It turned out I had spent the entire night underground and Tear was in the dining room, waiting impatiently for me to come and make breakfast. She was wearing a short, casual dress, and I was about to comment that it was the first time I'd seen her in normal clothing when she demanded breakfast.

“Come help me cook and we can eat faster,” I said, and she leapt up immediately.

“What are you waiting for then? Let's go!” she said, racing up the stairs.

I followed after her more sedately; spending the entire night in the high concentration raw mana had not only halted my requirements for sleep, it had also alleviated my hunger. My mental fatigue however…

I entered the kitchen to find Tear whipping her tail restlessly, “Hurry up!” she called good naturedly and I directed her to crack some eggs for scrambling while I fried up some sausages from the butcher.

The mana concentration continued to build in the air increasing to an actually visible light haze, although the catgirl didn't appear to notice. It built until some kind of limit seemed to have been shattered, mana starting to flood into the obsidian of the tower walls in such a large amounts that I could almost see the disturbance of it draining from the air.

The tower rumbled slightly and Tear looked sharply. “What was that?” She asked, alarmed.

“Improvement,” I smirked, then paused in my frying. “Well, hopefully anyway.”

She eyed me curiously, and not a little skeptically, but let it pass like that.

The tower continued rapidly absorbing mana for several hours before reaching a new limit and gradually slowing to a stop once again. During that time I checked over both the inside and outside of the tower, but there didn't seem to be any major changes, every part of it was just more. Once the mana infusion had halted, I pulled out my sword and carefully scratched the surface of one of the walls, and the mark repaired itself before my very eyes.

“Improvements indeed,” I commented to myself, “from what I felt just then, I think it's harder than cobalt now.” I proceeded to test that by blunting a cobalt sword on it without leaving a scratch.

“Called it,” I thought smugly to myself, then went and soaked in the pool. While I didn't feel tired, I did feel like had been put through a wringer.

As I did so, I checked my mana pool, then stared in astonishment. “207.1! That's an increase of almost 5 whole points! Well, I do suppose I've been soaking in super highly concentrated mana all night, so that may be to be expected. But still that's ridiculous considering Tear said mana pools are mostly capped at 20, and doubly ridiculous when factoring in my current mana pool!”

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I spent about another hour floating, then swam some laps of the men's side of the pool before getting out and going to have lunch.

“Tear,” I said over lunch, “I'm tired and can't be bothered to cook, so let's see if there's somewhere in town to get a meal tonight.”

“Do I have to be carried again?” she asked plaintively.

“Nope!” I said and she perked up, “you can just stay here! The choice is yours!”

She gave me a glare. “Of course I want to come! I just don't want to be carried like that! It's embarrassing!”

“No one would see you though,” I pointed out reasonably.

“I would still know,” she cried in consternation.

“Well, I can carry you, or you can walk. Talking of walking, do you still have your knife?”

“Yes, but why?” she asked, confused.

“Because there are a lot of monsters in the Beast Woods,” I answered, sitting back and grinning.

The catgirl gave me an unhappy look, then sighed defeatedly. “Fine, you win,” she said.

Five minutes later, we walked out the door, said goodbye to Karma, and flew off towards The Outpost. I flew a little faster than last time as Tear seemed more comfortable with it, but we arrived in much the same time due to a flying monster attacking us on the way. It was removed from the sky by a hail of Lunar Flares, a magic spell cast using a spell book that caused energy projectiles to rain out of the sky and explode where the caster aimed, sort of like a flak cannon.

I couldn't salvage the corpse as it was too everywhere, so I suppose that saved some time.

We landed on my usual spot and walked into town. Steven wasn't on the gate, but I suppose he wouldn't always be.

Inside the gate, I turned to Tear. “Here you go,” I said, handing her several silver coins. “Go explore the town, talk to people, buy some things!”

“What'll you be doing?” she asked, but I could see that she wanted to be off.

“I'll be finding somewhere to eat and buying some things, it'll be boring,” I answered.

“Mmm,” she nodded and dashed off.

Before I had taken five steps, I realised I could just ask Lupia if there were any places to eat, and if there were, for a recommendation, and so changed direction to head for the town hall.

“Heya! Whatcha up ta?” I called cheerfully, pushing open the door and approaching her desk. She groaned, but I could tell it wasn't aimed at me.

“I'm already busy, and now the Adventurers Guild has told me they're sending some B-rank adventurers out here, and that I'm supposed to oversee the test for their promotion to A-rank. I have no idea what I'm supposed to get them to do, and they arrive in tomorrow!” Lupia complained.

“Well, you could always get them to visit my tower,” I suggested.

“And where is your tower?” she asked, perking up a bit.

“You know, that bit of land I claimed when I first visited. About ten kilometres out, on the edge of the Beast Forest,” I prompted.

“Oh that. Wait, you actually have something built there?!” she exclaimed.

“Well yeah, that's why I came to claim that land in the first place,” I replied, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “You should come visit sometime. Hey, you could get those adventurers to escort you out there. Tear and I could even be escorted with you!”

“And how would that be a suitable test?” she asked.

“Because there are a lot of monsters in the Beast Woods,” I answered, mirroring my earlier action by sitting back and grinning.