Time Flies

In what felt like no time at all, several weeks passed, followed by months. The original plan was to have four days of training under that damned demon Ralph with three breaks in between to attend the Processor's class. That all changed however when they finally ran into each other sometime during the second week and decided a mixed class would provide better results.

So here I was running my daily eighty-five laps around the facility while the professor stood on a flying sword next to us lecturing us on the diffeneces between mana and their strengths and weaknesses. After the run was over we were weighed down by heavy metal plates attached to a harness and told to run the obstacle course, with rings, walls, balance poles, mud crawls and my least favorite, another twenty three laps around the training ground with another lap added everyday, but this time with the weights sill on our bodies.

Through out all of this the professor asked us to demonstrate our mana precision by requesting us to mimic the shapes he created out of his mana all while the demon forced us to continue the exercise. Failure to multi task resulted in either restarting from the beginning or adding more to the regime. Ralph was easily the most hated instructor in the school but you can't deny how effective the training he put in place was.

I quickly adapted to the use of mana while under pressure after the second week of hell training, and I was capable of precise details during that time. The professor seeing me as his prized student or should I say guinea pig, made sure to increase my difficulty every time he notice me master the current difficulty. He managed this by making me control several threads of mana to do different tasks. By the third week I could manage three separate strands of mana and the professor was convinced that I could do much more.

But when it came to adapting my mana, it took me nearly two whole months before I could figure out how to use water mana instead of my ice mana. I was told that for me water mana would be the easiest to master out of the other elements as ice was just the higher form of water and it shouldn't be too hard to reverse the effect. However the day after I managed it, I was sicker than a dog. Forced into the med ward for two days as I recovered. In that time I felt my body undergo drastic changes. A new mana channel was burned into my body and I had to collect and condense all the new water mana generated by this channel in place or else it caused me great pain. In the end I managed to gain a second smaller core that held the water element and a second rotation of mana ran along my bloodstream. The benefit was an increased healing rate and body enhancment but my mana refilled slower than before. I guess mana beasts were fundamentaly different to humans who collected all types of mana, purified it and adapted it into the elements of their choice. It seemed I was unable to collect the same pure mana and instead could only gather the elemental variants. If I wanted a new element I needed a core specificly for it and it didn't come with with out cost. I learned this the hard way and I doubt any known human researcher was aware of this, so there was no way for me to know through research.

The small water core was only one fourth the size of my ice core and it was behind on its fundamentals, as it was at the beginning of the gas stage. I worked diligently to process my mana and grow my core filling it to almost bursting, watching it stretch and grow slowly day by day. A month later I could feel that I almost reached the maximum limit where I would need to condense it into the liquid stage but needed that extra influx of mana to get it started. While I waited for that opportunity I focused on purifying my mana cores. In that time I transitioned from a brownish mana tint into a blue color, the constant training has forced me to subconsciously cultivate my cores endlessly. As it was instructed by the teachers, I was expected to cultivate even in my sleep and that I should always have a rotation in place. They were confused on why this wasn't already the case since I was a mana beast but because of that they took my life and set it on fire until it was second nature. Several days of sleepless nights passed until I could maintain my cultivation endlessly. They insisted that the other students follow my example. Which was to be the test rat for a mad man and a demon named Ralph because it would help them in future battles if they could constantly refresh their mana but it was a skill that had to be beaten into to you day in and day out and many who saw my ragged state opted out of that regimen.

As I trained, I found that I wasn't able to accurately control my water mana like I could my ice mana but after practicing daily, I finally gathered enough confidence to use it to defend myself when the time came, with mastery of my mana on its way I thought about the future.

My next goal in my chosen path was to gather another elemental core into my body but I was worried about the strain the last one caused. I wanted an element of each variation, so that I could adapt to any situation. But I feared the consequences of this as it slowed my mana regeneration, even if it helped me heal faster I was still debating if the trade off would be acceptable. But I eventually decided that I would add at least one more core after I reached the body stage so that I would be less likely to die from the strain. From there I'll decided if I'm willing to take on more.

