"It works?!" Char was so excited, mana gathered like crazy toward the skeleton, its bone started to turn black, saturated with mana.
Char was about to celebrate when the skeleton exploded with such power that it created a crater on the ground, the explosion sent wind pushing Char back a few meters on the ground.
"Ugh... it explodes again..." Char mumbled as he cleans the dust on his uniform and picks himself up from the ground.
"But that should do the trick," he thought, the vortex was so big that he refused to believe that the skeleton got nothing out of it.
Char started to send his consciousness to the soul container, to his surprise, the skeleton was already back to level 4.
The active mana gathering was a success so far, now Char only needs to train the skeleton not to explode every time it uses the magic.
"Maybe I can use it as suicide bomber magic," Char joked to himself.
Char summoned the skeleton once again after waiting a while, the skeleton appears to be darker in color than the first time he summoned it.
"It might be the adaptation," Char thought as a normal creature would grow bigger or had any other change when they grew stronger.
The darker color comes from an increase in the bone density, it adapts to be denser after dozens of times imploding because of magic failure.
"Try again," Char commanded simply, then he ran back as far as he could so he would not get in the explosion if the skeleton exploded again.
Another vortex formed once the skeleton activated its magic ability, but the end result did not change, the skeleton exploded and created another crater with it.
"Eh? Is it me or it explodes faster? Shouldn't it be like longer since the skeleton has done it once?" Char looked confused at the crater the skeleton left behind.
"I should check how many levels it got," he thought, then he sent his consciousness once again into the soul container.
To his disappointment, the skeleton did not gain a level, it stays on level four, "eh? Is it because the skeleton needs more mana once it levels up?" he puzzled.
Char tried again and summoned the skeleton, he commanded it to use the magic once more, and the result was as he expected, it exploded again.
When Char checked the level it did not increase even after the second try, Char did not know what went wrong with it.
In the end, Char repeatedly summons the skeleton and commands it to use the magic again and again, even after a dozen times trying, the skeleton keeps exploding leaving a dozen crater on the ground.
Char got a frown on his face as the skeleton did not get better with the magic ability, "Was it because skeletons are not supposed to have such ability? Well I never heard any creature have such an ability," he thought.
He sends his mind to check the skeleton's level once again, to his disappointment and confusion, it is still stuck on level 4.
"Strange, it did increase, why is it stuck now?" Char thinks really hard to solve his problem, "Was it a fluke that it increased the level?"
"Maybe it's not a fluke, the skeleton was level 4 and it stopped at level 4 again, maybe the magic could not push the skeletons limit but it could refill the magic it had lost!" Char concluded.
To find out, Char would need to use up the mana again and push the skeleton level down before he tried again with it.
If his theory was correct then he would be able to experiment with magic circles as much as he wanted.
Even researchers had a problem in researching magic because it would take too much mana to experiment with one and their summoned creature would not be able to keep up with their mana expenditure.
"I could even experiment on how to make a skeleton to be arc-duke level!" Char said excitedly, there was so much he could do with such a number of mana.
"Well it's not the time for dreaming, I will need to experiment further," he thought.
Char sent his consciousness to the other two magic circles, he had plans for both of them but now with the unlimited possibility, he could make more extravagant plans.
"Ugh... I will go with the first plan first, then if it really works I will upgrade them," he decided in case it was just a fluke.
Char added flesh rune to the bone regeneration magic circle to make it into flesh and bone regeneration magic.
Then he added both slicing and a piercing rune on the physical resistance magic circle to upgrade its capability.
"That should do the job," he thought, then checked the skeleton's levels had gotten back to one, "Level one check."
"Now the moment of truth," he thought as he summoned the skeleton, but it directly exploded in front of him albeit weaker, "ughhh... right it needs to adapt first," he mumbled.
After a few dozen of summoning and exploding later, the skeleton finally got summoned without exploding right away.
"Finally!" Char cheered in his heart as he was impatient to see the result, "now, the real moment of truth," he thought as he commanded the skeleton to use the active mana gathering magic.
A vortex of mana was created with the skeleton as the center, it did not take long before it exploded once more creating a deep crater on the ground.
Char directly checks the skeleton's mana level to find it reaches level 4 again, "It's working!" He could not help but shout in happiness.
He started to laugh by himself, "Hahahaha!!! I just made a big discovery! With this, it's not impossible to reach Duke rank, even arch-duke is not a dream anymore!"
The sky already turned dark long ago because Char did too much experiment with this mana gathering magic.
"Should I upgrade the magic circle more ?" he contemplated but Char ended up deciding against it, "I should research more about magic so I could make a concrete plan to move forward."
Even though tomorrow was going to be the first sparring class, Char was not afraid that he would lose, with his upgraded magic he could stand on equal ground with others.
If the other had upgraded their summoned creature's magic too then he could just send his skeleton to explode on their face ending the fight in a draw.
"Hehehe... I can't wait to see their expression when their summoned creature got beaten by a skeleton," Char grinned in satisfaction with his plan.
"Do you think beating a genius like me would be easy? Think again!!!" he smirked to himself.
Char went back to his dorm to sleep when he passed by the library, to his surprise, there was light inside the library.
The Genius usually stays in the library before dark and he rarely met anyone there, to find someone was staying until this late in the library was strange.
"Who is it? the librarian would not stay this long," he asked curiously while getting closer to a nearby window.
He peeked through the window to find a girl sitting while reading a book under candlelight, she had a stack of the book beside her showing that she had been there for a while.
"Aya Angelwing? Was she always this diligent?" Char recognized the girl, there was no way he could mistake that silver hair and red eyes, in the whole academy only Aya had such a beautiful feature.
Char never met or talked with Aya before but he considered her to be his rival, Aya was known as a genius as well, people said that she did not need to study or hard work to be a genius as she came from a noble house.
What Char saw right in front of his eyes was quite different, rather than the cold and aloof genius, Char saw someone like himself, someone who works hard to get to the top, someone that put their all to be the best.
If Char was still the academy number one genius then he would love to befriend the girl, but he currently did not have the qualification to do so.
"Forget it, she would not even talk with someone like me," he lamented as he turned around to leave.
Unlucky for him, he stepped on a branch which attracted the girl's attention, before he could run away, he heard a kyu-ing sound behind him, "kyu kyu kyu!"
Char could sense danger behind him but he was powerless to dodge when a blast of solid light hit him from behind, sending him rolling on the ground before crashing into a tree.
"Ack!" Char yelped in pain as he crashed to the tree.
Not long after, Aya figures appeared from the library, "who's there?" She asked toward Char.
Beside her was a glowing baby with wings in its back and a halo on top of its head, before Char could explain himself, the cherub's hands glow yellow about to attack again, "Kyu!" it said.
"Fuck!" Char cursed in his heart.