"Finally reached First Tier, have you? Not bad! You even show a bit of what I had in my youth!"
"I'm proud of you, my child!"
During breakfast the next morning, at the long white table, Marquis Kallen was the first to praise Anves, and the Marquess, Elena, also offered her congratulations.
"Thank you, Father. Thank you, Mother."
Receiving his parents' praise and blessings, Anves naturally responded with polite gratitude.
After finishing the day's lessons, Anves headed to the spell testing grounds within the castle. He wanted to test the strength of his new First Tier abilities.
The testing area was set in a wide, open space. Because of the diversity of magic types, different environments and targets were arranged throughout the grounds:
the obsidian spell-measurement monolith for testing raw power, various grades of live magical beasts for effect testing, magic crystals, enchanted items, and ordinary materials such as stone and wood.
Since Anves planned to test spells, Leonard had cleared the area ahead of time, so the field was empty.
Anves cautiously activated the high-grade defensive and restraining arrays etched into the ground—measures meant to prevent uncontrolled spells from causing injury should anything go wrong.
Every year, many "wild" novice psionics appeared—lucky individuals who somehow acquired a spellbook or a psion's notes.
By working several times harder than normal apprentices, they forced their way into the ranks of official psionics.
But due to poor foundations and the excitement of their breakthrough overwhelming their judgment, these wild psionics often rushed to test their spells without taking any precautions.
The Psionic Council had once commissioned experiments: under such emotionally excited conditions, the failure rate of a first spellcasting attempt could reach seventy to eighty percent.
And when a spell collapsed in the unstable state immediately after advancement, the consequences were catastrophic.
Minor cases resulted in severe damage to the spiritual sea; severe cases led to instant death.
This was one of the reasons so few psionics ever emerged from commoner backgrounds.
After entering the grounds, Anves began cautiously with simpler spells.
After careful consideration, he chose Wind Blade as the first spell to test.
As a very simple First Tier spell model, Wind Blade's power was only average compared to others of its tier, but its speed and subtlety were excellent.
Once he confirmed the defensive arrays were functioning properly, Anves gripped his staff and spoke in a low voice, chanting a long string of obscure Ancient Gurnian syllables in an odd rhythm.
The staff was a standard family-issued model. Upon his advancement to First Tier, the Marquis had given him a basic spellbook and this standard staff to familiarize himself with.
"Ao, ф~Jacn! do--ho-Avij! fl~Ogk, dor..."¹
As Anves chanted, the colorless crystal at the tip of the staff glimmered faintly, and a pale green, transparent wind blade surrounded by spiraling currents formed before him.
He shook his head lightly, suppressing distracting thoughts, and willed the spell forward.
The wind blade accelerated instantly, streaking toward the semi-transparent seven-sided crystal pillar in the field. With a sharp impact, it shattered apart, dissolving into chaotic air currents.
The obsidian monolith flickered. A crimson beam shot upward from within its dark, translucent body, rising rapidly until it reached nearly two-thirds of the monument's height before stopping.
This type of monolith was crafted by a Tenth Tier psionic of the Council and could accurately measure spell damage up to the Ninth Tier.
A red beam indicated the spell was of First Tier strength. Above that were orange, yellow, green… all the way to white, denoting Tier Eight.
The height of the beam represented the relative power within that tier—the higher the beam, the stronger the spell.
If the light reached the top, it signified peak power for that rank.
"Close to upper First Tier? Not bad at all."
Anves nodded lightly, clearly satisfied.
¹The phonetic transcription of the incantation will appear only once and will not be shown again afterward.
(LoL and bruh)