As she took in a deep breath, Beatrice continued staring at the spell circle inscribed inside of the book, trying her best to imprint it in her mind.
After staring at the diagram for more than an hour, so much so that her eyes had become bloodshot, Beatrice slowly closed the book before getting up from the bed and closing her eyes.
"This should work," mumbled Beatrice, before beginning to focus on casting the spell she had just memorized.
Of course, things were not so simple, as after over thirty minutes of casting nothing happened, but still, Beatrice continued attempting to cast that spell, not letting her failure get to her.
Several hours later,
Still with her eyes closed, Beatrice couldn't help but feel lightheaded, as exhaustion seemingly washed over her.
'The effects of the potion are almost over, I need to get on with this, and fast,' thought Beatrice.
Opening her eyes, Beatrice smiled, looking at the shadowy clouds around her.
Suddenly, Beatrice opened her mouth, causing the clouds to suddenly begin flowing towards Beatrice, and being swallowed by her.
Feeling her exhaustion be slightly alleviated, a large smile appeared on Beatrice's face.
"It looks like I was right, this spell can somewhat alleviate the effects of the Light Spell, but I need a lot more Torment," mumbled Beatrice as all of the clouds inside of her room had already disappeared.
Suddenly, Beatrice turned her vision towards a certain door.
The Experiment Room
...
Pain is a rather peculiar thing, the primal response of living beings, warning themselves that they had suffered harm, but at the same time, pain itself could do so much more damage than the wounds themselves.
Looking at the extremely huge shadowy cloud that covered half of the room, Beatrice smiled, before opening her mouth, causing the large cloud to suddenly begin flowing toward her.
At this moment, Beatrice felt as if her body was being ripped apart, torn to shreds under a precise scalpel, her inner organs exposed and examined.
James, a random man, was sold into slavery because of his debt, before ending up in Beatrice's laboratory.
But even though James was long gone, his imprint on the world was still very much there.
No great accomplishment, nor achievement, James practically did nothing with his life, but even so, something of him remained left behind after his soul departed from this world.
Pain, despair, and torment, were the three things that James had left behind in this world.
But under the might of Beatrice's spell, these emotions, which were imprinted into the very walls of this room, were forcefully brought out, then merely a few moments later were swallowed by Beatrice.
Suddenly, Beatrice's body slightly shook, as unlike the others, this dark cloud struggled, as portions of James's soul, tainted with pure torment, remained in this room.
Feeling the feeble and fragmented mind trying to escape its fate, for the first time since she had come to the Shadow Monastery, Beatrice's mask slowly cracked.
The rather polite smile she usually had on her face slowly began morphing, becoming wider and wider, before Beatrice erupted into pure utterly insane, manic laughter only a few moments later.
Suddenly, shadows began emerging from all corners of the room, with an extremely large amount emerging from the eight metal restraints in the middle of the room.
...
Hearing the laughter coming from inside of the experiment room, William suddenly got up from the chair, wanting to make sure his Mistress was alright, or if she needed help.
But as she got closer and closer to the closed door of the experiment room, the speed at which William walked became slower and slower, but even so, eventually, William was close enough, so much so that he stretched out his hand towards the door hands.
The moment William's hand touched the handle, his movement suddenly stopped, as another burst of laughter was heard from inside of the room.
"Mistress doesn't need my help right now," mumbled William as he slowly took out his hand from the door handle and began walking back to his chair with his body slightly shaking.
...
As her laughter slowly but surely stopped, the room returned to normal, leaving only Beatrice standing alone in the middle of it.
But compared to before, the experiment room seemed rather different, it was as if the room was recreated, the gloomy atmosphere, which was ever present in the previous experiment room seemed completely gone, and at the same time, something seemed different about Beatrice.
'Torment, Rankless Dark Spell, using the pain, despair, and torment left behind after the death of those in extreme pain as fuel, the mage can either temporarily increase their power, or even use it to achieve feats that were impossible for the mage to achieve with their current power, but be warned, this power may come at a price.'
...
A swarm of dark shadows suddenly appeared in an extremely weird world, if not for the color of the shadows, which were evidently black, and were clearly visible to the naked eye, one might describe this world as pitch black.
But right now, under this contrast, it seemed as if this world was pure white, completely contrary to common sense.
Suddenly, it seemed as if the group of shadows sensed something, as all of them suddenly gathered in one group, before beginning to travel in a certain direction.
As time continued to pass, the shadows, which were incomplete beings, seemed to slowly fuse together, forming a weird black blob.
After an unknown amount of time, the blob arrived at it's destinated, a weird fog, comprised of three parts.
A part of the fog was grey, being completely neutral, at the same time, the grey fog seemed to be slowly devoured by what looked like a black fog.
But just as the blob was about to go to the black fog, it was suddenly attracted by something else, a golden fog, which was seemingly attached to the black fog.
As soon as the blob sensed the golden fog, it suddenly flew toward it before beginning to devour it at a rapid speed.
