Chapter 77: Bread duty
Felix Sythias’ POV:
“Alright… that’s… that…” the healer said, breathing heavily. He waited a few moments to catch his breath before continuing. “If you have any other problems, please don’t hesitate to come visit us again.”
I nodded and bid him farewell, then walked out of the large tent that the healers had set up near the entrance to the caves. It was strange to be healed by someone other than Elena. It had been years since that happened. I’d really started to take her sheer strength in healing for granted. The guy who’d healed me—the strongest healer we had with us this week—had exhausted himself healing one cracked scale and a nasty bruise.
He’d probably be able to regrow arms in just a minute with basically anyone else. I could only imagine how much worse it would’ve been if my body hadn’t become easier to heal after that fight with the dire bear. We still didn’t know exactly why that happened, but it had probably something to do with how my mana pool had grown.
I couldn’t wait to figure out how that worked, too.
There hadn’t been much progress on that front, however. I’d been so sure it had something to do with fighting and killing monsters, but I’d killed well over a hundred since we came here, and there were no changes. The armband continued to not light up and vibrate. It only displayed a rough estimate of my mana pool's fullness. Right now, three of the ten crystals were lit up, so that meant I had at least 30% mana, but less than 40%. I felt at my mana pool with my senses and saw that it was just about right. Good, that meant it was still working.
I hoped that I'd get results from it sometime this week. I needed some way to grow my mana pool. Alex and Tiki were growing fast, and so were my other classmates. Right now they were still weaker than me, at least physically. But soon, they'd be stronger. There was little I could do about that, aside from exercising more, but if I could grow my mana pool… I could compensate for that physical weakness I'd soon have with raw magical power.
There was no compensating for my lack of Skills, though.
I sighed and shook my head. There was no point wasting my thoughts on that matter. There wasn’t anything I could do to change it right now, anyway. My thoughts would be much better spent on more worthy topics, like Alex.
He was making great progress with his comfort level when it came to sex and related things. We’d gone from just cuddling, to making out, to making out naked in just a few days. I was proud of him, and couldn’t help but wonder where we’d be a month from now. Would we be having sex by then? Maybe, maybe not. Either way was fine. As long as it didn’t take a year, anyway.
I wanted to do it all at his pace, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't really looking forward to it. I really wanted to make him feel good, to feel him inside me, to have him come in my mouth, to know what he tasted like. I shook my head again, getting rid of the fantasies. There’d be time to act on them later, but there wasn’t any reason to make myself feel impatient now.
We would have to have a longer conversation about sex and all that at some point, but he’d asked for time, and this forest wasn’t the best place for it, anyway. It was better to wait until we got back home. We could talk about it then, comfortable in the guaranteed privacy of our room.
When I got back to our campsite, there wasn’t anyone there yet. It seemed I was the first to get back. Since no one else was here yet, anyway, I decided to clean off my saddle. It had gotten dusty and bloody these past few days and I hadn’t had time to clean it yet. Afterwards, I gave the leather a good shine, and put the saddle back on. It might be silly, but I felt slightly prettier with the freshly maintained, clean saddle on. I’d have to remember to do this next time when Alex and I went on a date again, too.
It wasn’t long before my friends returned as well. They’d walked back together, it seemed. I smiled at that. It was always nice seeing your friends getting along.
I walked over to them and gave Alex a kiss. His tail squirmed a little in embarrassment, but he leaned into it, nonetheless. Tiki just rolled her eyes and went to put away her bow. She was about to start making a fire to make some tea, but Alex stopped her.
“Can I do it?” he asked. “I followed that class on survival and I’d like to put what I learned to use.”
She nodded and stepped aside. Alex kneeled down the firepit and started placing the wood into it—we kept a supply of wood nearby. A few minutes later, he’d build a nice tepee fire, and another few minutes of smashing flint against steel, he lit the fire. As he helped the fire roar to life, I couldn’t help but feel a little proud for him. Yesterday, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. And yet here he was, having learned a new skill.
