The Protégé Surpasses The Mentor

More than a day after his first magic lecture, at around 3 a.m., Isaac's mostly peaceful state got disturbed, as a notable event took place. That wasn't to say that nothing worth mentioning had happened in those 30 plus hours, but it had just been more of the same.

Ever since the last breakthrough in his Mana Cultivation, he had made considerable progress. Confirming his earlier suspicions, when he neared 140,000 drops, a familiar sensation that was a mixture of - amongst others - restriction, pressure and pain began to resurface. But instead of growing distraught at having to face this challenge yet again, a small but excited smile caused the corners of his lips to rise.

Although he seemed outwardly relaxed, nearly all of his energy and focus was concentrated on overcoming this one hurdle… which he successfully did. Not that anyone would have expected a different outcome - there really wasn't any suspense.

His tense facial muscles relaxing and pure relief enveloping his entire vessel, Isaac glanced at the system notification that, like usual, had popped up.

[ Mana Cultivation - Foundation Establishment (S): Enables one to interact with their surroundings by using mana. Reduction in mana expenditure: 29% ]

Because everything had gone according to his predictions, he quickly closed his eyes again, refocusing on his magic research, and on adding more drops to his mana flow.

He wasn't all alone in that private world of his, however. Titania, at this point, had practically become a permanent inhabitant, and just a few meters away, Ais was also immersed in her own Mana Cultivation

Initially, she had lagged behind Riveria a little, only managing to mentally arrive at her lake of mana a few minutes after her. That, however, was when their paths significantly diverged. Even until now, the motherly High Elf had not managed to successfully add even a single drop to her mana flow. On the other hand, due to already being in the possession of the Development Ability that Isaac had only obtained after painstakingly manually adding 1,000 drops to his own mana flow, Ais could nearly effortlessly reach that milestone. That was where her advantage finally came to an end, though. Any further drops required her to put in extraordinary amounts of effort. She had spent almost all of her time on it, but had only made it to a total of 1,287 drops.

Even though she was only slowly inching forward, the golden haired Sword Princess didn't get discouraged at all. She could directly 'see' her improvement, after all. When she had used her Ariel again earlier, it activated less than a split second quicker than before, because a small part of the required mana was directly sourced from her mana channels, while the rest had to be extracted from the stagnant lake, which took slightly longer. According to Isaac, this already considerable benefit wasn't even the starting line yet, causing Ais' heartbeat to quicken in excitement whenever she recalled his words. And for once, it wasn't only because of her feelings for him.

-----

With dangerously red eyes and clear exhaustion written all over her face, Asfi sorted through the hundreds of documents that had transformed into a mountain range on her desk, rapidly taking notes all the while. Despite not really needing much sleep to stay functional, the constant mental exhaustion had begun to gnaw at her. She hadn't allowed herself any rest for five days, but there was still so much work to be done. It was maddening!

Suddenly, a knock resounded, and someone entered her office before she could even speak up - a regular occurrence in her daily life. Asfi didn't even bother raising her head and just quickly pointed at one of the two chairs not too far from her.

"Leave the documents on that chair."

Whenever there was no space left on the table, she would usually let the work pile up elsewhere. The chairs first, then the floor. Not that she had to make use of the latter one too often - thankfully.

Contrary to what she had expected, the visitor didn't immediately do as she said, but came closer, causing her to frown slightly and look up… only to be greeted by the annoyingly handsome face that she had both dearly missed and grudgingly resented these past weeks. Right as her brows started to furrow and she was about to 'welcome' her god with an annoyed tirade, the feathered hat-wearing skirt-chaser suddenly reached out with his hand and lovingly stroked her cheek.

"Oh Asfi, it's so great to see you again. All that time while I was braving the high seas, I never stopped thinking about you. I hurried back as quickly as I could, eager to return to your side."

A deep blush spread on the startled Asfi's face, reaching all the way to her ears. At first, she hastily averted her eyes instinctively, the beat of her heart involuntarily quickening, but then the look in her eyes changed from one moment to the next as she came to terms with this unexpected situation. Before the bold god could even realize what had happened, she had already grabbed him by his collar and dragged him closer.

