"Are you okay?" Lucia asked worriedly.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Well, at least there's some good news though, ahaha!" Cecil laughed weakly in response.
"..."
"Don't look at me like that, it's not like I'm going to die."
"...Well, what's the good news?" Ainz asked.
"I'm finally at the Mana Sea stage! Hah... after so many months of being stuck in the Mana Vapor stage, I've finally set foot on a higher level!" Cecil said, somewhat excitedly.
"...Mana."
"Sea?"
"Stage?"
"Congrats Cel!"
"..."
Everyone could not help but take another look at the 2 foxkins who were in high spirits. Mana Sea? Wasn't Cecil's evaluation already in the Mana Sea Stage?
"Hold on there... are you saying that you weren't even in the Mana Sea Stage, Cecil?" Ainz asked, wanting to know whether the thing he heard earlier was right or not.
"Yeah, I just advanced earlier. I'll be a little truthful, but I have an abundant amount of mana stored in my body because of my unique physique. So previously, it only looked like I was at the Mana Sea Stage when I actually wasn't."
"Your mana at the vapor stage... there was enough of it that the testing equipment evaluated you as a Mana Sea stage expert?"
"I guess? Well, it's the same for Lulu too. She's only in the initial stage of Mana Sea, there's no way she's in the mana core stage."
"""WHAT?""" The revelation was a bit too much for the group.
The two highest ranked students in their year were actually the ones with the lowest cultivation stages? What kind of concept was this?
"...explain. Now," Elizabeth said seriously.
"Well, for me it's because of my unique physique that allows me to store a large amount of mana inside of my body. Thanks to that, I was able to inject as much mana into the testing equipment that it mistakenly evaluated my stage as in the Mana Sea. As for Lucia..."
Lucia immediately chimed in and said, "It's because of my cultivation method. I'm not like Cecil who has a natural physique that allows him to store an abundant amount of mana in his body. For me, it's my tails. They act as extra mana storage areas, so I can store at least 1000 units of mana in each of them."
"1000 units... in each tails?"
"Yup! Since I have five now... I have at least 5000 units of mana without counting the mana inside my mana point!"
"...freak." Ainz added silently.
"Hmph. Cecil already has 5000 units to begin with! The idiot didn't inject more into the testing equipment because he thought only the orange level was enough!"
"..."
"I'm too tired to be surprised anymore." Velicia stated.
"Ohoho~ so you two have actually hidden yourselves so well! This is news indeed! Ahaha~ don't worry though, I'll be keeping this to myself!" Lucius chuckled.
"Anyway, let's go get some rest. Cecil, you should hurry up and eat! You don't have to take watch tonight," Fina said while looking at the time.
"Alright... sorry that I couldn't begin our private lessons today..." Cecil said apologetically.
"No, it's fine. We have tomorrow or even the next day after that. Just get well soon so you can quickly begin training us again," Elizabeth responded. She quickly got up and went inside the carriage.
"Here you go, Cel~" Lucia quickly scooped up a bowl of Lucius's delicious soup and began feeding him.
Cecil only silently ate his dinner and quickly cashed in for the night once he was finished.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The next day, their group of 9–Lucius and his mount included–were heading back towards Angla city. With their quest requirements fulfilled, they no longer had anything more to do at the Alka Mountain Range.
The group was traveling more slowly in consideration of Lucius's basilisk, who obviously wouldn't be able to keep up with Silver's speed if he went full throttle. On the way, Cecil asked Lucius the purpose of why he followed after them. Currently, the fat tigerkin was riding in their carriage along with them.
"Ah! Silly me I can't believe I forgot my real intention of quickly seeing you guys."
"Yeah, why did you come and find us, Luc?" Velicia asked.
"Eh? Wasn't it you who wanted me to come?"
"...Oh! Right! But... I didn't mean for you to come find us... we'd go and look for you once we found the time to."
"Haha! No can do! Why should I let my fiancé go to the trouble of finding me?" Lucius replied while shaking his finger.
"So, what is it that you asked him to do Veli?" Fina asked.
"Well, we did get those two fruits from our last adventure, right? Cecil said we were looking for a trustworthy and skillful alchemist, so I thought that Luc here fit the bill."
"Woah, you're an alchemist, fatty?" Ainz asked in surprise.
"Ye–"
"HEY!" Velicia yelled as she glared at Ainz before stating, word for word, "Don't. Call. My Luc. A fatty!"
"Okay, okay... geez. I was just messing around."
"Well, I don't like it!"
"Ehehe... C-Calm down, Veli," Fina said as she tried to calm her down. She then asked, "So Lucius is an alchemist?"
"Of course! I'll have you know that Luc here is the alchemy faction's number one alchemist in his year! Although there are others that are a little more skillful, that's only because they have access to higher grade studies than Luc!" Velicia said confidently.
"Ahaha, now this is embarrassing. Well, I'm not that masterful or anything..." Lucius spoke up while scratching the back of his ear before continuing seriously, "I heard from Veli that you guys recently acquired a Millenia Sky Plum, yes?"
Fina pulled out one of the fruits and handed it over to him.
"Ohoh! This sure is a Millenia Sky Plum! Heck, it's even such a high grade one too!"
"Well, can you craft a good potion from it?" Cecil asked.
"Which potion are you referring to?"
