trial 3

Blip!

Letting the cultivation matter to his body to do it automatically, Arthan conscious entering his mind palace.

Cracks~ Cracks~

Uuurp! Uuurp!

Arthan mind palace sky is cracking and sucking like crazy. All mana in turbulence state and some mana are sucks out by the crack to god knows where. If Arthan had been dillydallying for another minute, his mind palace would already be empty with nothing!

‘Bloody hell!!’ exclaims Arthan furiously. He is so shocked and maddened at the current state of his mind palace.

‘ALL STANDSTILL!!!’ with all mindpower at his disposal, Arthan influencing all grey mana mist in his mind palace to stop whirling around.

Whhooooossh

Grey mana mist that kept circling around and creating numerous vortexes all cease circle and become standstill.

‘Cramps in that Side!’ 

Arthan commands the grey mana mist to cramp to the side with fewer cracks, so he merely needs to use as minimal as it can control the grey mana mist.

From mere sight, Arthan can see that more than half of his mana has gone to the drain, and what is left now are merely chump change.

‘Bloody hell! My cultivation from the last weeks goes down the drain! It’s all because of that fuc--’

Arthan wants to put all the blame on his father, yet remembering his whitening hair, he can only stop himself.

gleam~ gleam~

The gleaming light blue glow that falls on top of his head make Arthan raise his head and see a dark sky with no moon nor star, but there Arthan could see an object gleaming in a light blue glow.

The glow felt so warm and soothing. Its glows slowly but surely calmed Arthan and made him forget about his rage.

This light blue object is Arthan elemental wheel, or to be precise, the water wheel, the mark that he is a water magico.

There are nine wheels in the Arthan water wheel, where a smaller wheel is inside a bigger one, creating a concentric circle like the ripples in the lake.

‘The water wheel has stopped turning! That must be why I can’t cast a spell!’

Arthan's water wheel was currently not turning and remained static in his mind palace dark sky like a mere magnificent painting, and because it wasn't turning, Arthan had now lost the way to talk to the water Mana in the atmosphere.

Crack~ Uuurp! Uuurp! Crack~ Uuurp!

His mind palace continued to play the requiem of madness, signalling him and urging him to quickly resolve the mess he had created.

‘Calm down! The cracks are mere basketball-size…’ examining the problem, Arthan beat his brains out to find the most efficient way to patch them, ‘... then… a patch of raw mana around 50MP should be enough to patch each crack!’

MP was an abbreviation from ‘mana point’, a measurement unit Arthan created in his quest to balance raw mana and water mana or the first step to contracting element.

One MP is equal to the sum of average mana mist he can gain in one set of yoga meditation.

Though as years went by the gains that Arthan can get in one set of meditation is getting bigger in volume. But the size of one MP mana is already ingrained in Arthan mind like a cook can seasonings their foods by mere sight.

woom woom

‘CONDENSE!’ 

with his mind power, Arthan controlled 50MP of raw mana, separated from the other, and condensed it in the shape of plaster before plastering it to the nearest cracks.

Why plaster? Because it is what Arthan can though when he is wounded.

Zip--

The sucking and cracking sound of that crack was no more.

‘This should be enough, right?’

This is the first for Arthan to patch his mind palace, but there is a chapter regarding how to mend the cracked mind palace in clown prince grimoire

[God created humans with the greatest care, we have various self-healing capacities from every kind of ailments.]

This is what the author of the grimoire writes. 

Although the grimoire also lists a potion and others items that can instantly patch them. But the author recommends for the beginner spellcaster to mend the crack with their own mana since the cracked place should be not so bad that it needs a potion. 

Thus, they can learn from it and create their own self-healing spell.

Sweat-- Sweat---

‘That what the author said... but... I think the mess I have should be much worse than what he thought!’

Eeerf~ Eeerf~

‘Come on! You can do it, pal!

Arthan is on edge, watching the plaster that he used to patch a crack, little by little kept shifting because of the sucking power of the other cracked spot on the right of it.

Eeerf~ 

‘Grrrr! Stop it! You can do it!’ like he was watching football, Arthan cheering the plaster as its left edge almost losing the grip.

