Testing

The minute, no, the second she was out of sight John closed his eyes again, reestablishing the link to the void, or rather to his mana bar.

"Make a barrier that I can influence!" He commanded the power, but once again nothing happened. He was probably going at this from the wrong angle. He tried to do it like a 'voidling', but what if he wasn't. Then she said it was pretty hard, because he had to do all the forming himself. Why not go that route then? It would be a whole lot more complicated, but at least he had something to go with. Or did he?

"Channel my mana into my hand!" Was his next command. That worked really easy. What a cheap trick. Hadn't he just tried to do exactly this a few minutes ago, and failed miserably? Well, good to know. His 'inner power' was his mana bar, and he had to focus on that to gain mana. If he would have watched a series in which the main character gained powers like that, he would have called it a bad joke, because now they had to go with it for continuity, and it wasn't so funny in the first place. But 'a bad joke they had to go with' sounded like a pretty good description of his powers in general, so he wasn't complaining any more.

Raising both hands, filled with mana, he thrusts them forward and pushed the mana out, imagining it would form the barrier from that energy. Once again, nothing happened. The mana flew away and just became nothing specific. Okay, maybe he would need her guidance to do this...

No! That was unacceptable, he didn't need a silly teacher for this. He was The Gamer! He figured out mechanics as they came, refused to google for answers or use guidebooks to achieve the 100%. So why should he need someone to babysit him now, as this was just as much a game as anything else for him now.

Before recharging his hands, he pictured what he wanted to do. The mana was supposed to build a room, a barrier. But it wouldn't do that by itself. So maybe...

He pushed another load of mana out, but this time he kept pushing and refuling it. Guiding it, moving it around and building with it. This was really hard, because the energy clearly did not want to be pressed into any form. On top of that, it consumed a fuckload of his mana. While still forming, he looked at his character sheet. He was already down to 50 mp.

49... 47... 45... he was losing energy by the second. Focus, John! If he wanted to make a barrier before his mana ran out completely, he had to be fast. He closed his eyes, no longer trying to see where the barrier should be build, but to feel it instead. Since he had the area visualized down to the rubble under his feet, it was way easier than this.

He could feel where the energy was breaking out, almost see how it wanted to go in a different way, but he **** it back. His will was stronger than that of his mana.

Once the form was filled out, a full dome above and around him, he stopped the energy flow. In a happy sigh he noticed that the barrier didn't just disappear but stayed the way he **** it. Finally. He opened his eyes, expecting to see the message of a new skill. He wasn't disappointed.

New skill: Apprentice barrier, 50 mp

**** your mana into the form of a barrier. It can gain aspects of an illusion barrier or be strengthened by adding more mana to it with the correct intent.

Note: This skill has no level and therefore wont gain Skill-XP

Alright! A fast glimpse at his mana bar confirmed this message. He really did use up all of his mana. But at least he was standing inside the barrier, and now he could regenerate and upgrade it to what he liked.