Morning, and the sunlight was bright.
At the entrance to the magical-items shop, Bordeaux had only just unlocked the door when he spotted Lara walking up in the distance, and from clear across the street he was already waving at her.
“Yo, if it isn’t my lucky charm!” Lara gave a simple wave back to acknowledge that she’d heard him.
Bordeaux was left speechless.
Looking at Lara’s cool demeanor, he realized he was probably going to have to deal with two aloof, deadpan-faced people from now on.
Lara stepped into the shop.
Eilan was busy tidying items on the shelves, and a few scrolls and books were laid out on the counter.
“Two magic scrolls and some history books on magic are on the counter.
You can sort through them first — they may come in handy later.” Eilan didn’t look up at Lara; he simply gave a brief account of the situation.
“Since the materials here aren’t complete, I don’t plan on drilling you in too much theory.
To lay the groundwork for what comes later, what you need right now is to train your mana hard.” “The two magic scrolls are, respectively, ‘gathering water from the air’ and ‘starting fire.’ For the next month, you need to keep cycling — expending mana, recovering mana, over and over.
The beginning of training is when most people see the fastest improvement.” Once everything was more or less tidied up, Eilan led his two apprentices out beyond the city walls.
The upcoming exercises carried a certain amount of risk — at the Mercenary Guild equipment might get damaged, and Lara was going to be going through a lot of potions.
To avoid extra expenses, moving the training out beyond the city was the more sensible choice.
Eilan watched Lara as she tinkered with magic out on the open ground.
Bordeaux and Lara were progressing at different rates, and after this month Eilan had separate plans in mind for Lara, so he decided that for this month he would prioritize making sure Lara’s progress stayed on track.
And so, for the next month, the three of them pitched tents outside the city.
Eilan stayed at hand to make sure Lara and Bordeaux were safe, going over the key points whenever they ran into a problem, and occasionally making a trip back into town to fetch the potions Lara needed.
Every morning, the first thing Lara did after waking up was swing her sword; once the sun had fully risen, she would set the longsword aside.
The hours before noon were her time for studying magic.
Eilan would use that window to walk Lara through some foundational magical knowledge, and after lunch the magic marathon would begin.
In the first two days, Lara hadn’t learned any other spells, so she could only keep burning through her mana with Magic Missile.
Relying on 0083 to continuously translate magic — a humanities subject — into the kind of hard-science reasoning Lara found easier to grasp, in the end she only needed two days to clear her mana-expenditure upgrade — she learned ‘gather water.’ Through this brutal cycle of expenditure, Lara would meet the nightfall, and every time she lay down inside the tent she lost every bit of her usual color, looking like a clump of sludge.
Lara said it outright: she hadn’t worked this hard even back when she was taking the college entrance exam.
Interest is the best teacher.
Living through days like these, Lara did not lose her sense of anticipation for life.
The bit-by-bit progress in her magic, on the contrary, fired up her drive to do better — visible, tangible gains were the strongest motivator there was.
Basically every day she could see, on the panel 0083 showed her, that her mana had ticked up.
Gradually, she no longer found it painful.
By the tenth day she had adjusted to the rhythm, and then in one of the expenditure cycles she leveled up again — going from ‘gathering’ water to ‘igniting’ mana.
Watching how rapidly Lara was progressing, Eilan unconsciously patted his coin pouch.
That gift really had been a bit on the expensive side.
On the night of the thirtieth day, the moon hung high in the sky.
In Lara’s palm a flame leapt and danced without pause — by now she could keep it burning uninterrupted for a full day.
Beside her, Bordeaux held two fish skewers grilling over the fire.
As the oil on the surface of the roasting fish crackled and sputtered, a savory aroma spreading everywhere, Lara stared at the grilled fish in front of her and involuntarily swallowed — and the flame in her hand abruptly winked out.
“Oh!!!!
Got it!” Bordeaux jumped to his feet, immediately grabbed the grilled fish in his hand, and started tearing into it.
This was the task Eilan had assigned him.
Because Lara was progressing too fast, all they could do was keep coming up with ways to make things harder for her.
