°You know. Isn´t it strange that no one thinks twice about our body? I mean we are far from muscular, but at least we no longer count as "scrawny".° The human asked suddenly.

°Not really, the big school robes hide a lot, and you know "training your body is not possible". The only ones who might recognize the change would be my parents and Miss Amber. The question therefore would be, why didn´t she tell the headmaster or someone else?° Mor asked in turn.

°That means we should ask her about it, which is not that problematic, as we want to talk to her none the less° The human said and Mor directed their steps to the infirmary.

Entering the infirmary, they were instantly welcomed by the Adept. "Mor! Did you hurt yourself again?!"

"No Miss Amber, I just wanted to talk to you, about some things" Mor answered her inquiry.

"Then I guess you want to go on a date with me?" She teased him and Mor blushed.

°Be smooth now.° The human joked.

"Well, any man would be honored to take you out, Miss." Mor said with a bright smile and she chuckled. "Smooth talker, now if you are finished tell me what you are here for." She said.

"I wondered, about something. You are aware of my physical changes right?" Mor asked, getting straight to the point.

"Yes?" Amber answered.

"Why didn´t you tell the headmaster about it?" Mor asked, and Amber looked a bit surprised.

"How would you know, if I told anyone? Are you stalking me?" She asked half jesting.

"Well if you had told the headmaster, he would have reacted differently while questioning me today." Mor explained, and Amber nodded.

"I understand, yes you are correct I told nobody because nobody would believe it and just think of it as the rambling of an old woman. In the worst case, they could even think I´m unfit to continue working as a healing adept." She ruefully explained.

"I get it, thank you for explaining to me." Mor answered with a smile

"But you have to tell me, how did you do it?" she asked him and he smiled

"Oh it´s not that hard, well in the beginning it is, but it gets easier every day. You just have to move your body a lot, without using magic, and then get used to the muscle pain." Mor explained.

"Interesting, but that explains, why nobody tried it for longer than a few days. Pain would discourage a lot of people, and depending on how bad it is, it would lead to just using magic for strenuous activities and therefore neglecting moving your body. It does make sense." Amber said.

"Yes" Mor agreed "Just like that, and it is so painful, that if I didn´t use pain-reducing healing magic I wouldn´t have been able to move at all." Amber whinced at that.

"Yes, no thank you. It sends shivers down my spine even listening to it. I will keep on using magic. But I´m interested in where this is going, so why don´t you come by regularly and let me document your progress?" She asked.

"Only if you can do me a favor." Mor began

°Good thinking° The human added.

"I want to do something a bit dangerous, and need someone with medical expertise watching, so I don´t get hurt badly." Mor said and Amber threw him a questioning look.

"That would be what?" She carefully asked

"I want to see if I can "enlarge" my magic reservoir like I trained my body. I would like to empty it fully and go a step beyond, not enough to kill me, just a little to test if it will expand due to the higher demand." Mor asked.

"Are you stupid boy?!" Amber scolded him, but Mor stood his ground.

°Make it or break it. The contest is on!° The human cheered.

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"If you don´t want to help, I will do it on my own. Or ask Clare to help me." Mor huffed, and Amber deflated a bit.

"Why do you young ones, always think you are smarter than your elders? Can you only learn from the mistakes you make yourself? Every year I have at least one of you idiots." She sighed.

"Well, the "elders" thought it was impossible to get stronger, by training your body and as you had to recognize yourself, that was wrong." Mor stated calmly.

"Be that way then, good I will help you once! But only because I like you, you are not as pompous as those other kids." she gave in.

"Thank you." Mor said and gave Amber a quick hug, that she took with surprise. "Ah, sorry." He said shyly.

"I get it, boy, it is a possibility to get stronger and catch up to the others. Still, it won´t work." she told him.

"Good, if you want to drain your magic energy, then might as well be useful with it. Let me teach you a spell to transfer your power to someone else. Then you will use your magic to heal others, and keep my magic topped up." She said and Mor agreed.

°Seems easy enough.° The human added, and with that, they got to work, assisting Miss Amber in curing and healing the unexpected number of injuries a magic school produces on the daily. After a few hours, Mor was exhausted, slowly feeling the headache as a leading sign of magic deficiency.

