Training Time

Sometime later

Hiro was walking outside when he saw Lucy arguing with her father. He sighed to himself and continued walking, looking down. He passed Lucy's dad and secretly slipped a stack of bills in his pocket as he continued walking, Lucy's dad didn't even notice as he walked away with a depressed expression.

Hiro continued walking and passed Lucy, who jumped saying "Hiro?!" Hiro smiled and said "Hello, Lucy. When are you going to start training?" Lucy looked around nervously and said "Do I have to?" Hiro smiled and patted her head saying "Yes."

She crumpled to the ground and cried salty tears, Hiro shook his head and walked away saying "By the way..." Lucy looked up and Hiro added "You only have one set of parents in this life. Don't be like me and turn your back on them..." his tone grew soft and sad as he finished "You might never get the chance to see them again..."

Lucy was dazed looking at Hiro's back. Hiro waved over his shoulder and blurred before disappearing completely.

2 days later

Lucy showed up at Hiro's house with Natsu, Erza, and Gray... Happy was there too. Zerotwo opened the door and said "Hm? What are you guys doing here?" Lucy said with a miserable expression "I'm here to train..." Natsu said "Me too!" Gray butt in "Me too!" Erza just looked at Zerotwo and Happy said "I'm here to play!"

Zerotwo was stunned and pursed her lips before saying "Alright, come in." she pressed a button and said "Darling, Lucy's here to train." the group watched curiously and Hiro's voice came over saying "Bring them to the training room please, Angel." Zerotwo replied "Yes, Sir~" Hiro chuckled and said "You can say that tonigh-"

Zerotwo cut the connection with a red face, the rest of the group's faces flushed red as well and Zerotwo cleared her throat, smiling "Come with me." the group followed her inside and Zerotwo pressed her hand on a metal pad.

The wall slid open and revealed an elevator, they walked inside and Zerotwo pressed the barbell button. The door slid closed and went down. Lucy looked at the metal things and said "I've never seen any of this before..."

Zerotwo smiled and said "You'll be saying that more than once here... You all help make the building but not the stuff inside." they all looked curious and the elevator stopped, opening it's doors.

They walked out to a massive space with machines, weights, rooms, etc.

Hiro walked out of a room with shorts on, caked in sweat. He wiped his forehead and calculated his mana reserves. He and Zerotwo got the Ethernano Marrow the other day and it made their bone marrow Ethernano that constantly produced Pure Mana, expanding their mana reserves countless times.

Unless they used more than the Ethernano could produce, they would have infinite. He looked up and saw the group, he smiled and said "Hey! You're all here!" Zerotwo smiled and said "Have fun~" her tone was a bit eerie though, making the group feel weird.

Hiro grinned and grabbed Happy saying "Ready to train?" Happy said "Wait! Me too?!" Hiro grinned and said "Even you!" before walking to a door and tapping on a key pad a few times. He stood at the door and said "Everybody inside~"

The group walked into the room and Hiro came in, the door closed behind them and suddenly the gravity in the room increased by 10x, making them all walk slow. Lucy was plastered to the ground and said in a sobbing tone "What is this..."

Hiro chuckled and dragged her over to an equipment rack saying "This is the Time room." Erza said "Time room?" Hiro smiled and said "Basically, 1 week outside is 1 year inside. We're in the outer area right now. The Gravity here is 10x stronger than outside, the further you go the stronger the gravity."

The group's eyes widened in shock and Hiro grabbed small bracelets, clicking them on Happy's legs and arms, then grabbing another set and clicking them on Lucy's wrists and ankles. He smiled and explained "These are weighted bracelets. The ones you have on now are 50 lbs each." he pointed to the rack and said "The weight increases from left to right and the sticks are the same. We'll be here for a year, so get comfortable."

Erza walked to the right side and grabbed the heaviest bracelet but was unable to even move it. She was shocked and Hiro said "The heaviest ones are 100 tons. The same with the sticks." he pointed at the door next to the rack and said "That's a small house for sleeping, using the bathroom, and eating."

He smiled and said "Ready?" Lucy and Happy were in despair while Natsu, Gray, and Erza were excited. Hiro smiled and said "Happy, focus on your flying... I want you to be able to fly for a few days with at least 100 lbs on each limb." Happy sprouted wings and struggled to fly in the air.

Hiro said "You 3... click on the 1 ton bracelets and train as you normally would." he chuckled and added "The bracelets have a little secret~" they clicked the bracelets on and tried to use their magic but nothing happened.

Hiro chuckled and said "They restrict Mana, you won't be able to use spells in here. It only starts from 1 ton, Happy and Lucy won't have the same problem." they were stunned, but grinned in excitement right after.

Hiro picked up Lucy and smiled "You're with me." Lucy almost cried and Hiro said "We'll be doing close combat training as well as body training. You use a whip, right?" he rubbed his chin and mumbled "You'll need more than that..."

