5 A Slip Up..
After training, Nova had been dropped off at his home, a humble-looking apartment complex.
『I'll come pick you up next weekend! Have fun during your 5 days off!』[Oswald]
Sarena turned her head towards Nova.
『If you want to survive next week, do your best to recover.』[Sarena]
Nova felt a chill run down his spine, before nodding nonstop.
『Good.』[Sarena]
The car drove off while Nova wove goodbye.
Nova opened the door and decided that he was going to put everything he had together into a guide to move his training forward.
「Starting off, there are 4 aspects of mana I must train as my foundation. There is mana regeneration, capacity, quality, and speed.」[Nova]
He wrote these down in a notebook.
「Using the mana fusion technique from teacher Sarena, I can train all 4 at once- but according to her, the more I progress with this, the likeliness of hitting a barrier will appear.」[Nova]
Nova seemed to just remember something else.
「She also said… the source of mana is in our blood, surroundings, objects- and using up my mana to train means...」[Nova]
His stomach made a noise.
「I get hungry, and eventually will start burning up fat reserves- until I start burning my body and blood for mana instead.」[Nova]
He got up and decided to make some food.
「I guess training mana is like training your body? I guess I'll make some dinner.」[Nova]
He looked at the digital clock that displayed 11PM.
「Too late to call Rai, I'll just get something to eat and prepare to train tomorrow as well.」 [Nova]
As he got up, he heard someone knock on his door.
「Who could it be at this hour?」[Nova]
Nova carefully walked up to his door and peeked his eye through the peephole.
......
There was Rai, wearing a jacket despite it being the middle of the summer.
Nova sighed in relief, then opened the door for Rai to come in.
『Hey, what's up Nova? I brought like 30 burgers from Up and Out.』[Rai]
As he promised, he held a full 4 bags of fast food.
『..Why so much food? And why Up and Out?』[Nova]
『Haha, you know, I promised you steak! Steak! This is beef, so it counts, right?』[Rai]
Rai set down the food on Nova's table.
『NO! This doesn't count at all! Besides, Up and Out is your favorite food.』[Nova]
As he was speaking, he had already grabbed a burger and bit into it.
『Hahaha, you're eating it anyway, aren't you?』[Rai]
『...Anything tastes good as long as you don't pay for it..』[Nova]
『I'll drink to that! This meal is courtesy of Hanzo and Oswald! They told us we'd be eating a large amount- so they covered it!』[Rai]
『..So you're not even paying up for that bet..』[Nova]
Rai managed to take a burger and stuff it into his face, before answering Nova.
『Nope! Not at all. In fact, meals are paid for by the Kingdom now. Here, take this.』
Rai handed Nova a card with a chicken wing on it.
『What is this? It looks like a kindergartener drew a coupon for their friend's birthday.』[Nova]
『That was a weird analogy… It's a credit card. Since me and you are unique cases without a House's backing, we get a card that lets us secure living expenses.』[Rai]
Nova's eyes lit up.
『Cha-ching.』[Nova]
Rai laughed.
『Haha! I knew you'd love it, you greedy bastard.』[Rai]
『Wait, I don't really feel like I'm that hungry, though..』[Nova]
『Really? Didn't you do training today? Mana is associated with caloric intake, remember?』[Rai]
Now that Nova thought about it, he did remember Sarena talking about that.
Then he remembered how Oswald also treated him to an all you can eat buffet of food.
『I uh… ate a lot earlier. I forgot.』[Nova]
That was when Nova bit into his fourth burger.
『That sounds more correct. I was gonna say that you seemed to be not hungry enough for a day of training.』[Rai]
They managed to wipe out the rest of the burgers between the two of them.
By the time Rai had left, Nova was too tired to continue writing notes on how to progress with his training, so he had gone to bed.
「The first day of training was… fun. Living like a mage isn't half bad. You get to eat a lot for free and make yourself stronger. Like a bodybuilder! I've always dreamt that I'd get some special power and be recruited.」[Nova]
Nova laughed a little at that and then went to sleep.
