"Time to wake up, tiny turtle.”

A voice as loud as a siren rang in Toby’s head and forced him to wake up.

With foggy eyes, Toby saw a figure that he did not expect in front of him. Especially not this early – the sun hadn’t even risen yet and the sky was still pitch black.

Right, before dawn. He thought as he dragged his body out of the bed.

“Disciple Toby greet Master Elaria,” Toby saluted.

“Good,” The elf lady nodded. “Now go get that wolfie, we got training to do.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Toby swam out of the door under the curious gaze of his master toward Lily and Lukas’s room. He knocked on the door, but no one answered. That was to be expected since it was still too early. He was used to it since he used to get up at 4 a.m. to work, but he was sure the kids weren’t used to that.

“Lukas, wake up. Master Elaria is here. We have training to do.”

Finally, Toby’s foggy mind started to make sense. Eh? Wait. Why is she here?

Toby turned his head and looked at the woman who casually placed the door she broke on the wall in front of the room. She turned back and saw Toby was staring at her. She scratched her chin and said, “Too slow.”

Elaria walked toward the kids’ room and proceeded to open the door, while it was locked. Thus, goodbye mister hinge, and hello children. The elf proceeded to pick Lukas up, much to the boy’s surprise, and carried him out on her shoulder.

When she walked past Toby, who was still on the ground in front of the room, she said, “What are you doing over there? Come, time to train.” And walked down the stairs.

Toby sighed and followed his eccentric combat master. When he swam past his and Grillion’s room, the goblin had just finished getting dressed and waved at him.

“Have fun with your training.”

“You too, Gramp.” There wasn’t much else to say since Grillion worked in the inn’s kitchen.

“Please put me down. This is embarrassing.” Lukas's voice echoed from the first floor.

“That’s my cue. Bye, Gramp.” Toby said and swum down. The first thing he saw was how Lukas covered his body with his hands like he was some kind of pure maiden as he stood with his back against Elaria.

“Oh please. You're like twenty, right? That's more than old enough for sex. What are you acting like a pure little girl for?”

“Wh-what? Se-se-se,” Lukas stuttered as his face and ears went red.

“Master Elaria, can you not sexual harass a minor? And he's only twelve.” Toby sighed. Eccentric wasn’t even enough to describe this woman anymore. She was way more than that.

“Same thing. And you speak as if I’m saying something wrong. At his age, I was already going wild out there and killing all kinds of monsters. You’re too protective of this wolfie.”

Toby facepalmed, “Can we start our training now?”

Elaria shrugged. “Follow me, I don’t have all day.”

She led the two toward the back of the Adventurer Guild. There was a large, football field-size training ground with all kinds of dummies, stone dumbbells, and archery targets with big red circles on them. But what caught Toby’s eyes the most were giant magic circles on the ground with different colors. If he didn’t sense it wrong, there was a transparent Mana dome covering each of the magic circles too.

He might have stared at the magic circles for too long as Elaria asked, “Can you sense them?”

Toby turned his head toward the woman. “The magic circles or the domes?”

Elaria smirked and slapped his head. Toby rubbed his head begrudgingly. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t felt nice to be randomly slapped by someone else.

“First, I need to test your physics more to see what I need to add to the plan. Second, I’m a busy woman. I’ll only train you two until sunrise every day. Third, I don’t work for free. You two owe me for this. And when the day comes, I’ll demand my due. Did I make myself clear?”

“Yes ma’am.” Toby and Lukas answered.

“Good,” Elaria nodded. “Let’s start.”

After that, it was hell. The elf forced Toby and Lukas to lift progressively heavier and heavier weights until they couldn’t even move their arms. Single dumbbells, double dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells. They tried them all. It was the worst for Toby since Elaria told him to use the pathetically small number of muscles in his flippers instead of his strong shoulders.

Then she forced the two to run, or swim, ten rounds around the place as fast as they could. Lukas couldn’t even last two full sprinting rounds while Toby ran out of Mana after three rounds of pushing to his maximum speed.

Looking at the turtle and wolf lying on the ground while breathing heavily, the elf clicked her tongue as she commented, “Weaklings.”

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

When the two could finally rest and drink some water, Elaria squatted down in front of them.

“Before we get into any kind of technique training, we must first build your fundamentals.” She explained. “Tiny turtle, you are too reliant on your Mana. How many points do you have in [Mana]?”

“10, Master Elaria.”

“That’s not bad. You were born with a much bigger Mana Pool than most, but that’s not enough. You need to both expand your Mana Pool and search for a way to move without using Mana or use as little Mana as possible.”

“Excuse me, Master, what do you mean by train to increase Mana Pool?” Lukas questioned.

“Everyone was born with different physics and talents. Some have a better physical body, while others have more talent in magic or healing. Our Status serves as an amplifier for what we have. It’s not a miracle potion. Think of your body as a jug and Level Up is pouring water into that jug. The bigger the jug, the more water you can pour in. But at some point, the jug will be full, and you can no longer pour water inside of it. The only way to increase the jug’s size and quality is through training.”

“What happens if the water overflows?” Toby asked.

Elaria had a mischievous smirk. “Want me to describe it for you?”

“Suddenly, I’m not that curious anymore.”

The elf shrugged. “If you want to get stronger, faster, then keep on training to build up the base. Focus on the fundamentals is how you can become powerful.”

