Chapter 4 - Delay Time

After breakfast, Auran didn't immediately jump into learning the new spells. He first ordered new furniture for his room. Although it cost him a few coins, it was a much-needed thing for him. After all, he couldn't sit on the bed all the time.

Soon, a new table and chair appeared in his room, and closing the door tightly, Auran leaned on the comfy sofa and closed his eyes.

"Phew!

Here goes."

He reached out to the intuitional notebook in his mind, turned to the first page, and studied the first spell from the basic spells.

Named Delay, it was the spell he had casted before. Its effect was as simple as the name suggested—it reduced the speed of an object or substance in a specific direction of his choosing.

To use the spell, Auran first needed to draw the magic circle and connect with the time source to draw out the mana of time. Then, using the mana of time, he cast the spell of time delay above the surface of the magic circle.

The reason why the spell was cast above the mana circle was because it required the continuous support of time mana to work.

After reading the explanation, Auran understood why the previous Delay spell had suddenly failed.

It was because he hadn't provided enough mana for the space magic that maintained the magic circle in the air, causing the circle to disappear with the loss of mana attraction.

Mana was the most important thing to a magician—if not the most important thing in all of magic. It was basically the life energy of magic. Being able to turn into any kind of magical source, the energy called mana was the fundamental substance behind every form of magic.

From birth, every being possessed at least a tiny bit of mana in their body. Depending on the sensitivity one possessed toward mana, a person could improve the amount of mana within themselves. And only a person who had enough mana sensitivity to increase their mana like this could become a magus.

Using the mana in their body, a person could cast basic spells of a magic field. But to go beyond that level and cast advanced spells, one had to choose a desirable path for themselves and convert the mana inside their body into the mana of that chosen path.

It was a complicated process that one could achieve only after completely developing their own field and having full confidence in the path they chose. Because once someone converted their mana into a specific path, it was permanent and could not be changed again.

The mana that existed within oneself before being converted into another type was called empty mana or blank mana. To use basic spells, a magician would first use empty mana and channel the mana of the field needed to cast the spell. If it was a fire spell, the empty mana would first draw out fire energy from the surrounding space to cast the spell. In some ways, empty mana was like a vessel that could attract specific mana according to the caster's will.

However, using only this surrounding mana, a magician could not cast spells beyond the basic level. To go further and use advanced spells, they had to bond with the mana field they were aligned with. A magician who achieved this feat was called a Bound Magus.

After rereading the steps to casting the spell, Auran opened his eyes and extended his hand forward. Using his own mana, he first drew the mana circle in the air. The process was incredibly complex, and if not for the guidance of the book, Auran knew he wouldn't have been able to achieve something like this for at least another five or six years of effort.

The circle was the most important element that connected him to the source of time. It was unfortunate that Auran still didn't know where this source lay or how the circle was able to locate the source of time. Maybe in the future, when more pages turned in the notebook, he would learn about it.

After successfully drawing the circle, the transparent mana of time flowed out like water from a river. Reaching out to it, Auran fought a difficult battle as he tried to bend the flow to his will and cast the Delay spell.

The mana of time was immensely heavy, and Auran learned after a few moments of trying that the more abundant the transparent time mana substance flowing from the circle became, the heavier it was. So, he canceled the first circle and started over. This time, he drew the circle smoothly but thinly. As a result, the mana of time that flowed out from the circle was much less.

Using the thin stream of time mana, which was much lighter than before, Auran cast the Delay spell above the circle, choosing his direction to delay.

[Delay spell cast successfully]

[Mastery of the basic spell Delay at 3%]

A familiar sound reached Auran's ears. And since he had only reached three percent mastery, Auran once again began casting the spell. The more he practiced, the more he realized that the faster he cast the spell, the more his mastery increased.

When he first cast Delay, it took him about five minutes to complete it. By common sense, spending that much time on one spell was a laughable feat. If it had been during a battle, Auran would have been dead before even finishing the spell.

[Delay spell cast successfully]

[Mastery of the basic spell Delay at 60%]

When it took Auran about two minutes to cast the spell, the mastery appeared at sixty percent. That was after hours of effort. Afterward, Auran noticed that although he had managed to shorten the time required to cast the spell, the rate of mastery increase had slowed down a bit.

"Mastery speed seems to be slowing down. Is there any other aspect I need to improve in to achieve complete mastery?"

After casting the Delay spell a few more times, Auran got no answer to his question. So he decided to take a break. Although it did not cost him much mana to draw the mana circle in space and continue to supply it to exist in the air, the basic time spell Delay would not last as long as he wished.

The reason was the substance called mana of time was incredibly stubborn to deal with. Although Auran could bend it, it would soon change and reshape into something like flowing water. When this happened, the Delay spell cast using time mana would disappear.

To thoroughly study this process carefully, with the help of his remarkable intelligence, Auran first cast the spell as he had the first time, without thinking about the amount of mana of time. While doing this, he figured out that if he increased the amount of mana of time he supplied to the spell, it would not break for a longer duration.

After realizing this, he cast a new spell using a bit more flowing time than he usually did in order to increase his mastery. Previously, the Delay spell would last only about one minute. But after Auran increased the time flow slightly, it lasted for one minute and ten more seconds.

[Delay spell cast successfully]

[Mastery of the basic spell Delay at 70%]

"The rate of increased duration of the spell is far lower than I expected it to be, but if I increase the amount of time mana further, it will be harder to control."

Looking at the disappearing spell after exactly one and a ten seconds, Auran had a bitter smile on his face.