"Umm… Asfi? Are you finally ready to take that next step in our relationshi---"

Hermes quickly shut his mouth when he saw the utter fury burning in his familia's Captain's gaze. Although she was clearly dangerously close to fainting from overwork, she still had more than enough strength to subdue a puny little powerless deity like himself. Recalling what he had been up to recently, he began to sweat nervously, actually feeling a miniscule pang of guilt.

"You bastard, stop it with your lies! Two hours ago, our men reported that you were spotted leaving the Entertainment District. So what's that nonsense about coming straight back home? You had the audacity to go on a little whoring trip instead of doing your goddamn job again, am I right?"

Raising his arms in a desperate effort to seem less threatening and to maybe even support his imminent claims of innocence, Hermes hastily shook his head. His lovely Asfi only rarely ever confronted him like this, and when she did, the cause was that she couldn't even control the most minute of her emotions any longer. He felt genuinely bad to see her stressed to a point when she had long since strained her mental endurance far past the limit.

"You misunderstood! I only went there because I had to deliver the item I got from the Far East! You remember that it was Ishtar who hired me to fetch it, right? I arrived in Orario this morning, made a trip to her home to drop it off, then came straight back here. I admit, I may have wandered around the streets to gather some intel, but I really didn't delay much."

It was just as he had feared - Asfi had gotten the wrong impression due to the unfortunate timing of his activities. That was the downside of having a nearly city-wide information network that fed her intel constantly: Even his own movements couldn't be easily concealed from her oh-so-alluring eyes.

Still, what he had told her was actually the truth. No erotic incidents had taken place - at least not this time. That short mental addendum, however, was also why he felt slightly ashamed. Before he had set off, to keep up his disguise as an easily charmed fool, he had allowed the goddess of beauty to bed him. Well, he had also enjoyed himself immensely, but if he had had the luxurious option to only partake in the pleasures of the flesh with those that he actually genuinely cared for, then he never would have allowed for these things to happen.

Due to many such incidents having taken place in the past, he couldn't blame Asfi for not trusting him when it came to such matters. He had indeed deliberately built up a quite deplorable facade of debauchery over the years. Even though he was certain that she was smart enough to figure out that he wasn't actually fond of these behaviours, he had undoubtedly still hurt her a lot.

A reluctant and pained sigh escaped the bespectacled beauty's mouth. She let go of her god's collar and leaned back on her chair powerlessly, staring at him with slight vestiges of annoyance remaining in her features.

"I'll rest for a bit. Do some damn work in the meantime, or we'll have a problem."

Right after she spoke these words, Asfi's eyelids turned impossibly heavy and deep fatigue overwhelmed her. Within a few seconds, she had already drifted off into a deep sleep.

Looking at her defenseless state, Hermes felt a bit remorseful, but also only came to adore her even more. He smirked to himself, then shook his head and walked up to Asfi, carefully picking her up in a bridal carry. Being extra attentive and making doubly sure that he didn't accidentally cause her to bump into anything, he silently carried her to her bedroom, where he tucked her in with practiced movements. One would have expected him to take advantage of a maiden in such a situation, but he didn't. After all, where was the fun in doing something when he couldn't even relish in her adorable reactions?

Once he returned to Asfi's office, the sheer amount of work that awaited him made the god of wanderers shudder uncontrollably. For a moment, he even considered to just up and leave again, to act as if he had never heard her words. But because he currently had no reasonable excuse for disappearing for a long period of time, as his services hadn't been requested by anyone, doing something like that would really just be extremely selfish.

It wasn't that easy to convince himself of tackling this monumental obstacle, however. In an effort to escape his responsibilities for a few more moments, Hermes recalled what he had observed after his return to the city. Soon, he showed an intrigued grin.

'Even without taking a look at our transaction records, I'm certain that the current upheaval of the populace has been caused by Isaac. Judging by how it hasn't been quelled before really kicking off, old man Ouranos is certainly supporting it from the shadows as well. Have the two of them met already? If so, then Isaac definitely isn't actually being imprisoned, the old man's not that ruthless and impartial. Also, considering that Isaac has taken care of Petbe's mortal vessel, there is a fair chance that he's gained some intelligence about Váli's group. But the question is: How much does he know? And why are they after him in the first place?'

