Manaless Mage

   The first time he checked the white flame, there were only a few thin blue and gold lines around it, and they weren't even noticeable until he focused properly on the energy. 

   However, now those thin blue and gold lines from before had developed into streaks that coiled around the white flame, swirling and moving along with it.

   Though he found this quite surprising, Harry didn't think much about it, and simply felt like it was due to him increasing his energy control.

   He focused on the white flame, and the swirled it around, before moving a small part of it to his right arm.

   A few streaks of blue and gold also flowed along the white flame, into his arm. 

   The moment the energy moved to his right arm, he immediately felt a warm refreshing sensation around that arm, and couldn't help but wish that the energy remained there forever. 

  He swirled the energy around, the refreshing feeling increasing or decreasing depending on how he was moving it.

   While moving his energy, Harry concentrated on the larger part of the flame, and then dividing it into another small part, he stirred the energy around and then channeled it into his left arm.

   Now, he had divided his energy into two, or rather three, and was channeling it in two parts of his body, at the same time, a feat he wasn't able to achieve before.

   A slight smile appeared on his face when he realized this, the last time, just moving the energy around took all his concentration, and now, he could even channel it into different places, an achievement which made him feel fulfilled. 

   This was due to the skill [Energy control] leveling up, with each level up, his attunement with the white flame within him increased leaps and bounds, and he was able to control his energy even better.

    After a few minutes more of channeling his energy, Harry finally opened his eyes, his lips still curled into a slight smile.

   'Energy control... very helpful.' He muttered, as he slowly stood up from the ground.

    He yawned, before turning off the fireplace, finally completing his element comprehension for today.

   'The comprehension progress is still too slow…' He thought, staring at his palms.

   Just then, he activated [Energy control] once more, and he could feel his energy swirling within him. 

   However, since his eyes weren't closed, he couldn't 'see' the image of the white flame, and could only 'feel' it.

   Channeling his energy once more, Harry moved some of it to his hands, feeling the same warm and refreshing feeling fill them once more. 

   But he ignored that sensation, and didn't relish on it like he usually did, instead, he focused on his strength, and even though it wasn't by a lot, he could tell that the amount of strength in his palm had increased.

   This was actually something he had discovered a few months back, and that was that by channeling his energy, he could also increase his strength and speed.

   Ever since discovering this, Harry had been trying to directly channel his energy in between fights in order to boost his strength and agility without the need of any skills

   However, it was one thing to channel his energy and it was another to actually concentrate on the fight. Splitting his focus between them was where the problem came in.

   No matter how much he tried, he had never succeeded in splitting his focus between the two of them.

   Directly channeling his energy was incredibly difficult, and it was very different from using skills. Unlike skills which the system just activated automatically, he had to do everything on his own.

   He might try at first, but the connection always end up cutting at the middle, and since he mostly tried this when fighting mana beasts, who wouldn't show him any mercy, he was forced to focus more on the fight, or he would end up with grave injuries, and could even lose his life. 

    However, for some reason, he felt like he had gotten strong enough to control his energy while also engaging in a fight.

    With the new level up of [Energy Control], controlling his energy had become a lot more fluid, and he was sure he would be able to handle channeling it mid-fight.

   To be sure of his thoughts, he activated the skill, and then moved some of the white flame down to his legs.

   Another smile of satisfaction appeared on his face when he noticed how smoothly he was able to control the energy.

   'But then, there's only one true way to test this out… and that is by going back to the beast forest.' Harry thought, finally canceling the skill.

   Before leaving the academy, he had already collected a ticket from the principal, who for some reason was acting weirdly, so he was free to go into the forest and hunt mana beasts. 

   Elementalists and even combat mages hardly went into the beast forest during this period, since they had to conserve their mana for the rest of the ranking event. 

   But Harry didn't really care about that, his energy regenerated fast, he had no worries about his mana becoming too low before the next stage of the competition. 

   His team had already advanced to the next stage, since they won their match, and all that was left was for him to grow stronger, before 

   After all the teams had participated in the flag-hunting competition, a total of twenty five teams were eliminated, out of the fifty which participated.

   The total of students who participated in this year's ranking event was 250, and 125 out of them were eliminated, while the others were fortunate enough to advance to the next stage.

   There were a few elite students who were also disqualified, this mainly contained the ones below rank 15, who were unlucky enough to be placed against more powerful elite Elementalists. 

   Even Han was disqualified, and his match loss was one of the most shameful of them all.