At the very beginning, just walking past her had been enough to snuff out her flame; this time, if she hadn’t been holding it for so long, and if missing dinner hadn’t left her a little out of it, she was confident she could have kept it lit until daybreak the next morning.
With the flame going out, this month of grueling training was finally over.
Eilan was standing some distance off.
He had already prepared dinner in advance, just waiting for Lara’s training to come to an end.
He ladled out a bowl of soup and handed it to Lara as she walked over.
“The training this past month has been repetitive and tedious, but you stuck with it all the way through.
What comes next is the greatest help I’ll be able to give you.” A letter was placed into Lara’s hand.
Its bright red wax seal was like fresh blood, traced with the figure of a six-pointed star, and the surface of the envelope itself bore nothing else of note.
“Next comes the final step.” Eilan rose to his feet and lifted a finger toward the mountain range to the northwest.
“Cross over this mountain range, and behind it lies the southwestern port city of Ludan.
There, you can find ships that sail directly to the Central Continent.” Lara looked at the envelope in her hand.
Before this, Eilan had never mentioned anything related to it, but after hearing what he had just said, somehow she understood exactly what he was trying to tell her.
It was, roughly, that he wanted her to go to the Central Continent and find someone who could help solve her problem of being unable to see mana — after all, over this past month he had brought that issue up more than once.
It dovetailed perfectly with her original travel plans.
“Here are some travel funds.
Lara, go to the Central Continent — in Oisaster, the City of Magic, there’s the finest teacher there is.
My teacher.
She will surely help you.” Eilan looked at Lara, his words brimming with trust in his own master.
The expression in his eyes as he looked at Lara held nothing but expectation.
Lara, however, stood there a little dazed, glancing down at the fish soup in her hand — it felt as if, the moment she finished this bowl, she would have to set off on the road.
Training had only just ended, and the sky was still dark out!
So Lara looked up at Eilan pitifully, her voice on the verge of tears: “Master, could I set out tomorrow instead?” ?
Even though this apprentice of his was naturally gifted, Eilan kept feeling that he and she were on completely different wavelengths.
“That’s for you to decide.
Once you’re away from the city, the mountain range isn’t exactly safe — you can take some more time to prepare.” Having said this, he went back to his own tent.
In the other tent Bordeaux had also already drifted off into dreamland early, leaving only Lara sitting alone by the bonfire.
“Panel.” A faint flash of white light, and a panel appeared in front of Lara.
Name: Lara Age: 18 Race: Human Physical Condition: Healthy Grip Strength: 276 kg Mana: 44 Special Abilities: Metamorphosis, Holy Light Blessing Over the past month her grip strength had risen by ten percent overall, while her mana had more than doubled.
The upper limit of this body of hers showed no sign of being anywhere close to being touched — this was only the very beginning.
Right now she only knew three spells — Magic Missile, gather water, and start fire — and yet Master Eilan had told her to cross over the mountains rather than take the safer sea route.
There had to be some hidden reason behind it.
The travel funds her teacher had given her amounted to one gold coin and fifty-six silver coins.
As early as her second day after arriving at Vit Harbor, she had already looked into it: passage for one to Ludan Port cost only fifteen silver — not an expensive price.
Which meant there had to be some reason, up in those mountains, that she needed to go.
The next day, just as the morning sun was rising.
Lara put on her gear and crawled out of the tent.
The tents of Eilan and Bordeaux beside her own were already gone without a trace.
She knew it was time for her to be on her way.
She turned and bowed once toward the city, then turned back and set off along the path that would carry her over hill and ridge.
…
In the faint light of early dawn, Eilan and Bordeaux were strolling along the chilly, empty street, the sound of their footsteps unusually clear against the open quiet.
Eilan suddenly came to a halt.
His gaze traveled toward the distant north, as though piercing right through the sky, and he murmured to himself: “I hope you’ll like it…” ____ ________________________________________ 🌸 Help Love Bloom!
Our girls need a little push…
and you can help!
The romance won’t stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P).
You know that’s where the magic happens…
😉