He guided the flow himself, channeling the surging, building power not outward in explosion, but inward.
He began twisting, folding, and stabilizing the runaway energies into a functional construct deep within his sea of consciousness.
In truth, the spell inscription would have failed entirely without the continuous influx of spiritual force; its complexity bordered on what should have been a Rank 2 model, far beyond standard Rank 1 limits.
But now, with this perfect outlet formed, the crushing internal pressure within his mind quickly bled away and stabilized.
[Spell Model Complete — Innate Spell — Active!]
[Resonance Drained — Pressure Stabilizing…]
[Spiritual Force capped at equilibrium: 34.1]
Leylin exhaled slowly.
The very air around him shimmered faintly as he subconsciously broadcasted and received ambient mana fluctuations.
[Status: Rank 1 Magus — Achieved.]
[Network Capability: Active — Range currently limited by mana infusion, scalable with advancement.]
Then something stranger still occurred.
His sea of consciousness suddenly stirred.
'What's up with this breakthrough? It's not over yet?!'
The unnamed innate spell he had just forged to ascend began to dissolve.
Literally, not failing, not breaking apart, but unraveling neatly into countless glowing meta‑runes.
Instead of vanishing, these fragments drifted outward and fused seamlessly into the very boundaries, walls, and fabric of his consciousness itself bringing him a sense of consolidation.
In another instant, his perspective was yanked from it's tranquil state and began to shift entirely.
He was suddenly no longer looking from his eyes and instead, he was looking down at himself.
He hovered high above the room, viewing his own seated body like an avatar in a vast simulation.
Reveling in it for a moment he felt a profound, absolute sense of control over every mote of mana within a certain radius around him.
He could feel every pulse, every flow, every fluctuation was known to him, and could be directed as easily as moving a finger.
Leylin could instinctively feel that this range could be expanded, stretched further outward, if he's willing to spend more spiritual force.
He willed it, and instantly his view shifted.
His perception began splitting, layering, seeing from every angle at once: forward, behind, above, and straight down through the stone floor into the levels beneath the academy.
He could peer into every room within his domain if he wished, sense every living soul moving through it.
And so he did.
Further down, he even saw Bicky, his fellow apprentice under Kroft entangled rather enthusiastically with another acolyte who was decidedly not her fiancé.
Leylin observed them with complete detachment, he felt no surprise, nor judgment.
Just as it had always been: people did what they wanted to survive or find comfort.
Each to their own.
He willed his perception back then.
The world snapped instantly back to normal, his eyes once again the window to his mind and the transition left him oddly reluctant, as if returning to a cage after walking free.
Intuition however, told him that the state he was in could not be maintained indefinitely; it was expensive, conspicuous, and it was far too early to flaunt.
There were still things to do.
Questions to answer.
'Like what exactly just happened just now?' Leylin asked internally with curiosity.
He turned his focus inward, examining his sea of consciousness closely and his eyes widened in genuine shock.
Everything was dandy.
It's just that his innate spell slot was completely empty.
He ran through the data, cross‑referencing, mapping the changes until the truth became clear.
Instead of sitting neatly within the slot as spells were meant to, the spell had resonated so perfectly with the nature of his consciousness that the spell had assimilated the container itself, becoming part of his fundamental existence.
'If the projections hold true…' he calculated silently, 'then I can solidify any spell within that empty space now, and it will become a new innate ability. A second one? Or… is the first one simply me now?'
It was entirely outside convention, no precedent existed in any record he had accessed.
But Leylin smiled, sharp and determined. Whatever the rules were now, he would not waste such a slot on anything ordinary.
'A normal attack, defense, or utility spell?' he thought firmly.
'Nope. Fat chance! Whatever takes that place next… it will be something that rewrites the rules of this world to my advantage.'
Just then, Leylin frowned.
A set of data he previously received flagged sharply within his awareness.
Beneath the calm facade of the academy, reports from the surrounding areas of the three academies are pointing to rapidly escalating friction between Sage Gotham's Hut and Abyssal Bone Forest.
His mind instantly cross‑referenced timelines and historical patterns.
According to all known records, there should still be plenty of time before these disputes boil over into open war… tensions are rising far earlier than expected.
He leaned back slightly, a faint, calculating glint in his eyes.
"That could be a very good opportunity to worm straight into the higher hierarchical stage within the three academies."
War meant chaos, vacancies, desperate needs for power, and perfect openings for those who knew how to step forward at exactly the right moment.
"I'll prepare thoroughly for when the time comes," he decided, shelving the thought to mature alongside his other long‑term plans while a team from the outside actively investigates the situation.
Onto the next agenda.
His forward base in Extreme Night City, far to the East, had just delivered news of an interesting catch: they've caught a juvenile Mankestre Snake.
A very distant, lesser relative of the infamous Kemoyin Serpent, the bloodline once belonging to the legendary Great Magus Serholm himself.
"Duty calls…" he murmured, rising to his feet. 'But first—let's do something about this spiritual force radiation oozing out of me like I'm a mobile nuclear reactor...'
He focused inward.
The imposing, newly‑risen Rank 1 Magus radiation emanating from within him receded like a falling tide, drawing deep, folding in on itself until not a scrap leaked outward.
