Lai raised her hand.

  “Spirit Beast: Wolf.” The air around her shifted, almost as if wrapping around her in a translucent cloak made of ghostly wind. At once, four spirits materialized in front of her, taking on the shape of wolves wrapped in translucent paint. They were larger than their real-life counterparts, their fangs and teeth glowing against the sunlight.

  Quill was slower in the process. In a flurry of hands, he wrote the Scripts for his Marble Puppets before they started materializing into solidified chunks. Their white bodies were in stark contrast to the near see-through wolves, but even then, the physicality of Lai’s summons was only a matter of perception.

  “So you're a Golemancer.” Lai’s voice carried over the wind, a tint of surprise in the tone of her voice. “I admit, this is the first time I’ve seen a White Summoner. I’ve heard of them, but only a fraction of mages even get into summoning in the first place, especially with White.”

  Quill could only glance at his summons, piecing themselves together before they then formed their bodies. “Then most mages are idiots. There's a plethora of endless possibilities when you take the White Aspect in such a direction.”

  “That may be the case, but it's obvious why most haven't done so,” Lai said. “Your summons takes too much of your mana. Is that why you're creating them here in this instant, rather than maintaining their bodies over long periods?”

  “Their passive mana consumption is too much for an Iron Core to bear.” Quill said.

  “You're… an Iron?”

  Lai’s eyes seemed surprised by that fact. Of course, it wasn't rare to see Initiates in the Iron Tier here in the academy, but it was certainly uncommon as Quill had observed. A large majority of the mages had already broken through Bronze, and that included Rhena, along with Gerald and Elarah.

  Aside from Quill, only Rognor and Narrah were the Initiates left that still hadn't broken through to Bronze Tier. They were at the lowest stage of advancement, but even Quill was surprised that Rognor and Narrah managed to stand in the rankings.

  “They look good.” Lai stared at the finished Marble Puppets, their spears raised high in the air. “Who taught you how to sculpt? It isn't easy for a Golemancer to do so many things at once.”

  Quill then nodded. “I taught myself.”

  At once, he sent forth his Puppets. Their stone bodies rumbled with every step, their hands wound against their spears before striking at the wolves with a thrust. The wolves immediately dashed away, moving in four directions to spread out, careful of the spears before they moved their way to surround Pen and Notebook in a circle.

  Quill tugged on their Mana Links, ordering his Puppets to assume a defensive stance. They moved at once, swift and with haste, shoulders back to back against each other with raised spears against the wolf’s circle. The wolves were weaker than Quill's Puppets, but to compensate, they were much more agile and fast.

  Lai was obviously trying to stack the odds in her favor, using her wolves’ number advantage against Quill's Puppets. The best thing to do against her strategy was not to push and attempt to break through the circle, wasted on summons as fast as them, but instead to cover each other's vulnerable backs, waiting for the wolves to attack.

  But the moment never came.

  Quill stared at the field. The wolves were doing nothing but surrounding them, keeping his Marble Puppets in check. “What are you doing?”

  Lai only shrugged her shoulders. The wolves moved in a circle, not daring to attack at all. Even when Quill ordered a strike to bait them out, the wolves only stood and watched, keeping their circle from breaking.

  Quill couldn't wrap his head around it. Did Lai think that her wolves might not stand a chance against his Puppets? If that was the case, then she should've summoned one of her stronger summons in their place. As they were now, her familiars were only loitering in the field, achieving nothing while wasting her mana in the process.

  Then the thought came to Quill.

  Lai’s goal was never to defeat his Puppets in the first place. Her wolves could just sit there and wait for his manapool to deplete, and when there would be no mana left to feed his Constructs, her Spirit Beasts would win the duel by default.

  This duel was never about comparing the strength of their Summons. It was a test to see how long Quill would last in a battle of mana endurance. His Magic Attribute was still at Iron, and even if he’d advanced to Bronze, it was nowhere near enough against Lai’s manapool. There was no doubt Quill would lose to Lai in a contest of mana, and that was her goal.

  Quill clicked his tongue. He wasn't about to hand the win over to her just like that.

  Through the Mana Link, Quill ordered the constructs to forgo defense and go all in on the offense. The Puppets were already starting to eat away at the bottom of his manapool, and it wasn't going to be long until it would eventually empty out. Before that would happen, he had to defeat Lai’s wolves.

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  Pen moved, striking a spear at one wolf, but as expected, it dodged before assuming position once again along the circle. Notebook headed for another wolf in the shape, but again and again, Lai’s Spirit Wolves were just too fast for Quill's Puppets to catch. This time, he needed to use his head. A silent order moved through the Mana Link.

  Pen pounced again, not to strike but to force one of the wolves away from formation. When the wolf eventually jumped to dodge the strike, Notebook was there in the background, making sure that the wolf wouldn't fall to the ground alive. The Puppet wound its spear before thrusting high in the air, stabbing straight through the translucent fur.

  The wolf yelped before its outline burst into paint, splashing wild color through the air and over the Puppets' Marble Armor. That was one down, but there were still two more to go. Quill couldn't help but notice the smile on Lai’s face. She was enjoying seeing him squirm.

  Quill ordered the same maneuver on the second wolf before he coughed. Sweat started to bead over his face, and Mana Fatigue was starting to set in. At most, he only had seconds left to finish this fight. That was enough.