As the day neared this end, the headache was more splitting than just unpleasant, and still Mor powered on.

°Ow, ow, ow! I begin to think, that this really was a stupid idea.° The human complained, and Mor whinced.

°Be quiet, this hurts me just as bad, but we need to know.° Mor said.

"Good, that´s it for today, you still want to go through with it?" Amber asked.

"Yes, please." Mor said, wincing again. "If you are so sure, then let your energy flow to me." She said and Mor did as he was told, blacking out in the process.

A short while later he opened his eyes again, completely exhausted and unable to move. "How long, was I out?" Mor asked groaning.

"Just a few minutes and think it worked?" Amber asked him.

"I don´t know, I probably need to regenerate my energy before being able to answer that." Mor said.

°Yeah, good thing we tried to get close to our limits a few times and have a good feeling how many spells we can do, the most accurate reading, would be by using "Rock throw".° The human said.

°Yes, until now we were at a constant 300 casts until the headaches became bad enough to stop.° Mor answered.

°Then let´s rest up and try it after completely replenishing our energy.° The human said, and Mor agreed.

"Are you still with me, Mor?" The adept asked

"Yes, sorry. I´m just exhausted. I will just take my leave and go to bed." Mor said, slowly standing up and taking his leave. Slowly walking to his room and instantly falling asleep on his bed, without even removing his clothes. The next morning he woke up, and his whole world was pure pain.

°Outch! What is this? Why does everything hurt so much?!° The human complained.

°I don´t know.° Mor answered and tried to cast a pain-reducing spell, which just gave him an instant headache.

°Owww! Fuck this!° The human cried out.

°We can´t even use magic right now.° Mor complained and they both regretted their curiosity and came to the same conclusion. The rules for magic are bullshit!

Mor dragged himself back to the infirmary, each step a new flood of pain and exhaustion. "Mor! Good morning, how are you feeling?" an unusually chipper Amber welcomed him.

"Bad" Mor groaned,

Amber looked at him and said "Told you so! Get yourself a bed, you are excused from the lessons today."

Mor took her up on that offer, falling into a restless sleep and awakening often because of the pain. Mor wished this day of pain and despair would finally end, as did the human.

°No choice but to rest up, at least we know, why no one would try this more than once and why it is considered dangerous.° The human said and Mor agreed, or at least groaned in an agreeing way.

It took two more days before Mor could move around without having constant pain.

°Why wasn´t it like that after your stupid ritual? I can´t remember it being that painful.° The human said.

°I don´t know, maybe something is different if you use the ritual and don´t have enough magic. But we would have to find out more about the soul-binding before having a definitive answer to that.° Mor said.

°Means, we have no choice but to shelf it for now.° The human said. °All this magic shit is stupid...°

Finally, after a few more days, Mors' magic energy was refilled and they could finally test if that ordeal at least merited some kind of success, as they walked to the training space, and somehow felt like a lot of eyes rested on him.

°Seems like someone is now popular with the ladies.° The human joked, and Mor groaned, as if they wouldn´t have enough problems already.

°Nothing will come of that, because of the difference in status. It is probably just some sort of morbid curiosity.° Mor said and the human laughed at that.

While walking to the training space Mor gathered a bunch of stones, to test his magic energy reserve and finally, they got to testing, after a moment a rhythmic plock, plock was heard from the space, as Mor used his "Rock throw" over and over, the human counting every cast of the spell.

When the headaches finally set in the human stated °And 300! Shit! No change at all, not even one more...°

°Maybe we have to do this regularly?° Mor asked, and the human thought.

°Maybe, but this would either destroy us or your grades, can´t let those slip.° They answered and Mor agreed.

°Meaning we are still at square one and have no clues on how to get more magic. Now what?° He asked.

°I don´t know, for now, we can only strengthen our body and try to get more used in the spells we currently have. Maybe another opportunity will arise and help us. Still very frustrating.° The human said.

°Yes, feels a bit like all our work is for naught if we can´t get to the level of Orth, or Ranbor.° Mor said, and both quieted in grim silence.