana than it required for its formation, and cancel it out entirely. However, throughout my research I have yet to find a single specimen with enough mana to even attempt the latter.⌋

The book had no proof, and it was clearly written that no one was able to actually do such a thing. It was written in the book that mental acuity, the clarity with which one can see mana, was one of the main roadblocks to stopping people from using such a technique.

There were some other ramblings in the book, but that was the main thing that Rai took from it.

Rai felt the same kind of excitement he felt when he conceived Stormflow. I have to test it!

He decided to read the book on living mana another time, and focused his mind on figuring out how to ‘reverse’ mana flow. All his life he’d been flowing his mana in a single direction throughout his body, speeding up the flow as he casted spells. Previously, there was no question about whether mana should flow one way or another. That’s what made this concept so completely foreign to him.

It might be easier to do this with a spell already present... Rai had an idea.

Sin was wondering why Lilly called her down to the sparring area, when she saw Rai sat in the middle of the room with a thoughtful expression on his face. “If we were going to spar, you could’ve just told me. I’m not exactly dressed for it.”

Rai shook his head, “We’re not going to spar, I just need your help with something.”

Sin was curious now, “Oh? What do you need?”

“Can you summon a clone?”

Sin's eyes glowed with a glistening red for a moment, and a clone of herself appeared beside her. She had no idea why Rai needed her to summon a clone.

“Can you send it over here? I need to check something.”

She eyed him with suspicion, “Sure, but you better not do anything messed up. It’s still my body.”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing like that.”

The clone walked over to Rai.

He stood up and placed a hand on its shoulder.

At first, there was a whooshing sensation, then it would stop, before starting up again. A pulse. Rai was sensing the mana flow of the clone. Everything in the world had a mana signature, including apparitions created with mana. Each spell typically followed the same formula. There would be the injection of mana, which would flow in a circular motion throughout the spell's body. Most of the time the flow would travel clockwise. Rai could see it clearly, underneath all of the attributes associated with the clone’s mana. It flowed clockwise.

Sin was watching with growing curiosity. She had no idea what Rai was doing, “What are you checking?”

“I checked to see the flow of mana in the foundations of the spell. All spells are built on a distinct flow of mana. I’m trying to see if I can somehow negate that.”

Once again, Sin was gobsmacked. “Why are you always trying to do these insane things.”

Rai chuckled, “Creativity is the lifeblood of a mage.”

She scoffed, “Sounds like something a crackpot would say.”

Rai blankly stared at her, “My aunt wouldn’t be happy to hear that, you’d best apologise to her when you meet her.”

Sin felt some remorse at her words now, she didn’t know it was Rai’s aunt who told him that, “Sorry. It’s just something that my tutors would’ve told me off for saying.”

Rai couldn’t quite understand, “Why would they want to limit your creativity?”

Sin shrugged, “They believe that there is a correct way to cast spells, a correct way to use magic, a correct way to do anything.”

Rai gasped, “How horrible. That sounds so suffocating.”

Sin solemnly nodded, “It was.” But she made it clear that it wasn’t all bad, “At least I had my dad. If I didn’t, I’d probably go insane.”

Rai nodded in acknowledgement, then continued thinking about what he could do to negate the underlying mana that the spell was built on.

Sin had her own thoughts on the matter, which she voiced, “If you’re trying to make a spell that negates other spells, maybe try changing the foundations of a blank spell?”

Rai thought about it for a second, then his joy started to leak out. “That... Sin you’re a genius.”

He tried exactly what Sindyl was describing, essentially attempting to create a blank spell with the reverse flow of mana in his hand. Rai envisioned the mana he injected into the blank spell beginning its path in the same place as it would normally, except it would flow counter-clockwise. After a minute, he figured out how to consistently create blank spells with an anti-clockwise mana flow at their foundation. Why haven’t other people tried this, I’ll have to ask Sin to try it. He wondered about how exactly he would cast it. Some spells could be thrown, some could be shot in a straight line, while others could be conjured a certain distance away from the caster. Oftentimes, Rai had to think about how spells would manifest before he cast them.

He figured that right now, it would be draining on his mana reserves if he created a perpetual zone where mana flowed in the reverse direction. So it was more practical to make the spell shoot where he aimed it.

In his spell, Rai imbued double the amount of mana that he detected within the clone when he first checked it. Rai aimed at the clone with his left hand in a claw like shape.

The formulation of the spell was simple, but it manifested itself in a way that neither of them were quite expecting. Rai’s left arm was engulfed in black lightning, which also formed around the clone. Instead of shattering like all of the other mirror clones that Rai destroyed in one of their spars, the clone looked like it was completely devoured by the black lightning.

Rai and Sin looked at where the clone was stood. There was no trace of it left.

They spoke in unison, “What the fuck...”