A week had gone by, and Elliot had spent most of the time training, barely even talking to his housemates. “Dumb… sword… should have… asked for a... dagger.”
Elliot was attacking a tree-like it slandered his mother. While he finally got good enough to swing it without his ass meeting the floor he was still swinging without any grace, not unlike a toddler playing baseball. It was taking every ounce of strength to swing the sword, and it was leaving him ragged...
That was only when he swung without the attribute, though.
He stopped for a second, sighing in relief as he noticed the orb in his chest was refilled. “Connor, charge me.” His now named imp complied, sending a stream of purple energy shooting directly into Elliot’s back. His teacher had talked about how naming the imp would raise its potential, since it would raise its strength compared to that of an unnamed imp.
Unlike Elliot, who only had to sit down and meditate, demons could only raise their power by establishing their place of power over others. Only once a demon had defeated enough powerful people and monsters in combat would they rank up. Elliot was thankful he was human, and could simply grow without the danger. Sure, demons could technically grow faster than humans if they battled regularly but Elliot didn’t think many of them would ever make it that long.
While resting Elliot felt his muscle slowly start to go numb and then bulge, an effect that came with the orb filling him with strength. He realized a long time ago that the burning of his mana from the orb was because he was doing a two-man job. His summon was supposed to supply the energy while Elliot needed to compress it into his body.
The process made it simpler and longer since Elliot barely had to use anything compared to his imp. It was still Elliot who bottomed out his mana first, however. The imp was at the top choices of lesser demons, which meant it was quite useful, stronger than Elliot currently at least. Elliot set the sword gingerly against the ruined tree before the spell wore off. As he sat down he felt the strength leave his body, making him groan in pain and displeasure.
He’d been doing this for an hour now, and his arms and back were on fire. It was about time he went to his teacher to ask for a quick fix of healing magic. Asking his little imp to help him up he set towards the house. He was well inside the forest, he didn’t want to make the scenery around his teacher’s house look ugly after all.
Fortunately, the barrier his teacher set up reached far into the forest, enough for Elliot to not feel scared about checking his surroundings. His imp floated under Elliot’s shoulder arm in arm. “Connor I swear if you hit me with your nails I’m sending you back to the void.” He didn’t know if his imp could understand him or just followed orders but at least it nodded and reacted to Elliot. Something he needed after so much lonely training.
Once Elliot got home he collapsed on one of the comfy chairs. “Doctor! I need a doctor...” Elliot dramatically said, clutching his chest with a hand. Nobody came though, and it confused him. He didn’t see his teacher leave the house yet, and Tiffany and Hannah were probably still during their lesson. So the teacher should have been here to guide them.
“There’s our little test subject.” Elliot looked up from contemplation to see the trio in front of him. “Tiffany, put what I taught you to good use and heal his injuries.” The old man couldn’t help but smile when he saw the anxiousness on Elliot’s face “Do you really… is that safe? I’m not gonna blow up am I?” Tiffany was the one to get mad at this. “Do you think I’m a child? Master spent all this month teaching me this spell, he says I’m ready.” Elliot couldn’t help but not trust the teacher’s words. Hannah also spoke up “master is tired of treating your wounds every day, he thought to use you as training for Hannah as a load off his back.”
That… sucked. Elliot sighed and relaxed into his chair. “That didn’t answer my question, but whatever. Please do it soon Tiff. My arms feel like they’re falling off.” Hanging them limply in front of him, he looked at the girl with puppy eyes. Teacher was here so he wasn’t worried about her screwing it up.
Worst case scenario, they could just heal his arms back on.
She neared, now suddenly more anxious than before. Elliot looked at the mana revolving around her and found it to be different from the spells he made. While his mana almost sought out to strengthen and ravage the surroundings, hers was much calmer. It seemed to gently flow and trickle out of her until it made a small tether connecting herself to Elliot.
