[@Stabby] [@Zeroth]

[quote=System:Femus]
Your MP is Full.
[/quote]

Femus had refilled his mana far faster than he expected and he did seem to have had some success in altering the mana levels around him.  However, at that point, he was interrupted by what was almost certainly a wild pixie.  This… was not good.  Those creatures were the living embodiment of distraction.  One of getting interested was bad enough but they liked to play in groups too.  It would be reckless to assume that that one would not want to have more fun with other pixies.

He thought briefly of warning Nira but remembered that she had not stayed close and instead gone elsewhere to practice her meditation.  He didn't dare rush out at present.  He had to deal with the issue at hand first.

There was little time to waste.  He had to prepare to defend this place… or provide the pixie with enough of a distraction to forget him and this place.  But, first… It reminded him of something.  Pixies could shield themselves.  He decided to try and replicate that spell, surrounding himself with mana and trying to infuse it into either his body or the glow that surrounded him.

He had seen that the spell didn’t create a barrier.  It seemed to be more like a resistance spell, something to provide additional toughness.  So, he kept that in mind and sought to shape the nature of his mana so that it would linger in his body as a kind of hindering force, pushing back against anything that approached and diminishing its force.  He would practice this until he achieved success, was interrupted, or felt that he only had enough mana for one mana orb left.  At that point, he would meditate back to full mana, still trying to enrich his surroundings with mana. He would repeat this in cycles, barring interruption.  

Hopefully, he could encourage some of the local blue flowers to form seeds before he had to abandon this tree.  That would be a treasure beyond measure for a developing magic user… and he didn’t want to let his efforts in adjusting the environment here go to waste.  The enhanced mana density in the hollow should have some effect on the flowers growing on the outside of the hollow tree.

Then again, maybe it was the enhanced density of mana that attracted the pixie.  They relied on mana to live as well.  Maybe he hadn’t been cautious enough.  While he had been trying to develop a strong foundation patiently and safely, it wouldn’t help him at all if he couldn’t survive the whims of pixies.  He would need to enhance his lethality.

As soon as he was able to shield himself, unless he was interrupted, he would begin a similar cycle of training attempting to condense a mana orb into a smaller, faster, and more penetrating form.  In effect, he wasn’t looking for a piercing tip but rather a more focused shaped charge.  If all the orb’s power was released in the direction of the surface it impacted then the damage it did should increase as well.  Yet, as he focused his mind on that aspect, he found himself repeatedly thinking of flames and lightning.  

Both would burn through objects and he remembered everything about them that he had ever experienced or learned.  He remembered the times he burned himself when he was trying to help in the kitchen, times he was shown pictures of lightning strikes, explosions in action movies that seemed to fill the target and reduce it to rubble and ash from within, being shocked by static, overheating a knife accidentally by leaving it on the stove too close to the flame, seeing jumper cables melt as sparks and arcing electricity overwhelmed it.

Burning from within, arcing instantly over vast distances and piercing any defense.  These were the thoughts that came to mind as he sought to compress and focus his mana orbs.