A Week Passing By

(Alright first off this is gonna be a sort of time skip chapter which will be encompassing one week so this chapter will be short. I don't want to do too many time skips in the story but they are necessary at times so I will try to avoid them and not go overboard or skip too much. Now then back to the story.)

Dike gets a cup full of water to drink. Now, this world from what Mike could tell had no coffee and even if it did Mike was sure that it would be very expensive due to the effects that drinking coffee would have and also how many ways you could modify it to your liking. So water was the next best thing but it was not going to be nearly as effective as magic or coffee.

Dike begrudgingly drinks his cup of water and rubs his temples to get rid of the headache that he was experiencing.

"Feeling better?" Mike asks

"A bit but I am just going to get rid of it with a healing spell," Dike answers as he moves to cast a spell

"You sure you want to do that?" Mike asks

"Sure I am now don't interrupt me"

Dike makes some complicated gestures with his hands and mumbles some words under his breath as he does the hand signs. Mike pays attention to this and his eyes widen in surprise at what he sees. He was seeing the flickering once again around Dike but this time Mike can see that this thing has a slight yellow and green color flowing around him as it attaches to his body and begins to spread all around his body before it covers him in his entirety and then dissipates.

"Ha..." Dike lets out as he feels a whole lot better from the spell taking effect on his headache

"Hm? You all right Micheal?" Dike asks seeing him just staring at him with wide eyes

"Oh yeah I am alright" Mike quickly says as he wipes his surprised look on his face

"What did you see?" Dike asks clearly confused

"Not more like see I just realized that um... I left my mask in my room, yeah," Mike says

"What mask?" Dike asks clearly confused

"I bought myself a mask since I feel like it would be handy to use later on and I thought to show it to you but I forgot it in my room so would you mind if I go and get it?" Mike asks

"Um... sure but I don't really understand why you want to show me a mask though," Dike says

Mike gets up from the table and leaves Dike and Orion to eat their food as he went upstairs to show Dike his mask. Mike had yet to show the mask to Dike since he did not want to have to roll to lie to him about how he got it but seeing how the system was on vacation he thought that the timing could not be any better than now.

When Mike returned downstairs Orion was chewing on the ham bone and getting really into it as most dogs would do when they get a chance to bite something hard and temper their teeth. Dike was almost done with his meal as well when Mike placed his mask on the table near him.

"Hm?" Dike says as he was about to take another bite

"This it?" Dike asks to which Mike just nods

"Looks nice," Dike says as he goes back to his meal

"That's it?" Mike asks

"Yeah"

"..." Mike does not say anything as he thought that Dike would have said something else about it

"What?"

"Nothing," Mike says as he takes the mask and places it near him, and takes a look at Orion to see how he is doing and to make sure that he does not choke himself on a bone

...

A week soon passed after Orion awoke from whatever it was that he was going through and during this time Mike had to make do without the system helping him out. He could no longer read anything in this world, access his inventory, and other things involved with the system. As a result of that Mike was having some minor difficulties. Still, somethings were for the better as he no longer had to worry about lying to people or attacking things for that matter so that was a weight lifted from his shoulders.

Mike got his new sword and shield from Alexander and they sure were amazing that he went to test them out after catching up with Alexander for a bit. They were excellently crafted gear that Mike loved instantly but since his system was not available for him to use he could not really check the status that they had such as damage but Mike was glad to have them all the same.

Mike completed his Adventurer Guild quests as he still needed the money and with the help of Orion's nose, he was able to get the herb gathering quest done pretty quickly while the wolf hunting one he had to rely on Dike, unfortunately, to help him out with. In fact, Dike was now teaching Mike how to read and write in this world's common language. When he found out about that the next day he started teaching Mike as he did not want to get berated with comments and jokes by his colleagues if they learned that his only student can't read or write. Mike gladly started learning as he knew that this would be extremely useful to learn about so he started attacking his studying as Orion did with that ham after he woke up.

Besides the questing and learning, Mike tried out his new skill in a sense. That skill was seeing the flashes of light that he came up with when he was inside his weird home nightmare. From what Mike could gather it was that he could almost perfectly see mana. Now, this was not perfect because from what he could see was when someone was using mana to cast a spell and not just mana in and of itself.

This was cool, and all but Mike could not really see any sort of use at first hand, but Mike knew that there had to be some sort of use besides seeing when someone is using mana to cast a spell, but Mike would have to leave that off until he got access to his system again to ask Abbey about some ideas of how it could be used.

Another thing that Mike was doing was his made-up workout routine that he also made in his nightmare house trip. He knew that to get stronger working out was a must so he could not half-ass it and had to stick to a strict workout routine that he had come up with himself that targeted his body as a whole as well as certain muscles or muscle groups to strengthen or increase flexibility and the faster he workout the more painful it would become so he could only grit his teeth and do this workout once a day for what was supposed to be 2 hours but his body was not strong enough to actually endure much.

Every time he workout out he would collapse in pain and sweat after about half an hour of working out. Still, he would normally be extremely tired from working out and be extremely sore so he could only do the heavy workout 3 days in the week while the other 4 were just a light workout that aimed to increase endurance, speed, and other non-strength factors while the rest of his body was resting up a bit.

One thing he did miss was Abbey. Although she was just a part of his system she was someone that he could talk to about anything and while it did seem that they argued a bit that was just a testament to how much Mike relied on her and her guidance. He did miss her and also his mana. Yes, Mike was missing his mana in both ways.

When he first tried to cast a spell in a fight against some wolves with Dike, Mike had found out that he could no longer cast any of his cantrips even though he could feel the mana in his body he could not utilize it to cast a spell. As a result of that Mike had received a real nasty bite mark on his side that hurt like hell due to his skills not being accessible to him.

So everything in regards to Mike's system was taken from him which included his spells, skills, and Abbey being unavailable to him to utilize. The only solace had was that Mike knew that his system would be available once again when it had collected enough mana to use once again for whatever functions it had to do.

Still realizing this Mike also realized how pathetic he was without the help of the system and now that he had it unavailable to him Mike found himself motivated to improve himself until his system was available to be used again. So for the past week, Mike was improving himself in many ways whether it be physically, mentally, or magically Mike strived to get better through his own power and will and not through the system that he was given.