Almost there

The moon hung high above in the night sky but before long went went back down as its shift finished and the sun once again rose. Several hours before dawn broke, Henner shook Weasley awake.

Weasley groggily got off the couch that had served as his bed the night before. He looked towards the windows out of reflex and quickly noticed that the sky was still dark, causing a confused expression to appear on his face.

" Come on, we have work to do."

" The deadline is today remember?" Henner reminded him gently.

Weasley' face quickly cleared up and he nodded his head in confirmation.

Weasley got up and rubbed his grimly eyes .For some reason, he felt a nagging feeling in his gut as if he had forgot something or done something wrong.

Weasley racked his brains as he tried to make sense of where this feeling was coming from.

' What was I doing previously even? I was helping Ms Henner to create the Mana Pathway Diagram. Then after that I can't remember what I did…"

Weasley's thoughts were interrupted by Henner's voice who had called out to him.

" I've left your breakfast on the desk so go get yourself cleaned up."

"Also, help me tidy up the couch, you made a mess of it."

Hearing Henner's words, Weasley absentmindedly gazed at the sofa that had served as his bed the night before.

The once pristine surface now bore the gentle aftermath of a night's slumber and the cushions, once perfectly aligned, now displayed subtle creases and imprints whilst being haphazardly strewn across the sofa's length. The soft fabric, though still immaculate, hinted at the warmth it had bestowed upon its temporary occupant. A thin blanket sat rumpled on the sofa's surface, it's ocean blue surface wrinkled.

Weasley instantly realised the root from which the nagging feeling he felt was stemming from.

He'd fallen asleep!

Usually, that wouldn't make sense as to why he was feeling uneasy but in this case it made perfect sense!

Falling asleep was a problem! A big problem!

Thinking back at how Henner had reminded him time and time again that time was not their ally in this endeavour, falling asleep was a tragedy!

Panic surged in his chest as Weasley willed around and called out to his teacher.

" Ms Henner!l

His voice was a whole octave higher than usual.

" How long did I sleep? How much time do we have left?"

His voice was laced with fear and anxiety. The possibility that he had ruined all their hard work simply because he had felt sleepy filled him with infinite amounts of dread and shame.

" Woah woah woah! Calm down!" Henner assured her student.

" No need to panic. Did you think that I wouldn't wake you if we were going that badly off course?"

" Phfttt, you underestimate your teacher" Henner scoffed.

" I've already finished altering your mana circuits. We simply have to wait for them to heal before you can start on spell casting." She said

'Took me a damn long time with you sleeping while on the job though' Henner grumbled.

Weasley was taken aback. She really had thought of everything!

The constricting feeling in his chest instantly lifted and Weasley breathed a sign of relief. It was as if a large portion of the weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

However, a small part of it still remained. It was not the rampaging anxiety and panic that Weasley had felt but rather a smaller, more subtle but no less powerful feeling.

It was guilt.

Even in the dimly lit room would not yet find the sun's radiance for several hours, Weasley could still see the dark eye bags under his teacher's eyes.

Although his heart blossomed at the knowledge that his teacher would make such a sacrifice for him, it also made him want to curse himself for making her do so.

While mages could go without physical nourishment like food and water for days and even weeks at higher planes of achievement, spiritual and mental nourishment in the form of sleep was impossible to replace. A mage that was sleep deprived would feel the same fatigue as a normal human.

" Thank you, and I'm sorry Ms Henner." Weasley said abashedly.

His voice was loud enough to he heard but still soft enough that it betrayed the feelings in his heart and it made Henner feel that all the previous night's work and her fatigue.

" Sorry for what?" Henner asked, perhaps feigning ignorance.

" You're wasting time. Go get yourself cleaned up and eat."

Weasley bowed to his teacher and left for the toilet.

Weasley washed his face and made sure to fix his bed hair by applying some water and smoothing it out. Splashing water on his face, the coolness of the water immediately dispelled the last remnants of his languor.

Weasley looked up and inadvertently found his own face looking back at him in the mirror. Being so young, Weasley had not yet fully developed his facial features and they were still very susceptible to change in the future. He was also far from puberty so his urges for the opposite sex were essentially non-existent.