Step by precise step, he calibrated and stabilized his presence, masking his true power until it radiated nothing more impressive than a standard newly advanced Rank 3 Acolyte.
Absolute concealment or containment is only possible with Leylin's nanite swarms and the degree of his ability to control spiritual force and mana inside and even outside of his body.
Without the thorough physical examination from another magus, it would be very difficult to tell that he's disguised his own spiritual force radiation in order to pretend as a rank 3 apprentice.
Leylin believed that there's no need to alert everyone of his accomplishments just to receive some useless recognition.
'Attention is only valuable when you stand to gain from it. Otherwise… the shadows are far safer.'
He wore his robe and headed to report his progress to Professor Kroft, he needed to justify his recent absences by showing results like promoting to a rank 3.
He arrived only to find his mentor deeply occupied with an urgent commission and unable to see anyone for the foreseeable future.
Leylin did not linger or insist, he simply nodded in understanding, turned, and made straight for the Task Hall instead.
He selected and accepted the official quest investigating the withering blight spreading through Extreme Night City's woods which is a perfect legitimate cover for his journey.
If his analysis proves true, this blight itself is being caused by the very creature he's about to meet.
Moments after stepping out past the academy gates, a creature emerged from the gloom to meet him: a tall and handsome Horse, its mane, hooves and tail naturally burning with eerie green hellfire.
'KnightMare...' he almost laughed at his own thoughts.
With a command, a ripple of silvery liquid spread across its form and began shifting, reshaping, smoothing away the demonic features.
Where the nightmare once stood was now an exceptionally handsome, powerful pure‑black warhorse, every line noble and strong.
Leylin swung into the saddle and set off at a gallop.
As he rode, his mind drifted, there was something oddly familiar about the rhythm, the surge of speed beneath him.
'Almost exactly like riding a motorcycle at full throttle,' he mused, recalling echoes of another world.
'If I keep this pace, I should reach Extreme Night City in a day or two.'
He had barely cleared the treeline when danger struck.
From deep within the shadowed woods ahead, a blazing sphere of fire roared straight toward him—fast, accurate, and packed with enough heat to incinerate a normal apprentice outright.
Leylin did not tense.
He did not blink.
He did not even feel the slightest ripple of alarm.
There's no danger at all.
His reached out his hand as his eyes glowed with a hint of purple hue.
Before the fireball could close to thirty meters away, it simply disintegrated into its components and scattered to the surroundings.
Snuffed out, unraveled into harmless motes of scattered heat and light, as if it had never been woven at all.
Absolute silence returned to the forest path.
Leylin's gaze remained steady, sweeping calmly into the darkness where the spell had originated.
"It seems there's a limit to the degree of spells I'm able to deconstruct outright… Anyway. Perfect timing. I need to vent some steam."
Hardly had the words left his lips when two more attacks followed, an acid splash hissing with corrosive power and a sharp, whistling magic arrow tearing through the air.
Leylin smiled faintly as he guided his horse to turn, charging straight toward his hidden attackers. As for the incoming spells, a translucent platform woven of runes shimmered silently into existence across their path, swallowing both projectiles whole.
A heartbeat later, those very same spells emerged again from the other side of the barrier, refined, optimized, and far more potent, rockering back along the exact trajectory toward their original caster.
Groans of sharp pain and curses echoed through the forest. Stepping out from the shadows,
Leylin saw his assailants, boldly clad in the distinct robes of Sage Gotham's Hut.
Running his database of known apprentices, he frowned.
Either these two were able evade the sweep of his sleeper agents or they are instigating conflict between Sage Gotham and Abyssal Bone.
'The latter is more likely.'
Leylin hasn't gone deep into investigation about who caused what in this conflict but his projections shows that it shouldn't be escalating this fast.
"Rank 2 apprentices," he noted, scanning their trembling auras.
"Seems their leader managed to slip away… No matter. These two will serve just fine."
Magical creatures are rare, this was one undisputed fact of this world.
And at this level of power, Rank 2 apprentices could already be classified as such, a living reservoirs of mana, walking formations of flesh and spirit.
Leylin wasn't wasteful enough to just unalive these perfectly fine test subjects.
After all, many of his experiments involved things that shouldn't be done to his underlings.
With a casual thought, a murder of red‑eyed ravens swooped down from the direction of Abyssal Bone Academy, descending swiftly to land around him, carrying tools, plants and materials he had requested beforehand.
"If it wouldn't make me look like some cliche villain," Leylin murmured, stroking the glossy, iridescent black feathers of the flock's leader, 'I'd have these foragers in tow everywhere…'
He looked toward the now bound, pale‑faced apprentices. "Maybe some other time."
What followed next was a series of thorough, systematic and entirely impromptu biological and magical experiments.
He studied their mana circuits, their affinity structures, their spell‑casting rhythms and physical limits, harvesting every scrap of data possible.
By the time he finished, packed up and finally set off again, what should have been a three‑day journey had stretched into a full week.
But Leylin didn't mind, every delay meant knowledge gained, and every discovery brought him one step further beyond the limits of this world's common sense.