Letting his arms drop to his sides as the spell faded from existence, Oberon let out a sigh. It seemed his idea had worked, to an extent, but the pane of mana had still shrunken in size to a degree that he wasn’t happy with; maybe making it smaller in size was a sacrifice he needed to make to be able to complete the spell but if possible he didn’t want to make that concession. A barrier that was too small was of no use to him.

He would have to rethink things a little, take stock of what he had learned and adjust his theories a little. Before then however, he should replenish the mana he had lost. The Sprite sat down and closed his eyes, still in the sunspot he had chosen earlier, and activated both Meditation and Gather Light to refill the reserves of mana that had been depleted so far.

Something interesting had happened when he had tried to convert the mana to the earthen element during his experimentation. The wall had automatically started to lower itself into the ground, as if drawn to the material whose properties he was trying to emulate; why was that the case? It was like the spell was magnetised to the ground in some way. Was that the same phenomena as when his spells seemed to want to shape themselves? The way his magic seemed to know what it wanted to be? Was it something the spell required to be complete?

So far every Earth-aligned spell he had seen used actual earth and rock as a focus or a catalyst; Stone Shot, Sacred Ground, Rock Spire and Earth Wall as used mana to manipulate or charge existing material. There were any spells that were just Earth-aligned mana and nothing else. The same was true of the fire spells he had seen in a way, being made of actual fire rather than just Fire-aligned mana that burned; though in that case it seemed like the fire was created as part of the spell rather than using existing fire, but the principal still held. Elementally-aligned spells needed some of the element it was aligned with as a starting point, either to imbue the mana with its pattern or as a kind of cost. The same was true of his Light spells; he had first created Light Ring by using the energy he had gathered to affect the mana he was holding.

The exception was Nature Mana, but if you took those spells to be ‘life-aligned’ rather than ‘nature-aligned’ then it could be drawing on his own body and life-force to change its alignment.

Oberon opened his eyes, cancelling the Meditation as he became lost in thought. Everyone else still seemed to be gone as the area outside their shelter was still empty and he couldn’t hear any signs of life; to his right he could hear the babbling of the small stream that ran beside their camp. Standing up he began to move towards it, walking that direction until he stood on the banks of the water’s flow. Curious and with an idle thought running through his head he reached down and lowered his hand into the water, letting its current wash over his skin for a moment before he began to channel mana into his hand.

He turned his hand so that his palm was facing the opposite direction of the current and formed a small sphere of mana. It wasn’t a Mana Orb, just a small gathering of non-elemental mana using Mana Shape to form a ball. He wanted to see if the mana would automatically draw in the water and reshape itself to that element or if it was something he would need to consciously do. If after a minute or so nothing happened he would try and draw the water into the small ball of mana in a way not too dissimilar to how he had drawn light into his Mana Orb to form the Light Ring.

[hider=Action Report]
Used 'Meditation' and 'Gather Light' to replenish mana reserves
Used 'Mana Shape' to form ball of non-elemental mana in the stream
Attempted to draw water into 'Mana Shape'
[/hider]

[@Zeroth]