For now I focused on building up my endurance and strength as well as my control over my mana. Ralph was a demon but an effective one, I could tell my power was growing daily and so was Kana's.

Every night as she held me close I could feel the muscles in her arms and the abs on her belly get more and more defined as the days passed. She started to loose her childish demeanor, the baby fat on her face fading away into a beautiful young woman. If you were unsure before it was obvious now. She would be a gorgeous woman when she grew up and all the boys in the training grounds knew it. They also knew that she was mine and that I would freeze their little dragon if they went for her. I wasn't sure how I felt about Kana exactly but one thing was for sure. I was extremely annoyed and angry when someone tried to sweep her off her feet and take her from me. Yeah it was petty but in my eyes all these guys were gutter trash and not even able to stand on the same stage let alone walk the same road. So I made sure to ward off all their evil attempts to steal her heart, if they want her they need to go through me first.

As the months past in a blur I almost didn't notice that Kana's personally started to slowly shift as well. She wasn't the soft hearted scared girl anymore but she wasn't exactly at Setsuna's level of pride and arrogance either, thank the heavens. But she definitely held her head higher and she spoke more calmly and directly. She walked with confidence and I even witnessed a few times as she floored a guy twice her size in the training ring. If I looked closely I could see some silver bleeding slowing into her blue eyes, spreading out from her pupil and her canine teeth were slowly elongating. Not enough for a stranger to notice but from some one who spends all his free time with her, it was clear as day. I also noticed that Kana and Setsuna spoke nightly after everyone went to sleep and it seemed as though they were beginning to understand eachother. It was showing in her physical features as the difference between the two started to fade. She had a long way to go but progress was progress and I was happy for her and luckily the magic still hide her beastial features from the view of others. It would be hard to explain why she was growing a tail and ears.

In my free time I did some research and found that she was considered a Demi-Human a breeding between a mana beast and human. Contrary to popular belief it wasn't a form of beastiality but instead a union between a human and a mana beast at the Saint level or higher. At that level when they reformed their body many mana beasts choose to take on a human form and thats how Demi-Humans came to be. A union between two different races, made my mind wonder but I shook my thoughts away. "That's a long ways away, anything could happen by then. One thing at a time" I thought to myself before I continued my day.

At some point Kana made it a habit to carry a sword everywhere she went it started sometime last week. She took extremely good care of it and polished and sharpened it every night as she talked with her other half. The blade of the sword had her name on it so I assumed it was probably a gift from the head master, as he was the only one we knew from home that would do such a thing. I often fell asleep during her nightly routine, the sound of the wet stone and her soft whispers lulling me into sleep, I was woken up just briefly as she got under the covers and pulled me into her arms before I drifted back into sleep. In the last month of our training I was reasigned to Kana's class as it required both of us to be present in the exercise. I was actually disappointed in the training regime that Kana took part in, only twenty laps around the facility, forty if they failed to clean the bunk room. The obstacle course was half the size and placed on freshly cut grass where mud was nowhere to be seen. There was no teacher giving lessons as we worked that I often looked forward to as it distracted me from the pain.

It took them the same amount of time to complete their course as it did for me to complete my old course, suffice it to say I was there in half the time with an two whole hours of watching these kids struggle. One boy ended up slipping off a climbing rope and knocked another kid off as they fell in a tumble. I snorted, they had thumbs imagine trying to climb a rope with paws where your not allowed to use your claws. I wasn't given any kind of special treatment unless you countes the special harness they made for me. Clearly a human harness won't exactly fit on a fox that was less than one fourth the size of the average teen.

During this time I ran through the forms I created using my mana. I made seven spears of ice circle above my head as I created a more elaborate set of armor over my body. Instead of letting instinct take over and just coat myself in jagged ice, I actually studied the inner working of armor and their moving parts. Thankfully after creating it all I had to do was maintain it with my aura, there was no way I'd be able to consciously keep track of all the parts. Two thick plates of ice hovered around me slowly just below the spears, I used water mana on the front of the shields to help displace impacts.

