The next day...
After Vicente finished upgrading all of his group's weapons that had not yet been modified, he was 100% focused on attempting to break through to the 2nd stage.
Having reached just over 99% progress at the Senior Apprentice level hours ago, Vice had been focused on his seclusion ever since.
In the basement of his residence, he was alone in the training area, meditating while the semi-transparent mana around him shone like small stars.
Reaching the peak of a level was not a guarantee of advancement; where one would only have to take the next step and then be at a higher level.
The magic world didn't work that way!
The difference between a 1st-grade pill and a 2nd-grade one, or even between pills of the same grade but different purities, was not just the difference of one minimum point between the threshold of the two.
Each advancement brought with it a significant quantitative difference but also qualitative improvements.
If a Senior Apprentice had 70 points of power when they reached the peak of their level, a level 1 Acolyte wouldn't have 71 points when they reached their new level. No, they could have 100 points, 200 or more. Not only that, but they would gain the ability to feel, see, and understand the world in a completely different way.
This happened more between stages of magic, but it also happened between levels of the same stage.
Because of that, advancing a stage was never as simple as taking the next step and reaching 71 points, as in the example.
In a way, what happened during a breakthrough was like a change of identity, and during a breakthrough, you would change so much that to say you would change your race would not be extreme.
To change so much of yourself, you would need more than just a little energy to get through a bottleneck. They would need a lot of energy for their level. They would have to know how to manage that mana without destroying their bodies or souls. They would have to use it to change themselves, to develop their pentagrams, and to improve the connection between themselves and their Magic Gems.
All of this and more took time and effort on the part of the person trying to advance a stage, especially if they were doing so without the help of external artifacts or resources.
But in order to make this quantitative and qualitative progress, all one needs, apart from having already reached the pinnacle, is understanding, something associated with one's natural talent.
Vicente knew that his talent was not just what his Magic Gem showed. Each of his gems had a different talent, and the strongest talent influenced the weakest.
As such, his understanding, or rather his ease in understanding this world, was superior to that of people with yellow talents.
Usually, people with this level of talent didn't have much trouble advancing from Senior Apprentice to level 1 Acolyte. For them, it was only a matter of time, even if they trained without the help of external items, to evolve their stage powers.
There was little risk of failure for people with such talents, so even though he had two gems that required twice as much mana as normal for a person of his level, Vicente didn't have any major difficulties in his meditation.
While he was collecting mana from his surroundings, he was working on absorbing this mana and, at the same time, using it to enrich his being, his senses, pentagrams, gems, and so on.
During Awakening, one would have all of this enhanced but would have no control over any of it, as everything would happen naturally and be commanded by the Magic Gem that "chose" them. But at higher levels, every time one went through the stage advancement, they would have to command all these processes consciously.
That's why it was so much more difficult and time-consuming to raise one's stage than it was to Awaken magical powers!
Vicente felt that his progress was over 100%, and after two hours of meditation, he reached the mark of over 111% progress.
Still, he didn't feel the changes were remarkable, let alone that the amount of mana under his control would be enough to raise his level.
'A level 1 Acolyte has between 2.5 and 3 times the mana density of a Senior Apprentice.' He understood that he would have to absorb much more mana to advance. 'But I have two Magic Gems. That means I'll have to absorb 5 to 6 times more mana to raise my level!'
Vicente had two talents and two magic forms. He had been aware of this since he had understood his post-awakening powers.
But because of this, he had to absorb mana to feed his two Magic Gems and his first two Magic Pentagrams!
As one raised their level, their pentagrams and gems would be transformed to a certain degree.
Of course, this wouldn't change the form of the power or the type of magic one could use, as this could only be changed before Awakening. After Awakening, at most, one could evolve into different paths depending on the type of magic pentagrams one absorbed.
But power mutations didn't happen to people who had already awakened their magical powers.
However, that didn't mean one's Magic Gem or Pentagram couldn't evolve!
As they evolved, they would need more and more mana to become stronger. So the Magic Gems would transform along with their owners, becoming capable of filtering more mana as one grew stronger.
For example, if a Junior Apprentice could absorb 1 unit of mana per training session, by the time they became a level 1 Acolyte, they would be able to absorb much more than 1 unit per training session.
On the other hand, the powers related to one's Magic Pentagrams could be improved and refined after one advanced. But this only happens if one uses their breakthrough moments to change these parts of themselves!
Normal Apprentices would only have one Gem and one Magic Pentagram to transform. Still, Vicente had two of each, so he needed more mana and attention than anyone else of the same level.
Aware of this, he didn't get nervous when he sensed the amount of mana he would need and went ahead with his basic progression strategy, gradually controlling more and more free mana and using it to transform himself.
He didn't have to do everything simultaneously, as if he were desperate. One step at a time was enough, and after that, he was confident that he could achieve his quantitative and qualitative progress.
