Chapter 61: Mastering!

"Do I seriously have 100% knowledge about the skill? I don’t feel anything different right now."

Kyle looked at the stats screen with a confused expression. Despite going through that excruciatingly painful knowledge transfer, he felt completely ordinary, just like he had before learning the skill. There was no strange sensation, no sudden change in his body, and no feeling that he had somehow become smarter.

He still felt like the same Kyle.

"Oh, damn. Fuck... I actually fucking know everything."

The realization came to him when he stopped thinking about how he felt and instead tried to think about the skill itself.

The moment he focused his thoughts on Magic Missile, an enormous amount of information surfaced within his mind. It came to him like it was natural and always existed within him.

He knew exactly how much mana was required, how to construct the spell, how to control its shape, how to launch it toward a target, how the tracking function worked, how to use the spell efficiently, and even how to prepare the spell before launching it at an opponent.

Every detail that had been part of the skill’s theory was now naturally available to him.

’So this is what 100% Knowledge means.’

Kyle finally understood the difference.

He didn’t feel smarter because the knowledge wasn’t changing his intelligence. It was simply information that had been added to his mind, information he could access whenever he needed it.

However, there was one problem.

He didn’t have enough mana.

[10/1000 Mana]

Kyle stared at his Mana Pool.

According to the information he had received, Magic Missile required 10 mana to cast.

Technically, he had exactly enough mana to use it once.

But using his entire mana reserve for a single attempt wasn’t exactly a smart idea, especially when he had no idea how many attempts it would take to properly learn how to control the spell.

"Guess I need to cultivate first."

Kyle sat down on the ground and assumed a lotus position before closing his eyes.

As soon as he entered deep meditation, his Mana Absorption Skill automatically activated.

This time, he didn’t need to consciously perform the absorption process like he had during his first attempt. He only needed to maintain his focus while the technique naturally absorbed the mana around him.

His perception slowly expanded.

The glowing mana bubbles appeared inside his inner vision.

There were far more of them than there had been inside his apartment.

’This amount is at least three times what I had in my room.’

Kyle couldn’t help but remember the System’s recommendation to find a place with more natural mana.

’No wonder the System told me to go touch grass.’

Although the range of his mana perception was still roughly the size of his room, the amount of mana within that range was considerably denser.

The forest was simply a much better environment for cultivation.

[50/1000 Mana]

Kyle continued meditating.

Twenty minutes passed, and his Mana Pool slowly began filling.

But despite the forest having more mana than his apartment, the recovery speed was still rather slow.

’At this rate, filling my entire Mana Pool is going to take the whole damn night.’

There was no reason for him to wait that long.

He only needed enough mana to practice Magic Missile several times.

So he continued absorbing mana until his pool reached a reasonable amount.

[300/1000 Mana]

Thirty percent.

Kyle opened his eyes.

"Finally."

It had taken him roughly three hours just to reach thirty percent.

He stared at the status screen for a moment before doing the calculation in his head.

If thirty percent took approximately three hours, then completely filling the thousand-point Mana Pool could easily take more than ten hours.

’That’s way too slow.’

He would have to improve his Mana Absorption Skill eventually.

But that wasn’t something he needed to worry about right now.

He had enough mana to start practicing.

Kyle stood up and looked toward a nearby tree stump.

He raised his palm and aimed it directly at the target.

"Magic Missile!"

SHOOT!

A small beam of light instantly materialized in front of his palm.

It shot toward the tree stump.

Whoosh!

But before the projectile could even reach the target, it suddenly disappeared into the air.

Kyle froze.

"...What?"

He stared at the empty space where the projectile had been.

"What happened? Why did it just disappear into the air? I swear I did everything correctly."

[Proficiency: +0.2%]

Kyle looked at the System notification.

His expression became even more confused.

According to the knowledge in his mind, he had performed the spell correctly.

The mana had been gathered correctly.

The spell structure had been formed correctly.

He had even followed the proper method of launching it.

Yet the result was completely different from what he expected.

Instead of reaching the tree stump and striking it, the projectile lost its stability halfway through its flight and disappeared.

Kyle stared at the stump.

’What went wrong?’

He didn’t immediately ask the System.

Instead, he started thinking about the problem himself.

Part of it was his pride.

As a software engineering student, he was used to troubleshooting problems. If something wasn’t working, his first instinct was to inspect the problem and figure out what was wrong instead of immediately asking someone else for help.

Then an idea came to him.

’Am I facing this issue because this is a different world from the one where this spell was originally developed?’

It made sense.

The spell had probably been created in a world overflowing with mana.

Earth, on the other hand, barely had any.

If the original spell formula relied on certain environmental conditions, simply copying it exactly might not work properly here.

"I guess that’s the problem."

Kyle raised his palm again.

"I need to tweak the formula and make it Earth-compatible instead."

This time, he modified the structure of the spell.

Rather than allowing the mana to remain relatively loose, he compressed it further to prevent the projectile from losing its stability.

"Magic Missile."

BOOM!

The projectile shot forward.

This time, it successfully reached the tree stump.

The impact immediately blasted nearly half of the stump apart, reducing a large portion of it to splinters and dust.

[Proficiency: +5.76%]

Kyle’s eyes widened.

"It worked!"

But his excitement didn’t last long.

He looked at the destruction he had caused and frowned.

This wasn’t exactly the result he wanted.

The projectile had become stable, but it had consumed almost twice as much mana.

’So making it denser isn’t the correct solution.’

If he kept using that much mana for every projectile, he would quickly empty his Mana Pool.

’I need to make it lighter and faster.’

Kyle began experimenting again.

This time, instead of increasing the density, he reduced the size and width of the projectile.

He slowly reshaped the magical energy.

The original beam became thinner.

Then narrower.

Finally, instead of a pointy beam of light, he shaped it into something resembling an arrow.

Kyle stared at the newly formed projectile.

"Let’s try this."

He launched it.

PIERCE!

The magical arrow shot forward at tremendous speed and pierced directly through the center of the tree stump.

The projectile continued through the other side before dissipating.

Kyle stared at the hole left behind.

It wasn’t an explosive attack like his previous attempt, but he actually preferred this result.

Most importantly, it had used only half the amount of mana.

’This is much better.’

[Proficiency: +6%]

Kyle smiled.

"This could be useful."

He looked at the damaged tree stump before glancing at his hand.

"But I can definitely improve it further."

And he did.

What followed was nearly two days of continuous experimentation.

Kyle repeatedly practiced Magic Missile, using the surrounding trees and tree stumps as targets. Whenever his mana became too low, he would sit down and meditate, allowing his Mana Absorption Skill to replenish his Mana Pool before continuing.

At first, his mana recovery was painfully slow.

But after repeatedly practicing the absorption technique, something unexpected happened.

His absorption speed gradually improved.

What had once taken hours to recover began taking roughly half the time.

Kyle also continued modifying Magic Missile.

He experimented with the projectile’s size, shape, density, speed, and mana consumption. Some attempts failed completely. Others worked but consumed too much mana. A few produced results that were actually better than the original version he had learned.

He didn’t stop.

For the entire 48 hours since arriving in the forest, Kyle continued practicing the skill.

He barely rested except when he needed to recover his mana.

By the end of it, he could form the projectile almost instinctively.

His casting speed had improved and control had improved including the mana efficiency.

And most importantly, he no longer needed to consciously think about every individual step of the spell.

Kyle stood in front of another battered tree stump.

He raised his hand.

A thin, arrow-shaped projectile of magical energy formed above his palm.

He stared at it with a satisfied grin.

"Finally!"

Kyle clenched his other fist.

"I can finally say I’ve learned this skill!"