The Bookkeeper

Burning a seal required an absolute sense of relief, a clear mind, and a desire to watch it burn. Yet despite his increasing experience points, the seal failed to burn completely—it stopped not long after the edges caught fire.

This gave Raiden some insight into what Leo was really getting at. "Play around with different ways of using your mana alongside your familiar"—that’s exactly what Leo had said.

He didn’t take him seriously since he despised his demeanor. He only saw him as someone passionate about magic who, if given the opportunity, could learn more and provide him access to whatever magic he might need.

But after getting sufficient proof that he was right after all, he decided to take things a step further and experiment with mana and Ash—and Ash seemed keen on the idea too, since she’d been pushing for something like this.

After all, he only had to make use of his mana. It seemed simple enough.

Since the seal hadn’t burned thoroughly, it was clear he needed more mana. This prompted him to take a gamble—200 out of 5000 from his mana pool. It was a rough guess, but he would have needed it regardless.

For the past several days, he’d only concentrated on building his mana and storing it up, and by the time he achieved his goal, just two days were left before their duel.

It was afternoon, and he had to know precisely where he stood before the final day, since he’d reserved that entirely for training.

Raiden remained seated at the center of the room, Ash standing beside him and gently observing as he closed his eyes and controlled his breath.

He gripped the seal at both edges, pushing away every desire related to the seal and filling his mind with thoughts of warmth and peace—thinking of Ash.

He then slowly began to visualize his mana flowing through his hands into the seal, like gas being released from a cylinder.