While he had read and fantasied about certain, well, less family friendly things in his previous life, he had long given up on the possibility of ever having the chance to experience anything of the sort first hand.

Thus, he never had any real compulsion to seek out such things.

And now, in this new world that was teeming with adventure, finding some romantic interest was temporarily at the bottom of his bucket list.

Because of these reasons, Weasley never really paired too much attention to his appearance. The only thing he remembered was that his hair was actually longer than the stereotyped male back on earth.

On Beriad, keeping longer hair was actually encouraged for men and women alike.

The reflection on the mirror showed a boy with with a cherubic countenance, accentuated by a set of plump adorable cheeks. Silver hair cascaded down his head forming a messy fringe that reached his brows. A pair of grey eyes stared back at Weasley, it's colour reminiscent of stormy skies.

Weasley whistled in appreciation.

' Hell I didn't notice it before but damn I'm good looking!' Weasley thought, ever so narcissistically.

It looked like he had inherited his mother's silver hair and his father's eyes, although he didn't know much of the latter yet.

Weasley was tempted to stay and look in the mirror some more but decided against it.

' Narcissism is bad. Be humble. Be humble.' He repeated in his mind despite his heart disagreeing.

Weasley finished washing up and dried his face with a towel before leaving the bathroom.

Breakfast was a simple assortment of bread, butter, some jams and meat and Weasley ate as he listened to his teacher talk about how to activate the checkpointing mechanism that was now a part of his body.

" Remember, it's not going to be an instantaneous link. You will still have to make it muscle memory but it should be easier than before." Henner was saying.

Weasley nodded. He was slightly bummed out that he couldn't just relinquish control of the step to his body to just convert the mana for him. Although Henner assured him that he wouldn't even need to think about it once he got used to it, Weasley was still somewhat dissatisfied.

' Nothing I can do about it I guess.' Weasley thought with a shrug.

After he finished breakfast, Henner instructed Weasley to meditate and circulate his mana as a sort of warm-up. Henner had altered his mana pathways about 6 hours ago and although they should have fully healed by now, Henner decided to make Weasley wait another hour just to be safe.

" Destroyed mana pathways can result in permanent loss of ability to use magic. I'd wouldn't take the chance if I were you." Henner had warned him

Weasley unconsciously shuddered at the thought. It didn't take a genius to see the merits in staying in the safe side in matters like this, even strapped for time as they were.

The hour passed by quickly, like flowing sand in an hourglass and Henner beckoned for Weasley to follow her to the training field.

Weasley exited the room with his teacher in tow, closing the door with a light thud as he followed his teacher's lead.

There were only some servants who on the night shift that were still active. The rest of the servants wouldn't awake for another hour or so to prepare for the day's work.

The duo walked wordlessly down the hall, their footsteps light and making only light thuds as they pushed off the ground.

The hall was wide and spacious, the stone floor on the ground was immaculately cleaned. Large windows lined the right side of the hall, each was a uniform height of eight feet and spaced 5 feet apart. The moon was still visible in the sky, casting its transcendent glow manor's walls.

The two of them came to the end of the hall and made a right, making a beeline for the staircase which would lead down to the first floor and to the training field.

As the two arrived on the field, Weasley took in a deep breath of cold air along with the sights of the field at night. He had never been here during the night time before and its ambiance was so different from usual that Weasley momentarily lost himself.

" Thought you woke up already? Still dreaming?" Henner teased.

" Hehe, sorry Ms Henner."

" Are you ready?"

Weasley only nodded in reply.

" Okay, let's do this."

As if on cue, Weasley raised his right hand and assumed his casting stance. It was a position that he had assumed over and over a hundred times, the basic and most comfortable stance from which he would one day, or preferably today, cast his first spell.

With the chilly morning winds at his back, Weasley geared up to start his repetition of the usual steps.

'Circulate, release, convert, cast.'

' Circulate, release, convert, cast'

' Circulate, release, convert, cast'

Weasley repeated these words again and again in his mind as he closed his eyes and furrowed his brow in concentration.

Then, his eyelids fluttered open and his lips moved to enunciate the word that he would likely repeat a thousand a thousand times or more today.

" Blast!"