Ch41.Circle 1 - Part1

Time passes really fast when you are busy, I have already arrived at the time to complete my first Circle. For the last few months I have only been getting a few hours sleep at night, the rest of the day I have been working my ass off. A few of the things I have accomplished within this time include; I have expanded my Arena operation, not in size but more in the organization and management of the events, I have been spending a lot of time in my theory studies with regard to both Magic Runes and some business fields and lastly I have concentrating on the training and strengthening of my clan.

It took me about a month to finally create my sixth Rune, the 'Hard Body' Rune, but luckily after succeeding, Epolenet stopped limiting my progress and just assisted me when I asked. Therefore, in the following two months I successfully completed another two Runes, the 'Toxic Adaption' and 'Muscular Enhancement' Runes.

My problem came when I started creating the 'Supple Bone' Rune, this Rune is actually located in the core of my spine bone. I therefore had to spend two months in planning and mapping out a plan on how I would go about completing this Rune in the shortest amount of time possible, as making a mistake in the creation process of this rune could easily result in me becoming paralyzed.

Since this particular Rune was so complex to create and had a very real risk, in the two months of preparation, I spent a large amount of money to bribe another professor, Senloki, who finally agreed to let me use his healing tank during my Rune creation process.

Let me just explain a bit more about the Professors of this Academy, there are a total of four official professors who are the heads of a department and don't tend to get involved in teaching too much, unless necessary. Then five teachers who are supposed to teach the students but are quite lazy and won't go out of their way to actually teach, unless they are provided certain benefits. Each Professor is in charge of a certain aspect of study, Epolenet is in charge of Rune Theory and practical Rune based application subjects. Senloki is in charge of all medical and alchemy based subjects, he is a very tall man who is frankly disgusting, he has twigs and tree branches in his long, grey and fuzzy hair as well as his ungroomed beard, it appears like he never baths or washes himself and he constantly smells like he is wearing something that is burnt and that burnt substance is mixed in with dirt and various bodily odors … Yes, I know he is something else, despite his appearance though, he is very accomplished in the field of medicine and alchemy and has a large knowledge base with regard to the application of Runes in these fields so I had to take advantage of that.

The other two Professors each have their own unique 'aspects' that I will explain in the future, when I have a need to bribe them. One of them is named Frankloo, an excessively overweight, giant of a man who is in charge of all things Magic Combat and Spell related. The other is Ylaric, this is a person of unidentifiable gender and based off appearance alone, looks like a large doll or some kind of failed magic creation. Ylaric is in charge of Magical experiments and is in charge of the more advanced Magical subjects such as body modification and creating a variety of Magical Beast pets.

The five teachers are technically under the professors and are in charge of the more general subjects or less advanced versions of the professors knowledge. These teachers are mostly past students of this academy who weren't able to make anything of their lives after graduation and just decided to settle down and continue living in the Academy.

Anyway let me get back to my main point, I had to bribe Senloki to let me use some of his Rune devices, and had him oversee me as I created my 'Supple Bones' Rune. The healing tank Rune Device is a large barrel with a variety of Runes engraved on the inside and outside of the barrel, it is filled with an Alchemic solution that gets absorbed through a person's pores in order to heal any internal injuries.

I wanted to create my Rune while I was submerged in this solution just in case something went wrong. I made sufficient preparations to prevent such situations, but better safe than sorry. Luckily nothing unexpected happened and I completed the creation of that Rune without too many troubles. I then proceeded to complete my last Rune, the 'Tension Release' Rune which I had to create on the top of my right hand, despite the complexity of the learning of this Rune, the creation process was quite simple and I was able to finish within half a month.

This brings me to the creation of my first circle. Now becoming a Circle 1 mage is not as simple as it may seem in theory. In order to become an official circle 1 Mage, you will first need to have at least the minimum required amount of Runes that you have created successfully and stored in your body, the second requirement is having enough Magical Energy in order to complete the binding process.

In order to enhance your Magic Tier and create a new circle, besides the obvious prerequisites, you need complete a certain Binding Process where you actually create your Circle. Now this is a dangerous procedure and is the reason why many people halt in their advancement to the next Circle.

In order to form a circle, the first thing you need to do is use your internal Magical energy to remove your Runes from where they are placed in your body, although this step isn't too hard, once each Rune is removed, you will no longer be able to use that Runes magic until you have successfully formed your circle. Therefore, if you fail in the creation process, you either have to completely start over, having to create all of your Runes again, or just give up on magic and go find a job in some other industry.

After you have removed each Rune from where they are located in your body, you will need to gather them all to one spot in your body, where this is located doesn't really matter, but most people choose their brain as it is easier to focus on that area due to it being the location of multiple bodily senses. After gathering all your Runes into that specific area, you will need to arrange your Runes in a specific order that allows the Runes to create a certain balance where they can enhance the abilities of the Runes they are going to be connected to. These enhancements usually pertain to the Runes passive effects, as after a Mage summons their Rune Circle externally, they are able to change the Circles arrangement at will, removing certain Runes or even adding Runes that have been prepared for their next Circle. After completing the arrangement, different spells can be formed and cast.

Once you have arranged the Runes in an order you are satisfied with, you will be able to proceed to the final step, Binding.

The Binding step is where you gather all the Magical energy in your body and use that energy to form a sort of connection between the Runes. What this connection looks like doesn't truly matter, it is a personal thing that the Mage feels will be the easiest to transform their energy into and then manipulate, it could be a rope, a chain or even have the appearance of a snake, as long as it can serve the purpose of linking and binding two Runes together.

You will need to calculate your total energy and make sure that each link uses the exact same amount of Magical Energy, otherwise the Circle may collapse in the process of creation or you may run out of energy mid way and not have enough to link the remaining Runes. You must remember that on the creation of your first circle, by removing the runes from each part of your body will result in you no longer being able to absorb Magical Energy from the environment. This forces you to only use the Magical Energy available inside your body.

After you have formed a link between The first Rune all the way to the last Rune, you will then need to connect the last Rune to the first Rune thus completing the Circle and successfully becoming a Circle Mage or advancing to the next Circle.

The advancement of each circle is a little different but these are the basics. Advancing to a Circle Mage will require the use of all your Magical Energy, therefore, after advancement, you will need to start absorbing Magical Energy into your body again and since the 'Energy Gathering' Rune is now linked to a Circle and therefore strengthened, the quality of Magical energy is enhanced and with the number of Circles you possess, the quality and quantity of Magical Energy absorbed will increase.

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Hi all, I feel like I am moving too fast and skipping many opportunities for extra chapters, such as 'Academy Life' chapters, but I still have a lot planned for the volume and it already seems like this volume alone may reach 100 chapters, so I am going to try speed up certain areas in order to keep the Novel progressing and hopefully prevent it from stagnating on one area for too long.

Please let me know what you think, whether I am going too fast or too slow?

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