Darians focus returned,as he continued his first attempt,the process was meticulous,as the mineral would have to undergo multiple stages in order to properly crystalize into an artificial core,Once greater thought was placed into assessing its dangers,the immensity of the risks involved clearly outlined themselves.
Each step had to be done consecutively without much breaks in-between,but when creating a true core no breaks could exist, as a true core was made without using a mineral medium,meaning that when not in its completed state,it destabilized easily.
Darian opened his eyes,recounting the steps to himself making sure he missed not a single beat,afterall thinking internally while the mind was greatly occupied could pose a future problem,to even the most adept multitaskers.
Darian sighed," step one,Complete saturation",in this steps strands of darians mana incircled,and permeated deep into the mineral,although mana went in Darians focus made sure it failed to come out,his minds senses were deeply connected to his own mana in this stage.
And what he saw through not his eyes but his mind was incredible, it was like opening a third eye.
He could see the ongoings inside the stone itself,as his mana permeating through it, at an atomic level,his mana spread across like an electrical charge spreading into the molecules that composed the mineral,as if the synapsis of a nervous system were firing.
This seemingly simple step had its dangers,as in the Outside world the charcoal like stone began to dance to an unknown toon.
As it vibrated,moving left,and right while simultaneously sticking to one spot, small,flint like sparks began to emerge on the outer shell of the stone itself, signaling danger.
Darians hand shook, as he Quickly snapped out of the stream of abundant information,that he had been exposed to.
in- between, Darians mini comma,and his awakening,the charcoal like mineral,had gone through a metamorphosis like process,it was first a dark charcoal black color,then parts of it began to turn a light blue, as it spread throughout the stones surface.
Thats right,step one was to completely envelop,and saturate the stone with ones own mana while infusing ones concentrated will,including the users own thoughts into the stone,which was the reason,Darian could see the internal ongoings within the stone itself.
The now awakened Darian,tssked,"dammit it all,Im almost there only,one fourth of the stone still needs to be saturated".
" More will power",Darian said as he grunted his one arm holding up the other.
It was clear the more the percentage of the mineral increased in saturation,the more unstable it got,like a wave pushing him back the closer he got to its centre.
The charcoal like Mineral felt like a steaming pot about to explode," I was so close",Darian said as his disappointment sounded in his head but the instability was too much,for him to handle the reaction was to strong.
The next moment an almost blinding light rose from the mineral,acting fast the array that held up the mineral located slightly above Darians palm reacted to his mental command as it expanded completely wrapping around the mineral restricting the light.
A swift BOOMM!!.. rang across the room.
The mineral detonated with verocity,as its crystal shards,yes crystal shards shattered from its uneven surface,and scattered across the room,if Darian was close by,his arm should have been blown off by the force of the explosion,and these shards would have pierced his head or lungs resulting in major injuries,or in an unlikely case his own death.
Luckily hes intelligence saved him,just as the white light was contained by the array,Darians retracted his hand from below the mineral with great speed using another hand to create a strong gust of wind,pushing him backwards protecting him as he road the shockwave caused by the explosion pinning him to the wall.
But this was a best case scenario and went mostly to plan,the array was designed to not only help him in saturating the charcoal like mineral,but containing its shards,and a potential explosion.
The array also had enough mana to sustain itself,including sets of programmed actions,this meant that Darian had no need to continuesly remain concious.
Its effectiveness meant most of the shards had not escaped,the the barrier formed around them by the array,those that did flew with great momentum,and were small in size.
If he had been centimeters closer,Darian would be afraid,as the shards would rip him apart but the distance ,and time he had made for himself,allowed to execute phase two.
He made sure not to pass out from the shockwave when hitting the wall,knowing the shards would follow seconds later,Darian concentrated on sensing his own mana.
As he was about to fall back down from the wall,the shards flying towards him immediately stopped in there tracks quickly loseing momentum.
"Damn",Darian spoke infrustration,inbedding his left hand into his hair,a mad smile plastered on his face,the adrenaline,and crazyness truly showed.
Taking a deep breath he sighed," if it wasn't for the design of the array,and pushing myself back I would of been mîce meat".
Hahaha, he laughed," how much do I got left in the tank".
Darian sighed again putting his hand over his face,"I still got 60% left",Darian outstretched his right hand as portions of his mana returned to him from the shards,the array opened,revealing blue crystalized warm minerals within.
