So, let’s try doing things correctly this time, namely using the correct ratio of atoms, and then forcefully joining them together. Well, maybe I should omit this “forceful” part. Anyway, I’m wondering how am I able to do something that fine with my mana. I mean atoms are so small that they are impossible to see, and yet I can feel them just fine with my mana, and manipulating them isn’t that much more difficult than my scaled mana coat.

I was ready for it to fail, to produce another mana stone, to destroy my dreams about being able to use magic, but to my surprise, water actually appeared. In air just in front of my head, there was a ball made of water floating peacefully. It was in a shape of almost perfect sphere, not interrupted by even slightest ripple, which would be understandable since wind was a bit stronger here in the mountains.

I was hypnotized by it, unable to move my sight as I was jumping in joy internally. It was a proof that I could use an actual magic, although I had no idea why I couldn’t use the normal method and had to go for unnecessarily complicated one, but it still was magic. No words could explain how much relieved I was when I finally succeeded. There was simply no way I could let my cat be better than me in something as basic as magic.

Wait, was magic something basic? That shouldn’t really be the case should it? So why did Felicia just pick it up like that when we were on lower floors? There was definitely something wrong with that cat, to the point I secretly swore to never make her mad at me, since I wanted to keep my life.

What about fire? What was needed to create a combustion? First I would need fuel, but it would be inconvenient to have the need of carrying it everything with me, so I had to think of something different than wood for example. Since fire magic didn’t normally require additional items, I probably could assume that mana could act the role of a fuel.

Next would be oxygen, but I already managed to control it, so all I needed now was heat. Heat required energy, so I had to supply it manually. To create energy, one would need to make atoms move, and that should be manageable too, since it wouldn’t be that much different from plainly hitting something, just on a much more minuscule scale.

I gathered mana in a shape of a ball, it would count as a fuel and I made it so I could continue to supply more if I wanted to keep it burning. I didn’t know about how much mana it took to sustain the fire but I should manage to at least test some things.

Then I started gathering oxygen atoms around the mana ball, I supplied just enough to start the fire and later I would add more since I wasn’t entirely sure what effects would it cause. Lastly, I had to create enough energy, so more of my mana was released, this time bombarding atoms inside the mana sphere to make them vibrate.

It was a hard task, but it didn’t take long for the flame to emerge. It reflected in my eyes as I was pleased with the result. But I wasn’t done there, the second part of the experiment was to supply more oxygen to the fireball and see what effect it would create, so without waiting any further to not waste more mana I started gathering the surrounding atoms.

At first the effects were subtle, slowly the fire started becoming deeper red in color, but at some point it started lightening. It went to orange, and then after a couple of seconds, the color changed completely, making it much lighter, almost white. It surprised me, but I didn’t stop supplying oxygen. What I noted was that the fire seemed to move faster than before too.

The color was becoming lighter and lighter, becoming more and more dazzling. I thought it was pretty, it also was much more wild than before, seemingly wanting to escape from my influence. Just after the color started changing again into something bluish in hue, it suddenly disappeared. I looked briefly at my mana to see if I used it all up, but there was some remaining.

Still I used up much more than I was expecting, but since there was some left the fire shouldn’t go out like that. Then I felt something else, it wasn’t my exhaustion, but for some reason it became really hard to breathe. Ahh, I’m an idiot, I used up a lot of oxygen in the surroundings and probably it was because there wasn’t any more to supply the fire disappeared.

But since I could still breathe, that meant not all oxygen was used up. I had no idea why, but since it worked out in her favor, saving her from rather humiliating death she wasn’t going to complain.

[Proficiency reached. Gained skill [Luck of the heavens lvl. 4] ]

Shut up please, don’t make it any more embarrassing.

Okay, so now that I exhausted myself again, I had nothing better to do than look at how Felicia’s doing. Maybe I could learn something from the way she used her mana, since apparently the whole druid thing made her much better at it than a normal human. Maybe being a beastkin changed her affinity to mana too in comparison to humans, but being a druid definitely played a bigger role.

Just as I was thinking about learning from her, I instantly changed my mind when I saw her. How do you even encase yourself in a block of ice, moreover that thick!? Was she trying to self-destruct this entire time? Or was it just her failing at magic? I was honestly at the end of my wits when I was observing her doing things like that.

What if she catches a cold? I’m not confident in being able to take care of sick cat, so it would be better if she was freed from ice sooner than later. Fortunately we had a dragon to save the day, and with just a tap of his claw the ice block crumbled.

Honestly this cat.