18 New skill!

[Sophie's Pov]

My whole body was hurting after my double sessions with Mr. Brown yesterday. Even the physical enhancement course had been incredibly harsh. In my head, it would have been more based on meditating, feeling the flow of mana, and guiding it to the place where I wanted to go. Mr. Brown, however, had a completely different approach to the subject.

Instead of letting me slowly get the feel of manipulating the mana he forcefully injected different limbs with his mana to simulate the sensation of enhancement. The only demerit to this approach was; It hurt like hell. It felt like my muscles got torn apart when his energy penetrated them and filled them up.

{After proofreading these two paragraphs I just want to say, it's not like that you perverts!}

Though, it was quite effective, at least if I were to believe the words of my teacher. He told me that most students needed between four and five hours of practicing before they could get a hold of the sensation and make it tangible in their psyche. Contrasting that, I only needed about two hours of incredible pain before I could start to manually enhance my body.

I did start to have doubts about if I even needed to learn this, as I already had [Draconic Strength] which enhanced my whole body, but it turns out that I could add the skill and the manual enhancement together to make my attacks even stronger and more explosive.

"Why aren't you eating, Sophie?"

Me and Arthur were currently having breakfast at the cafeteria before our lessons start, but because of the pain, I was feeling I didn't have much of an appetite. Even more so when looking down at the gigantic portion of eggs and toast that I got served.

"Ahaha... I was just lost in thought for a moment!"

I didn't want my darling to worry for no reason, it was after all just some muscle aches. Though I had to say that I was impressed by the level of pain tolerance that I gained after coming to this world.

Looking at the puppy-eyed and super handsome man, I felt my heart melt into a puddle. He truly was the one for me, no matter what!

Suddenly, something extremely unexpected came and interrupted our conversation. "May I sit with you?"

It was that social goblin James who had, for some reason, deliberately left his cave to come to the cafeteria before class started.

"What are you doing...?"

My whole body screamed that something was up. There was no way that he came here without something in mind, some kind of goal.

"I'm training."

His face didn't carry the same nervousness that it did the day before at lunch. Somehow, he felt a lot calmer, almost composed, which sent shivers down my back.

'What are you up to...'

As I didn't want to make a scene, I decided to keep my mouth shut and temporarily accept his stupid explanation, an explanation that unfortunately seemed to trigger Arthur's fanboy mode.

"Really?! What are you training? Are you practicing using your mana as a sensory tool or are you trying to learn how to move with some kind of unique movements?"

'Actually, maybe he wasn't the one for me after all...'

Calming my mind by reminding me that I would get to see him transform from an innocent, weak young boy to a reliable and strong man, I shifted my attention to James, awaiting his response.

"I'm training something completely different, something unique to me and my inherent traits. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what that is..."

And once again, his mouth kept on spouting bullshit.

"Is that so? Good luck then, I hope that you succeed in whatever you are doing!"

This boy was too precious for the mortal world to contain, his smile illuminating even the darkest corners of my inner self.

It was enough for me to not even care about the goblin who sat down beside us. Strangely, he did not even carry a tray of food with him as he took his seat.

"Aren't you going to eat?"

A smug smile appeared on his face as he spoke condescendingly, "I think I told you, Sophie, I am training. I am not here to eat."

Feeling one of the veins on my forehead getting ready to burst, I struggled to keep a smile on my face, "You are an idiot, you know that?"

Before we could continue our little session of banter, Arthur intervened, "You guys are such good friends, you must have known each other for a long time!"

"Not really. We pretty much just met right before we started to attend Ainu."

I quickly dismissed his faulty preconception as I didn't want anyone to think that I was all that close with this weirdo.

"Yea, that is the case. By the way, it seems like I will have to leave you guys now. Thanks for your time."

*Poff!*

"Cough! Cough!"

James disappeared, replaced by a small cloud of smoke that caused us both to get teary-eyed.

'God, I hate that teleportation skill of his so much!'

The fact that he could teleport was fine, but the fact that it always came with a puff of smoke was so incredibly irritating. Not just because it looked silly, but because it actually carried the characteristics of normal smoke.

There was, however, another person at the table that didn't quite share the same sentiments, "He is so cool! Sophie, let's spar a bit! We can't let him leave us behind!"

Getting dragged out of the cafeteria by an overly excited Arthur, I wondered just how that cave dweller always managed to drive me mad every time I saw his face.

****

[James's Pov]

"Well, that worked well!"

I had just called back a clone that I had used to walk around the academy grounds and finally entered the cafeteria with. However, it hadn't been a clone made from my [Double Trouble].

Yesterday had brought a lot of ripe fruits, not just in the form of mana channels and knowledge about the potential of mana, but I had gained something else as well.

===Status===

Name: James Jackson

Rank: E

Strength: F+

Agility: E

Stamina: E-

Intelligence: E+

Mana Capacity: D

--> Main Manual:

[Trickster - Ungraded] - Medium Understanding

An ungraded manual for those who don't want to be understood. A trickster is only a trickster until people understand your tricks.

-Core Skill: [Double Trouble]

-1st skill: [Swap]

-2nd skill: [Materialize]

--> Side Manual:

[Empty]

==========

Yes, my understanding of my Manual had increased and I had unlocked my second skill!

When I noticed this last night I was both elated and incredibly confused.

In the game, you would unlock the next part of the Manuals skills when you reached level 25 but instead of just one skill, the player would gain three.

The player got one skill that had a long cooldown where you summoned another clone to fight, one skill where you could summon a raven, and one skill that transformed the player into a wolf for faster traveling.

Strangely enough, these skills were all condensed into [Materialize] for me in this world but, after studying the description for a bit and some experimentation, I realized why that was the case.

[Materialize]

Description: Two-part ability that lets the user harness the power of imagination.

Part one: The user can create another physical entity which can be set to either auto-combat mode or controlled mode. The user has to have a complete understanding of the entity he wants to create. The created entity cannot utilize skills or mana.

Part two: The user can transform his body into another physical entity. The user has to have a complete understanding of the entity he wants to transform into.

It was a godly skill that let me create or transform into any kind of person or animal I wanted to, with the requirement that I completely understood it. The sad part about it was that the only thing I understood at this point in time was myself, therefore I could only create another clone.

The clone that was created with this skill, however, was not like the one I could call on with [Double Trouble]. In some ways, it acted the same, with me being able to control it at the same time, now splitting my consciousness into three parts, but the perception of that clone didn't feel as real. It was a much more disconnected feeling, meaning that even when I sent it into the dungeon, it didn't make my social anxiety go wild.

It took a couple of hours to get used to having yet another clone I could control but, after an all-nighter, I had managed to do so. It was also handy that I could just let it be automated in combat, meaning I wouldn't have to spend any mental energy controlling it. The biggest drawback to this skill was that it continuously drained my mana every second, meaning I couldn't keep it active at all times like I could with [Double Trouble].

Then there was the transformation part, which was the main reason both my main body and, what I now decided to call, sub-body were doing their best to learn everything I could about two different animals, two animals that I felt would be incredibly useful for me to be able to transform into.

Sadly, I had to leave with sub-me as the first lesson of the day was about to start.

"Be careful out there..."

"Yes, I will..."

It was a very moving scene, hugging myself to give me the strength needed to get through the day.

If I could, I would have sent Matt, [Materialize] me, but as it couldn't cultivate, nor would its physical progress carry over to me when I dismissed it, I had no choice but to go myself. Or at least, go as sub-me.