"We have two fruits. Of the two, please use one of them to craft a batch of Essence Gathering Potions. As for the other one, use the entire fruit to create a Level 3 Beast Ascending Potion."
"Hmm... for the Essence Gathering Potion... does it matter what grade it is in?"
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"We'll leave that to your judgment, if you need any additional ingredients to raise its grade, don't hesitate to tell us. We'll procure it for you at all costs."
"Well, with the size and quality of the fruit... I can probably make at least a dozen or so Essence Gathering Potions... as for the Level 3 potion... It's hard, but if you guys can help me get these 5 ingredients then I'm 100 percent sure that I can successfully craft one for you."
"Alright, just point us in the direction and we'll quickly set off next week."
"Okay. Just let me get their locations first when we get back later. I'll have my assistant hand them over to you."
"Great. We'll forward the payment once you've completed the potions."
"It's a deal then."
Once the deal was finalized, the party ended the serious talk and began having idle conversation with each other or just rested or meditated.
"By the way Lucia...how come you have 2 more tails?" Fina asked while eyeing the two additional tails behind her friend's back.
"Hm? Oh... well these... you could say they're a by-product of my cultivation method."
"Sorry, I don't follow..."
"Well, my cultivation method lets me store mana inside my tails, so the more tails I have, the more mana I can store. Just so you know, I originally had only 1 tail, but because of my mana cultivation method, I can grow up to 9 tails when I reach the later stages of my cultivation!"
"... So in the end you can store 9000 units of Mana inside your tails alone?"
"Well, from what my mother says, once I have 9 tails, I won't need to store mana anymore. The tails will just naturally attract all the mana in the air to me and let me use it to my disposal."
"Eh? Isn't that somewhat like..."
"A monster? Yes, the concept is something like that, but no one in my family's ever cultivated until 9 tails, so we don't know whether or not it's true."
"For some reason, I find that your cultivation method is much more profound than my Imperial Family's..." Fina said, but her voice trailed off at the end.
"Hm?"
"Ahaha, your cultivation method sure is profound Lucia!"
"I guess?"
It took the group 3 days to make it back to the campus. They missed out on half a week's worth of classes, so Instructor Jin scolded them for putting too much emphasis on the tournament than on their studies.
On the surface they appeared apologetic, but deep down they no longer cared about the school's classes. The lessons for S class were supposed to be advanced, but Cecil's training method, mana theory classes, and his explanations on the unique knowledge from Earth, which they only held internally in their party, were much more advanced than the academy's lessons.
With each passing day, their group strayed farther and farther away from the rest of the class. It didn't sit well with Lucia since she wanted more friends, but the rest of class seemed to put their group on some sort of pedestal. The clear difference in power and knowledge became even more apparent after the first month. The class rankings had a clear change during their end of the month internal ranking competition.
Cecil's entire group took the first to sixth place respectively, with Cecil being first, Lucia second, Elizabeth third, Ainz fourth, Velicia fifth, and Fina sixth. The scores and levels were stretched so far from rank six and seven that the rest of the class practically had no hope of ever catching up with their group. Although there were some that were jealous, there were even more that looked up at the 6 in awe and respect. Many of their classmates treated the 6 hardworking fellows as role-models. Even instructor Jin had nothing but praises for them.
Velicia had it a bit better than the rest. She had a separate clique of friends long before she joined Cecil's group, so she became the outlier in which Cecil's offhand knowledge would be shared from. Cecil didn't mind this. Actually, he preferred if his classmates just straight up and asked him. He'd be more than obliged to answer and help them, but the rest of the class was too afraid to approach him for some reason.
It wasn't like he portrayed himself as someone cold, during class he would talk and laugh normally. He'd also help out his classmates during practical classes if he found anything they should correct, so he couldn't figure out why they never approached him.
Lucia was a bit popular in class since she was outgoing and constantly interacting with the rest of the class. The ones that had it the worst were Ainz, Elizabeth, and Fina, but Cecil could guess why though. It had something to do with their identities though it's not like he could change the mindsets of the other students.
The week quickly went by and it was finally time for the group to head out again for the weekend. Lucius's assistant had already delivered the information of the extra ingredients' locations that the alchemist needed and Cecil had the party take on quests that were at the locations or were within the vicinity of said ingredients. This way they'd be able to collect the ingredients while at the same time complete quests, killing two birds with one stone.
Their first ingredient was a White Elfen Tree's Sap. It was located in an elf's forest that was currently being terrorized by a pride of Fanged Demon Lions. The monsters were individually A+ ranked and a pride was S-- rank.
It was a simple task for the group and the S rank monsters had an ingredient that Lucius needed for the Beast Ascending Potion. The core of an A ranked monster. This time's outing would net the group 2 out of 5 ingredients, so Cecil quickly took the quest, but in this time's outing, the group were going to face some...problems.
----------------------------------------
A day before, in a forest just outside Angla city, a group of individuals were gathered and were prepared to set off to the quest location that Cecil and his group had taken.
"Heh, as expected of the leader... we finally found the info on their next quest."
"We'll head to the location ahead of them. We have to remember that their monster is faster than ours. We don't want what happened last time to repeat."
"Aiya, what's there to be so afraid of? This time we've got their quest location, we can just ambush them on the way back if they do arrive before us."
"..."