I looked battle ready in my diamond looking armor, jagged spikes ran over my back and tail, it was used to both inflict pain as well as deflect damage. As the spikes broke it lessened the impact so when in finally reaches my mana reinforced ice it would have less of an impact. The spikes were weaker on purpose with that in mind so it was much easier to replace than a segment of my armor.

I fought an invisible enemy, shadow boxing stabs and blocks, dodges and freezing the ground, sending mist into the air before moving from my spot. I'd create a thin duplicate of my armor where I was, from the fog it would appear as if I remained in place but in reality I was flanking from the side. The spears could be controlled effectively in a five meter space around my body and my shields could move accurately in a two meter space. Anything farther I'd have to throw a spear or move closer, I could only control nine constructs, ten if you included the armor but it was mostly self sufficient unless broken. I could only do this because of my new state of being I could enter, not even an enemy behind me could sneak up on me with my new sense. The down side is that I could only see up to fifteen meters in all directions walls obstructed my view and anything past that point I could just vaguely sense.

Soon the class was done and everyone watched me as I tired myself out fighting an invisible foe. From no where however a blow knocked one of my spears to the side and I looked over to see Kana standing there blade bare. She had a huge grin on her face, one of her eyes was silver and the other blue.

"We have been practicing too" as she said this three ice swords appeared on Kana's side as Setsuna's side lifted the sword in my direction. "Don't underestimate us" and she charged.

I immediately tried to gain the field advantage and froze the ground she anticipated this and she cover her feet in ice. I changed tactics however and used water mana to forcfully melt the ice, she stumbled but used it to place both hands on the ground and push off into the air. The three blades of ice rushed at me along the ground as a steel sword whizzed down from above. I moved a shield up and positioned a spear behind it for a counter strike, I swept two spears at the swords knocking them towards my waiting shield. She spread them just enough to have two swords pass through my defenses. This action shattered my spears but I successfully defended the attack.

As the blade came from above it was blocked by my shield, I froze the water on the front to lock her blade and I sent the spear in waiting towards Kana, a frozen blade of ice appeared over her shoulder deflecting the spear and shattering the ice holding the blade in place, it didn't even scratch the shields main body but the frozen water was several times weaker.

As the shards shattered I returned them to water and brought the water back in front of the shield. As Kana made some distance I threw my remaining spears at her where she deftly danced around or deflected them. I remade two of spears and threw them again, but this time I hollowed out the interior and filled it to almost shattering with mist. This modification cost me my creation speed and I could only make two of them at my current skill.

When her blade struck them it passed through like butter releasing the condensed mist blinding her.

The fight continued until we both ended up panting, I barely felt fatigued as I barely had to move so I was just mentally exhausted from the fight while Kana was physically exhausted and could barely hold up her sword. For the last five minutes she only swung her sword once as she relied on her Ice element to make up for her exhaustion. In the end I one as I ran forward with nothing but my armor, my mana was depleted and my concentration was fading. She tried to stop me by throwing sword after sword at me but my armor was too thick and I managed to tackle her and pin her down. This ended the fight and we were greeted with loud cheering and as I looked I could see money being exchanged. I crafted an ice hand and held it out to the betters and gestured for a piece of the proceeds. They looked at the hand is confusion so I added mist above my hand "Betting on the match means I should get a cut yes?" everyone laughed at this assuming the whole thing was Kana's doing and they reluctantlt placed a few gold on the hand and I moved it over to kana who looked at me with surprise, I winked at her.

The group was slowly broken up by the teachers who were also watching from the sidelines even if they wanted to pretend otherwise. Class resumed and that night me and kana sat on the bed. We talked all night about anything and everything. From what my favorite food was to how I managed to create that armor. We didn't sleep that night due to our excitement. I was overjoyed to finally talk to the one who I now considered more than family.