The third method was the one that called to him the most as it was simple and didn’t require hard conditions to work.

It combined the first and second method of absorbing mana from the air and mana crystals, enhancing the effectiveness by five times compared to just absorbing mana from the air.

And to get this to work, he needed mana crystals.

"I guess there’s no reason for me to wait anymore." he muttered as he used his Dungeon Master Blessing along with the Dungeon Link Skill.

The mana capacity was at 10,000 again and a lot of mana had been wasted too. Making the gacha wheel and the mana absorbing glass spheres did not consume too much mana, due to which there wasn’t really a lot of empty space to store the mana that the people gave the dungeon.

The result was the loss of valuable mana which could have been used for various purposes.

Adrian created a room behind the main room and did not create any door that led to it. This was for his own use and he planned to keep it a secret for a long time.

There was already a lot of empty space inside the dungeon so he only had to spend mana to create the extremely sturdy walls, which took him 400 mana. 100 for each of the three walls and 100 for the ceiling.

In the center of the room, he simply created a small chest made of steel and enchanted it with space magic before connecting it to the dungeon’s core. He tweaked the settings so that all the excess mana would be compressed and converted into mana crystals.

He set the limit of the mana crystals to F rank before nodding to himself.

Once this was done, he added an extra feature where he could manually use the mana in the dungeon and convert it into mana crystals even if the mana didn’t overflow. This gave him better flexibility.

With all of this set up, he willed for the dungeon to convert half of its mana into mana crystals.

[Converting Mana into Mana Crystals]

[Conversion Efficiency: 100%]

Adrian watched in silence as the number of mana crystals increased in the chest and once it hit fifty, it stopped.

"So an F rank mana crystal has 100 mana in it." he muttered as he used dungeon link to transfer 10 of the mana crystals to him.

Ten glowing crystals appeared in front of him and he picked them up. He placed them on the floor in a circular pattern, which each crystal touching the next, before he sat down in front of it.

’Okay.. with this method and my recently upgraded mana veins, I should be able to jump to a second circle mage.’ he thought as he recalled the lessons he had learned in the magic academy.

The amount of mana in a mana crystal was the same as the amount of mana a person of a specific circle rank.

1st Circle Mage = F rank Mana Crystal = 100 Mana

That was the only one for which he had the complete answer.

"Second circle mages are considered to have double the mana of first circle mages so E rank mana crystals should have 200 mana but I’ll need to confirm it later." he said to himself as he looked at the mana crystals in front of him.

"With these ten crystals, which amount to a thousand mana, I should be able to absorb 5000 mana if I do the whole thing right. This is probably more than enough to forcefully push me to the next rank."

With those words, he closed his eyes and began breathing slowly. He focused on sensing mana and inhaling as much as he could.

Mana crystals had a specific way in which they worked. They absorbed and released mana around them at the same time and at a slightly similar rate.

The mana absorbed was slightly more than the mana released and due to this, if given enough time in a mana rich area, mana crystals would slowly rank up.

But this wasn’t enough to reach the 5000 mana he expected.

He placed his hand on the mana crystals with his dominant right hand, each of his fingers touching every other mana crystal.

He absorbed the mana from the atmosphere with quick bursts of inhalation, increasing the volume of absorption quickly as he got used to it.

Soon, he reached a point where he could inhale almost every bit of mana inside his room and this was what he wanted.

Due to the lack of mana in the surroundings, the mana crystals quickly released mana into the atmosphere and at the same time, pulled mana from out of the room.

Such was the rules of physics in this world. The empty space of no mana was filled by both the mana from the crystals and the mana from outside the room.

The absorbed mana circulated throughout his body and exited through his fingers, going into the mana crystals and replenishing most of the mana that they expelled.

By abusing the laws of mana flow, Adrian created a cycle inside his body.

His body was nothing but a pathway for the mana to travel but he also absorbed a small amount of mana with each cycle.

He slowly but steadily increased the concentration of mana inside his body. His mana veins were filled with mana and continued circulating it all throughout his body. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Little by little, he could feel his mana veins expanding until he finally hit a wall after two hours of steady work.

And this was what he was waiting for.

The mana absorption method had two phases. One was the circulation phase where one could abuse the laws of mana flow to increase the rate of mana absorption.

The second phase ended the cycle entirely by cutting off the path for the mana to flow into the mana crystals.

Adrian took his hand off the crystals and inhaled, letting all the mana stay in his body this time.

As he accumulated more mana, he could feel his entire body burn.

It was like he had been tossed into a fire, but he persevered.

This was just a side effect of trying to forcefully rank up as a mage.

And all of a sudden, he felt like he was in an ice storm.

[Ding! Congratulations on ranking up to a Second Circle Mage!]