There it was. The dream again. In the dream, he’s that 9 year old kid again, being pursued by grotesque representations of his slaver and his minions. They have huge, gaping maws, hundreds of arms, each holding different weapons and tools of torture, all pointed at him. Usually, this dream would end with their evil weapons about to all hit him at the same time, only for him to wake up screaming and crying in a panic. That is.. it used to be: lately, instead of getting to him, they’re blocked by a presence. An ethereal figure wreathed in golden flames, with a presence so powerful and a light so bright it keeps the abominations at bay. Once the abominations refuse to advance, the ethereal figure would turn to him and extend its hand - and after the child didn’t take hold of it because of how fearful he was, Bucket would wake up in a cold sweat, confused about what he had seen. This time.. the fear was stronger than ever and the child couldn’t move but, instead, the ethereal figure held the child’s hand. Instead of an ethereal hand, though, it was the large, weathered hand of an adult male.. A fully grown Bucket, replacing the figure, holding that hand and promising him that no one would hurt him anymore.

He’d soon wake up, not in a cold sweat, but surrounded by that same aura, power rushing out of his body in such a violent manner that it flattened the brushes and grass around the area where he slept. As quickly as he had woken up and witnessed that rush of power, it faded away and he couldn’t activate it again at will. Was it real? Was that figure that protected him all this time in his dreams just been.. himself? An optimal version of himself? If it was, then it meant that he had the potential to use that power, the power that woke him.

What he did after was by instinct. Nothing less felt right or felt like it’d work, it HAD to be instinct. Letting the agonizing memories rush into his mind once again, to invite the voices and figures that would only move in when he slept.. only to stand up to them. By gathering his magic in his core, by focusing his mind on the very flames that gave him the power to stand up to his nightmares, he’d continue gathering the mana swirling around aimlessly in his body, all to his core. The release. The courage. The power! The ability to stand against even his worst nightmares!

Taken by what he could only describe as supernatural inspiration, the man would clap his hands together as he opened the floodgates in his system, allowing mana to release in a huge burst, igniting as that same ethereal, violent golden flame that surrounded his body! He became taller, his muscles grew, he felt faster, he felt hardier! It was an immense level of power he had never felt before! He felt mana draining from him, but it wasn’t too much for now! To turn it off.. he manually closed off his mana circuits, shutting off that transformation.

It worked! And after a short rest, he’d perform that same process a good bit quicker, gathering his power in his core, clapping his hands and putting himself in a fighting stance as his circuits opened and ignited! He had achieved that incredible form of the ultimate warrior and now, he felt, he could fight his worst nightmares! He’d call it.. nothing, for now. He had no idea what to call that form.

(Super Saiyan spell training, 590/450 words.)

But this power that he had, that he could activate at will now that he figured the simple principle behind it, could he expand upon it? A power such as this, as incredible as it was for him, was still.. well, simple. It was magic that anyone with mana could perform if they had the same style of magic like him and, besides, he felt it in his core: he hadn’t reached the level he could reach right now. There was something else in his core, something deep down, that still wanted to escape. Something that was ready to show itself and go wild.

At first, he would simply try to do what had worked with his sudden transformation: focusing the power in his core, followed by the sudden release of that power and continuously holding his mana circuits open, so that mana could continue to flow wildly in his body to increase his abilities, only to leave his body as ethereal golden flames. No matter how much he tried this method, where he’d just try to gather more mana and release it all at once, all he’d get was just more violent transitions into the same form he had learned. This wouldn’t do: he couldn’t improve his transformation by using the same, old methods (that he discovered mere minutes ago). He’d need something else to force that next stage, something that would push him to the brink.

Being a reasonable man, he decided to use his powered up form to slowly whittle down a tree with chops until it started falling down. Then, stood in front of it as it fell, catching it with his hands! Though.. he couldn’t lift up a big tree, not with his strength! And while he could keep it up by planting his feet down and keeping his arms steady and hands solidly placed on it, he.. couldn’t move. He really couldn’t. He was being dug into the ground, stuck in place, unable to move. As much as he’d try to push, he couldn’t move it. When he tried to make it tumble forward or backward, his strength would falter, he’d slip and just have to hold it at a worse angle.

This was it! By being put into this inescapable situation, he’d be able to attain greater power to save himself! Now all he had to do was force it out and shove it off of him! At the first attempt, as he tried to force more power to flow out of him and push it off, he failed and nothing happened. Not to worry.. it wouldn’t work right away. He just did it again! No dice. Again! No dice. ..Again? Nope. And this went on for at least a whole agonizing, exhausting hour. By that point, he realized that his plan absolutely sucked and that he was going to be crushed under a tree.

