35 - Yet Another Stone

Jade ran. She ran fast and constant. She is not human… I mean, she really is not, but… you get the expression right?

The second girl fainted with 3 and a half hours of running, just a bit more than the first. Jade took the new weight into her other shoulder, creating a funny scene. A small woman carrying two other taller ones. Then our instructor ran towards the house,

"Take this time to breathe" said Jade as she opened the front door. We literally took a single deep breath before she dropped both passed out students right there in the front hall and dashed out again…

"Good good. Now that you breathed lets run a bit more!" WTF Jade? That was NOT a rest you know? She did not.

Third and forth girls gave up with a bit more than 4 and a half ours of this torture. Lucy at the mark of 5. The last three were My dear monsters sisters and one of the new girls, the one that overslept today.

Lucy was carried by Jade until the sleepy one fainted 30 minutes after. Once she did, and there were only two left, Jade stopped.

"Yes yes, that was a good warm up. You two… Mayara and Briana right? Take the weight and let's go home. This much is enough for today." She dropped both Lucy and Sleeping Beauty in the ground and waited for the students to grab us.

They did, both copied Jade and each one threw a fainted girl in the shoulders. Jade headed to the house, but this time she was walking and talking. She was basically talking alone, because she never waited for an answer.

"You are Mila's right? As expected of you, last this long without any previous physical training uhm… good good, that's good. I was told about Lucyra, that she was weak, right? Yes yes, that's right, but she did good today, how unexpected. I knew about you three but not about the others, which is why I needed to know their limits. We have a pretty diverse group here, don't you agree? They will catch up in no time with my training, but still very different base resistance uhm? ..."

She kept talking until we got home. She is the most talkative person I have ever seen. She talks too much, and not much useful information really, just useless babbles.

"Ohhh ohhh, you are awake uhm? That's good! We can train a bit more!" 2 of the 4 girls that had been dropped were awake. They paled at the thought of more training.

I'm sure Jade noticed their expressions, but said nothing. She turned away and left the house. Mayara and Briana took their cargo to rest on the bed, they did not copy Jade and threw us on the floor, I'm grateful for that.

Lucy woke up only 30 or 40 minutes later, but stayed in bed for a while longer, feeling her entire body sore. That was a hard test for the first day.

"That was too hard..." She murmured to herself.

She's tired, very tired, but she still needs to go back and see what the fuck Jade still has for us today. Lucy does not know that, but stands up nonetheless and goes down.

The top two resilient students are there accompanied by the first 2 dropouts. All seated on the couch. Lucy approaches and sits as well. We were now only missing three girls and the teacher.

"Are the others still resting? Is Jade here?" The newly awakened Lucy asked.

"Yes, No" Briana answered, short but friendly answer. She was never the one to talk a lot but always helpful to everyone, at least she tried. She is a good girl.

I knew Jade left as soon as she dropped us off, but isn't that a bit irresponsible? Like... who just makes a bunch of girls run until they faint and then vanishes? Does anyone even know when she's coming back?

"Do you know when she's coming back?

"No"

She said that we were going to train more today, right? She is probably not going to take too long… but still, I wish she had said something. Instead of just endless waiting here, we could have explored our new district or something like that…

"I wish we had time to explore the new outside..." Apparently Lucy shared my thoughts.

"We just did! Lucyra… did you already forget that we ran for several hours straight?" OH… that's a good point, new sister. That's a good point… but I wanted to calmly see things while not running for my life.

"That's true, but still wanted to just walk and get to know the place… "

Is it me or Lucy and I are extremely in sync today? I feel good about this.

"Not that you are wrong, but who knows when Jade is coming back? She left as soon as we got here. She said we had more training today... MORE TRAINING… anyways, We should just wait here for her"

"Don't get mad at her Annalee, Lucyra was unconscious when they got here. She did not hear about more training today."

"Ah.. uhm, sorry"

"Don't be, I apologize for her behavior. But it is true, we should wait here, we may have more training to do today. "

We did not talk more after that, but the silent wait was short. About 20 minutes later Jade arrived home with some stones in hand… for a society made out of a tree they sure like to use stones for everything, like Seontto and Ejew.

"Hi Hi! How are you feeling? Here take this, there is one for each of you! Ah ah… Penney and Annalee, go call up the others. They had enough rest." Each of us got a new stone for our collection, after they took theirs the girls went upstairs to call on the three others.

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Few minutes later they all came back together, Jade handed their own stones. All eight girls now stand before her.

"Let's teach you space storage." YES! Finally! I was wondering when we would be able to get rid of the pockets!

"This is also a type of Seontto, but instead of connecting to Mother this one does not have any connection step up, it does not have any color yet see? It's transparent. What you need to do is color it with your own mana, it will basically be a link with yourself, ok?"

"It takes a while, maybe a couple of weeks to fully color and fill this with your own mana. Do that every afternoon ok? That's not exactly training but we need that to be able to teach you the actual space storage" Oh, that's going to take a while. So much for my excitement in learning space magic…

"I don't really care where and how you decide to color it. Be it in the training, bed or living room, outside or inside. Really, it makes no difference at this stage, just be sure to channel your mana in it at least 2 hours a day from now on"

This is the first time someone said that. Until now everything involving mana and stones had high risks and had to be monitored by our teacher. Which makes me question, is it just Jade that doesn't really care or this part of the process really has no risks?

