Mage progression broke me

Not enough mana

No mana

I don't have any mana

I burnt through every potion, plant and weed I had. And I couldn't progress. Tried few times with sleeping, went broke buying any way of getting mana back. No option to craft any but basic mana potion I lacked needed ingredient.

The sheer fact that I cannot play freely is insane to me, I know it signed up for hard difficulty. I got a challenge, I endured a bit. Got to become fire mage and.. What? Power I felt like was prosmied to me is gate keeped behind empty resaurce bar I need to do thing mages do.

Sleeping hardly gives me allowance for 2 fire balls before I'm drained again, and I can't figure out how to craft better mana potions that may have used weed I ate, desperate to do anything.

Defeated I loaded back 2h save file where I haven't invested into learning mana, went for pure strength. 5h in I'm one shotting monsters and poeple who were a logistic challenge of mana tracking.

I want to continue that save file as mage at some point but I really don't know how, I'm progressing now into story unable to cast spell and do anything.

Please by love of three Gods, what I'm doing wrong? Please help me understand where I failed. I'm so sad about this lose?

I know this looks like a lot of whining but I do seriously want some help and advices because as over exaggerated my rant sounds like. (if you bothered to read it ofc) Is perfectly describing my problem, I can't continue because I lack mana to do anything :c

Tldr: I lack mana and feel stuck, unable to progress.