Chapter 64: Potion of head start
Felix Sythias’ POV:
Today was the day. The most important day I’d had in weeks. I would finally be able to fly again, and even more importantly, I was finally going to ask Alex out. I wasn’t sure yet how, but I was sure I’d know when the opportunity presented itself. We were going out picnicking in nature during what would likely be sunset, after all. It was difficult to come up with something that was more romantic.
Before all that, though, I needed to visit Elena. But that wouldn’t be for another few hours, and I was getting hungry, so I might as well make us some breakfast to help pass the time. Lazing around in bed was starting to get boring. I was too awake, excited, and nervous to doze.
Opening my eyes, I stretched and then climbed down to the floor. Alex had once again let his curtain open, and I could see he was still asleep. So I went to the kitchen alone and made us food. I went full out with breakfast. I made eggs, pancakes with bacon, several nice steaks, grabbed some bread, and made some juice. When I got back, he was dressed and sitting at the table, scribbling away. That was good, since it meant I didn’t have to wake him up. I didn’t like waking him up. It felt wrong to disturb him when he was so peaceful and adorable—he still often slept with his tail in his arms.
We ate together, and Alex talked about what he was going to do this morning. He was going to hang out with Tiki so they could both practice. Alex wanted to get better with his lightning sword magic, while Tiki just wanted more practice with melee combat.
After breakfast, we sat together, and while he read Rivers, I played with the cube. I wasn’t sure if there was any point anymore, since I was almost certain that the new growth on my mana pool would help me make my own lightning mana. Time, or perhaps Elena, would tell.
Occasionally, I glanced over at Alex and remembered yesterday. Alex had been staring when I got out of the shower, and I’d made a joke about it, but then he’d agreed. The memory still made my heart flutter. Especially the dopey, genuine, and surprised expression that had been on his face. Like he hadn’t expected himself to flirt back. So adorable.
Too soon, though, I had to go. We both walked outside together, but split off once we got to the main entrance. Alex gave me a hug and wished me luck. I hoped I wouldn’t need it, but I appreciated it anyway.
A long walk later, I arrived at the hospital and checked in. The nice people at the reception told me to just go straight to her office, since she was doing paperwork. So I did, and she was indeed busy signing forms and filling out sheets. She greeted me and immediately stood up to check me over. After a quick visual inspection, she then channeled her Skills and magic through me. Half an hour, and a way too thorough inspection, later, she declared me fit to fly.
“Well, I don’t see any issues. If anything, your wings are a little stronger than I’d expect. In fact, you are a little stronger than I expected in general. Have you been working out?”
I scratched my head. “We’ve been sparring and training all week for the excursion.”
“That’s probably it,” she said. “Alright then, I declare you fit to fly. But take it slow. You might need to get used to it again. By the way, I want you to come by once you get back from the excursion for a follow up. I want to study the long-term effects of major healing on your body. As much as I can, anyway. Your body is still difficult to look into.”
I nodded. “I’ll be there. Before I go, though, I have another question.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Could you check out my mana pool organ? I inspected it recently with my mana sight and noticed something a little… disturbing,” I said, then explained what I found.
Elena frowned. “That’s certainly disturbing, alright. I hope what you say is right, because if it’s anything else, I can’t help you.”
“I know. I’m completely fucked if it’s cancer.”
She grimaced. “I wouldn’t have put it like that, but yes. I’ll take a look, anyway,” she said and told me to lie on my back. I did so, and she pressed her hand to my pelvis, just above my slit. It was a little awkward and embarrassing, but it was the closest she could come to my mana pool organ without cutting me open or doing something even more embarrassing or awkward. “Well, there’s definitely a growth there, but it’s not cancer as far as I can tell. Keep in mind that my sight is severely limited so close to your pool. It just seems to be a completely natural part of your mana pool, though. It’s weird actually how absolutely natural it is. It’s like it’s always been there. It’s grown perfectly into the surrounding tissue like it was designed that way.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I think it’s fine. I’ll check it again when you come for the follow up after the excursion.”
I smiled and nodded. “Thanks, that’s a weight of my chest.”
After that, we talked about various things for a while, including her giving me a small lecture about keeping safe during a fight, and what key things to do in emergencies. Especially when it came to dealing with injuries on humanoids. When she finally finished almost an hour later, she told me to get out since she had a ton of paperwork to catch up on.
Back outside, I was faced with a dilemma. Should I fly home or not? On the one talon, if I flew home right now I could finally fly, and could even see Alex sooner on top of that. But on the other talon, I really wanted to celebrate my first flight together with Alex. In the end, the choice was easy. I’d waited so long already, I could wait another few hours.
That didn’t mean I didn’t test out my wings on the way back, though. As I walked, I practiced taking off, flapping and gliding a few meters, and landing. While I really wanted to celebrate my first flight with Alex, I needed it to be safe, and Elena was right that it had been a while since I last flew. Besides, this practice didn’t count as actually flying.
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By the time I got back home, I had the basics mastered again. I’d never forgotten, really. I just needed to remind my wings of that.
Alex wasn’t back yet, so I went to the practice fields behind the dormitory. And there they were, fighting with wooden sticks. Well, they were fake swords and daggers, but they looked like sticks to me. As it was, Alex held the upper hand in the fight. That wasn’t all that surprising, since he was really quite good with a sword, while Tiki… wasn’t. She was already a lot better than when she started half a week ago, though.