That’s when he felt the rush, not anywhere near what his teacher could do, but he could tell how hard this was to do. The sheer amount she used was already nearing Elliot’s cap and he could tell she had plenty more to spare. Eventually, she cut off the connection when she felt my body was better.
“Why inflict so many wounds to your body every day? It can’t be nice, you have a gift for magic, so why take up the sword?” Elliot stood and stretched his stiff body, he always felt like he slept 10 hours after healing and always felt a little weaker afterward. But it was steady growth, something he loved the sensation of.
He laughed. “You wouldn’t understand a man’s romance, even I barely do. I want to use a sword because of its status for adventure! To be able to take the world by force!”
Tiffany was staring at a moron, the only problem was that unlike Hannah and Gerald, she hadn’t caught up to the idea that he was just joking. “Adventure? Can’t you do that with magic?” Elliot froze, “well technically yes, but my heart wouldn’t be in it, you know? Um… Like, I want to be strong enough to take care fo myself.”
The girl tilted her head again.
“Barrier magic can do that.”
…What a pure girl. Elliot could feel his sins crawling up his back. He didn’t want to tell her the truth, that the blacksmith deemed it worthless to train Elliot before he could at least swing the sword long enough to last a real battle. He was basically told to swing his sword nonstop until he was able to handle the weight. Before Tiffany asked another question, Gerald spoke up.
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“My student, don’t listen to his words, while they sound meaningful they carry about as much weight as air. Go and follow him to the training area, you can train with him there. I still have to teach Hannah her own attributes.”
Tiffany nodded, she was happy to help Elliot after all this time, it reminded her of when they first met, how satisfying it was to help someone so helpless in her hands. Elliot looked at Tiffany’s expression and felt a chill go up his spine… “Hey uh, Tiff… let’s just go now, I’m sure you’ll be a big help.” she just nodded without responding, and they headed off.
Once they got well into the forest Elliot had started swinging again. While Elliot hadn’t noticed himself, everyone else in the house had recognized his growth, he grew an extra half inch, making him 6’1, a good height for any individual. Tiffany wondered if she would have a growth spurt as well, being tall must be so freeing. She was only just 14 so she still had plenty of time to grow… 10 inches to be 6 foot… that seemed reasonable.
“Hey, tiff… are you going to heal me or not. I’m telling the teacher if you're slacking off.” Elliot shouted from the tree, his sword barely staying in the air.
She broke out of her stupor to hurriedly heal Elliot, who in all accounts could take much more but was whining about the pain. “This is real nice, how long can you keep that up?” Tiffany giggled, of course, Elliot would be worrying about such a small amount of mana. “Up to 10 minutes at a time!”
The shock of such a revelation caused him to miss the entire tree like an idiot and fall face-first into the floor. Tiffany started full-blown laughing at this, all the while healing him of any minor wounds. “Wait so uh… 30 seconds is all my mana… multiply by 2… YOU HAVE 20 TIMES MY MANA?” She nodded, it wasn’t really shocking. “Healers have a constant stream of buffs and support that don't require much effort to be constantly used. They help in growing mana capacity, our mana pools get bigger than normal as a result.”
She paused before continuing, hesitation in her voice… “But my mana is only around 4 times bigger than the average mage… your mana pool is very low. So it just seems that large.” Elliot was hit with this bombshell… he knew his mana was low… but a fifth of normal seemed like way too big a gap.
“Just… heal me when I look tired, I don’t wanna talk anymore...” and thus a depressed Elliot, an apologetic Tiffany, and an apathetic imp named Connor trained for that day, eventually returning after about 4 hours to eat. “Hey… what are we eating when we get home? Sandwiches again?’ This got a glare from Tiffany, still a little angry about the whole argument they had.
“Make your own food, make sure it has a lot of protein, healing tends to increase metabolism to ridiculous levels, I’m sure it’s why you became so skinny.” Ooh, that’s why Elliot felt like he was constantly in a state of hunger, go figure. “Please, make me food, you’re way too good at cooking for me not to at least ask…I can’t even cook, what do you want for your services?”