Silence

‘Phew... Thanks, God!’ seeing the plaster not shifting again, Arthan thanked his god.

Eeerf~

‘NO!!!’ 

As if the god of game playing a game with him. After he thanked his god, the plaster suddenly shifts to the right. And now it is right on top of the open crack that it’s plastered before.

Uurruurrf!

‘Bloody hell! You get on my NERVE!’ exclaims Arthan furiously, witnessing the plaster he used to plaster a crack sucked by the same cracked spot it plastered.

woom woom

‘CONDENSE! CONDENSE! CONDENSE!’

At first, Arthan wants to sparely use the mana since he still needs to use the mana for another thing, but what he sees is like switching his madness on.

Arthan keeps condensing his raw mana and creating three plaster each batch.

Zip-- zip-- zip--

Plaster by plaster thrown by Arthan to plastering each of the cracked spots in his mind palace.

‘Huff.. huff.. now.. you know how hard I was when hustling!... huff huff…’

Though there is no way for mind power projection to have pant breath, Arthan still did it since it could make him look tough.

This act is a by-product after months of acting like ‘Chūnibyō’ to extract some clue about how to contract elements from his mother; five years ago.

Silence

Now there is no cracking sound or sucking sound that sounds on Arthan mind palace.

‘Now it’s good… all patched!’  in vain vanity, Arthan acts, marvelling at what he idiotically have done.

Arthan mind palace now is painted grey. 

Yes, grey, he plastered all the cracked spots without thinking about the cost and will wail about it in the next minutes.

‘kekeke...I extraordinarily need to hold myself back! This unstable emotion will be dead of me!’ with a laugh that likes crying, Arthan noted. 

And just like the long list of useless remorse and notes Arthan had made. The new remorses he noted will never ever be heeds by him

Screech--

‘FALL!’ Arthan made all useless plaster fall down and become neutral mana mist.

But because some of the mana has been assigned as fuel to carry out the condensation and sticking commands.

Now, that same mana starts to disappear to nothingness, and another week of Arthan's cultivation goes to the drain for nothing.

‘sob, sob...I truly need to control my emotion!’

Whirl~ Whirl~

With not much grey plaster dirtying his mind palace, Arthan finally can see that six of his nine wheels in the water wheel are now shining so brightly, and the three smallest wheels now keep turning in a tick per second.

‘Phew… that is a relief… there is nothing wrong with the water wheel!’

An elemental wheel is categorized into three-level by design. 

The three smallest is the bottom-level wheel, the wheels number four to six is the middle-level wheel, and the wheels number seven to nine is the top-level wheel.

Like a clock, only after the lower level did their circle that is 360 tick, then the upper-level on will tick for the first time. 

And after all of the wheels have done its circle, one rune of countless runes in the wheels that has yet light up will light up at random. 

So, just by waiting, a wheel will eventually lighten up, although it will take a year or more for the very first wheel to fully lighten up.

‘But that six-glowing wheel…’ the image of sickly pale white haired-man appears inside his minds, ‘…is it the to increase the number?’

The six glows of the wheels represent that Arthan merely needs three big wheels again from completing the water wheel and can choose a spellcaster job of his own choice.

The lighted up runes on the wheel each represent element affinity. There are many ways to increase its number, such as waiting for the water wheel to wholly circle, doing spellcasting countless times, and casting high-tier casting.

But there is another way, and the fastest way possible, to increase element affinity. And that is to tweak a spell formula; especially, if the spellcaster can produce a spell with better efficiency and efficacy after the tweaking.

Because element affinity is all about how well the spellcaster understands the element. 

Thus, by tweaking a spell, the spellcaster will get the bigger cake of understanding this element than simply casting a formulated spell.

This is how Arthan can light up the wheel number four to six when he can’t be bothered much-practising water spells.

‘It’s not impossible, but it will be a pain in the arse jo—’ once again remembering the white-haired man conditions, want it or not Arthan now needs to curb his laziness, ‘…though it seems I truly need to do that and thinking about which job I will apprentice in!’