After returning home from the temple, life seemed to somewhat return to normal. I should probably mention, my family's house is in the middle of nowhere, quite literally.

We live in the middle of dense woods, and the only way out is a road leading from our house that connects us to the main road that leads to the nearest town. So, we live about two hours by carriage away from any other people, so having visitors was a rare occasion.

I feel the express need to think this through in such detail, because in the last three days, we've had at least six guest visits, sometimes two or more at a time.

Of course, I can eavesdrop quite easily by removing my presence and using my enhanced hearing.

Thinking about it, for some reason, I haven't yet tried to meditate after breaking my mana heart in half. Surely it's not cause I'm afraid, it's just slipped my mind.

Each visit went pretty much the same. Either one or two old men or women in robes would knock on our door politely. If it was two people, their robes would be different colors, and they would each take turns talking. Apparently, there are large institutions across this continent used as learning facilities, known as Institutes, Academies, Schools, Research Centers, etc. I know, redundant, but that's just how the little speeches every guest gave differ. No matter which Academy or Institution the people came from, the message was clear.

"Come now, I hear the boy is gifted in magic! It would be a waste of talent if he went to any other institution besides the Gilded Golem Academy."

"With an expert swordsman mother and a gift in magic, Lirigard Adventurer Academy can hone both his magical and physical talents!"

"Whilst usually our academy only accepts those of true nobility, it seems the noble title given to you has allowed you to give birth to one of true nobles' blood. The Golden Dragon Magic Institute welcomes your son with open arms, as he has the talent of a noble and was born with the title of one due to your services."

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Whilst every speech differed slightly, like the Golden Dragon guy going on about me being "nobly born and gifted" or the Lirigard people selling the swordsmanship to my mother, they all boiled down to one statement.

"Once he reaches the age of ten, he needs to apply to and pass our entrance exam. Then, we will take him under our wing for four years, and train him to expand his talents to the absolute maximum. Free of charge of course, as any promising mage is sponsored by the Capital. Glory to the Royals." Yep, magical, door-to-door, university salesman.

Well, this was, troublesome. I knew that there were most likely going to be magic academies since, well, I've heard them mentioned and it's only natural to have a space to learn and practice magic without interruption and fear of killing someone, but like how many are there? There's been at least ten if not more different people here all pitching different Academies and reasons for joining them.

Are they private businesses? Can anyone start a magic training facility with enough money and reckless abandon?

Thank everything that is holy magic didn't exist on Earth, or I'd have to go to like the Amazon Magic School for Package Delivery.

This continued and eventually, I think we either ran out of academies to visit us, or we were simply off the radar for them. But after a week, we had ended with sixteen "cordial invitations" from different academies, promising a slew of different things, ranging anything from being seated and trained with noble families, to honing both magic and swordsmanship, to auto-registering me as an adventurer once I left the academy.

One academy "representative" even came to visit us in the dead of night!

No pun intended as I was invited to be a student at the world's first co-life academy, made up of both living and undead races. Apparently talented students are wanted everywhere.

Okay, maybe that one was pretty enticing. Apparently in this world, undead races were not monsters, thirsty for blood, or required to eat people to survive. Outside of a few, usually more evil exceptions. They were simply people born as undead. Undead, Vampires, Skeletons, etc were all just as natural as people of any other race.

Once a person of substantial 'Vitality', how you quantify that I have no idea, dies then their essence can spur the growth of so-called natural undead since apparently undead can materialize anywhere the sun isn't touching and there is a high 'Necrotic Vitality'. Yeah, no idea.

So, I guess the undead academy had a nice side to it, trying to bridge the gap between living and undead races, apparently, it's head coordinator of magic was even a Lich!

Pretty neat right?

Anyhow, after the hectic week of visitors, my father put all of their little pamphlets inside of my locked chest, which was moved into the living room since they were worried it would get damaged in my training with my dummy. So, unfortunately, my reading of the books is going to have to wait a bit longer.

Which, to me, was a major blow. As recently, no matter how much I train on the dummy, drain my mana and refill it to expand my mana pool, it's as if I've hit a wall.

Meditation works back like it did when I first used it now, heightening my senses of hearing, smell, etc even further than what it already was, however being forced to close my eyes a not move in order to further increase the mana circulating within my body. Yes, further increase. As after my mana heart split, there seems to be a constant circulation of mana throughout my body.

However, outside of using meditation and draining my mana pool to increase its capacity, my magic has hit a wall. I'm lacking innovation with magic, as I truly don't know what else I can do.

I could always just make stronger and more dense barriers or more complex tools, but there's a limit to the number of moving parts I can make before my brain hurts. Also, is it worth it to make a working gun out of barrier magic when in the same amount of mana, I can summon enough fire magic to level a city block?

I can somewhat make myself hover with wind magic, fire off controlled lightning, but I still don't even know the basics of "Enhancement" or Spacial magic.

If I could have read a bit more, or found some hint to using or casting it, or even what they are, I could practice and get through this wall, but for now, all I can do is expand my mana and wait to grow up. The most I'll practice from now on is getting a stable flight spell.

Ugh, this is gonna be boring.