He grabbed her keys and said "All you Zodiacs, come out." Leo, Taurus, Sagittarius, Virgo, Cancer, and Aquarius came out, they looked at Hiro and Lucy before Hiro coughed and said "Hello!" they all looked at him and Aquarius clicked her tongue.

Hiro chuckled saying "Don't be like that. I have questions." Leo said "Hurry up, Oni boy." as he held Lucy in a princess carry. Hiro said "Well, can you get stronger? How does your strength work?" Aquarius clicked her tongue and said "It's based on the single girl's strength."

Hiro was confused and said "So you all just longue around all day? Don't you have power Rankings on your own? You're all not the same in strength." Taurus said "We can't train really." Hiro frowned and said "You can't? How so?" Virgo said "We can't get stronger."

Hiro was silent and rubbed his chin before asking "But you have memories? They don't just disappear do they?" they all shook their heads and Hiro grinned saying "Clear your schedules for a week in the Celestial Spirit World. Hehehe~ You're going to train on technique rather than strength."

The spirits were stunned and Loke slapped his forehead saying "Wow, I'm an idiot!" Aquarius said "I have a date..." Hiro waved saying "Scorpio can wait, if you become useless and never summoned I'm sure you would not be happy. Just a big Tsundere, jeez."

The spirits' eyes widened, they all took 2 steps away from Hiro but they were also stunned at how he knew Aquarius was with Scorpio, he wasn't a Celestial Wizard, nor did Lucy have Scorpio. Aquarius was stunned and angry.

Hiro waved and 5 ice clones and 1 water clone appeared next to him. He said "One each, the water clone is for Aquarius. Go, go." before dragging Lucy away with a happy expression. The clones and the celestial spirits looked at each other and the water clone blasted Aquarius away with a wave of water.

One ice clone made a giant sword

One ice clone made small twin swords

One ice clone made a bow and arrow

One ice clone made long chain whips

And the last one punched Loke in the face

The Celestial Spirits looked at each other and sighed but there was a little fire in their eyes as they took their respective clones.

Hiro moved away and said "Stand up!" Lucy got up and Hiro said "You don't need to worry about the spirits, they're still stronger than you. Actually, I can kill you with a single slap. Do you want to always be in trouble?" Lucy said "No..."

Hiro patted her head and said with a smile "I'm not putting you down, I want you to be super strong! Then when the team goes through super difficult missions, you won't be left behind. Think about it..." he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and waved in front of her saying "It won't be team Natsu, or Erza, or Gray, it'll be Team Lucy!"

Lucy's mouth opened wide and she said "I can be strong like them?" Hiro smirked and pressed his cheek on hers flipping his palm and making a little cartoony show of Lucy beating up Natsu and cheering as he said "Of course~!"

Lucy jumped up and down and said "Let's do it!" Hiro stood in front of her and smiled saying "That's the spirit!" before he lost his smile and said "First things first, you're body is incredibly weak. Being a princess of the Heartfilia Clan is good for normal people without magic, but for Wizards, it's even worse than death. You're used to comfort when you need to be ready for combat. Though there's a positive." He pinched her waist and squeezed her arms saying "You've been eating good food this whole time, so you're not fat."

He nodded to himself and said "We'll start with body training until you can move normally with 250 lbs on each limb... Not only that but your mana reserves need a boosting..." he reached into the system space and pulled out a necklace saying "Wear this. Keeping your spirits in the world is already draining your mana, this will make your mana deplete by several times, not only that but make it much stronger. Keep your mana going until you absolutely cannot anymore."

As he put the necklace on her, he mumbled to himself and said "That seems to be everything... Alright! Let's start! Start running." Lucy said "Wha-" Hiro smashed Sun over his head and Lucy started running as Hiro chased her with Sun, staying right behind her. Whenever she would slow down, he would scare her into continuing.

He was wearing the 10 ton bracelets and restrictors on everything. His shadows were also constantly fighting each other. Basically all his powers were being sharpened. The body training was good for him too, though he would like to go a bit deeper into the Time Room.

He subtly guided Lucy to the inner area without her realizing it. The training continued with push ups, sit ups, squats, crunches, runs, everything. He really worked Lucy like a dog, the other 3 disappeared into the depths.

Hiro sent out a shadow to go see what was going on and saw the 3 fighting each other in intervals, using only raw strength. Hiro was also using them as test subjects, he wanted to see if his theory was correct.

In the Cultivation stories, they say the stronger the body the most Qi they can store, therefore the stronger the person is. He wanted to see if it was the same with mana, it should be but he wasn't sure.

Again, animes wouldn't go into the details of how their power systems worked, they just say 'He trained, now he's strong' it was quite interesting to see the science behind it actually. He smiled excitedly, he had 4 test subjects now, he was interested in the results, plus they only lost a week of time and got stronger, it was a win-win!