“Nice of you to finally join us, son,” Mira said as she opened one of her eyes to watch me as I approached her and Liora.

  They were sat in the grass in front of their home with their legs crossed and palms placed neatly atop them. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at Mira’s comment, knowing it would get me nowhere, before taking a seat next to Liora. I crossed my legs, closed my eyes, then began to meditate.

  The process of gathering mana through meditation felt as calming as usual. The morning air around me was nice and warm with a slight cool breeze. Before I started daily meditation, I never thought it would be as good at calming my mind as it was. Back on Earth, in my previous life, if you had told me to practice meditation, I probably would have laughed in your face and called you a slur for the mentally challenged. Now, though, I realized that it was actually helpful, and actually I found myself enjoying it.

  “Since you were so late, Reyly, and I have to go to work later, you’re not going to have much time to gather mana. Though that shouldn’t be a problem for you, right?”

  Mira had a point. Since my mana capacity was apparently so great, I probably didn’t need to spend as much time as Liora gathering mana, since I had so much in my core to begin with anyway. There was one thing that I didn’t like, however. Even after a week straight of mana gathering and sensing training, I was still completely unable to feel mana.

  Mira and even Liora had tried to help me do it, but I could never get the hang of it. Mira said to give it time and that I “can’t be naturally good at everything,” but it was starting to get on my nerves.

  Though even without being able to sense mana or tell exactly how much mana was in my core, I was still able to gather it. I could tell that I was gathering mana because whenever I forcefully released mana from my core, my body would become augmented. So the fact that I couldn’t sense the mana didn’t mean I couldn’t gather and utilize it. It just meant I needed to do it blindly.

  We spent the next twenty minutes or so in silent meditation before Mira cut through the silence with her voice. “Alright, I think that should be enough. Lia, is your core topped up?”

  Liora opened her eyes and looked toward Mira. “Mhm, I got a lot of it. And I think I’m getting better at it too. I got a lot more than yesterday’s session in the same amount of time.”

  “That’s good. That means you’re making progress.” Mira stood up, causing Liora and I to follow.

  “And what about you? Have you made any progress in being able to sense mana? It’s very strange that you have such a high mana capacity but can’t sense mana in the slightest,” Mira said, looking down at me.

  Her comment annoyed me, which she had a habit of doing. It sounded to me like she was rubbing it in. I didn’t know why I couldn’t sense mana like everyone else, but why did it matter so much anyway? As long as I could gather and utilize it, was there even a need for me to sense it? Besides, I still had a great mana capacity and could actually utilize mana, unlike Liora, who was still working on gathering and manipulation. Couldn’t Mira see that counted for something?

  I shook my head. “No, not yet. But I’m pretty sure my core is full. Or at least I hope.”

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  “Well, we’ll find out, because we’re about to start that practical lesson that I mentioned earlier.”

  Oh yeah, she did mention that, didn’t she?

  Liora’s face beamed with excitement. “Yes, finally! Are you gonna teach me augmentation? Ooh, or how about a spell?”

  Liora seemed really eager to actually put what she had learned into practice. I was also a bit excited, though not as much as her. I had already used mana before, so it wasn’t that new of an experience. I was curious as to what Mira had in mind, though.

  “Not quite. Today you two will be doing unaugmented sparring.”

  “Aww, what? But I thought we were going to be using mana. Wasn’t that what all this training was for in the first place? I wanna use mana!” Liora whined like a child.

  She did have a point, though. Unaugmented training did sound counterintuitive. I thought the whole point was to learn how to utilize mana to become stronger. So why would we be training to fight without it? It didn’t make any sense. Maybe Mira wasn’t as good of a teacher as she thought she was.

  “Stop complaining, honey. This is how I start off teaching all my students.”

  “You mean all the ones at the academy?” Liora asked, puzzled.

  “Exactly. First I teach them to gather and sense mana, then I have them practice sword-swinging drills. Then after that, they start light sparring. That’s the step that you two are on now.”

  So it turned out Mira was some sort of academy battle teacher. I had never really cared enough to ask, but it made sense considering how willing she was to train us. Apparently she had done it many times before and was just teaching us the same way she had taught others. I didn’t know how to feel about that, though. I figured a prodigy like me deserved his own special training regime. Though if the warm-up was more intense than the standard one I currently had to do, maybe I was better off sticking to this.

  ***

  Mira had Liora and I stand in the middle of the open grassy field outside the home. She had handed Liora and I wooden training swords, which she had been having us practice swinging all week. With the sword in my hand, I twisted my wrist a couple of times.

  It felt completely healed from a week ago thanks to the potion of healing Dr. Elasha had prescribed to me. It healed my fractured bone and then some. Compared to Caelen’s healing spell, which only managed to quell the pain, the potion was a miracle.

  I looked away from my hand and back up at Liora, who stood in front of me. She was gripping the training sword in one hand and had the other in a fist. The look on her face was one of eagerness, like she had been waiting all week for this and couldn’t wait to start.

  I really didn’t know how I felt. On one hand, I would never pass up the opportunity to hurt one of the Pinekeeps. They had been getting on my nerves every day since my reincarnation, and I was sick of them. Liora especially, while not as bad as her mother, still had a spot on my hit list. The amount of times she’d insulted me and acted like an annoying brat made me want to slit her throat with this wooden sword of mine.

  The thing that conflicted me, however, was the fact that I was a little bit scared. Now, there were a couple of reasons why, and while I’m not happy to admit them, I’ll still list them. For one, Liora was noticeably taller than me. This meant that her reach was much longer. Also, I had kind of been slacking on my sword-swinging drills and not paying attention during Mira’s demonstrations because, as I said before, I would be half-assing the lessons until she actually taught me something that I figured was useful.

  Despite those reasons, though, I wasn’t about to pass up this opportunity. Besides, I was an adult. I wasn’t about to let reasons as small as those be the reason why I lost to an eight-year-old girl. No, I wouldn’t be losing at all. Now was my chance to finally show the Pinekeeps who I really was. I could finally teach them a lesson through beating up their daughter.

  With my mind made up that I would be winning this unaugmented spar, I tightened my grip on the wooden sword and charged toward Liora.