Kael took it easier for the next few days. While he still spent a good deal of time on his training, he made sure to leave time to relax. In between his various activities, Kael made sure to make time for chats, although through the phone, with Martin, and visits to Lucy. Thanks to his increased physical and mental work, he required more food and water, draining his cash reserves quickly. If this was going to go on for much longer he would need to make another visit to the Dream-Street to refill his dwindling reserves.
The prospect did not scare him as it might have done in the past, but stealing still did not feel good. He would do it, no doubt about that, but that did not mean he had to like it. At least his chances of getting caught were reducing every day as he got more and more used to his changed body.
On the magical front, there had not been much change. What Kael was doing felt much like training a muscle. Granted, a muscle he had never even known existed, but the process was much the same. With every rotation of drawing his mana out of his pool, catching some of the ambient wisps, and dragging them back in, he got better at using said muscle.
At one point, he had tried to experiment a little. Moving more of his mana to potentially catch more of the ambient stuff had been his first idea. Sadly, that had only resulted in him losing control over his mana. Causing it to harmlessly dissipate into the air and halting his training until his pool had refilled. Using the same amount of mana to gather more ambient mana had also resulted in a failure. Akin to an overflowing cup, there seemed to be a limit to how much he could drag along.
Nonetheless, the experiments had brought some positives. Controlling large amounts of mana had challenged Kael's raw power. While widening his metaphorical net required fine control. Both of those skills were still improving by regular rotation, but Kael was sure that they would stagnate at some point, making the exercises an effective tool for training. Since then, he trained the different aspects of his control instead of repeating one motion a few times per day.
On a different note, Martin seemed to have quite a few problems locating the person he had spoken about and was complaining about it often in his texts. There was also the fact that Jason had still not appeared in school, making Kael wonder what was going on. Skipping school for a day or two, he could understand, but for someone of his elevated status to be missing weeks without notice was strange.
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Their correspondence had become even more frequent, and they were now exchanging texts multiple times a day. That was why he was not surprised to feel his phone vibrate, signaling the arrival of a text.
Taking out his phone Kael noticed the battery icon showing only two bars. He would have to go and recharge it soon. The outlook of walking half an hour one way and another back, only to repeat it a few hours later, did not help brighten his mood. With a sigh, he opened the text. With only two people in his address book, there was little to no need to check from whom the message was. Especially since Andrea had only sent him one message to date the morning after their 'reunion'. Although, that would not have been necessary anyway. The style of his friend's writing was quite distinct, after all.
"Hey Kael! I FOUND HER! Fuck yea! She is running a restaurant of sorts if you can believe that. Do you have time this weekend to check it out? ALSO! Mom finally lifted my grounding! We can finally do stuff on weekdays. Write me!“ Kael was as impressed as he had been the first time he noticed it. Martin, for all his cursing and short sentences, always used punctuation and capitalization. Who does that in a text? Granted, his experience was limited, but still.
Quickly forgetting about Martin's quirks, he navigated to reply and began typing. "Hey good to hear about your mom nice! Maybe now i can show you around the area i live at. Anyway when and where are we meeting and what kind of restaurant is it anyway?“ Selecting send, he placed the phone back and was about to do another round of training when he heard the device buzz again.
"Whoop! Party-Street here we come! Mhh, well I don't want to spoil the surprise. Meet me at Tralin-Station at 13:30 on saturday. We will be taking Line 4 so lets just meet at the west entrance. See you then!“ - "Will do see you then!“ With the reply sent, Kael began to plot his path to Tralin-Station in his head. The station was one of the more important ones in the city. It was not one Kael had frequented much, but it was still a major hub of bus, subway, and tram lines.
In the end, Kael had to visit one of the local stations to look at a map of the city's transportation network to figure out where he was supposed to go. Tralin-Station was quickly found and, considering the distance between it and his location, Kael estimated about 45 minutes of walking. That was if he knew the way. It would be easier to take a bus, and since he expected to use the public transportation more that day, it would probably be worth the ticket. After quickly looking at the departure times of his bus line, he made his way back to his home.
Excited by the prospect of seeing Martin again and visiting the restaurant owned by a, from what Martin had said, prolific mage, Kael returned to his training, hoping the weekend would come soon.