From what I gathered from Rachel, Jin, and the books they'd casually handed me—because apparently, secrets of immense magical power are just something people toss around these days—the real challenge of forming a Black Star or White Star wasn't effort. It was talent. Raw, unadulterated, born-with-it-or-not talent.
Rachel had offhandedly mentioned that forming her White Star took her three days. Three. Days. That included understanding the theory behind it, the delicate compressing of light mana into its purest form, and actually manifesting the thing. Three days to do something that would take most light mages a year, if they were lucky. But that was Rachel. Her absurd affinity for light magic made such feats almost laughably easy for her.
So, it boiled down to one painful truth: either you had it, or you didn't. Effort, while not entirely useless, was largely irrelevant in the face of natural ability.
