An Owl's Rise

With a new idea coming to her mind as she was about to drift to sleep Evelyn shot fully awake as her exactment pushed past her exhaustion.

For months now she had had no real success with trying to control her magical energy as Melisandre demonstrated not long after accepting her as a disciple.

It was the mark of the truly strong in this world as it allowed whoever could master this skill the ability to use magic more fluidly.

Right now, there was little to no intricacies in Evelyn's control over her magic. All she could do for the most part was just unleash it in gusts of wind or bursts of fire, without much finesse.

Of course, she also had her gravity powers which were more refined, but those were innate powers of the Aethersphere, not something she was doing on her own.

'Come on you stupid lift, go faster.' Evelyn thought as she descended to the second floor of her room.

Before the elevator even reached the floor, she jumped off of it and rushed over to the advancement chamber.

Once there she opened up the slot where she could deposit magic crystals and put in four red ones which was far more than she ever had before.

Though before closing it and starting up the magical device, Evelyn hesitated.

'If this fails, I will be out quite a few credits. Even just these red ones cost at least thirty thousand a piece from the vendors in the crystal hall. Also, I am certain that Melisandre will be angry if she finds out, since this is above the limit she set for me. But if this is to work, I need a huge amount of magical energy in the air.'

Going back and forth on what to do, Evelyn eventually decided to go ahead with her plan and closed the slot before starting up the advancement chamber.

Soon enough the magic device was ready, and she entered into it as it was flooded with magical energy.

Immediately Evelyn could feel the far greater density than what was outside, and as she breathed in the magical energy flowed into her.

Yet her body and cores were already at their peak and could go no further until she reached the next rank. And once her emptied cores were refilled, the magical energy began overwhelming her body very quickly.

Luckily the Aethersphere began whirling within her chest and took in the excess magical energy, since it needed what Evelyn could only assume was an absurd amount to fix itself.

'Focus on the flow. Right now what is coming in is pure magical energy that has not been absorbed by my cores. This is what I need to figure out how to bring out instead of just using my magic affinities.'

Dozens of minutes went by as Evelyn turned all of her attention to how the magical energy was moving around her body now that it was flooded with so much.

Normally this would have made any other beast sick or even killed them, but the Aethersphere was preventing her from overdosing on the immense amount of magical energy that was currently within the same confined area as her.

Continuously she tried getting a reading on the flow of magical energy while pushing what was stored in her cores out in the form of fire or wind while trying to get a feel for the difference.

Then after nearly thirty minutes when the magical energy was just beginning to lessen around her, she noticed something.

The magical energy that came out of either her beast core or magic core had a different feeling than the pure energy she was currently taking in.

It was faint and minute, but it was clear that as soon as her magical energy left either core it was already imbued with the power of her affinities. Which was why when it left her body it either created flames or wind.

Next, she tired doing the same with the Aethersphere, and felt the magical energy she sent into it change again as the divine item manipulated her magical energy.

'I see, I just need to some how pull my power out pure instead of already primed with my affinities.' Evelyn thought having made the first bit of progress since she started trying to control her magical energy.

With a path to go down now she left the advancement chamber and flew back to the training room.

She wanted to get started immediately, but she was not sure if what she did next might cause damage to her surroundings, so she made sure not to continue any further in her room.

To start she expelled a huge amount of magical energy at once and created a large gust of wind with it.

Her goal was to get a feel for how exactly her magical energy felt being used to create wind and then to focus on what the difference was between pure magical energy and what was already dyed in her affinities.

Circulating her magical energy around her body, she tried multiple times to try and bring it to its pure form. Then after many tries, she eventually managed to separate just the smallest amount of pure magical energy.

As soon as she had this little bit of success her heart rate began to spike, and anticipation welled up inside her.

Slowly she brought out the small amount of pure magical energy she had managed to separate from the influence affinities and brought it to the tip of her wing.

Once it left her body, it came out as a small whisp of blue light before and quickly dispersing into the air as it lost its form.

However, even just seeing this little bit of progress was enough to bring Evelyn to tears, as all her efforts to try and control her magical energy finally showed even the slightest bit of results.

'Now I just need to figure out how to bring it out of my cores in its pure form instead of running it through my body like a centrifuge until I get the smallest amount of pure magical energy.'

Unfortunately, as Evelyn renewed her resolve to continue training, she suddenly began to wobble, and she felt a hard impact on the ground as her head was spinning.

She had already been exhausted before she attempted her new training method, and now her excitement could no longer push past her physical limits which she had already exceeded.

Her body simply could not go on any longer, and within just a few minutes her consciousness left her.

When she woke up, she found herself back in her room laid down on top of the large branch in her room.

Immediately she could feel how sore she was from having slept on her back which was not normal for owls.

'Ugh I feel like i just took a beating.' Evelyn thought as she propped herself back up.

Swiftly she rubbed the fuzziness out of her eyes with her wings and let out a long yawn.

But as soon as she was slightly more awake and aware of her surroundings, she noticed that someone was sitting in a corner of her room and staring at her.

"It looks like you are finally awake. Would you mind explaining to me what you were doing before you collapsed?" Melisandre said with a cold tone.

Wincing and taking a step back, Evelyn could tell that she was furious due to the smile on her face that did not reach her eyes.

Moving over to Melisandre, Evelyn waited for her to extend the thin strand of magical energy and explained what she had been doing.

Luckily this seemed to make Melisandre forget all about her anger when she heard that Evelyn had a very small amount of success in controlling her magical energy.

"Really!? That is amazing! Go ahead and show me right now!"

Doing as her master said, Evelyn focused within herself and used the same method she had before.

Within a few minutes of swirling her magical energy around inside her she managed to separate out a small bit of pure magical energy and expelled it outside of her body.

The instant Melisandre saw this she jumped up and made a gleeful sound Evelyn was completely shocked by.

"You really are talented! To be able to do even that much after not even four months of training is astounding!"

However, as she said this, she remembered what sort of crazy training method Evelyn had used to bring about this result, and once again fixed her with a harsh look.

"Now while the results may have been impressive, what you did was beyond reckless. I already warned you about how too much magical energy at once could kill. Next time you want to try something like this come to me first and we can discuss it together and I can watch over you." Melisandre said with a serious tone.

Nodding her head Evelyn agreed not to attempt anymore rash experiments with herself as the test subject.

"But still, a celebration is in order. You have taken the first step in learning to control your magical energy, and once you have perfected your ability to do so we can really begin your training in how to use magic." Melisandre said with a bright smile on her face that had replaced the scowl she had been giving Evelyn just a minute ago.

After that Melisandre had Katrina and Anneli make a veritable feast of delicious food for all of them to enjoy together, and they spent the rest of the day celebrating Evelyn achievement in controlling her magical energy.