The next few days passed relatively peacefully. Alec was provided nutrition, medicine, and most importantly, education. Ariel didn’t stop dropping by every day and spending a few hours teaching him words. Occasionally, she would recast whatever spell she had cast on him before, which he suspected to be a memory-strengthening spell of some sort.

Although his awkward, love-like feeling for her didn’t disappear, he learned how to better put up with it. Throughout his mostly bedridden days, he noticed certain changes in his behavioral patterns, compared to his past life.

He spent a lot more time chewing his food, instead of swallowing it quickly. He felt the need to drink water much more occasionally. He couldn’t bear sitting still for a very long time. He would need to get up and walk around occasionally to make the uncomfortable feelings go away.

‘It’s as if I’ve gained new habits out of nowhere...’ he thought. One such day when he was pacing around the room while thinking about things, the door to the infirmary opened.

“Good morning,” Ariel appeared with her angelic face before stepping inside.

“Ghood Morn’” Alec did his best to answer. His proficiency in the language was gradually improving. He hoped to reach at least a basic level of conversational ability to learn more about this world.

“By ??? I ??? you, you might lose memory but same, can’t sit long” Ariel chuckled to herself after finishing her sentence. If he were talking to anyone else, Alec wouldn’t be able to carefully fill in the blanks, as his anxiety would be distracting him from doing so. However, trying and talking to Ariel felt relaxing. There wasn’t even a tinge of anxiety in his heart.

‘The first part should be some kind of idiom. Hopefully, it’s nothing important,’ Alec thought before continuing his deduction. ‘I might lose memory but same? Does she mean that I am the same as before?’

“I, same as before no uh...” Alec tried to think of the word memory, however, he couldn’t find what to say. So instead, he chose to use another, related word. “I, same as before no mind?”

Ariel put her finger on her chin while slightly rolling her eyes upwards, to her right. She then tapped her index finger on her temples to indicate that she had understood what he meant.

“Yes, same as before no memory,” she said while emphasizing the word memory.

‘Right...’ Alec muttered inwardly. He had learned the word memory the last lesson but couldn’t remember it. Now that Ariel repeated it to him in context, he probably wouldn’t forget it again. ‘So Alec had similar habits as... Wait...’

A deep sigh escaped his mouth as Alec understood the reason behind his new habits and most importantly, the love-like feeling he had for Ariel.

‘Although my memories and my soul were transferred, the brain of this body is still the same. The previous Alec should have been in love with Ariel,’ Alec presumed. ‘Certain habits and feelings like love should be dictated more by the brain rather than the soul... Then what do those govern? Which parts of my personality crossed over, I wonder...’

“You make ??? a lot,” Ariel said.

“I don’t understand.”

“You make the,” Ariel started once again, then she sighed deeply before continuing. “sound a lot.”

‘There. Another grammatical difference. The word sigh isn't used as a verb.’ Alec commented mentally before sitting down for the day’s study session.

They exchanged word after word, letting Alec get deeper and deeper into the language. With the speed he was going, he would be good enough to hold a basic conversation in another week or so.

This speed was already really fast for a normal person, and Alec knew this fact, strengthening the theory that whatever spell Ariel had cast on him enhanced his learning.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

***

As the sun dipped into the horizon, Ariel left the room. Their studying session was done, and it was time for Alec’s alone time. He had been monitoring the movements of the doctors and the nurses. There would be a full-body control every two days and the nurses wouldn’t disturb him as long as he didn’t specifically call them. They would only show up in the mornings to change his mana bag and incense.

‘The doctor’s check-up was yesterday,’ Alec reminisced. ‘No one should disturb me until tomorrow.’

During his stay, Alec’s body had gotten better and better, eventually healing to an almost perfect state. His mana reserves had also filled up, making him brim with energy. Whatever the previous host had done with this body, he had treated it much better than its current host treated his past life body.

‘Now that my mana is full again, I can start,’ Alec thought before taking out The Author’s Pen. He had decided to call the soul artifact that, as he felt like he was “The Author” in this context, so it was a suitable name.

Now that he felt his mana was filled up to the brim, Alec thought he could start his experimentations again. Trying and finding ways to utilize their cheat ability was what a main character should do, after all.

‘This time, I have to be more careful with what I’m doing,’ he thought to himself. His last attempt was very careless, and the only reason he thought that wasn’t him going out of mana. ‘I don’t actually know how magic works in this world. My assumption about more mana being better might be wrong, and it might be impossible to fix any problems that might come up later.’

Being a seasoned webnovel author required as much reading as it did writing. Even though it wasn’t a trope regularly seen, settings where having more mana could cause complications in its control did exist. ‘What if this was one of those?’

Tapping his index finger on the bedside table, Alec decided to switch his development path for now. He would focus on other things for the moment. Bringing up his previously unreadable stat sheet, he started clumsily reading.

[Name: Alec Greenwood

Strength: ??

Agility: ??

Health: ??

Mind: ??

Mana: ??]

‘Hmm... I should ask to learn how to read numbers next,’ Alec thought. ‘For now, however, I don’t need to know what my numbers are to increase them.’

Alec felt a tightness in his chest. Bringing the pen closer to the inner surface of a cup on the bedside table, he started writing.

[Very Low Stamina Potion]

As the bright blue mana ink of his pen separated from the writing, Alec felt relaxed. Mana motes were floating as always, slowly but surely. Their amount signaled his mana to be enough for this potion.

While waiting for the potion to appear, Alec went down to the floor and started his pre-prepared training regimen.

Namely; push-ups, planks, and whatever exercise he could remember from his past life. He had a habit of light exercises to at least stay somewhat healthy, however, he mostly kept it to a basic level his entire life.

His training lasted for about half an hour. Although he felt a little clumsy at first, he quickly got used to physical exercise in this new body and went through the motions properly. Afterward, he felt completely spent, lying on the ground, wheezing.

Barely getting up, he managed to get a hold of the cup filled with the dark green [Very Low Stamina Potion]. It had been completed a few minutes into his training and was waiting patiently for Alec to drink it.

Bringing the potion closer to his mouth, Alec felt the smell of freshly cut grass and the scent of petrichor entering through his nostrils. When he brought the potion to his mouth, however, it was tasteless like he was drinking pure water. It was much thinner than the mental cleansing potion too, making it easier to drink.

As the potion dissolved into his stomach, Alec felt a relieving sensation wash over him. The soreness of his muscles went away, alongside the short breathiness from the exercises. This happened before he could drink half of the cup, which led him to stop drinking.

‘Huh... So I can get two uses out of one creation. I wonder what determines the amount that is created,’ Alec thought to himself. However, he had to push the details of his abilities to the side, as he had another thing to do for the moment.

Which was to exercise.

Of course, the first thought that came to his mind after changing his development route was making strength potions and downing them. However, Alec had read too many system novels to know that such a thing was very inefficient. Most of the time, potions like these became more ineffective the more they were used. Yes, it was quick in granting strength. However, it would also stifle his ability to increase his strength through normal exercises, forcing him to go through more and more outrageous training regimens. Instead, he could improve his physique until he couldn’t do so normally and start taking the booster potions to push himself beyond what a normal human was capable of.

This way, he could get more use out of very low-strength potions before they lost their effectiveness.

For now, however, he didn’t really have to think more about this topic, as he had a long way to go with his training.

Lowering his body, he once more started going through his training with newly regained vigor.