Rapid improvement.

"[Status]."

Tom Laplace

Title: [Saint]

Race: Human

Age: 19

Vitality: 192/192

Strength: 66/66

Dexterity: 129/129

Agility: 55/55

Intelligence: 165/165

Luck: 18

Mana: 25.921/25.921

Skills:

[Cooking 4/10] [Housework 4/10] [Memorization 2/10] [Pain resistance 4/10] [Etiquette 1/10] [Mana control 3/10] [Fine motor control 3/10] [Strengthening 5/10] [Combat awareness 3/10] [Sense potential 10/10] [Saint 1/3]

Magic affinity: Gravity

(Finally…)

Having rested for an entire week after the visit from the church, Tom had finally recovered from mana sickness.

"Now then."

Grabbing his [catalyst] from the bedside table, Tom swung the modified mana core by its metal chain around a few times before he caught it mid-air and softened up the mass of mana inside his body.

(It wouldn't be a question of playing around with masses of objects like some sort of god… Is it relative then?... No, that would be stupid. The kind of gravity I can create with mana is a force, then I should be able to control the output better, or even reverse it to compete against the natural gravity?)

"Looks like you've got your mind on something awfully important kiddo~ Sadly this isn't the time for that, you've skipped out on training long enough now."

Right as Tom started immersing himself in the possibilities now offered to him, Lizzy appeared to take his mind off those things and move on to more practical applications.

"Sure, I've been bored just sitting here all day doing nothing."

Getting properly dressed and doing some quick stretches, Tom found himself back at practicing with Lizzy, except this time the two of them had a considerable audience.

"You can do it Tom!"

"Sure… What the hell is going on here?"

After returning Elizabeth's over enthusiastic wave with considerably less energy, Tom quickly turned to Lizzy who had a large shit-eating grin all over her face in response to her disciples reaction.

"Well, you did kill a ground dragon all by yourself kiddo, this much attention should be expected. More importantly, don't let the surroundings distract you, get ready."

"Right, I'm sorry."

Like his instructor told him, Tom immediately calmed his mind and zoned out the surroundings, not to the extent that he turned entirely oblivious to his surroundings of course, but they no longer served to distract him.

(That's more like it~)

Seeing her disciple's attitude had changed, Lizzy started lightly jumping around in place to warm up, Lizzy's smile widened slightly as she started spinning her [catalyst] around.

"Hey, why don't we up the difficulty slightly?~"

"Sure."

Realizing that Lizzy wasn't really asking him a question he could refuse, Tom mentally prepared himself for some pain as he slowly lowered his centre of gravity and started moving mana throughout his body. In response to her disciple's immediate answer, Lizzy's fox-like smile seemed to widen a bit more before she caught her [catalyst], instantly creating her characteristic pair of ice claws before disappearing from view.

(Fast as always!)

Before Tom was able to spot Lizzy again his vision lit up with red lines from his [Combat awareness] skill, but due to the skill's low level, the outlines were blurry, with most of them likely being bluffs Tom couldn't tell apart from the real attacks.

"Shit!"

Avoiding the incoming attacks with a wide margin due to his inexperience, Tom was quickly forced into a state of constant retreat.

"Come on now, use your head instead of just your feet kiddo~"

(I already am through, give me a break!)

Although Tom was using his mana to strengthen his body and speed up his reactions, Tom still struggled to keep up with Lizzy's relentless attacks. Without a second to spare between attacks, Tom hardly had time to think about things like strategy or even counters.

All Tom could do was struggle to survive against Lizzy, worse yet, Lizzy was still far from taking the fight even slightly seriously.

Soon enough Tom started having trouble getting enough air, breathing heavily as sweat poured out from every part of his body, but Lizzy still continued her relentless attack with no signs of slowing down.

(How the hell is she still able to keep that up!? This isn't even close to being a matter of endurance anymore!)

