It was quiet in Gerald's room. He was silently contemplating new ideas on the bed, when suddenly…

"I got it! I don't need different spells, I just need to upgrade the current ones. That's also going to take way less time and energy and I already have a few ideas!" Gerald opened his eyes and jumped up.

It was already a new day since Gerald used the entire afternoon, evening, and a big chunk of the night to test Etherium Crystals.

He didn't sleep much, but he was too excited to try his ideas in practice to pay any attention to tiredness. As usual, he went to the Crystal Dragon Inn for breakfast and after that, he left through the South gate and went a good distance away from the city before doing any practice runs with magic.

Gerald decided to upgrade his Fireball spell first. He had two ideas for increased destructive power.

Firstly, it was a way to increase the speed of casting, which would allow him to continuously produce Fireballs without stopping.

He named it Repeating Fireball. With a simple change to the flow of Mana, he could produce the effect that would not stop the flow when the spell was completed, instead, it would pull on the rest of Mana and automatically start a new spell.

That could go on forever unless Gerald purposely cut off the flow of Mana or if his energy stores were completely emptied out.

Now it was time to test this theory. Gerald took out Adelard's sword and gathered Mana on his left palm, pointing it away from himself. After steadying his mind, he was ready to begin.

"Repeating Fireball," he calmly said and a red flame ignited on his palm. It quickly grew larger until it became as big as a volleyball, at which point it flew out in a straight line.

Immediately after another flame ignited, grew, and then shoot off into the distance. That repeated a few times before Gerald stopped it. He had a big grin on his face. It worked just as expected.

The speed of the cycle was also quite satisfactory, the whole thing, from the point of fire igniting and then the Fireball flying away, took just about a second.

"Good, this spell works as intended. Now, on to the next one." Gerald mentally prepared himself for the second Fire spell, as it was much more difficult and required greater concentration. It was also an upgraded version of the Fireball spell, just in a different direction.

If the Repeating Fireball focused on speed and quantity, then this one focused on quality and raw power.

The whole theory was simple; Create a normal Fireball, but instead of letting it fly out, he would have to hold it in place and add more Mana to make it more potent.

Trying it out in practice, Gerald quickly realized he had a problem. He needed both hands to contain the Fireball and he couldn't hold the sword at the same time. That meant that he couldn't make use of the Fire Crystals, as they had to be in the contact with the body of a caster in some way, to be able to transfer Mana.

"Damn, I didn't think about this. Maybe I should break the sword apart and make a bracelet instead?" Gerald murmured and scratched his head. It would be a shame to destroy such a nice sword to make a simple bracelet out of it.

"Ah, forget it. I'll think about that later. First I have to test my new Fireball."

Gerald activated his ability to see Mana and prepared to start the spell. He gave that ability a name; Magic Eyes. It was not a requirement for the spell, but it made the whole process much easier.

With the ability to see Mana, he could more easily control and manipulate it, instead of just barely feeling it with his mind.

He spread out his legs slightly and bent his knees, to lower his center of gravity to be more stable. He then placed his hands in front as if he was holding an invisible basketball.

Slowly, he started the process… First, a red flame ignited between his hands and it grew until it reached the size of a volleyball. Then it slowly started to spin and formed itself into a sphere.

It was a similar process to making a normal Fireball, however this time, Gerald advanced much slower and with greater caution, as this was his first time trying it out.

As the ball of flame was spinning, he started to add more Mana with the attribute of Fire. The flame slowly grew larger and it started to push Gerald's hands apart. When his hands were a shoulder-length apart, Gerald stopped adding Mana and pushed, with his mind and body, the flames closer together.

The red flame turned from red to orange, as it was getting hotter. The entire flame was compressed down to the size of a tennis ball when Gerald finally stopped compressing.

Now he began a new cycle of adding Mana and then compressing the flames down once again. With each compression, the flames became brighter and hotter. At the same time, the raw strength and mental exhaustion required for that became exponentially greater.

All in all, Gerald compressed the Fireball three times. In the end, it was once again the size of a volleyball, but the color was bright yellow. Even the natural resistance that came with using Fire magic was unable to block all the heat coming off of it and Gerald felt like his face was going to burst into flames at any time.

He slowly extended his hands forward and said, "Go, Greater Fireball!"

Woosh!

The ball of flame went forward at an amazing speed, and the recoil was so great that Gerald almost lost his footing and fell to the ground. Luckily he stabilized himself before that happened.

Boom!

The Greater Fireball finally hit the ground at an amazing speed and exploded in a spectacular way. A column of flames, that could be seen from even ten kilometers away shoot into the sky, and the inhabitants of Geldern definitely heard the explosion.

"Uh-oh."

Gerald quickly left the scene so he wouldn't be noticed. His face looked tired, but at the same time, a content smile hung on his lips. "The effect is even better than I expected. Although I used almost all my Mana for this, it was totally worth it for such raw firepower."

He drank a Mana Potion and then murmured, "Too bad it takes quite a toll on me, also the casting time is quite long." It indeed took quite a while to cast Greater Fireball. The spells he usually used could be activated in less than a second, but this one required a full minute of preparation. It also left him completely drained at the end.

"There is probably a simple way to solve all these problems, otherwise there would be no way a human could cast higher than medium-grade spells in any useful way. I guess I can shorten the casting time with more training, but the drain on my mind is too great for something like that to be done often."

He looked back at the charred ground from afar and rubbed his chin as he contemplated the results, "Being able to cast my new spells at a first try at least shows that my magic theory is mostly if not completely correct. I just need to further build my foundations of magic and I should be fine."

Gerald went on to sit down by a lonely tree on the plains to rest and recover. Since he needed some time to replenish his Mana, he decided to make use of this time and meditate. It would further speed up his recovery and increase his natural Man regeneration.

A good twenty minutes later, Gerald opened his eyes, feeling refreshed. "Now, an upgrade for my Stone Bolt… It's a good spell, but I can probably make it better. What if I just increased the number of Stone Bolts I can summon? From seven to maybe…thirty? That could work…" Gerald was thinking aloud under the tree. He was sitting on the ground, hands behind his head, legs crossed, completely relaxed.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "Maybe I could add a bit of Wind magic to it as well. That way I could make them faster and they would carry more kinetic energy too. That could be a good way to pierce armor. Although I didn't fight against any metal armor yet, it's never bad to be prepared."