Once he had finished mentally working through a few other matters that had caught his immediate attention, Hermes finally sat down on Asfi's chair and reluctantly picked up where she had left off. He was reminded of the first few months after his current descent, and the time when he had to personally lay the groundwork for the familia and its inner workings. Initially, he had been the only one who could deal with all the paperwork, at least until he had succeeded in grooming his first Captain. Ever since then, the succeeding Captains only further improved on their efficiency, having long since left his own proficiency when dealing with documents in the dust.

'I'm tempted to just not do anything until Asfi wakes up, to get her to punish me. But if I don't help her at all, she won't have any surplus energy to grace me with some 'skinship'~ Oh well, maybe it won't be too bad to get blessed by her regular gratitude, for once.'

Even while he was rapidly working through the overwhelming quantity of forms and contracts, Hermes still had more than enough spare focus to occasionally let parts of his imagination reach into R18 territory, and for a perverted smile to spread across his lips. If he actually stopped doing that, he would certainly be more efficient at his work.

-----

As they were descending towards the entrance of the Green Wasteland, the 28th floor, Aselina's grasp on her two-handed sword tightened in excitement. While the Water City had allowed her to gain a considerable amount of Magic-related excelia, her overall stat improvements hadn't even been worth mentioning. This was because the monsters had still been simply far too weak. However, now that a significant challenge and the resulting growth was extremely close, even her usually expressionless face turned a bit more animated.

Ever since she had sworn her absolute loyalty to Isaac, she had made countless enhancements to her actual combat capabilities and weapon proficiency, but her stats had barely risen. Still, she wasn't an entitled brat who would only be happy if matters instantly went her way. She understood that it would be more convenient for the entire group of students and subordinates to advance together, so she never complained, although she felt quite restless at times, especially when seeing her companions and friends improve by leaps and bounds. Nevertheless, she had already been patient for so many years, and had even endured far too many days as a mere supporter who partook in no actual combat. These few more days of waiting hadn't notably impacted her.

Even the weakest monster species of the Green Wasteland, the Armarosauruses, had a stat that was far higher than all of her own stats, but fortunately, it was just Endurance. Her overall speed was still superior, and because she had observed these monsters' movement patterns many times during expeditions, she felt it remarkably easy to deal with them. She usually only faced difficulties when she was put against monsters that had outrageously high Agility, because her two-handed sword was slightly slower to wield than a one-handed one would be, although not by much - especially after Isaac's spars and pointers. However, when faced with slow colossuses like the Armarosauruses, she had ample time and opportunity to put her all behind her swings, and to maximize her attack power. Thanks to this, in less than a minute, she had felled the three-headed monstrosity. All its heads had been cleanly decapitated. Yes, she might have taken some inspiration from her lord's 'signature technique'.

When she was about to ask Titania to let another Armarosaurus through, so that she would have a new opponent to face, she took note of how her fellow companions were faring.

Jakk wasn't participating in any battles, and only took care of a few stragglers that came his way - he had already become too strong for this thematic zone some time ago. Averin was ruthlessly pecking apart another Armarosaurus, which, due to his miniscule stature, looked both oddly bizarre and terrifying. Despite his considerably low stats, Kalin was weaving in and out of a group of three of the same monsters, igniting Aselina's competitiveness a little. Quinn was faring even better than all of them, and soloing two Champsuryas, his in-depth planning making them appear utterly powerless. But when her eyes landed on Mina's part of the battlefield, Aselina grew genuinely eager to overcome her own limits, to throw at least a bit of caution to the wind.

"Titania. Four Armarosauruses, please."

With a smirk, the reliable plant nodded and grasped four of the twenty meter long giants with her tentacles in a manner that made them appear like helpless babies that were entirely incapable of fighting back. She placed them down in an area that had been designated as Aselina's battlefield, and saw the now extremely motivated raccoon girl charge into their midst. After having been trained by Isaac for so long, even Aselina found it relatively simple to force opponents to hinder each other, making the area in between them actually the safest to be, because they would accidentally run into and attack each other repeatedly.

Nodding approvingly, genuinely impressed by how far she had seen the girl come even only in the short time that they had known each other, Titania proceeded to glance in Mina's direction to check up on her, only to look away again shortly after, her expression somewhat ghastly.

'I absolutely, never ever, want to be her enemy!'