Tiffany froze, was her cooking good enough to be a service? That was… nice. “I… I’ll make your food, so stop worrying. Eheh” Elliot fought the devil smile from appearing on his face. Christ, the girl was easy to read, she really took pride in her ability to cook, huh? “Wonderful! For a second I thought I’d have to miss out on your amazing food.”
She may not have been as bad as Hannah at taking compliments but she was still pretty weak. “Ehehe, I learned a new recipe yesterday! An apple pie, let’s make it right now!” Goddamnit, “What about the meat? For my health?” His words went from one ear out the other as she ran back home, apparently because she was already rushing ahead to get started. This was going to be a long week…
The days went by as Elliot trained, and he only became more of a glutton. After 3 weeks of a constant schedule doing nothing but mana training, physical training, getting healed, and then eating ungodly amounts, Elliot finally started showing results. The results were pretty insane, too. His body was leaner but much more toned. His strength training was much more effective, as he could now swing the sword as if it was merely half the weight it was before.
This was mainly due to the mana strengthening inside his body, but also in the way he learned to handle the weight that came with a sword so dense. At this point, he could take most medium trees out in about 6 chops. With rough fingers that had thick calluses thanks to the healing done by Tiffany and his lean body and face, he was starting to look like a genuine warrior.
Look like’ was the key term.
“Tiiiiiff, my shoulder hurts, I thought you said you healed it?” He was still the same on the inside, unfortunately for the little healer. She just stuck her tongue out at him. “I already healed it, you just swing that sword like it’s made of feathers, have you tried asking the blacksmith if you’re ready to actually learn the proper way to hold that thing?”
In the three weeks they spent together Tiffany and Elliot Actually became closer, which just meant Tiffany was no longer taking Elliot’s shit while Elliot became a lot more… honest. “Wow, that’s a good idea, maybe I should go twice a day instead of just going every day like I already do. You’re so smart Tiff. I sure hope I become as smart as- AAUGH.” He felt a shock run down his back for what must have been the dozenth time that day.
Tiffany had a self-defense magic called ‘zap’, which she had made perfectly clear that she had only ever used it on Elliot. While it only stunned most, those with a dark attribute were more severely affected, so Elliot was the perfect victim. “I get it, I’m sorry… sheesh you need to learn how to lighten up Tiff, heal me?”
All she did was sigh and continue the healing process, it was annoying that zapping Elliot only caused more work for her. That didn’t stop her from correcting Elliot’s ways though. she felt like she could change him to a proper man if she was a bit more forceful, something she learned from Hannah.
It seemed to have worked, considering the next words that came out of his mouth. “...Hey. You know, I never really got a chance to properly thank you for all this, huh?” Hannah looked his way, what was he talking about?
“It’s been fun hanging out with someone other than Connor, I usually always zone out in my head but it’s been fun talking to you for once. Thanks for being even a little bit patient with me Tiff, it means a lot.”
…What!?
Tiffany was shocked… was this another way to get something from her? He tended to try to shower her with compliments before slipping in something undesirable… but the bad part never came, he even seemed a bit bashful at her silence. “I… um, thank you, I had fun too.” She felt all warm inside, why was he being so nice today? Could it be he really had a change of-
“So uh… I was thinking maybe you could come with me to the blacksmith and help convince hi- AAUGH!”
With a now dead expression, she zapped Elliot, not even letting him finish his sentence. “Why would you need little ol’ me?” Another zap caused Elliot to jump away in fear, still holding onto the sword. “Calm down, I have no idea what’s happening, please explain what I did wrong.” She sighed, he probably didn’t even know he was doing it.
“Let’s… just go, I’ll try my best to convince him.” Elliot smiled, “and then we’ll have sandwiches, uh, I’ll make them.” Elliot added the last part when he saw Tiffany glare at him. With a smile, tiff walked right past him. “Make some of them tuna, they’re my favorite.”