When he turned around afterwards, grinning at me, I couldn’t help but step forwards to envelop him in a hug, pressing kisses to the top of his head. “Good job,” I told him, and he murmured his thanks back.
Tiki conveniently chose that moment to tell us she had to go use the bathroom, giving us some privacy. Soon, the small kisses turned into big kisses, which turned into fully making out. And even though our clothes stayed on this time, he still grinded against me once. Unlike last time, however, we didn’t have to stop. Though, he didn’t do it again. Still, progress was progress. And teasing him about it a little was fun.
When Tiki got back a while later, Alex and I were cuddling near the fire while we sipped on some tea, talking about our respective afternoons. He’d had a lot of fun with the survival class and told me he was planning on doing a few more of the different classes now that he had the chance anyway.
Maybe I’d join him, too.
It wasn’t long before we had to leave our camping spot again. It was almost time for dinner, which meant there were chores to do. When we got back to the main firepit, they were already assigning tasks, and we were assigned cooking duty.
“You’re on bread duty,” the professor who was handing out the tasks told us. She pointed in the direction of some small cauldrons. “Go there, an assistant will assist you.”
“I sure hope so,” I whispered to Alex. “They’d be pretty terrible assist-ants otherwise.”
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He chuckled at my terrible joke as we walked towards the cauldrons.
“They didn’t give us a very challenging task, did they?” Tiki asked.
I looked at her and cocked my head. “You sure about that? We have to bake for like a hundred people.”
“Oh, right.”
Once we got to the small cauldrons, we were explained how to make bread and were guided through it. I could only help with getting the ingredients and dumping them into the cauldrons, though. I couldn’t help with mixing or kneading the dough. I would have to use two talons for that, which would cause me to topple over—unlike the kitchen counters back in the dorms, these cauldrons were not nearly stable enough to support my weight. Not even sitting so I could use both talons freely was an option, as the cauldron was too tall.
It was moments like these that I was really jealous of everyone else, who could just walk around bipedally. They always had two hands to use, while in most situations, I could use only one talon at best. I needed those other three to stop me from snout-planting.
I did have some tricks I could use to use both talons anyway, like resting my chest on a table or a counter while I did what I wanted to do. Most of the time, though, I was stuck with using only one talon. At least, while I was standing, anyway. Using my talons while I was lying or sitting down was a whole different, much more pleasant, story. But just like with the cauldron, that wasn't always a viable option.
I had thought about replicating the table effect using magic. Maybe using air or water to hold myself up, but those two would guzzle mana like there was no tomorrow. No, more like there was no next minute. Fire was also out, for obvious reasons. Earth magic could work. Once a structure was established, it took very little mana to keep its shape. It took way more mana than I had to make the structure, though.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I could make it. A few times even. But I’d also need to remove it afterwards, since I couldn’t just leave random pillars all over the forest, let alone all over campus. But after only a few, my mana pool would’ve run dry. It just wasn’t a viable strategy. At least, not with my current mana pool size.
It was just another reason to find out how to make my mana pool bigger.
I thought back to the fight with the dire bear. From what I remembered, my mana pool was still normal before that fight. I remembered using it and not finding anything wrong, so it must have happened during or after the fight. Maybe it was because the bear was that much stronger than me? It had a pretty high level, after all. The monsters here really haven’t been that strong so far.
I’d have to find and kill a bigger, stronger monster this excursion. Hopefully, I’d get the chance. And maybe sooner than I hoped. Tomorrow, we’d be going down to the second floor, after all.
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The next day I found myself severely disappointed. The last two days we’d been chosen to go down into the caves with the first group each time. Not today, though. We’d only be going down with the third group today.
“Come on, Felix. Cheer up. It’s not so bad,” Alex said. “Think of it this way, we can go practice and be even more ready when we go down there than we were before.”