As if they had survived reentry into earths atmosphere,to reduce quickly using another wind spell Darian quickly filtered through the air preventing chemicals released from spreading into the air potentially,harming him in the future.
Darian pulled out his hands as the minerals broke down bit by bit as mana was extracted from them.
Darians tone carried disappointment,"Despite the fact I was able to completely crystalize it,by reaching full saturation, I was unable to keep it stable,now even the mana I'm extracting back from the mineral is just a paltry piece compared to what I put in".
"huhh"," How arrogant of me for thinking I could succeed in my first try".
" what exactly was the problem",Darians eyes moved in all directions as he probed, every action big or small that he had committed,in his memory's that led to his failure,only few stood out to him as he thought back.
"One issue could be my speed,everything went on too quickly,I eventually lost control of the developments,and the mineral was unable to grasp such a speedy change,Second is likely the time,I spent aw struck by the information,and events happening inside the mineral".
"Those must be it,what else could it be",Darian though to himself.
Little did he know that night was going to be a long one.
Setting the fragmented shards apart,Darian gathered them,and fed them to the nameless book who apparently had a true omnivores appetite.
"No evidence ", he thought feeling very cunning at that moment.
Darian started again,then again,then agan,then again,and lastly again.
Five tries, and five failed attempts the frustration could be felt in his eyes,or was it the fact he hadnt slept,but all could see how sullen,his eyes were his skin increasing in paleness.
In between these sessions Darian took what he called power knaps,and violently ate the food he had,preserved for himself.
He violently tore open the outershell,of the carapace frog,quickly slurping in the pasta with all his might,dipping everything he could in a bowl of spicey souce on the side,with some juice on the side,ofcourse he had to keep himself sober.
This was all just in order to regain,a certain amount of mana to try again.
Every failure increased his anger,at some point punching,and kicking his own wall,he longed for success but even for his competitive attitude such anger was unusual.
But the fact was much deeper than that,his sleep deprevation,draining his own mana were all contributing factors,to his lack of mental Balance.
At some point it would spell danger for himself,in the end he even began siffening energy from secret slumber,his own spell.
His hopelessness for progress struck,if he could not even find out how to cool,the déstabilisation then this had been a waste of time.
His eye sight got dizzy but determination remained,a bit or logic popped into his mind he knew that siffening from secret slumber was a bad idea.
But at the same time he needed mana,he needed to siffen from something.
As held both hands across his face slowly letting both to drip down revealing his eyes,a light bulb moment came into full view as he smirked.
The answer was simple,the A rank magical clothing his parents had given him had one special property they passively absorbed mana from the surroundings,converting it into usable human type mana.
This meant one thing he had a battery other than his own supply.
And he took full advantage of it,and all he needed was the robe nothing else,he crammed long,and hard until his twenty fifth try.
He finally stabilized," So it was that simple,equalizing the distribution by creating an even surface within the the mineral itself using it ,to diffuse the energy,really worked".
"Luckily I was taught physics,but it still took timing,learning to stop the constant flow of mana at a certain point,and the green zone amount to use at any given moment,incmudeing the fact the minerals have a natural uneven surface,these factors really increased the overall difficulty".
"But the result",
Darian smirked his wide smile,and green eyes now reflecting on the glowing mineral ball which had an uneven surface.
It had a glass like blueish silver gloss,surrounding it were watery floating fragments who's appearance was comparable to molten glass,or gold as they reflected the light coming off the main body.
Even the main mineral,now felt like it had a jelly like constitution,infact this was an important transformation for step two,unlike before where it only crystalized this was a sign Darian succeeded as the very mineral could now be manipulated, and changed in almost all aspects according to Darians will.
But still Darian left tired,his hands bruised covered with dried blood,and cut with shards sticking out,his forehead,and back of his head hand experienced bleeding from the amount of times he had been shot to the sturdy wall like a canon,he had managed to close all his open wounds but forgot to take out the shards that had caused hence was his conviction.
Then ́,and only then did he truly smile holding his prize before,realizing the sad fact,one he was too tired to continue stamina did not allow it nor did he want to continue meaning the mineral was useless,and would decay soon.
The second more tragic part was,he heard Doulos voice again what he said was terrifying," a Thousand consecutive times"," " I'm not even halfway done",Darian thought to himself.
Although it was about to decay,Darian intended to frame it but then realised their would be atleast a hundred more failures,and successes.
So he simply fed it to the nameless book,then stored away the book,and his new lifeline,inside his storage space,he couldn't help but remember his parents face as he collapsed on the bed.