It basically meant that he had to keep doing this over and over and over again for a long, long time to make sure that his mana veins were permanently stretched out. And it would take a massive amount of time to increase his overall capacity to the 4th Circle.
Luckily, he had been doing this for more than a year so he knew that he would only need a little bit of time to hit his next level.
Adrian focused his mind. After making sure that he could still easily do his mana breathing while standing upright he looked down at the staff in his hand.
He picked it up properly and did the first move that was basically injected into his memory.
It was a pretty simple strike.
It was basically just raising the heavy staff up over his head and bringing it down in a downward motion. It was basically a move meant for smacking the ground or splitting a skull in half.
But the trick was that he wasn’t exactly supposed to smack the ground.
He had to stop the momentum completely midway through the swing.
Adrian did the move, and he followed the instructions perfectly. He raised the heavy Orichalcum-tipped staff up high and brought it down with a massive burst of strength before stopping it midway through. He locked his arms and held the weapon almost completely parallel to the ground.
The staff didn’t really swing or vibrate much. It wasn’t elastic or flexible in any way. It was made purely of high-tier metal after all.
Adrian just looked at the staff he was holding there.
He immediately felt his muscles tense around his forearms and also his biceps slightly. But he felt the vast majority of the burning strain directly in his forearms as he fought the momentum of the heavy staff.
And that painful burn happened just with one single downward motion. It wasn’t much yet, but he knew that if he just did it for long enough, he’d feel it.
He grit his teeth. He raised it up again and brought it down again, stopping it parallel to the ground once more.
And he started the grind. He just repeated it over and over again. And while he did this simple motion he made sure to inhale the mana while he brought the staff up and exhale sharply to expand his veins while he brought it down.
Up. Inhale.
Down. Exhale.
Adrian repeated the entire process for over eight straight hours inside the dungeon.
He swung until his hands bled and healed. He swung until it almost became a sort of deeply ingrained muscle memory to him. He didn’t really know for sure and he couldn’t really tell if it actually became muscle memory yet, but repeating the whole simple step of basically just bringing the staff down with all of his physical strength while training his mana at the exact same time was incredibly hypnotic.
It was almost completely meditative to the point where he had completely forgotten about the passage of time. His mind was entirely blank. There was only the swing, the breath, and the burn.
He only finally stopped the repetitive cycle when his stomach finally grumbled.
Adrian lowered the staff and let it rest on the ground as he panted. He was completely drenched in sweat and he grabbed the bottom part of his shirt and used it to wipe the sweat off his face out of habit. Once done, he walked out of the dungeon portal and back into his bedroom.
He looked out of his large glass window and saw that the sun was completely gone. It was already late nighttime in Oresfall and Adrian wondered how it would look once he implemented the mana lamps in the future.
He let out a tired, breathy chuckle and just looked down at his arms.
The skin on his palms looked completely raw. His palms looked almost bright pinkish in a way. Like anyone who just looked at his hands right now could instantly tell that the skin had gone through quite a lot of abuse.
And Adrian felt almost like his forearms were made of stone. The muscles had almost turned into something extremely hard and dense. He could easily tell that there was a massive lactic acid buildup deep inside the muscles.
He just hadn’t realized it while he was actually in the zone training because the ambient mana flowing rapidly through his body just constantly healed all of the micro-tears and suppressed the buildup pain.
He knew that the massive buildup wasn’t going to be a big issue long term though. As long as he continued doing the passive mana breathing while he walked around, the whole toxic buildup would just slowly dissolve into his bloodstream and he wouldn’t really feel much stiffness tomorrow morning.
’This wouldn’t have been an issue if I got better at this breathing method though... it’s just sorta hard to do both the breathing and the movements at the same time. But once I get used to this whole thing, life will get much better.’ he thought and he let the staff vanish into his storage and wiped his face again since he continued sweating.
He dragged himself out of his room with heavy steps.
’Welp.’ he thought as his stomach growled loudly. ’By the time I finish eating a shit ton of food my hands should be totally back to normal.’
Adrian eventually finished inhaling his massive dinner and headed straight back to his bedroom.
Just like he expected his hands were pretty much completely fine now.
The very first thing he did was lock the heavy doors. He opened up the glowing blue dungeon portal right after that and just walked straight inside.
He stood in the wide open room that he had made for himself long ago and immediately got to work.
He used the Dungeon Link to create a brand new massive room.
The structure built, was more like a massive underground cylindrical chamber or an industrial septic tank. It was extremely deep and also extremely wide, easily capable of holding tens of thousands of gallons.