Methodology - 4

"But tell me about that method. The commoner method as she so dubs it." 

Emilia turned to me, her nightgown shining under the bright moonlight, as even through the darkness, her beauty could be beheld.

I smiled before turning to the air, my hand raised into the beam of moonlight.

"Don't you see, this was never about mana absorption, the lecture about stages was a red herring, meant to send us on the wrong path."

Emilia's eyes widened as she stood from her chair, letting it fall below her.

"The absorption was merely a byproduct of the technique. No, it was truly about technique."

Emilia grabbed my hand in hers, those blue orbs of hers gazing straight into mine.

"Then this was never about wealth, never about mana, it was about efficiency. Letting those talented develop it into something unique to themselves. A basic technique, but that was deemed impossible."

"Yes, but not now, from what I'm seeing it must still be in development, but… but… it's so close." I breathed out, my hand gripping hers as tightly as she gripped me. 

Time passed, as we just gazed into the others eyes, then a moment later Emilia broke the stare.

She turned the main light on, filling the whole room with a glow.

Turning to me she grabbed my hand once more and plopped me down next to her. I draped my head over her shoulder and found myself staring deeply into the scribbles.

"Then we can interpret this as this…" She drawled out, scribbling note after note. Finding the patterns and connecting them to the human body. Finding connections where before we were stumped.

And just as she had, so too did I. Equally as excited, maybe even more, I contributed even more. Pointing out flaws and ways that we could improve it.

Before either of us knew it, the light pouring into the room no longer came from some artificial source, no, the sun had risen. Shining its life-giving rays on both of us. 

As if to say that we had done enough, that we must stop.

But I didn't want to.

"Come on. Let's get a minute of sleep." Emilia took my hand once again dragging me to her bed where she placed both of us under her covers, setting an alarm.

I must have been too loopy, too tired to notice the indecency of it all. But either way I shut my eyes, letting the few moments of sleep climb their way into my life.

…

…

…

"You have the rest of the period for practice and review, there will be a test this coming friday. Prepare."

For some reason the professor was being so lenient. It was not like this the first term, no she would use every second of her class in order to lecture. Up and until the bell rang.

But now… now she was giving us so much time to just self study and do other things. She wasn't even yelling at the kids who were slacking off so much. Merely watching through the corner of her eye.

"Not my problem…" I muttered to myself. And it really wasn't. In fact I was quite happy to have this time to myself as even with the whole all nighter with Emilia we still weren't able to completely perfect it.

There was something missing, something that I wanted to find. But as I wiped my fingers under my eyes, trying to rub the sleep out of them, I found myself yawning.

I sat next to Emilia, and without even thinking leaned my head against hers. She nuzzled back. A display I had barely caught the significance of before several heads turned to us.

In both shock and amazement. There were even some smug looks and money being passed around.

"Were… are they betting on us?"

"It would seem so… ignore them."

And with that I just shrugged my shoulders and placed our work on the desk. Letting the pens and pencils flutter out of my backpack and onto the desk.

That was how the rest of class went, quiet whispers and work. It was productive though, by the end I felt confident enough to try out the method next time I could.

Just like clockwork, the next class came, yet this time it was different. With the midterm over, and the results having come in.

It was time to register those that the teacher thought fit with the guild. So that worst come to worst they may raid any naturally appearing dungeons, or even just the tower.

"The results are displayed over your emails, that is if you forgot your place. Those that scored among the top 200 of the school, not the world. Head to the front of the school."

He reiterated his speech a few more times, making sure that even the dumbest of the dumb could understand what he was saying.

More than a few were in the top 200 but didn't go because they thought to look at the global ranking.

It honestly baffled me that they could be that idiotic, but then again it didn't take someone smart to hit good.

Only strength.

About half an hour later we were all piled into a bus, heading towards the guild. I sat next to some girl that I didn't know the name of.

And she just spent the whole time either on the phone with someone or twiddling her hair. It would have been annoying had I not used the time to test out the technique that Emilia and I had created.

But before I could even progress through the first step, gathering my mana through several places. Most of which could be circumnavigated normally. 

Yet for this method it called for that.

However I wasn't allowed to even start as the bus stopped with a screech and we were kicked to the curb.

I had to just 'tsk' and step out, looking around in order to see where Emilia was.

Eventually I found her, it took some searching as the flood of students just wouldn't stop. But I did.