Due to the huge amount of bonus stats that Mina had been blessed with courtesy of her Reverential Resonance Skill, she had chosen to battle a group of five Treants, all of which should have been about equal to her in a one on one fight, at least if only their post-buff final stats were concerned - a.k.a., under regular circumstances. But these were anything but.

Before her first fight had even begun, Mina had chanted her Phagein Aeon and activated the spell for the first time outside of her magic training. She had used about enough mana to ensure that its area of effect would only encapsulate her own little corner here, and that her opponents' stats would be reduced by at most ten percent. Because she had extensively tested the Magic's effects in a controlled environment before, she had gotten a decent grasp on how it actually functioned, and how to manipulate it a little.

The stat difference between her and her enemies had originally been quite small, almost to the point where it could be ignored, so now that she had not only reduced their stats by a tenth, but also increased her own stats by the same amount that she had absorbed, the Treants had turned into nothing more than a joke. Not that she wouldn't have been more than capable of obliterating them before using her Magic.

Even better than that, however, was that her increased stats had also provided her with more mana, effectively making the spell 'free' to cast. She had actually gotten more new mana than what had been utilized to activate it! Once she cancelled the Magic, any surplus that surpassed her usual limit would dissipate, but she could still essentially 'recharge' her mana endlessly.

Enveloped by a gentle red aura, which seemed to be the visual result of the life force absorption that the now-withering Treants had to endure, she charged at them and slashed apart their suddenly-more-fragile bodies effortlessly. And this wasn't the first time that she had done this - this was already the fourth group of Treants that had fallen without being able to offer up any resistance.

After having made sure that the creepy trees were as dead as a doornail, Mina turned around to face Titania and thought for a bit, then she nodded resolutely.

"I would like to battle five Illusory Termites next."

She was completely unaware that the huge plant was instinctively shivering a little as she laid her eyes upon the red glow around Mina's body. In the eyes of others, especially those who could sense life force to a degree - which Demi Spirits of the plant variety apparently could - her ability was simply terrifying. She was like a black hole that sucked in this kind of energy and then converted it to use it for herself. There was no way to resist, and escaping was the only option. What if she turned up the intensity of the absorption and reduced her prey's stats by a lot? Would there even be anyone who would still be capable of running away?

Titania suddenly disappeared for a few seconds, only to return with many of her leaf-tipped tentacles wrapped around futilely struggling Illusory Termites - there were at least 30 of them. She had already prepared for the future, because there was no doubt in her mind that five of them wouldn't hold up long against Mina. Heck, she could probably throw her into one of their mounds and none of the hundreds if not thousands of them would be able to really harm her. And even if they did, the surplus life force would heal her just as efficiently as the most expensive Elixirs. What an absolute freak!

"Thank you!"

A bright smile played across the innocently tail-wagging Chienthrope girl's lips, causing even the slight terror that had crept into Titania's heart upon observing the effects of her new Magic to be snuffed out. Her expression softened, and she felt like she had begun to understand why her master - or should she just call him 'milord' like the others already? - adored this girl so much. She was simply too cute and precious!

The multifunctional sofa placed down Mina's five new opponents and encouraged her in her mind, deliberately suppressing the annoying unease that cropped up whenever her eyes landed on that deceptively warm and gentle red aura that brought only decay and death to its targets.

-----

Deeply focused, Riveria slowly extricated one single drop of mana out of the massive lake, causing it to ripple a little. Her back was already drenched in sweat, but she didn't let that disturb her. Recalling the path that her mana had flowed through earlier, as well as the barely perceptible channels that had been used, she utilized all of her mental energy to slowly move that single drop towards the entrance of the respective channel, and to steadily guide it along the intended route.

All day yesterday had been spent on researching the path that the mana had taken while she had casted her Liv Ilusio. By now, she was certain that she had it down correctly, so following a full cycle with the drop should be possible, and should result in it automatically circulating within her - that was, if this particular theory was correct.

Sadly, it seemingly wasn't.

After she had nearly completely mentally exhausted herself, the High Elf had managed to force the mana drop to do a complete cycle through her mental layer, following the route that she had observed while her Magic was being activated. But at the very end, after it was supposed to continue on its own, it simply and unceremoniously returned to the lake.

"It didn't work!"