Left, right, right again then from below immediately followed by another jab from the left, Lizzy was truly unrelenting in her constant barrage of strikes. Each of Lizzy's strikes carried a clear intent to kill, maim or disable her opponent. Her ice claws constantly sought out Tom's eyes, neck, armpits and the gaps between his ribs while Lizzy's footwork maintained a constant mix of faints and pursuits, creating a mix of false and right readings in Tom's [combat awareness] skill, making him unable to rely on it to an extent that he could focus on countering Lizzy's advance.

"Come on kiddo, show me some of that youthful energy!~ If you stop moving you're going to die!"

Increasing her speed slightly, Lizzy caught Tom off guard and left a series of cuts in his shirt, along with light cuts across his chest.

"Hey, isn't this supposed to be training!?!? Don't fucking try and kill me okay!?"

"Less talking, more youthful energy!~"

Although Lizzy seemed to have a great time on Tom's behalf, Tom on the other hand started panicking.

Or at least that would have been the normal response.

(Left, right, left and left again… Then switch left and advance, faint, faint again and attack…)

Without being aware of it himself, the number of unnecessary movements Tom made had drastically reduced doing the fight, but after Lizzy had gotten her first hit in Tom's mind had also started spinning. Clutching his [catalyst], Tom's eyes went cold.

As Lizzy targeted her opponent's eyes for the nth time she moved after the fleeing target, stepping into range then fainting an attack with her left arm before striking with her right, but right as she started pivoting her torso to strike something strange happened.

Suddenly it felt like something was pulling on Lizzy's shoulders, so much so that she had to break off her attack along with her stance, just to keep from falling over.

(Shit!)

Realizing the danger of the situation she suddenly found herself in, Lizzy rolled with the sudden force that dragged her down and transitioned into a backflip to distance herself from Tom at the same time.

In hindsight, that was a mistake.

Without warning, Lizzy was pulled again by the strange force, but this time it was her entire body that suddenly felt like it was being weighed down, causing her to smash into the ground.

"GHA!-"

Landing hard, Lizzy had all the air in her lungs knocked out of her.

"... You win kiddo, not bad."

Instead of attempting to get back on her feet and continue fighting, Lizzy instead realized how hopeless her situation would have been if it was a real fight and chose to surrender instead.

-

"Still that was quite a surprise kiddo, that last attack of yours was something you thought of on the spot right?"

Deciding to take a quick break after the first quick spar, Tom was getting healed by Anne while he worked on patching up his shirt.

"How did you know?"

Surprised that Lizzy had seen through him entirely, Tom's hands that had been skillfully stitching up his shirt with needle and string stopped moving.

"Oh that was easy, your [catalyst] was leaking mana all over the place. A mistake like that only happens for one of two reasons, either the caster is a third-rank mage with no talent, or it is a brand new spell that the mage isn't used to."

"Ah, yeah I did leak a lot of mana huh…"

Dropping his needle and shirt, Tom picked up his [catalyst] and clenched it as he poured mana into it, recreating the spell he had made before.

"... Like this?... Or like this instead… Damn, I'm still not used to visualizing the spells, let alone casting a spell further away than just at the tip of my hand."

Experimenting with the spell he had used to win the earlier sparring match, Tom had a hard time creating a version of it that was precise and mana efficient at the same time, let alone stable.

"It really is easier to create lethal spells, that way I don't have to worry about the power output so much."

While crushing someone was easy for Tom, applying the amount of power to his spells where he incapacitated his opponent but still held back enough to not kill them was far more difficult.

"That's out. Don't go cutting corners now kiddo."

"Aw!"

Immediately correcting her student's problematic behaviour by flicking his forehead, Lizzy started lecturing Tom.

"I know you have a lot of mana kiddo, but just brute-forcing everything is an extremely bad habit to get into. A mage should only use the amount of mana you need to do the job, killing or incapacitating a target, everything beyond that is just wasteful, and wasteful mages don't live long. Real combat isn't nice and clean like this, you never know when you need just a bit more mana to survive. The second monsters sense you're weak, they'll pounce. Sure you might kill about a hundred monsters while wasting mana but that just means the hundred and first monster gets to kill you when you run out of mana or let your guard down."