Because of the relatively small size of the golden fog, it was then soon devoured by the large black blob, leaving the blob looking at the black fog.
But just as the blob was about to begin traveling toward the black fog, a pair of confused black eyes suddenly emerged from it, now staring at the blob.
...
Looking at the room, which did not have any resentment left in it, Beatrice felt some despair in her heart.
"Why was I so stupid when I lost control ?" asked Beatrice, as she looked at the floor.
In the period of time, she had accidentally let go, Beatrice had completely ignored all restraints, absorbing resentment without any care in the world, and right now, all of that resentment was probably about to cause her death.
Suddenly, contrary to her expectations, all of Beatrice's exhaustion disappeared, and a few moments later, black smoke began emerging out of her mouth, before dissipating into the walls of the room only a few moments later.
Seeing what had just happened, Beatrice couldn't help but fall into deep thought,
'What the hell did just happen?' thought Beatrice as more and more confusion could be seen on her face.
Contrary to all of her expectations, nothing bad seemed to have happened to her, furthermore, the light spell that she had been targeted with was also removed, causing more and more doubt to appear on her face.
'Should ask Mr. Errol to verify what had happened?' thought Beatrice for a few moments, before once again deciding not to tell anyone what had happened to her.
It was not that Beatrice did not trust her teacher, but she would rather not disclose what had happened to her to anyone else.
After thinking about what had happened for a few more moments, Beatrice let out a helpless sigh before sitting cross-legged on her bed, and began refining mana.
"Since nothing bad has happened up until now, it looks like I'm at least somewhat alright," thought Beatrice as elemental energy from around her began floating towards her, before beginning to be transformed into mana.
...
Looking at his mistress, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed, William's hand slightly shook, as the laughter he had heard yesterday continued echoing inside of his mind.
But after staring at Beatrice for around thirty minutes, and seeing that his mistress seemed to be the same as before, William took in a deep breath, finally relaxing as the shaking of his hand stopped.
...
After this very exciting day, life seemed to return to normal for Beatrice, refining mana, practicing her spells, conducting experiments, and occasionally going to lessons, slowly but surely enriching her knowledge.
At the same time, no other signs of being afflicted by light spells appeared on Beatrice, having seemingly been annihilated by the Torment Spell.
Days, and then months continued to pass for Beatrice without anything major happening, only occasionally, she would go on missions, so as to increase the amounts of elemental stones she had in reserve.
Three months later,
Looking at the monthly one hundred spiritual stones in her hands, Beatrice couldn't help but smile.
Without any hesitation, Beatrice took out forty of them before placing them in a pouch, preparing to put them towards her savings.
As she thought about her saving Beatrice's mouth couldn't help but unconsciously curl up, over these past three months Beatrice had saved over one hundred elemental stones from her missions, never mind the one hundred and twenty she obtained from her monthly subsidy.
Because of this, Beatrice's savings reached a total of five hundred and eighty elemental stones, an extremely large amount for a Mage Apprentice.
Thinking about this, Beatrice couldn't help but look at a certain item that was being displayed on the counter.
'Elixir of Darkness, Five Hundred Elemental stones,'
Of course, Beatrice only took a single look at the Elixir before turning away her head, not even letting the thought of buying such a thing enter her mind.
As the name implied, this Elixir is extremely useful to Dark Elemental Mage apprentices, allowing them to increase their mana at an extremely fast speed, but sadly, for Beatrice, this was not attractive at all, as mana was not a true bottleneck for her.
In these past three months, Beatrice's mana continued increasing at a steady pace, surpassing forty points of mana only a week ago.
Although this speed may seem slow, if Beatrice continued this pace, or even slowed down somewhat, she would reach the limit of the human body, which was around seventy points of mana in only one or two years.
After this limit though, lay the true bottleneck which could cause even the most steadfast mages to fall into doubt and march on harshly.
To become a true Mage, an apprentice must fully transform their body from that of a mere human and into something else entirely.
Even though it seemed as though someone with a vast understanding of biology, like Beatrice, would have a large advantage in this process, this was not the case.
As consciously transforming your own body in this way was utterly impossible, as such, all of the work had to left to pure instinct and the Apprentice's understanding of their element.
Because diferent apprentices may have different understandings of their elements, their future forms may be completely different, only having one thing in common, still being made of flesh and blood.
Although True Mages were massively more powerful than apprentices and could resist spells with their bare bodies, unlike the nearly all-powerful Archmages, they were still creatures of flesh and blood and could be killed with conventional means, if those means were powerful enough.
...
Feeling the Dark Mana simply refuse to enter her body any longer, Anne took in a deep breath.
"At least this happened later than I expected," mumbled Anne, knowing exactly how bad her talent was.
Suddenly, Anne took out the Elixir of Darkness she had bought some time ago, back when Beatrice had just entered the academy and drank it.
Merely a moment after that, an extremely potent torrent of Dark Mana suddenly rushed through Anne's body.
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