It was pointless. It was stupid! Overwhelmingly stupid! To think he’d get so fucking excited over the prospect of more power that he’d basically kill himself by tree! He still had gods and demons to kill, he had Lily to watch over, he had cultists and priests to slaughter! There was still so much to do, so much to see, so much to experience! He never even managed to learn to read! He never had a girlfriend, he never had kids! WHY!? WHY WAS THIS HAPPENING TO HIM!? IT’S BULLSHIT! UTTER BULLSHIT!

And at that moment, at the peak of his anger at himself and at his shitty life, his will to live compounded on top of his rage and, suddenly, his body was given more than enough strength to shove the tree aside, by simple instinctual movement. A few seconds after, he noticed.. himself. His muscles had decreased a bit from his transformed state, making him look very similar to his normal self.. but those golden flames were wilder and sharper, more.. violent. Angrier. That sheer level of mana that flowed out of him were swirling too harshly around him, a few streaks of it manifesting as crackling electricity. It was then that he realized that it wasn’t putting himself in a near death situation that gave him the power.. but it was emotion. It was his desire to be strong that gave him his first form, it was his endless rage that gave him this.

Turning it off and on again by forcing himself into an enraged state and letting mana to flow out confirmed his idea: rage was the trigger for his currently strongest, electrified form. It was.. eye-opening. To think his powers would be bound to his desires and emotions. Wonderful to know for the future.

801/675 Words. Super Saiyan 2 Training.

Now that he had achieved a new state of clarity with himself, recognizing and knowing just a bit more about himself than before, he knew that there had to be a way he could work with his own magic. There was no way that the powers that had been hidden in him for so long could just be the ability to make himself stronger. There was something there too, the ability to properly channel his arcane magic into something else, something new! If only he could access it, he knew that he could do so much with it! Now the subject matter was.. how would he access it?

Start by principle. He knows how to gather his mana at his core so he can release it at once and force his mana ‘circuits’ to open, flowing it in excess to his body in such a way that when it leaves his body, it ignites and ends up giving him that golden flame as a sort of indicator of the power he’s displaying at that moment. If he can gather his magic there, perhaps, he could start gathering it at a different spot. If he’s going to turn his mana into an attack, then.. gather it at his hands? Throw it out like blasts, like many mages do with their brand of magic. Thing is, without having been trained ever in his life or educated in any manner, his whole mode of using magic was winging it and trying out things until they worked.

So, first, he put his hands close to one another, like they were huddled up to get warm at a fire and, simply, tried to gather magic at his hands. It was a bit difficult but, knowing how to gather magic at his core, it was just a matter of forcing it somewhere else, so all he had to do was learn how to make it travel through his body further. Once he had achieved it, he waited for something to happen and, of course.. nothing. He felt the mana bubbling in his hands but nothing came out. Only then did he realize that he had no idea how to project his mana outside of his body: that whole flame was automatic, a side-effect of the rush of mana wildly coursing through his body and escaping once it had been used up. How would he even DO that?

He tried moving around. Like clapping his hands together and opening them up slowly which did nothing, it just made him clap his hands like a moron in the middle of a forest. Since there was no progress, he tried various poses. Arms raised up to the sky, forward, up and forward like a ballerina, nothing! Nothing worked, no matter how much he moved his arms! Shit, he was so angry that he had to flail his arms, his arms opened wide as they quickly closed up, his hands clapping together. And though it was brief.. he saw a flash of blue light! Magic, gathering between the small gap of his hands, only to fade away!

It was progress! This time, he'd have to do it right and methodically to learn the movements. So, he began charging up mana around his core, at which point he moved his arms, not like his previous flailing, but extending them out and carefully closing them up but with much more care this time, letting mana slowly course through his arms as he closed them to put his hands together at the exact point his mana reached his hands. That same effect happened, proving that it was that movement that allowed him to perform this move! Since he had prepared properly this time, mana gathered and stabilized in that space between his hands, growing to its maximum size in a jiffy! Now, since he didn’t know what’d happen, he thrust his hands forward, ‘breaking’ that mana seal in that direction his hands opened, sending out a powerful beam of blue mana that punched through the bushes and trees it had gone through until it faded as mana dispersed! He had learned how to perform a TRUE magical attack!

701/675 Words, Kamehameha (C) Trained!