My Bugged System Made Me Too OP!-Chapter 16: Mana arts

He was mid–Apprentice Magus, one who had just broken through mere minutes ago at that.

Which was why this made no sense.

His breathing slowed further.

’If I can sense it... can I draw it in?’

Still seated in his lotus position, Noah narrowed his focus.

Instead of merely observing the particles, he reached toward them with his will.

At first, nothing happened.

The faint yellow dots remained suspended in place, drifting lazily through the air as if indifferent to his attempt.

He tightened his focus.

He did not strain physically, but his awareness sharpened, pressing outward like an invisible hand.

The effort felt unfamiliar.

Drawing mana from the core was easy—it was his own.

This was different.

This was like trying to grasp smoke.

For several seconds, there was only stillness.

Then—

A faint tremor.

One of the dim particles quivered.

Another shifted slightly toward him.

The movement was subtle, almost imperceptible, but he felt it.

Encouraged, Noah maintained the steady pull.

It was difficult at first. The ambient mana resisted cohesion. It wanted to remain dispersed, scattered thinly across the room. His pull felt clumsy, unrefined.

But then—

Just like with the circulation earlier—

Something clicked.

The resistance lessened.

The act of drawing the mana became smoother, and a lot more natural.

As if his body remembered how to do it.

The invisible pull strengthened without him consciously adjusting it.

The sparse yellow particles began drifting toward him more decisively, crossing the small distance between the walls and his seated figure.

They moved faster now, and more steadily.

One by one, they reached him and sank into his body.

Noah exhaled slowly as the first cluster entered through his skin.

The sensation was cool.

The newly absorbed mana swirled briefly near the surface of his veins before being caught in the current of the golden energy already coursing within him.

He guided the absorbed energy carefully.

Once inside, he directed it along with the circulating stream toward his mana core.

The golden current carried the diluted ambient mana inward, funneling it smoothly through his widened veins.

When it reached the core—

There was a subtle shift. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

The faint yellow strands were drawn fully into the center.

For a brief moment, they seemed to lose their identity within the dense sphere of condensed mana.

Then the circulation continued.

The energy flowed back out of the core, rejoining the cycle through his veins.

But it was no longer pale, neither was it thin.

Whenever the sparse mana he absorbed entered and exited his mana core, it transformed, into the same brilliant golden colour as the mana already flowing within him.

The refinement happened naturally of course, with him barely putting effort into it.

Only after leaving the core did it flow into the lightning and ice orbs, splitting and transforming into his elemental mana as usual.

Lightning crackled faintly along his veins.

Ice shimmered coldly in the flow.

Noah’s lips curved slightly.

’It’s refining it... increasing the quality even without me doing much...’

He did not have to compress it manually.

He did not need to filter impurities consciously.

The core itself, guided by whatever circulation method he was using, automatically purified and elevated the ambient mana.

He continued drawing more from the room.

The sparse particles grew even fewer as they were steadily absorbed.

Low-ranked mana arts did not perform this level of refinement so seamlessly.

With low rank mana arts, only a tiny portion of the mana would be able to increase slightly in quality, while the rest would simply flow back out of the body.

What he was experiencing now felt... advanced.

It strengthened the thought that had been forming since earlier.

The system.

It had not merely strengthened his body.

It had not only widened his veins and upgraded his core.

It must have bestowed something else.

A mana art.

Not one he had learned through study.

Not one given by the academy.

But one integrated directly into him.

There was no other explanation.

His previous self had struggled endlessly with the academy’s low-ranked technique. It was rigid and inefficient for him.

But this was very different. It flowed as though it had always belonged to him.

He wasn’t sure of its rank.

There was no way to measure it precisely.

But he knew enough about mana arts to judge by effect.

The smooth circulation.

The instinctive absorption.

The automatic refinement of ambient mana before elemental transformation.

These were not characteristics of a low-ranked technique.

They surpassed what he had heard about medium-ranked arts as well.

A faint spark of excitement stirred in his chest.

At the very least—

It had to be high grade, or maybe even higher... a legendary supreme grade mana art!

Supreme grade.

The word lingered in his thoughts for a brief moment before he shook his head faintly.

Calling it that would be too much.

Even if everything he was experiencing felt extraordinary, he knew enough not to let his excitement run wild. Supreme-grade mana arts were the stuff of legends. They were spoken of in history classes with a tone usually reserved for ancient relics and lost civilizations.

According to the academy’s records, supreme-grade mana arts were already extinct.

The instructors had made that clear.

Such techniques once existed during the golden age of magi, when powerful bloodlines and ancient sects ruled vast territories.

But over centuries of wars, betrayals, and decline, those supreme techniques disappeared. Some were destroyed. Others were lost when their creators died without passing them down.

By the present era, even high-grade mana arts were rare and tightly guarded.

Supreme-grade ones?

No one in the academy believed they still existed.

So for him to casually assume that the system had granted him something of that caliber would be arrogance.

No.

High grade at the very least.

That was already more than enough.

He steadied his breathing again and continued absorbing the remaining ambient mana in the room. The sparse yellow particles had grown fewer and fewer with each passing minute. Now only a handful drifted near the ceiling and corners.

He pulled gently.

They moved toward him without resistance.

One after another, they sank into his body, merging with the golden current flowing through his veins.

Soon—

There was nothing left.