When he looked up, Leo saw how much progress he had made in just a day. His proficiency had gone from Beginner to Intermediate. He was able to move a lot more freely in the shadow but not as much as the shadow. 

After this much progress, he decided to switch up the spell he was going to train. He was very exhausted from training the Shadow Step, so he first took a break. He left the white space and went back to reality.

It was still bright outside. He had been training for four hours, so it was only noon. He went to the living room to get a snack. He saw that Daphne’s room was closed so he assumed that she was still training.

After taking a quick breather, he went back into his room. He was going to start learning new spells. He wanted to first gain a preliminary understanding of each one before practicing them as much as he could. 

He went back to the white space and saw that he was back in the white room. The alley was all gone and the table with the book was back. He looked at the two options he had. He just decided to go with the Flame Burst first. It didn’t matter what the order was, so he picked whichever seemed cooler.

The silhouette appeared again and demonstrated the spell. The silhouette conjured a ball of fire in its palm. It channeled its magical energy into the fire, causing it to grow and intensify while maintaining its small size. The flames danced and flickered, casting a warm glow across the area that he could feel. It took aim and then hurled the ball of fire in a direction away from him with a flick of its wrist. The motion was so delicate, but the fire traveled several meters before landing on the ground.

When the ball of fire landed, it exploded into a shower of flames. The size wasn’t incredibly huge, but it could encompass almost five people at once. Leo realized why mages were considered so powerful. 

Aura Knights could definitely do the same damage he did to a Magical Beast, but they couldn’t kill five other Aura Knights at once. He knew that this spell would be crucial for the day he stood against the Blacktooth Gang.

After re-watching the motion of the silhouette, he tried to recreate the magic. It was a lot easier than the Shadow Step to accomplish, but the scale of his fire was negligible compared to the demonstration. 

The Shadow Step was harder to learn because it required him to adjust to a new environment. The Flame Burst was easy to learn but harder to perfect. He could barely create an explosion as the silhouette did. 

He wasn’t discouraged. He still had the entire day ahead of him, after all. He just needed to practice. After a few attempts, he realized that he should also practice his aiming. He was currently throwing the balls away in random directions. If he threw them at targets instead, he would gain some practice.

The minute he thought about that, the environment changed. He found himself in a completely open spot, surrounded by targets in all directions. They were ranging from a few meters to dozens of meters away. He smiled and resumed his practice.

For the rest of the day, he only practiced the Flame Burst. He did it until he got exhausted again. After he did, he took a small break and switched the magic that he was practicing to the Elementary Arcane Shield.

The Elementary Arcane Shield was exactly what it sounded like. It was a hexagonal shield that defended him from projectiles and magic. The difference was that he would have to face attacks to learn how to use the shield.

The training room read his thoughts and sent in the silhouette to attack him in an open space. Since he was in his mind, even though he couldn’t block the attacks, he didn’t actually get hurt. But it definitely hurt like hell.

This training persisted for the entire week. His main aim was to strongly understand the spells and be able to use them as freely as possible. He needed to know that he could count on the spells to do what they were supposed to. This meant that his practice had to be long. And to his credit, he was putting in those hours.

He didn’t move out of the house even once. Only Daphne went out to get any groceries that they needed. Neither of them went to the forest after he told her that it was too dangerous. Daphne didn’t go because she was content with his explanation. He didn’t go because he was not satisfied with his mastery over the spells. Even if he knew he could survive in the forest, he didn’t have a necessity to go yet.

The other two spells also hit advanced proficiency. The proficiency of the Elementary Arcane Shield didn’t budge according to the room, but he knew he was getting better at it. The skill curve was incredibly steep at the start, but it plateaued incredibly quickly.

He guessed that it was because it was harder to reach Master proficiency because it meant perfection. Mastery was hard because it required a perfect understanding of the spell and how to use the magic.

At the end of the week, however, he broke his house arrest. It was the 27th of December and the city was covered in a thin layer of snow. The reason he was going out was because he wouldn’t be able to explain to her why he was holed in for that long.

The new year was approaching and it was generally a happy time of the year. This was not only because the entire city was bustling with celebrations, but because it was considered his and Daphne’s birthday.

Being an orphan, he didn’t know when his actual birthday was. Neither did Daphne to his knowledge. So he just marked a very memorable day on the calendar as his birthday. This was partly because he didn’t need to remember it, but also because he needed fewer occasions to celebrate.

If he had more reasons to celebrate, he would have to pay for those celebrations. Money was a very new concept to him since it was hard for him to find jobs as a kid. Now that he was in a very stable place, he needed to start preparing for a proper new year celebration.

When he finally exited his room, he was greeted by Daphne. He could see the energy that was coming off her. Since she was frequently going to the market, the city’s energy had rubbed off on her. She was also in the holiday spirit.

“What took you so long to come out?” She asked. “Why are you sulking?”

Leo smiled and shook his head. “I was just lost in practice. Come on. Let’s go out to eat today.”