  With a thrust, Pen’s spear drove through the air towards the Spirit Wolf. The beast sidestepped the strike, this time wary of mid-air confrontations. That was where Quill wanted it to go. He planned ahead, placing Notebook right where he thought the wolf would move. The Puppet then swiped its spear, the Marble Weapon slicing through the fur, and it exploded in colorful paint, just as the first one did.

  There were two more Spirit Wolves. With a thrust, Pen struck its spear, and the third wolf turned to dodge, only for Notebook to be waiting at the end of its step. Agility and speed were next to nothing against sheer numbers, and Lai was still caught up in her own head, still thinking that she could crush Quill's pride without even attacking once.

  Quill was going to show her not to underestimate him. He might've been weak now, but his mind was still next to no one.

  “Time’s up.” Lai said, a smile still lingering on her face before Quill's knees then buckled. He fell to the ground with a and through the Mana Link, his Marble Puppets crumbled.

  He had run out of mana.

  “Shit.” He heaved breaths as sweat dripped down his face. His chest was rising and falling in steps, pushing against the grass below. With no mana left in him, the duel was as good as over, and Lai was hoping that would be the case.

  Quill had no mana left in him, and the thought of using his Bluefae Amulet crossed his mind before shaking it off. This wasn't a duel–it was a lesson from his instructor. He wasn't oblivious to that. He could've won if only his Marble Puppets hadn't used up so much of his own mana moving, but he had already optimized their Scripts as far as his Iron Core could handle.

  So what else did he need to do? How could he maintain a steady supply of mana for his White Constructs without burning his entire stock in the process? Quill pondered on the grass, resting as his mind wandered elsewhere.

  The first mistake was clearly the summoning of the Marble Puppets. It took half of his manapool in the process every time he needed to summon his Puppets. It wasn't at all an efficient way to use his Complex Spell, and it would’ve been miles better to just have them exist in the real world, only calling to them when he needs to.

  The problem then would be logistics. If he left his Puppets unactivated in his room, and he needed them in a duel on the other side of the academy, he would have to wait for them to walk all the way to his location, costing him time and more mana. Even maintaining their unactivated form still used up mana, albeit at a slower pace than if they were moving, and having to stretch the Mana Link over yards was still out of reach.

  It was simply more efficient for now to cast Marble Puppets whenever Quill needed them. At the end of the day, he was still severely limited by the tiny container that was his Iron Core. This is the greatest weakness of every Summoner at this Tier, and it can only be remedied by obtaining a larger container that came with a higher Tier.

  But that was just it. Wouldn't the problem have been solved in the first place, if only Quill had access to another container that could be filled with mana and used by the Puppets? The Bluefae Amulet was proof of that, but he needed a way to directly channel that mana to his Puppets…

  “So, what did you learn?” Lai interrupted his train of thought, her dark figure looming over him, blocking out the sunlight.

  “I’m… still thinking.” Quill said before he blocked her out.

  Mages had already detailed the impossibility of holding mana in containers using natural objects from the real world. The mana would simply flow through solid material as if they were immaterial ghosts, but the Bluefae Amulet was indisputable proof otherwise. Quill needed to confirm it, but there was a magic container in this amulet.

  Quill had thought of it before as a lich. He considered the possibility of creating a container using Black magic to store and contain its own Black mana. That was the theory, but in practice, he couldn't make Black mana hold a solid structure. In the end, it was just another wild idea that wasn't worth pursuing then.

  But the White Aspect was different. Like his Marble Puppets and Liquid Stone spells, White mana could be shaped and formed into solid, and it may also be able to hold mana itself. That possibility alone could solve his current mana problem entirely, allowing him to command tens of times the number of constructs he could now if he managed.

  Quill grinned in the darkness of his thoughts before a voice then called for him outside. It was an alluring voice, made to command him from his trance, but he knew otherwise. Lai’s spell wasn't going to work on him a second time.

  “I understand it, now.” Quill opened his eyes, still finding Lai sitting next to his lying body. He pushed off before he pressed his hand against his chest.

  “You’re very strange.” Lai furrowed her eyebrows. “You end up losing in a duel, and the first thing you can think of is… to study?”

  Quill didn't answer. Instead, he turned to his hands, trembling at the possibility. If he could use White magic to create a container for mana, then he could possibly go into a fight with the mana reserves rivaling the greatest mages of this world at Iron.

  “I asked you a question.” Lai’s face was inches away from Quill's, her piercing cat eyes digging a hole straight through him. “Would you mind indulging an old woman in her question?”

  Quill blinked before he then shook his head. Under the shade of trees, he shared his findings with Lai. When he finished, she pushed off the grass with a sigh before she then started, walking back to the building.

  “Send me your documents today.” Lai said before she left. Quill only blinked before he bowed short behind her, releasing a sigh of relief before he plopped to the grass. Despite his loss, Lai had agreed to take him as her student. This fervor was going to take a while before it died down.

  Thanks for reading!

  ?? Even gods need to be held sometimes

  What to Expect:

  - An epic, multi-book space opera with a large found family and multiple POVs.

  - A powerful but emotionally vulnerable protagonist with chaotic powers he struggles to control.

  - Strong, capable, and sometimes morally gray women.

  - High stakes, cosmic threats, and detailed world-building.

  What NOT to Expect:

  - LitRPG/System elements

  - Lone wolf power fantasy

  - A story that is only about romance

  This story contains mature themes, explicit sexual content, and graphic violence. It is not suitable for readers under the age of 18.

  90+ Chapters in the first month

  500,000+ words already written and backlogged