Sensing the Mana in the air, I begin to absorb it into my body. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take much effort, but it still requires me to absorb and refine it—I can’t just pull raw Mana into my body. Even when I try to harness raw Mana, I see the waves moving away from me as if rejecting me.

I glance at Lilith and see a small pool of Mana forming around her, about a 0.5 meter radius. The warm energy dances around her in a mesmerizing way.

"WHAT THE HELL?! ONE METER RADIUS IN SUCH A SHORT TIME!" Aleena suddenly exclaims, looking at me like a monster, her eyes wide in shock.

I’m startled by her reaction but I don’t stop what I’m doing. Apparently I still can’t exactly gauge the size of my own Mana pool yet, but it feels like I can absorb even more Mana.

Lilith, on the other hand, is already sweating buckets. Since the last time, her Mana pool has only grown a little—maybe about 0.2 meters more but her total is still not up to a 1 meter radius.

I continue absorbing Mana, but then I notice Aleena’s face looking even more shocked, making me twitch my eyebrows at what the fuck is going on.

"T-Two meters!" Aleena shouts again.

Even with her shocked expression, I feel like I can still do more, but I stop absorbing and put on an expression as if I’m in pain.

"Haaa~ I can’t absorb more," I say, faking heavy breathing.

"That was epic! You managed to boost your Mana pool to this size on the first day of learning how to do it! I’ve been training my Mana pool for over five years and it’s only three meters radius. You’d be a prodigy if you had the warrior Class or mage Class," Aleena blurts out, saying the last part in a low voice. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

I simply let out a sigh. Then she turns to Lilith too.

"Lilith, you also did great! The size of your Mana pool is almost a meter radius. That’s bigger than mine when I started learning magic. You two are amazing," Aleena says with a bright smile while Lilith flushes.

"Now, it’s time to study that spell I gave you guys," Aleena says, and we nod, holding the paper firmly in our hands.

The next moment, I imagine my system scanning the document, and immediately a notification appears: [You have learned a basic fireball spell.]

Soon after, familiar texts begin to appear before my eyes. I read it out, stretching my palm forward.

"fubâúajajk^°¢%"

VOOOM!

The moment I chant the spell, a burst of fire explodes from my palm and begins levitating just above it. It’s about the size of a tennis ball and perfectly spherical.

I try to move the fireball around my palm and it actually moves. Each time I do this, I feel my Mana draining bit by bit. Even sustaining the fireball drains my Mana.

I point at a patch of grass a few meters away and propel the fireball there.

VOOM.

The grass explodes into flames but they quickly die out almost immediately. At the same time, I feel a significant portion of Mana taken from me just from propelling it forward. That means every action with a spell consumes Mana as long as it’s active.

A grin curls on my lips as I look over at Lilith, who Aleena is explaining something to. Apparently Lilith is having problems with chanting—hers is way too slow to activate the spell. When chanting is too slow, the spell won’t activate. That means in a battle between two magic users, it’ll be decided by who can cast faster. A slow caster would be an easy target.

"You’re getting better. Now chant it faster," Aleena says, cheering Lilith up.

"fubâúajajk^°¢%!" Lilith lets out in a shout. Immediately, a fireball bursts from her palm, but it quickly fizzles out as she panics.

"Finally... I finally did it!" Lilith pumps her fist and high-fives Aleena.

"That’s it. Since you can now cast it, it’s up to you to keep practicing until you can control it well. Just don’t do it indoors. Once you can control it really well, I’ll give you the other basic spells I have," Aleena says to Lilith, who nods in return.

Then both of them glance over at me.

"I—I saw Jacob conjure the fireball toward the grass," Lilith stutters, looking at me as if she doesn’t know what to say.

"You know what, Lilith? Don’t compare yourself to anyone if you want to grow. I actually sucked a lot when I started learning magic. I was usually bullied—which is why I hate Magic Academies. Jacob has always been different ever since I knew him, so I’m not surprised he learned to control the fireball on his first try," Aleena explains to Lilith while I put on a confused expression, as if I have no idea how it happened.

"I don’t know how I did that. I just imagined controlling the fireball over there and I actually did it," I explain, and they seem to believe my bullshit.

The only reason I could do it was because of the card I consumed: Profound Mana Control. But something else is still bothering me.

I walk over to Aleena and sling my arm around her neck while Lilith folds the mat and ties it up.

"I was wondering if the system ranking is actually the same as the Adventurer ranking? For instance, my System says I’m now E-Rank. Does that mean I’m automatically an E-Rank Adventurer?" I ask.

Aleena’s eyes widen at my question. "No, it doesn’t work that way because of a lot of inconsistencies. Your Class rank is different from your actual adventurer rank. For instance, can an S-Rank Class Artisan beat an S-Rank Class warrior in battle? No. The Artisan is only S-Rank in his craft. That’s why before each rank up in the Adventurers Guild, a machine scans you and updates your information. To avoid this inconsistency, you can change your system class to display another style of leveling. That’s what I did," Aleena explains, and I nod, everything finally making sense.

The next moment, we enter the house. During the entirety of this week, I stay in seclusion, training my magic casting speed and honing my Mana Control even further.

==============================

[A/N: I shot myself in the foot by trying to unify the system ranking and general power-level. I realized this blunder early on and I apologize. The system will start ranking in Levels now. As of this time, Jacob’s Class is at Lv2 while he is E-Rank as an Adventurer.]