As he closed his eyes, a symbol glowed on his forehead before it faded away.
A shadow appeared from the wall in his room.
The moon's movement illuminated the silhouette revealing an elegant girl with white hair tied up into a ponytail.
The next moment, the moonlight was covered by a cloud, then she was gone.
Nova was up building up his training notes early in the morning.
「If calories are the main source of mana, then if I eat a lot, then train my mana- won't I be able to train indefinitely? But… there is a capacity to how much I can eat.. Wait! What if there was a 5th mana training? If I could train the efficiency of how much mana I get from the calories, I wouldn't need to stuff myself silly.」[Nova]
Nova was overthinking at an early hour in the morning.
「Ah. My mana is full again. Let's see if this time is a little better...」[Nova]
He closed his eyes and began to circulate his mana.
His mana was a little thicker and ran faster.
『Blessed Flame Rebirth』[Nova]
A blue flame rested on his palm that was about 1 inch in diameter.
「My Blessed Flame Rebirth ability has some conditions to be used effectively. It seems to burn blood and mana and converts it into healing the nearby area- except it doesn't work on anything that isn't alive.」[Nova]
The flame disappeared from Nova's palm.
「It also burns my mana at a very fast rate. I can keep it up for maybe 30 seconds now, and definitely more if I'm burning the other person's mana or blood. If I want to use it for 30 seconds, I'd have to let my mana restore itself for about 5 minutes. I'll have to train all da-」[Nova]
Nova's stomach growled.
「I'll order some delivery. 」[Nova]
He turned on his phone and navigated to a delivery app, and saw a new tab open.
「What's this?」[Nova]
After he had tapped on the tab, it had redirected him to something called "Mage's Meals".
「If you are a mage, this meal is for you?」[Nova]
Nova clicked on it out of curiosity.
After a moment, his phone began to vibrate and a complex magical circle appeared on his screen.
『REGISTERED!』[???]
『What?!』[Nova]
After the noise stopped, a huge bag appeared in front of him with the logo "Mage's Meals".
「What? What the heck? What's going on?」[Nova]
He gingerly grabbed the floating bag and placed it on the table.
「Ah. It's really heavy..」[Nova]
He then read the notification on his phone.
"If you are a mage and thus require the best, the tastiest, and the highest calorie foods- leave it to Mages Meals!"
「Ah. Free food, Fast food? What did I click on?」[Nova]
He opened up the bag and blindly grabbed a container out. The container was labeled "Tsukikaze Meal", and was filled to the brim with rice. Taking out another 8 containers revealed that the meal was based on the Tsukikaze House's traditional breakfast.
「Let's see.. Fish, miso soup, sweet egg, tsukemono pickles, rice, more rice, tea, and some salad.」[Nova]
Nova began to dig in, and finished the huge meal after an hour.
『Please place the containers in the bag.』[???]
This time it was a less robotic voice that rang out.
『Ah. Alright.』[Nova]
He placed them into the bag, and they floated for a bit before a glowing magic symbol had them disappear.
『Alright! Let's get back to training.』[Nova]
Nova sent a text to Rai about Mage's Meals and recommended the Tsukikaze meal, but he knew that Rai wouldn't be awake for it anyway.
「Now it's time to get back to training.」[Nova]
He began to circulate his mana and felt it accelerate past his former limits.
「Why is it faster? Is it because of the food?」[Nova]
He began to write down notes but stopped writing when he got a text from Rai.
"Did you notice anything strange? Someone entered my house while I was sleeping yesterday." [Rai]
「Wait. What?」[Nova]
Nova decided to go to Rai's house.
「Hmm… oh.」[Nova]
He was trying to walk while circulating his mana, but it ended up being harder than he thought.
「Each time I take a step, my mana stops circulating. It's really hard to concentrate on both at the same time.」[Nova]
He spent the entire time walking to Rai's home trying to figure out mana circulation while walking.
After a few steps, an explosion and a scream could be heard around the neighborhood..
