“Haa, it’s been around seventeen days since I’ve gotten my core now, and it’s still growing! It’s even exceeded my increased limit!” I cried out! Why! Why is its density still too much!?

“This is quite concerning. At least you have a reasonable proficiency with your second spell.”

“Haa, yeah, you’re right. Anyway, it’s out of my hands. If these two aren’t enough, I’ll have to draw out power and learn the third one. I don’t exactly have enough time to learn it normally, after all.” I mean, there is a chance I might, but I’m exhausted enough as it is, and drawing out power keeps becoming more and more appealing, especially since it took me almost a week to learn this one. Haa, I don’t think my lost day would have even helped, not to mention how I’d still have needed to draw out power.

“I understand. I’ll teach you about the differences until lunch then. Afterwards…”

“I’ll start training with my magic. I’m starting to feel rusty after all. After that? Who knows.” I shrug. “I just hope everything goes well.”

“I hope so as well.” He sighed. Well, we did the best we could, right? After all, if I could have done better, wouldn’t the Hero have said something? Haa, I’ve got to stop relying on him. At least the idea that I did the best I could is comforting.

Soon, it was time for lunch. I parted ways with Samuel and slowly went to eat. I arrived a bit late and just ate in silence. Once everyone was finishing and getting ready to go, I hesitated. It wasn’t too late. I can still go back and continue training.

I mean, I know two spells now, so the third should be somewhat easy to learn, right? But what if it isn’t? What if I don’t learn it in time? Or worse, what if I do learn it but still have to draw out power? I, that would just be, so… depressing.

And what if that’s not enough? What if ascending all three isn’t good enough? I, I s-shouldn’t be t-thinking about this. Calm down, Calm Down!

“Eli? Are you okay?” Rapunzel asks.

“I, don’t know,” I admit.

“What’s wrong? Maybe I can help?” She offers. Yeah, I can just let her decide! Then if, something goes, wrong, I’d blame, her? No! Don’t blame her!

“Eli?” Look at her, she’s worried! She’s caring about my wellbeing! I won’t betray her care.

“Haa, sorry. I’m just worried. I’m wondering if I should keep training, despite there only being a minor chance of changing anything, or just relax and accept my fate.”

“Um, how slim of a chance?”

“I’d have to learn a spell that should take me, I don’t know, like four days to learn, and then somehow learn it in two instead, and then be lucky enough that it actually changed something.” I sighed.

“Yeah, that’s not good. Even staying up to practice wouldn’t be enough to fill that gap. But it’s not like you have any other option, right?”

“Well, I can just draw out power to learn the spell, which I might have to do regardless, so giving up isn’t a complete loss. Probably. It's just, there’s still a chance that I’ll lose everything regardless.” I sighed.

“Oh yeah, that’s the thing Melly told us about, where you instantly learn a spell at the cost of your lifespan. In that case, you should take a break. At least this way, you would have had some time to relax.”

“Haa, okay. Thank you, Rapunzel.” I gave her a hug. “Well then, do you happen to need a healer?” I offer.

“Sadly, I don’t, though I’m sure Melly always needs one.”

“True. I presume she’s at the training ground?”

“Yeah, she rarely leaves there. She still feels bad about what happened with Pallet.” Oh, she knows about that.

“Okay, I’ll try to deal with that as well. Thanks again, Rapunzel.”

“Any time.” She smiled. Ah, I’ve missed her smiles. While she usually hides her expressions, she occasionally lets down her guard when relaxed.

Once I arrived at the training ground, it was pretty easy to find Melly. Sadly, as everyone made a commotion when I arrived, I couldn’t surprise her.

“Hello, Eli, what brings you here?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“I’ve heard that you’ve been getting healed by other healers, so I’m here to stop that. Only I am allowed to heal you!” I jokingly commanded.

“I’d be dead if I did that.” She shrugged. “So, what’s going on? Shouldn’t you be training right now?”

“Well… training more won’t change anything. So, I’m here to relax. And, you know, get used to healing again. It’s been a while since I did any proper healing, you know?” I sighed.

“Ah, yeah. I guess so.” She joined my sigh. “Well, I’ll always accept your healing, and I’m sure everyone else will as well.” She said, getting some cheers.

“Well, shall I begin then?” I ask as I pull out my staff.

“Yes! With you here, I can increase the intensity of my training!” Melly smiled.

