The next morning arrived without mercy.
Before the sun had fully risen, Sirius stood once again in the clearing outside Ainz—cloak removed, skeletal frame exposed to the cool dawn wind, mana pulsing beneath his bone like an unending tide.
Mira and Aria staggered behind him, both still exhausted from the emotional and physical toll of the previous day.
But Sirius didn't move.
He simply watched the horizon, silent and unmoving, like a statue carved from death itself.
Mira approached, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "You're early."
"I do not sleep," Sirius replied.
Aria groaned behind her. "That's cheating."
He ignored the comment, gaze still forward. "We begin."
Mira stepped in front of him and took a firm breath. "Alright. Yesterday we worked with a fraction of a fraction. Today… we'll try for more."
Sirius nodded.
"I am ready."
Aria muttered under her breath, "I'm not."
Mira raised her hand. "First, stabilize your current level. Then we'll slowly increase."
Sirius extended his arm.
At once, the mana swelled within him. Like an ocean trying to escape through a thread-sized crack, it surged violently.
But he was prepared.
His skeletal fingers curled, and he compressed the mana. Forced it into obedience. Molded it into a tiny sphere of faint blue light at his palm—the same size as the ones he'd mastered yesterday.
"Perfect," Mira said softly. "Hold it."
Sirius held it Stable and firm. Controlled.
Aria leaned forward. "That's almost peaceful compared to yesterday."
"Because it is familiar," Sirius said. "But today is not about familiarity."
He closed his empty eye sockets.
And intentionally reached deeper.
The moment he dipped into a larger portion of his reserves, the world reacted violently.
Wind whipped against the trees. The air thickened. The ground vibrated beneath their feet.
Mira stepped back instinctively. "Sirius—wait—don't take in that much at once—!"
But Sirius was no longer listening.
He had already gripped a larger stream of mana.
And the mana did not like being held.
It writhed and rebelled, bucking like a wild beast being forced into a cage too small to hold it.
Sirius clenched his jaw—not in pain, but effort. His bones trembled as the surge pressed against his very being.
But he fought back. He wanted to stabilize and compress it. He wanted it to obey him.
The mana refused.
And then as he fought for control, it exploded.
Booooooooom!!
A deafening explosion echoed through the forest, louder and more violent than anything Sirius had produced before.
The shockwave tore through the clearing like a hurricane.
Mira screamed as she was flung backward, crashing into a tree so hard the bark cracked. Aria tumbled through the air, hitting the ground and rolling until she finally slammed into a boulder, coughing and gasping.
The trees bent outward in a radius of nearly fifty meters.
Birds fled the canopy in frantic flocks.
A cloud of dust and debris filled the air.
And at the center of it all, Sirius stood unmoving.
Not even a scratch on his bones.
His cloak was torn from the wind. The ground around him was no longer ground—it was a smoldering crater stretching nearly thirty meters across.
He lowered his hand slowly, the smoke swirling around him like a halo of destruction.
Mira staggered to her feet. "S-Sirius… what… what was that!?"
Aria limped toward him. "That wasn't a spell! That was just a slightly higher portion of your mana—leaking!"
He looked down at his skeletal hand.
"Yes."
He spread his fingers apart. A faint ripple of unstable mana still coursed through them.
"That was simply more mana than I have used previously. I attempted to control it."
Mira shook her head, horrified. "No—no, Sirius—that wasn't 'more.' That was too much. You almost exposed us again!"
Aria pointed at the crater. "You call this 'almost'!?"
Sirius tilted his skull.
"The villagers are too far to feel it."
"That's not the issue!" Aria shouted. "People kilometers away will sense that surge!"
Mira grabbed him by the wrist, breath shaky. "Sirius, listen to me. You can't do this yet. You're pushing too far too early. You're going to draw attention—not just from the kingdom, but from anyone who senses mana."
Sirius looked at her quietly.
He didn't disagree.
He couldn't.
Because he had felt it in that brief moment of attempted control—the vast, roaring, incomprehensible depth of his mana reserves. A depth no mortal or immortal being should ever possess.
His attempts to tame that ocean were like trying to hold back a tsunami with bare hands.
He wasn't ready. Not yet. But he didn't stop. He wouldn't stop.
They trained for hours.
He tried to increase his output slowly.
He failed.
Every attempt beyond the tiny fraction resulted in an explosion. Some small, others catastrophic. Trees broke. Rocks shattered. The forest floor cracked and split.
By midday, Mira was covered in bruises, Aria's face was streaked with dirt and frustration, and Sirius stood among the wreckage looking almost… contemplative.
"It seems," Sirius finally said, "that I cannot yet exceed the threshold we established yesterday."
Mira collapsed onto a stump. "You think?"
Aria flopped onto the grass, groaning. "I'm going to die. I'm actually going to die before war even reaches us."
Sirius turned slowly toward them.
"I apologize for the destruction."
Mira looked up at him, breathing heavily. "Sirius… we're not angry. Just terrified."
Aria nodded weakly. "Yeah. You're basically a walking natural disaster. Controlled on a good day. Uncontrolled on… this day."
Sirius considered their words carefully.
"I will not attempt a larger output again until my control improves significantly."
Mira let out a breath of relief.
"Good. That's… good."
Aria lifted a hand lazily. "We live another day."
The rest of the training session shifted to control practice.
No expanding his limits and no dangerous experiments.
Just refining the tiny fraction he'd already mastered.
He fired small blasts into the sky, into the ground, and even into the wind.
He also shot some into a target Aria drew on a tree.
The shockwaves lessened.
The brightness dimmed.
The blasts grew predictable.
And by afternoon, Sirius could maintain the tiny output without fluctuations for almost five minutes.
It wasn't perfect nor was it powerful. However, it was reliable.
And reliability was what he needed for now.
When the sun dipped toward the horizon, Mira finally waved her hands weakly.
"T-that's enough… Sirius… please. Stop."
Aria was lying face-first in the grass, mumbling something that sounded like "no more training…"
Sirius lowered his hand.
He stared at the sky—burnt, cracked, disturbed from the day's disasters.
He could feel it.
His power was vast.
But power without control was useless.
Or worse—dangerous.
Which meant there was only one thing left to do next.
He turned to the exhausted girls.
"I believe," he said slowly, "that I must expand my arsenal in different ways."
Mira blinked tiredly. "What do you mean?"
Sirius faced Aria.
"I need to learn spells."
Aria rolled over, staring up at him with wide eyes. "Wh… what?"
"You are skilled in spell combination and structural formation," Sirius said. "Teach me."
Aria sat up, stunned. "Y-you want me to teach you?"
"Yes," Sirius answered. "Control from Mira. Spell Casting from you."
Aria swallowed, then grinned weakly.
"So… I'm officially your spell instructor?"
Sirius nodded once.
"If you are willing."
Aria puffed up proudly. "Oh, I am very willing."
Mira smiled despite her exhaustion. "That's… a good idea."
Sirius looked into the fading sunlight.
Today had taught him something important.
He wasn't ready to unleash his true power.
Not yet.
But with precision, technique, and structure, he wouldn't need raw output to destroy those who threatened Ainz.
Not three months from now. Not ever again.