A bit frustrated but also confused, she called out to Isaac, who was still mainly schooling Aselina and Quinn. In the raccoon girl's case, that was because she had only just obtained enough mana to cast her Magic and she needed to be instructed again from scratch, just to make sure that she could follow along with the rest, while the cat boy was being put through what Isaac had referred to as the 'elite course' with a smug grin.

"Can you explain what went wrong in detail? Did you really not make a single mistake?"

His expression particularly hard to read, he arrived next to the sweat-drenched Riveria and handed her both a towel and a flask of water, which she gulped down like a parched wanderer in a desert that had just come across an oasis. Clearly, all the sweating had heavily dehydrated her.

"I made sure this time. I'm certain that it all went perfectly. Are you sure that I should follow the path of my Magic?"

As she interrogated him with furrowed brows, appearing more stern than she had actually intended, the young man paused for a moment, before shaking his head and shrugging, the look on his face a helpless one.

"No. I didn't have any Magic back when I made this discovery, and I still don't have any non-original Magics now, so I don't know what happens when you let the mana drop follow such a path. However, there is a relatively high chance that any Magic would follow the correct path. Still, have you tried doing as I recommended and observed the paths and patterns of two different Magics, to see whether there are any differences?"

Regarding his question, the High Elf could only shake her head. Upon further reflection, she realized that following that recommendation would probably have been the wisest choice, even if it was just to be certain whether or not she was on the right path. However, his first hypothesis had already sounded sufficiently logical to her, so she had ignored the rest of his words, for a time.

The longer one had been deeply immersed in a topic, the easier it would be for one to come to false conclusions based upon shaky evidence that seemed to confirm or expand one's previous findings. It was just one of many variants of confirmation bias. As someone who had researched Magic for over 80 years, she also couldn't entirely escape that subconscious behaviour.

This was what led to her losing the opportunity to be the first one to successfully add a drop to their mana flow. That glory was obtained by none other than her hardworking student, Lefiya.

Having followed Isaac's advice, the young Elf realized that the mana flows of her Magics - Arcs Ray, Fusillade Fallarica and Elf Ring - were significantly different. It hadn't taken her long to notice it, because even the beginning portions of their cycles were like apples and oranges. After having confirmed this, she had formed a hypothesis of her own: What if there was a 'natural' cycle for the mana drops to follow? That would explain how Isaac, who had no real reference point, had found a working path without a lot of trial and error.

Quite quickly, she managed to confirm that her theory had to have some merit, because as soon as she separated a single drop from her mana lake and loosened her control over it a bit, it would slightly budge in a certain direction, before returning back into the lake.

Ecstatic at her discovery, she forgot to even say a word about it and was fully immersed in figuring out the entire path that the drops wanted to follow, unraveling it bit by bit at a time. She had to start from the step of separating a single mana drop from her lake 124 times before she had charted the entire course, and when she did it for the 125th time, she pushed the drop all the way through this particular network of mana channels, before letting go. Just as she had hoped, after that one guided cycle, it continued on its own!

Coincidentally, this happened around thirty minutes after Riveria's previously mentioned failure.

The normally adorable Elf opened her completely bloodshot eyes, her face as pale as a ghost. Her clothes were drenched in their entirety, and even the ground underneath had turned wet from excessive sweat. Her body was shivering, and clearly close to giving out, yet she forced a few hoarse words out of her painfully dry throat.

"I… succeeded!"

Afterwards, her consciousness faded and she collapsed. In a matter of seconds, her various concerned friends were assembled all around her, and Riveria had even chanted her Van Alheim, her strongest healing Magic, in a panic. Only after Lefiya woke up and had been fed a lot of water, plus some delicious snacks, did everyone calm down again and come to understand her monumental achievement.

Observing from the side, Isaac couldn't help but sigh, both powerlessly and slightly approvingly.

Lefiya had genuinely done something foolish. She had vastly overstrained her mind, as well as her body, even though she could have easily taken short breaks without encountering any setbacks. Only the process of leading the mana drop through the correct path had to be done in one go, after all. This had been a part of his second lecture, so she should have been aware of this information. Still, even though she had acted in a manner that was anything but wise, he couldn't help but admire her mental fortitude and sheer grit a little. Suffering like that wasn't easy to endure for anyone.

What she had done was stupid, yes, but it was impressive nonetheless.