Junior stood on the sword, floating in the air. Hou opened up a gateway outside and Junior flew through, moving quickly through the air with smooth gliding motions. Hou followed him through and closed the gate.
Using another spirit will Hou directly sent his voice to Junior,
"So how is it, does it control well, how's the wind resistance"
"You said it I become a mage I'd have to give up my abilities? I don't think could use this without strengthening, I already feel the wind resistance quite strong."
"Hmm, yes I'll see what I can do in the next iteration. So how's the control?"
"Really good, I can move exactly how I want and it's super smooth!"
As Junior kept testing the flying sword out, the mana ran out and he fell if the sword as it flew away from his feet, no longer anchoring him.
Junior was falling out of the sky from high above when Hou activated a gateway teleporting nearby and grabbing him. Hou flew out of the gateway and picked up Junior, then held out his hand. He activated his invisible barrier spirit and grabbed the sword which was flying away with excess speed.
"Looks like it needs some more juice, it's seems quite taxing"
Hou looked at the time, noticing the formation he used to control the miniature sun had already shrunk it a large amount. Hou had set up a day and night cycle independent of the real sun due to the miasma outside and the large mountain ranges around the sect.
By the time Hou and Junior finished the testing it was nearing the end of the day so Hou said goodbye to his disciple,
"We'll stop here today, come back tommorow and I'll have sorted and some issues with the flying sword and you'll start your journey of becoming a Magus. Sleep well!"
Hou dropped Junior into the air, winking. At the same time Hou created a gateway in Armen's house and Junior fell into his house.
Junior saw the red sky and Hou's smirk when he started falling and felt the world change around him and the sky turned into ceiling. Junior looked around and going he was in the house he was staying in, if not for the vivid-ness of his memories he would've thought it was a dream.
Hou closed the gateway once Junior fell through and laughed. He shook off the laugh then brought the sword to his physical body, observing it.
'Still too much, it uses way too much mana. I need to figure something out, maybe I need to use different laws or take advantage of something...'
Hou knew that if he and Junior used something akin to this flying sword, his mana would deplete very fast. Hou had near limitless qi but mana was harder to gain.
Hou had even gotten Araxis to help him modify the false spirit will he had which absorbed qi. Now that Hou had gained the real thing it was even stronger, but he slightly modified some laws to make it draw in mana rather than qi.
'Maybe that's it! The reason it takes so much mana is that it creates laws, how about just modifying laws. Instead of using propulsion laws, I should use the natural laws of the wind. It will limit where it can be used but it should work. And have a backup propulsion system for burst movements!'
Hou had a burst of inspiration and decided to quickly jot it down and develop it. He used a gateway teleporting back into his workshop. Hou picked up a pencil and paper, sketching out the sword.
He changed the design slightly and begun drawing the magic circles. Instead of going against natural laws and using mana made laws, Hou instead focused on amplifying natural laws for his use.
The circle he designed made the wind follow the sword and propel it, that alone could not hold up a man so he kept the floating laws.
While floating was quite manageable heavy, he could minimise it by only using it when needed. The floating circle only activated when the sword was near solid ground and when the user needed to go against the wind.
This meant that the floating circle would only require mana half the time, vastly reducing the mana cost. Overall Hou finished the design and estimated that the speed and smoothness should decrease slightly but the mana cost should be halved at minimum!
Hou decided to not add another protection circle, Junior would be too weak to use the flying sword effectively when he becomes a mage. This is because most people cannot use qi and mana so Junior would be the strength of a normal person.
Hou thought of a solution when he realised the temporary solution was in front of him the whole time. Hou looked down at his black robe.
The black robe was bonded to his body and even when he was weak it could regenerate and make sure he was protected. If he made it recognise Junior he could use it until he can reinforce his body.
Mages had two ways to reinforce their body, the first way was to make a temporary knight body, spreading their mana and turning into into physical aura with magic. This however is an advanced technique that Junior could not do anything soon.
The other method was to use a linking method, linking the mages strength to another person. However this was dangerous as it naturally led to a weakness that they were dependent on another.
For now, Junior could link himself with Hou, gaining a portion of his strength! Hou could easily cause this to backfire but since he was Junior's master he would not want to.
But even that needed one to be a real rank 1 mage, a mana heart created. One could do magic without a mana heart but it was limited on effect, only by becoming a real mage can true miracles be created.