"Is it really safe?" Lucyra asked her…

I have been noticing this today, or maybe I'm imagining things... or maybe my questions are just the normal ones that she was going to ask anyways, but Lucy has been asking my own questions out loud quite often hasn't she? And she is a bit more talkative than normal, she doesn't really ask that many questions... I'm not supposed to be able to interfere, maybe I'm really just imagining things. Yes, that must be it.

"Of course, of course it is safe. You have yet to encounter something in your life that is not safe"

What? Really? We had plenty of deaths while on the Nest, we were constantly warned about the dangers of untrained mana and all that. Does she not consider any of that dangerous? Now I'm afraid of what awaits us.

"Well, well, you can start working on that now or later, but anyways, that's it for today. Tomorrow morning we train more of your frail body"

The girls scattered, the ones that had been awoken for this useless speech went back to their rooms and the others, including Lucy, decided to start coloring the new stone in the training room. They did not talk over it, it was a coincidence that everyone decided to head there.

They took a space away from each other. The training room here was bigger than the one in the Nest, and the floor was like a japanese tatami floor. I keep seeing several elements that remind me of different cultures on Earth, but I think Eastern culture in general is more present, especially in the structural side of the city and houses.

The girls, Penney and Annalee, the ones that dropped out first on the running today, channeled mana to the new Seontto for exactly two hours, then stopped and left the room. The three original sisters, Lucyra, Briana and Mayara stayed and trained for a couple more hours. Double the minimum is the minimum for Mila's disciple. They sure like to train.

The three of them stopped at pretty much the same time, they even took a shower together.

"That really was easy" Briana stated as if it was the most basic thing. Well, she was right. Lucy felt no real challenge on the coloring of the stone. Even being extremely tired of the morning running.

"Yes, I think I could feel the maximum mana we can store there. If we keep this rhythm I may finish in just a week" Lucy channeled mana for the same amount of time, but I don't remember feeling the limit or being able to tell how many days it would take to finish feeling it. Mayara is just too amazing.

"You are amazing May" SEE that? Again, she keeps saying the things I think… Ok, it was in the normal flow of the conversation, but STILL! It did not happen before.

"You are too Lu! You were able to run quite a lot, a lot more than most of our new team. Be proud of yourself!" Mayara is always supportive.

They talked a bit during the shower then went on their separated ways to sleep. Lucy woke up in the morning, the usual early time. The scene repeated itself. Mila's students in the living room alone very early, no one else. We did our morning Dedication together like we used to. Jade arrived home as soon as we were finished.

The other girls only started to show up after that. Jade looked kind of mad but said nothing.

"You three, come"

She addressed us and ignored the others that had yet to even start the Dedication. They really are too lazy.

"Do your best again today." Only the four of us ran today. Jade in the front leading and setting the incredible fast pace that would leave any human athlete behind and the three original sisters.

Today Lucy lasted for 5 hours and 10 minutes. An improvement of 10 minutes from the day before. That's amazing if you think that she is still tired and all that. Jade took Lucy on her shoulders and ran for an extra hour.

6 hours of running everyday. If this continues and we keep improving the same 10 minutes a day, we will be able to handle this much by the end of the week. Good. That's good.

Once home the 5 lazy girls were there waiting, not knowing what to do. Jade went inside, did not even look in their general direction, dropped me on the floor right on the entrance, like she did with the other girls yesterday, and left.

"Were you running again?" Sleepy beauty started the conversation.

"Yes" Briana was the one to answer.

"Why didn't you wait for us?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe you slept too much."

"Is she just going to ignore us everyday?"

"Ask her"

Briana is usually misunderstood because she doesn't talk much, but she IS friendly and helpful to others, trust me. The girl asking questions started to get mad, Mayara had to interfere before the discussion got heated.

"Hey. Bria, can you take Lucy upstairs to her room? I can talk to them" She said while looking at me, smiling kindly and warmly. She truly took care of Lucy.

"Yes" She collected Lucy's unmoving body from the floor, with a lot of care and princess style, and left the others, taking me to my room.

After sleeping for a single hour Lucy was awake again. Downstairs there were only her caring sisters, the other 5 nowhere to be found.

"Hey, let's do the afternoon training together" They were waiting for us to wake up, how sweet.

"Yes, thanks for waiting for me"

"Don't mention it"

Training room was already occupied, but we entered and arranged ourselves along the other 5 training there.

Less than two hours later they left and we kept going for 4 full hours, like yesterday. We left, bathed and slept.

The next day the routine repeated itself. Lucy performed the Dedication with Bria and Maya. This time 2 of the 5 girls woke up early and managed to finish the ritual before Jade got home and commanded the training to start.

"Good good. You follow me" She gestured to the 5 of us that had already finished and were waiting. Ignoring the 2 that were in the middle of the Dedication and the sleepy beauty descending the stairs. To be fair with her, she did wake up a lot earlier than usual.

The two girls that joined us today fainted first. Lucy improved again and gave up with 5 hours and 35 minutes. That's a huuuge improvement!

The next day 7 of the 8 girls managed to participate in the training. Lucy almost ran the entire 6 hours, missing by only a couple of minutes. Two days later even the sleepy beauty was able to wake up in time and train with us. Lucy did not fain this day.

The same training continued for two weeks straight. No days off. During this time Lucy's resilience improved drastically and I'm pretty sure Jade started running a bit faster every day. I wonder if she has a limit.

In the past 2 weeks I kept seeing more and more instances where Lucy would verbalize my thoughts. It usually happens when she is tired after running. I'm not sure this is just a coincidence anymore. Something changed and I don't know what.