(A/N: Check Auxiliary Chapters for announcement)
The next morning, he got up early again to go to the forest. He walked to the forest without any dagger because he wasn't planning on using his aura techniques. He was going to only hunt 2nd Circle Magical Beasts, so he was going to use his magic. He prepared himself a cloak to hide his identity in case someone saw him.
He was now very used to looking for Magical Beasts in the forest since they were all in the Outer Forest. They weren't in packs either which was a plus. Larger groups of Magical Beasts typically had stronger 3rd Circle Magical Beasts at the helm.
He got to the forest and found his first target quickly and headed toward it silently. It was an Emberfang Wolf. He got ready to fight it.
His routine with every 2nd Circle Magical Beast was basically bombarding it with Flame Bursts and dodging any of its attacks with Shadow Step. In case he faced an animal that could attack him with ranged attacks, he would use his shield to block those attacks. The Emberfang Wolf was an animal that would attack him at close range, so he would employ the first tactic.
It took him a few rounds of flame bursts to completely deal with the wolf. Since it was also a fire-element Magical Beast, his attacks did slightly less damage. He took the core and went to his next prey.
The entire day was mostly him resting from his fights. He would finish his fights and look for his next opponent slowly. He stayed in the forest for around 6 hours before heading back. He was able to hunt 7 magical beasts in that time, giving him a total of 8 Beast Cores.
He was pleased with his progress and went back quickly to his house. He wanted to see how much all the Beast Cores he had would impact the plant. He got back and shut himself in his room. He took out all the Beast Cores and put them on his bed.
He had a total of around 50 1st Circle Beast Cores and 8 2nd Circle Beast Cores, so his bed was filled with those. He grabbed 2 of the 1st Circle ones with his hands and went into his mind. He threw them to the plant and got out to repeat the process.
It was very boring to take them one by one, so he started taking as many as he could fit with his hands. He piled them by using his arms as a basket and took around 7-8 at once. In 2 minutes, all the 1st Circle Beast Cores disappeared. The plant grew only 10 cm with all those cores. But he was still okay with that.
This was because the plant finally started growing new leaves. The first leaf regrew where he plucked it after 5 cores. The next one took some time since a branch started growing out. The branch sprouted 2 more leaves after 20 cores. The rest of the cores gave the plant another branch with a single leaf. Now the plant had 8 leaves.
Now it was time for the 2nd Circle Beast Cores. He only took one to start with. He wanted to see how that would survive in his mind. When he brought it into his mind, unlike the 1st Circle Beast Core, the one in his hand seemed more solid. It was just a little bit since it also crumbled after a few seconds, but it stayed solid for a little longer.
He threw it to the tree and saw that the one core gave the plant an entire leaf at the newest branch. It also started the growth of a new branch, but not completely. This was because the amount of magic in a 2nd Circle Beast Core was more than 10 times that of a 1st Circle one, especially because the 1st Circle Beast Cores were from very weak Magical Beasts.
He smiled and went back to get the rest of the beast cores. He threw all of them at the plant and saw what happened. The plant didn't grow at all, but three new branches grew out and each branch now had three leaves. In total, the plant had 20 leaves. This was more than enough for him to train for a full week.
He was only unsure about whether it was enough for him to break through to the 3rd Circle. He knew that it was more than enough to create 10 stars like the 2nd star he made, but as he made new stars, each star required more magic. They were also further away from the grass. He guessed that he could, but he didn't want to assume. It was still far away anyway. First, he had to reach the Peak-Stage.
He plucked the same leaf he plucked the first time and started his training. He already brought in enough food to last him the entire training session. He brought in 15 grain balls that were able to stay without spoiling for months. They tasted bad, but he only needed to take one to reach the bare minimum amount of nutrition he needed. As a mage, magic itself gave him the energy he needed to go through the day and meals became unnecessary. Having aura also helped.
He took the leaf into his and sat on his now-cleared-up bed. He sat in a comfortable position and started meditating. The leaf started glowing and he started gathering magic. He quickly went into a trance because he needed to concentrate deeply to gather the dense magic that was around him.
With aura, the problem was that he needed rest after each pill that he took. This was because he needed to circulate the aura to tame it and then gather it in his dantian. It exhausted his body. He didn't have that problem with training magic. To him, magic was his nature. He could easily take any amount of it within reasonable amounts and absorb it without needing to tame the energy. This was only possible because the magic quickly accepted him as its new owner.
This made it very easy to train in magic. This also meant that he didn't actually need any breaks. As long as his focus remained, he could train for as long as he wanted. When he started, he could only maintain that concentration for a few hours. But as he became stronger and trained for longer, the time he could maintain his concentration increased too. He could maintain his meditation for more than a day without any problem.
He could also freely take out the leaves which were only in his mind with ease. So this meant that he could go on training magic for an entire day without a break. He could go on until he felt hungry. He could then come out for a single grain ball after that and recover for an hour before resuming. He didn't even need sleep because the magic was rejuvenating his body. He only planned on staying in for a week, but two weeks shot by just like that.