She took a sip from her bottle. “As I just said, tiny turtle, you need to focus on moving without expanding too much Mana. You’re a Healer, fighting is secondary. Your job is to support your team and heal their wounds. And you need Mana for that.”

“Understood.”

“Wolfie, you lack stamina. You have great physical strength, and that attack of yours carries great power. But hoping you can kill your enemies in a short battle with only a few attacks is nothing short of gambling with your life.”

“I understand, Master.”

Elaria turned toward the rising sun. “That’s all for today. Think for yourself how you can improve and talk to me about it tomorrow.” She stood up and left like the wind.

Once she was gone, Toby and Lukas laid back down on the ground as they breathed heavily.

Toby looked at his flippers and thought. She’s right, how can I move without expending too much Mana? Or is there a way to recharge my Mana faster instead of just letting it recover on its own?

When they came back to the inn, Grillion asked, “How was the training?”

“I need to improve my stamina. I want to learn how to fight too, Grandpa Grill.” Lukas answered.

“I’m thinking of a way to move without Mana. Or use as little Mana as possible.” Toby said.

Grillion nodded. “I can’t help you two with those, but I can help you get familiar with working as Adventurers.”

“What about your work in this inn’s kitchen, Gramp?”

“I asked Grak to let me work only in the evening for five days to help you two first before working all day. He was quite the generous orc.”

“Thanks, Gramp.”

“Thank you, Grandpa Grill.”

“Don’t mention it.” Grill smiled. “Shall we call little Lily and have breakfast together?”

After breakfast, they dropped Lily at the library before they parted. Before they left, Lily said she could go on her own now and they didn't need to escort her anymore. Both Toby and Lukas refused, as it wasn’t safe to let her go alone. She sighed and chased them away.

That day they did another Bronze Rank mission: to gather some kind of seaweed in one of the safe diving zones.

It was a rare sunny day that day. The crystal-clear sea was especially beautiful underneath the surface as corral created a seven-color wall that created a picturesque scene with all kinds of fish swimming around. Small ones, big ones, fast ones, slow ones, beautiful ones, strange ones. So many species of fish swum around the corrals that it was almost like seeing the fish society version of a market.

As Toby dove down the water, it felt so calm and cool. It was like the sea was beckoning to him, that he belonged to the sea. Looking around the corrals, he soon spotted the dark seaweed they needed. It was the same color as the raincoats he saw on the first day he came here.

Toby picked a group of them then swum back up on the surface. He threw the seaweed toward Grillion and Lukas, then dived back down to get more.

It was simple, easy, and refreshing.

When he was picking the seaweed, he saw a flatfish scooting on the sea floor. Its movement intrigued Toby and drew his attention toward it. Whenever the fish moved, it only flapped its tail once and propelled itself forward. When it needed to shift direction, it used its tail as a steering wheel and changed the direction like it was drifting on the sea floor.

That’s it. He thought. It takes a lot of Mana to remain floating high enough to let people see me and to constantly push myself. But if I hover on the ground while using [Push] in small bursts and my limbs as a steering wheel to drift, then I can move with as little Mana as possible.

I should go to the library to see if there is a technique to recharge Mana quickly too. If they don’t have it, then I can search The Shop.

With a new way to play around, Toby picked the weed vigorously and went back quickly.

On the way back to the Adventurer Guild, Toby tried his new way to move right away. He smashed his face into walls and other people's legs at least seven times before he thought he should stop and find somewhere empty to train instead.

His shenanigans forced Grillion to apologize along with him a few times. Before they reached the guild.

Turned out, meeting the commissioner outside of the guild, like how they met Granny Nanna, was quite rare. For most commissions, the Adventurer would give whatever the item needed was to the guild, and the guild would pay them then and there. No interaction with the commissioner was needed.

Toby thought there was definitely something to do with the commission rate too since the guild was the middleman, but that wasn’t something important to him.

Once they finished the commission, Grillion went back to the inn, Lukas went to the guild’s training ground, while Toby bought some cookies and went to find Nanna.

He floated up and knocked on the door with his head, then came back down.

“Granny Nanna, are you home? It’s me, Toby, the turtle from yesterday.”

“I’ll be right there, sweetie.” Nanna’s distant voice sounded like she spoke from inside a closed room. A few sounds of chair legs grinning against the floor and footsteps later, the door was opened, and the kind smile welcomed Toby.

“You came earlier than I expected.”

“I just can’t wait to learn more about healing.” Toby smiled in return.

“Well, come in. Don’t just stay there like a stranger.”

“Excuse my intrusion.” Toby swum inside.

The first thing he noticed when he came inside was the calm atmosphere and gentle yet refreshing smell of herbs. From where he floated, there was a rectangular wood table with four seats in the middle of the room. On the left was a roll of chairs placed next to each other. On the right was a wooden shell with multiple items with all kinds of elements in them. There were some plants, some roots, some herbs, some fruits, some stones, some seeds, and some flowers with [Water], [Fire], and three more Elements.

Further inside were three beds placed next to the left wall, next to an opened door in the middle. Toby could see a garden with a curved glass roof and new saplings with green, blue, brown, and velvet colors.

On the right side of the garden was a closed door. It was most likely where Nanna was in. Her workshop or her bedroom.

“Sit down, sweetie. No not to be so reserved.”

“Then I won’t be polite anymore.” Toby grabbed the cookie basket, swum on the table, and placed it down. “As promised, freshly baked soft cookies.” He smiled.

Nanny chuckled before asking, “Shall we study healing?”