A little slower. A little more precise.
The floating state still wasn't stable enough. Too much magical energy was being wasted.
Adjust the ability around its center of gravity and reduce unnecessary consumption.
Focus, focus. Carefully feel out how the ability activated step by step.
Don't rush. Don't rush. Mastering an ability meant tempering it until it felt almost like muscle memory.
As long as he practiced the most basic techniques, training with the other cards would become faster too.
In the vast, empty white space, the only pitch-black figure stood motionless, watching the small metal cube floating above his hands.
Its wavering up-and-down levitation gradually stabilized, until it rotated quietly as if its center of gravity had been fixed in place.
A thin sheen of sweat covered him as he held his breath. Fine control over an ability was even harder than he had imagined. It was like writing out the steps of a formula in his mind through imagination—
then plugging in new parameters and carrying out more complex, precise calculations, while being liable at any moment to forget part of the "image."
Keep this state... Remember this feeling.
Memorize this "answer." Drill it until it becomes a habit etched into memory.
Then the next step was to make it move. Increase the magical energy at its center of gravity. He needed to reach a level of stability he could control at will.
The magical energy input in the upper-right corner of his vision twitched in his sight. The increased energy instantly formed a "new parameter," shattering the "formula" he had struggled to maintain in his mind, and the "image" vanished.
The stable levitation of the small cube above his hands broke, and it jerked upward.
Failure.
Again.
Failure.
Not proficient enough. Again.
Failure.
He still hadn't memorized