(Ah, that's right.)

Unknowingly, Tom started becoming overconfident due to training with Lizzy, forgetting all the safety measures and guide wheels put in place for his sake. Glancing down at his [catalyst], Tom realized just how dangerous his line of thinking up until that point had been.

('All it takes is a single mistake'... Seems like Lizzy and mom both agreed on that point, I wonder if those two would have gotten along?)

Remembering his mother's words, a thin smile formed on Tom's face as he remembered her.

"You're completely correct Lizzy, I'm sorry. I just realized how overconfident I had become."

In response to Tom's sincere words Lizzy seemed at a loss for words for a moment, then she breathed a deep sigh and started looking for her cigarettes.

"Yeah, that's where we're stuck right now, what to do…"

Finally finding her cigarettes and fishing them out of her pocket, Lizzy lit a smoke and took a large puff from it before breathing another deep sigh, but this time her breath carried ice crystals that quickly melted in the warm air.

"This sure is a conundrum… Ah, I know~"

Clapping to get the attention of Anne who had just finished healing Tom, the extent of Lizzy's fox-like smile started scaring her poor disciple.

"When a bird starts getting worried about its offspring it simply throws them from the nest~"

"... What?"

Even though Lizzy looked mighty proud of herself, Tom didn't really see she was going with that analogue.

But even if he still couldn't see it clearly, Tom still had a pretty bad premonition. If there was one thing Tom had learned by learning under Lizzy, it was that the wider her fox-like smile was, the worse it was going to be for him.

"I won't train you for a few weeks, likewise, Anne won't heal you either."

"Eh? Then what am I supposed to be doing?"

"That's the easy part, you're going to join the adventurers guild and hunt some monsters on your own. Or in a team, I don't care, you're on your own for now."

While Tom realized he had been coddled by Lizzy lately, it didn't make sense to him that he should suddenly jump to the other extreme.

"... You can't be serious."

"Oh, I am~"

(Fuck, she really is serious…)

-

Just like that, Tom was (temporarily) kicked out of the mage academy.

"Would that be all, dear saint?"

"Yeah, but don't call me saint, I'm not here to draw attention to myself."

Having made his way to the town of Melby close to the mage academy, Tom's first order of business had been to visit the church where he received a drastically different reception from the last time he visited. Forget having to donate in order to receive written out [status], Tom was warmly received by a high ranking member of the church and led to a high-class waiting room where his status was recorded free of charge.

"""We hope to see you again."""

Leaving the church behind, Tom went straight to the adventurers guild to register. The local guild was nothing more than a messy excuse for a pub, but for facilities, it had everything needed for an adventurer: a place to organize into teams, a hub to distribute information, a place to sell your loot and, most importantly, a place to get shitfaced.

"What can I do for you?"

Ignoring the usual gallery of drunk adventurers that were always at the guild, Tom walked up to the bartender and placed down his printed out [status] on the counter.

Not an exact printout of Tom's [status] of course, but just the rough outline of his attributes and [skills] without their levels.

"I would like to register and look for a team."

"Right, registering is free, but getting me to play matchmaker is going to cost you a bit more."

Putting on a thin smile the bartender was clearly looking down on Tom, she properly expected he was some fish out of water that didn't know anything about the guild.

"Sure, the usual fee is 1 silver, right? Or are you going to try and squeeze more than that out of me?"

Realizing there wasn't anything to skim off of Tom as he wasn't a newcomer like she thought, the bartender put her arms out in surrender.

"Ah ah, you got me~ So you're not a newcomer, huh? Please lead with that next time."

Accepting Tom's silver coin, the bartender served him a glass of water as she took out a large book from behind the counter and laid it down on the bar before she started flipping through it.