“I know,” I said. “I was just really looking forward to fighting some stronger monsters. There was a theory I wanted to check out. I really hadn’t expected we’d need to wait.”
“Well, I sure don’t mind,” Tiki said. “I wanted to talk to one of the professors before we went down there anyway, and now I’ll actually have the chance to.”
“Oh, what did you want to talk about?” I asked.
“I haven’t really used my traps and explosives so far. I want to know if the second floor is a good opportunity to test them out, or if I should wait until the third.”
I thought about it for a second, remembering the facts from the guide book I’d read. “I think the second floor would be best. The first floor is mostly open spaces, but the second has a lot of tunnels. It would be much easier to set up a trap there.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want easy. I want it to be challenging. You never learn much from easy, but if you need to struggle to figure it out… well, there’s a lot more to be gained from that.”
I nodded, and I noticed Alex nodding as well. “That’s fair,” I said. “In that case, I’d say wait until the third floor. It’s not only a lot more open than the second floor—though not to the degree of the first—but also actually has stronger monsters.”
“I’ll probably do that, then. Though I’ll also still ask what professor Scott thinks. Speaking of easy, why do you only ever really use your talons to fight?” she asked. “I mean, you have so much more to strike with. You could strike with your tail, crush them with your weight, bite their heads off. Especially that last part. I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at yourself in the mirror, but your teeth are sharp, and your jaws are super strong. I’ve seen you crush bone with those teeth while you ate dinner. I’m not sure you realized it was even there. Honestly, I’m surprised Alex kisses you—I’d be terrified.”
“I think it’s hot,” Alex said, and we both looked at him. After a moment, he cringed as if he only just realized he said that out loud. Since we were alone, I pulled Alex in for a quick kiss.
“That’s adorable, Alex” I told him and he squirmed a little in my grip. He didn’t try to get away though. I gave him one last kiss before letting go and turning back to Tiki. “And you didn’t have to say it like that. Alex can like what he wants, and I’m already well aware of how people see my maw without you pointing it out.”
“Right, sorry. I didn’t mean to bash on either of you,” she said. “I shouldn’t have phrased it like that, I’m just curious why you don’t bite. I remember you telling me about that fight with the dire bear and how you bit it. It seems wasteful to not use it.”
I shook my head. “You’re right, but I really don’t like doing it. I don’t want to tear my enemies apart like some wild beast. I already feel like a monster when I’m tearing them apart with my claws, using my jaws would just make that even worse. Aside from that, blood doesn’t taste that good.”
Alex hugged me tight. “You’re not a monster, Felix. You’re fighting no differently than a brawler might.”
I hugged him back, while Tiki just stared at me, looking like she felt a little guilty. “Thanks, Alex,” I said. “And I know. But like you’ve said before, the heart doesn’t listen to what the brain knows.”
Tiki sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t know that. But still, wouldn’t it be better to practice it now, instead of realizing a limit during an actual fight? Just like with that gryphon training you do with the second-years. You said something about it being better to have an unpleasant time now, while it’s safe, rather than getting killed later because you were unprepared?”
“I…” I opened my mouth to respond, but froze. She had a point. I was taking the easy route with my fighting. I was just grabbing and crushing and swiping at the monsters we’d faced. I remembered my fight with the dire bear. That hadn’t been enough, then, and it wouldn’t be enough in the future.
Sure, I was using my magic now, too. But I wouldn’t always have the time or the spare concentration to use magic. Maybe it was time I too started focusing on improving my melee combat skills. At the very least, I should start using my weight and tail like she suggested.
I sighed. “You’re not wrong. I think I’ll start practicing using my tail and weight like you said. I don’t think I’m quite ready to start using my jaws, though. But you’re right that I should start practicing with it, too. That just won’t be now.”
She nodded and smiled. “That’s good. Now then, let’s go over all the things you can do with that tail,” she said, then paused, glancing at Alex. “In a fight, I mean.”