“Go for it.” I accept. Haa, hopefully, I can handle this. And this is the best way to regain my proficiency, so it all works out. Besides, this should be nice and distracting.

Melly was the first one to start her high-intensity training, which looked more like actual combat than practice. Haa, they’re really relying on my ability to truly heal wounds, as this would otherwise require a few days of rest to recover from. I can understand why they’re like that, though, as this sort of high-quality training support is effectively reserved for the saintesses’ private guard.

“Oh.” So that’s why Melly was so excited; she’s noticeably more powerful than before. Speaking of, has the Hero’s boost activated to a proper level yet? Hmm, well, considering the rate at which Melly is getting stronger, it had to, right?

Wait, I’m an idiot! Of course, she’s stronger; she’s fused with the dragon’s heart! It’d be stranger if she wasn’t! And she’s also going to Level Up because of it. Man, how are we supposed to tell how much the Hero’s boost is helping now?

Whatever, if the Hero’s ability did activate, we should be getting a period of massive growth. If not, then the Hero is actually an idiot.

Yeah, his ability has to have been activated. What am I even worrying about?

“Eli?”

“Ah, sorry, I was lost in thought.”

“...Yet you were still healing,” Melly says in shock.

“Yeah,” I say in embarrassment. “I got annoyed with people constantly asking for healing while I was studying or reading, so I figured out how to heal without really paying attention.”

“That’s… really impressive.” She says hesitantly.

“I know it’s weird. You don’t have to pretend otherwise.”

“Though, if you’re that good, why do you need to pay attention in the first place?”

“? Ah, no. When I first attempted it, my spells were too inefficient, so I kept running out of mana. That’s the main reason we use focused spells in the first place, after all. So, I had to actually pay attention when casting despite not wanting to. So, I learned how to quickly get a basic idea of what’s wrong so I can prepare a decent enough spell.” I explained.

“Oh, that sounds pretty useful. And actually quite important for combat.”

“Yeah. While I didn’t realize it at the time, healers call that skill quick analysis. While not an official technique, it is, nevertheless, all but required to be a combat healer.”

“And you figured that out on your own… because you didn’t like getting interrupted.” She deadpanned.

“Yeah.” I smiled.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. What about your ability to heal despite being distracted; does that have a name?”

“Not as far as I know. It’s usually just put under general combat awareness, as, while useful, it isn’t really required. No matter how proficient you are, your actual healing will suffer when you do that.” I shrugged.

“It is still useful to be able to understand the battlefield,” Melly argued.

“Yes, though most healers wouldn’t actually benefit from that. While healers know how to heal and buff, most don’t really know when we should do that. We aren’t exactly proper combatants, after all. So, unless you are quite skilled and practiced, like I’m trying to be, it’s usually better to just wait for commands from more experienced companions. After all, an incompetent teammate can be far more dangerous than a competent enemy.”

“Ah, yeah, you’re right. That also explains why you were so passive when we first started fighting together. And why you keep buffing us when we fight weak enemies.”

“Yeah, I wanted to make sure I didn’t actually make things worse. Now though, despite most situations not requiring my knowledge, especially for using my sporadic, short-term buffs, it is still a good skill to grow.”

“I see, though other than for better understanding combat, do those short buffs actually help?”

“Eh, they can, but it’s fairly rare. Buffs, especially modern ones, effectively have a start-up cost, making them far less mana-efficient than longer buffs. That’s also why I try to refill buffs instead of just casting new ones; it costs less. The only times it’s useful are usually when you only do something on occasion.”

“For example?”

“Well, if you spent most of your time evading or chasing an enemy, only attacking every few minutes or so, it’s better to keep applying new, short buffs than to let the buff burn away. Especially with preMilo buffs, those had only a minor upfront cost to cast, so it was a much more common tactic back then.”

“So that’s why you only do that when we are fighting wolves and the like. It’s useful to know and helps your awareness.”

“Yeah, and it gives me something to do.” I shrugged.

“Ah, yeah, that can be pretty important. So I shouldn’t expect sudden spells during actual fights? Other than, you know, when I’m infused with your mana.”

“Yeah, it’s better to let you decide when there’s an opening. And, while my linked buffs drain faster when they are in active use, they are quite mana efficient.” I smiled proudly.

“That’s our genius saintess.” She says while rubbing my hair. “Now then, let’s continue fighting!” She cheered. Yeah yeah. I also need to pick up my pace.

At least I’m quickly fusing with my core. That’s… good, right?