"Class?"

"Close range caster."

The term 'class' referred to a person's prefered way of fighting, for a swordsman it would be the school they were taught in, but for mages, it was their prefered way of fighting. Knowing Tom's 'class' would help the bartender narrow down requests for new party members in her register.

"Let's see, close-range caster… Ah, those are dead, so is that team too… Ah, here we are."

Stopping at a particular page, the bartender put down her finger at a section covertly marked 'problematic'.

"These two are kind of an odd pairing, but they requested to be put in touch with a close-range caster a while ago. I'm pretty sure they're not dead yet, as they came by here yesterday to sell off some loot."

Life and death was a pretty normal part of being an adventurer, this was plainly obvious by the casual fact which the bartender mentioned death.

One could hardly imagine how many adventurers she had marked dead in that register of hers over the years.

Getting directions to the 'odd pairing' place of residence, Tom quickly found himself in front of a run-down inn.

"Pay in advance if you want a room, otherwise get lost."

Inside Tom was met by an innkeeper that was just as run-down and worn as his inn, but luckily the innkeeper reminded Tom of his old boss so he wasn't immediately scared away by the outright hostile attitude.

"I'm here for the odd pair, but I would like to rent a room as well."

"Ah, you're one of those guys… I only rent to adventurers for a month at a time, pay upfront."

Properly used to adventurers running away or dying before paying, the innkeeper's mood soured when he found out Tom was an adventurer.

Not that Tom had a problem with the innkeeper's attitude, of course, he knew full well from his old job that adventurers weren't really the best of customers.

"Sure."

Glancing at the price list on the innkeeper's table, Tom tossed him a large copper coin before setting down his backpack.

"The odd pair is out back practising, good luck kid."

"Thanks.

Although Tom had no idea why the innkeeper suddenly turned kind enough to wish him good luck, he nevertheless thanked him before he headed out back by the way the innkeeper pointed, finding a sparsely overgrown backyard with a pair of people training.

"Come on, I know you can do it Aura!"

Charging forwards with a sword in hand, a peculiarly dressed swordsman seemed to be chasing a mage moving in near slow motion.

"Th-that's easy for you to say!"

(What the hell is this?...)

Within a couple of seconds, it became clear to Tom what the so-called 'odd pair' was doing. The red-haired swordsman seemed to be a target for the flustered mage that he was chasing, every time the mage tried to cast a spell he would rush in close, apparently flustering the mage and preventing from casting her spell.

(It seems like she can't focus on casting when her opponent gets too close… Is this why they wanted a close-range caster? Or is it just because they need someone else to cover for the mage?)

While Tom had just now joined the adventurers guild, he had still picked up quite a bit of knowledge about adventures and how they fought by serving beers to them. From time to time he would pick up new terms and bit by bits he would start to recognize larger patterns.

While Tom observed the slightly strange training session, the mage finally managed to form a spell. Unluckily for Tom, the mage's spell seemed to have misfired, moreover whatever half-formed spell the mage had created seemed to be heading straight for him.

Worse yet, whatever exactly that spell was, it wasn't outright visible to the naked eye.

"Watch out!"

Realizing her mistake too late, the mage's eyes opened wide in a fit of panic.

(Some kind of blade, no time to dodge, then I need to counter!)

But luckily for Tom, he had ample experience dealing with spells that couldn't be seen. Grasping the [catalyst] he always had within reach, Tom rapidly moved mana into it and formed his repeating spell, creating a 1-meter long lance. Having had the knowledge required to understand his magic affinity forcefully implanted in his head, Tom was easily able to create a repeating spell with the same calibre as the one he had used to kill the ground dragon.

Against that calibre of spell, the mage's misfired attack hardly stood a chance and shattered on contact.

"Sorry to interrupt your training, but I recently registered with the adventurers guild here in town and am looking for a team. Would you two happen to be looking for a close-range caster?"