I waited for their fight to be over—it ended up with Tiki lying on the ground, defeated—and greeted them. We talked for a little while, but soon Tiki needed to leave since she still had to pack her bags and do some final alchemy. It reminded me we still needed to pack our bags, too. So Alex and I went back to our room to do exactly that. After we had lunch, anyway.
Alex and I spent the next hour packing his bag and putting stuff aside to pack into my saddle tomorrow morning. A tent for Alex, as well as a sleeping bag and pillow—normally a pillow would be super impractical to take, but we had a pack dragon with us, so it’d be fine. We also put our books aside, together with some of his drawing supplies. Once we had gathered those absolute necessities together, we moved on to the nice-to-have items, like an axe to chop wood, or a knife to cut meat. You know, non-essentials like that. Alex also reminded me something like toilet paper would be useful to take.
At the end of our mission to gather everything we needed, we ended up with way more than we could possibly carry with us. It was times like this that I wished spatial compression enchantment worked on bags, too, since it took us another half-hour to sort through the stuff and figure out what we didn’t need. It wasn’t even the weight that was the problem, but the volume of stuff we could carry with us.
Sorting through the mess turned out to be a lot harder than expected. Neither of us wanted to leave the books behind, nor the sleeping stuff. In the end we decided to replace the tent with a tarp, since we’d likely sleep close together, anyway. We also got rid of the pillow, some extra clothes, and other various items that were more luxury than necessity. No way were we leaving the books, though.
After we’d made our final selection, we pushed it all into a corner of the room together with his bag. We would put it all in and on my saddle in the morning.
Alex plopped down in a chair. “That took way longer than expected. I understand why the professor warned us not to wait until the morning,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if a quarter of the students still wait too long anyway, despite his warning.”
“Probably,” he agreed, then grinned. “Anyway, now that’s done, we can finally make dinner together for the picnic. I was thinking we use some of that monster meat you have in the fridge. I know you like it much better than regular meat.”
I smiled at him. “Sounds good. And as a bonus, it will help your leveling, too, because of the boost it gives.”
He looked surprised. “It boosts leveling?”
I scratched the scales behind my ear. “Ah, didn’t I tell you earlier? It’s meat I took from home, so it’s meat from high-level beasts. It gives a small bonus to experience gained.”
He blinked. “Huh, neat,” he said. “But won’t your dad mind?”
I shook my head. “Nope, not at all. If anything, he’ll pat me on the shoulder for helping a friend.”
He sighed. “Your father sounds a lot nicer than mine.”
“I’m sure your dad still loves you, even if he doesn’t understand or agree with who you are.”
He was silent for a moment, then wiped away a tear. “I hope so, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get the chance to know. I still haven’t heard back from them.”
I walked a little closer and pulled him into a hug. “The mail system to the Dry Territories is notoriously slow. It’s entirely possible they only just got the letter.”
“I really hope so,” he said, and we stood there for a while hugging, until Alex pulled away. “Anyway, we were talking about dinner, right? Let’s go make it.”
“Ah, before that, I have something for you! Wait here,” I said, then climbed up to my loft and pulled my bed aside. I opened my box of dildos—it was the safest, most secret place in my room—and grabbed the little bag I’d hidden within. Shaking the little bottle out onto my talon, I grinned. I quickly stashed it away in my pouch, shoved my bed back into place and climbed back down.
“So, like I said earlier, I don’t think a picnic is a good enough compensation for you missing out on private lessons, so I have this,” I took out the bottle and showed it to him. The magical liquid within sloshed around while it changed color almost every second, fading through all the colors of the rainbow. “It’s a Superior Potion of Head Start. It’s something my dad gifted to me when I turned eighteen, but it’s useless to me. But it definitely won’t be useless to you.”
Alex took the little bottle out of my talon and looked at it. The tiny potion bottle looked a lot less silly in his hands. “What does it do?” he asked.
“So, do you remember when I asked you earlier this week if higher Attributes would make you feel more at ease with combat, and said that I knew of a way? This is that way. Drinking it gives you fifteen bonus points to all Attributes. It will also slow your leveling speed a bit for a few weeks, but that will be offset by the monster meat.”
He looked at me, then at the potion, then back at me, and once again back at the potion. Finally, he seemed to gather his thoughts and opened his mouth to speak. “I can’t take this, Felix. It’s too much. You should use it yourself.”
I shook my head. “Like I said, it’s useless to me. Potions don’t work without the System, and yes, I’ve checked.”
“Still, it’s too much!”
I shook my head again. “It really isn’t, Alex. Those private lessons wouldn’t just have taught you basic stuff. Professor Hobold very likely would’ve taught you things only he knows. Aside from that, there’s no price I can put on your safety and comfort. And if you’re happy, I’m happy. So yeah, I think it’s a fair trade.”
He stared at the potion for a solid minute, then shook his head and stood up. He hugged me, and then, to my great surprise, pressed a kiss to the side of my snout. “Alright, I’ll accept it,” he said, a tone of embarrassment to his voice, “Thank you, Felix.”
“Yeah, of course,” I stammered, “so, um, come on, drink up.”
He smirked a little at my flusteredness, but I saw his nervous fidgeting with his tail. Then, as if to distract himself, he poured the liquid down his throat in one quick gulp. For a small moment, maybe a few seconds at most, a glowing aura appeared around him, enveloping him in swirling energy. It glowed the same rainbow light as the potion. It sank into his scales, which too glowed with rainbow power for a brief moment, and then it was over.