Chapter 34
“Vessel?”
“Yeah! A vessel to hold mana.”
“Do you need something like that?”
“Of course you do!”
Adrian spread her wings wide as if to say, “What are you talking about?”
“And it's grown?”
“Yeah. It's much bigger than the vessel I gave you. Originally, I was going to grow it with mine and then take you to the village sometime soon.”
“The village?”
“A little stimulation is necessary, after all. If there's mana from another dragon too, it grows faster.”
“I see.”
So I was almost thrown into a dragon den.
“Exactly. But since you've been growing the vessel on your own, shall we do a little more work on it?”
Then she jabbed a long claw deep into my chest.
Gurgle-gurgle, blood welled up.
And then she gathered that blood together.
The clot coalesced as if it were a living creature.
“Hey, hey, wait a second.”
I know what comes next.
That horribly painful thing!!
“Does it hurt more if you move?”
Smiling, Adrian shoved the clot into my eye again.
I could feel dragon mana spreading around my eyes.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
[Dragon Eye performance has improved!]
[Dragon Eye (SSR++) is trying to assimilate you!]
[Assimilation failed!]
[The vessel of the Dragon Eye is filled to maximum with dragon mana!]
[Maximum dragon mana capacity increases! You can hold more dragon mana!]
[Your mana nature changes ever so slightly!]
The damned messages hammered at my ears, but I couldn't hear a single one.
Still, it hurt less than last time.
“Want to try using mana?”
I drew up my mana.
Right to my fingertips.
Right before it reached the staff.
Hmm.
The sensation is a little different than usual.
It feels like the mana has become a little heavier.
“Hmm... I was originally planning to work on the other eye too, but it's not going well.”
Huh.
You could have awakened the Dragon Eye in both eyes!
That's cool!
It's a universal rule that eye powers get stronger when you have them in both eyes.
I asked, disappointed.
“Is that bad?”
“No, it's quite good. It means your mana itself has strong properties.”
“I couldn't feel anything like that.”
“That's because you're ridiculously weak.”
Hmm.
An undeniable fact.
“Honestly, I was planning to expand your vessel little by little from the start, but it's grown enough that we don't need to.”
“That's good?”
“It is. This is the part that takes the longest.”
“So, magic?”
“You can use it. But teaching you dragon magic is a bit much.”
“Too little?”
“It's basically nonexistent.”
“I see.”
I had expected as much from the amount of mana she had in the first place.
“For now, let's get you used to handling dragon mana! Then even without anything special, you'll be able to strengthen your mana and use it!”
“How do you handle that?”
“I don't know!”
Huh.
“I only watched other humans do it; I've never actually tried it myself!”
she said proudly.
What the hell is she talking about?
“No, then at least introduce me to a teacher. Where did those other humans all go?”
“They're all dead?”
Eh?
“Then can't I squeeze out dragon mana and make potions?”
“...Potions? Why would you need something like that...”
Adrian tilted her head, then suddenly shouted as if she'd remembered something.
“Ah! Right! You're a human, so you needed things like that!”
“This punk, just because she's got tons of mana, goes around making discriminatory remarks about humans.”
“Pulling dragon mana out into the open is easy! Just concentrate mana like this at the tip of your finger...”
Adrian concentrated her mana at her fingertip.
Then a dark red liquid started dripping out, drop by drop.
Instinctively, I could tell that it was dragon mana.
“Ah, wait.”
I held up a test tube.
I should be able to use this as potion material too.
As soon as the dragon mana flowed into the test tube, the engraved magic circle started vibrating wildly...
—CRACK!!
The test tube shattered.
“Aagh!”
That was the best one!!
“That won't do. Especially not with dragon mana from someone like me.”
Isn't there a test tube made specifically for dragon mana?
No, let's think about my wallet.
It was definitely going to blow past the gold tier.
Sigh. That's my fate.
“In the end, I have to make money.”
“Huh? Money? If I sold my body a little...”
“That phrasing is kind of weird!”
If I took that, I'd feel like a total scumbag!
And I was already taking way too much from her!
“Ugh, forget it. If I can make a living, that's enough.”
I decided to just move forward without thinking.
As always.
* * *
“Ugh, why the hell is this shitty practice room so high up...”
“Is it really that hard...?”
It's the eighth floor, the eighth floor.
It's not really hard so much as sweaty and annoying.
“I don't feel like I even exercised much, but I still have to shower.”
So I casually raised my staff and chanted the spell.
“Let's fill it ten times quickly, go down, and get something to eat. Casting...”
I hadn't realized it yesterday.
What it really meant for dragon mana and my own mana to mix—and for me to use dragon mana in magic.
—BOOOOM!!
“Waaah!”
A clear crater had formed in the wall.
Aris let out a shrill scream.
The practice room wall was half destroyed, revealing the other side.
“Kyaaah!”
The half-naked male student practicing there blushed.
“W-what in the world...”
I hadn't made a mistake controlling my power.
Then there was only one possibility left.
My control had dropped, and the power had doubled.
I didn't know what the hell Adrian had fed me yesterday, but my mana reservoir had doubled too.
I mean, I only had a little, like when you're having chicken and beer.
“T-this is basic attack magic!?”
“I don't think this is basic attack magic either.”
This was clearly strange.
I only shot it at a dummy as a light warm-up, but my sense for controlling mana had changed completely.
Did dragon mana strengthen my own mana?
Then if I mixed dragon mana in properly and used it...?
“Uh, how exactly did this happen...?”
Then a guard appeared.
“W-what is all this!”
“Beats me.”
“How did you break this place! It was designed to withstand all first-year-level mana, and yet...”
The mustached guard looked at me, then said as if something had just occurred to him,
“What!? You're that kid who ran away last time, aren't you?”
“And?”
“Not 'and'! We couldn't even catch one first-year, and our pride...”
“Should that be something to brag about?”
“Tch. Step back for now. I'll call in someone to repair it. And go report the details to the professor in charge of first-years.”
Ehh...
You want me to go see Carnarof again?
“What a pain.”
“It won't be a bad thing. Good grief. Breaking facilities as a first-year... what a sight.”
The guard scratched his head and pulled out a communication mana crystal.
Well, can't be helped.
* * *
We headed to Carnarof's office.
As soon as we entered the office, Carnarof said to us,
“Sit down.”
“Yes, sir.”
I sat on the sofa I'd sat on last time.
Carnarof looked at me closely.
“Congratulations. The mana density in your body has increased.”
“Huh?”
“Exactly as I said. The maximum amount of mana you can hold hasn't changed, but the quality of the mana has increased. That's what I mean.”
“Then what's good about that?”
“First of all, mana efficiency and power both go up. Of course, cases like yours, where it rises so sharply, are very rare...”
I looked at Carnarof again.
He was still packed full of monstrous mana.
But now I could understand more clearly why I had felt so intimidated by Isabel and Carnarof.
The density is absurdly high.
Each mana particle feels like a mountain-sized boulder compressed tight.
Compared to that, mine feels like a tiny pebble.
I suddenly wondered whether Carnarof could observe the same thing I could.
“Can you see that too, Professor?”
“Hmm. If I had to say, it's fifty-fifty. I can see it, but not precisely. My eyes for seeing mana itself aren't all that good.”
“Then how did you know?”
“You'd never make a mistake in control, so this was the only possibility.”
“Hmm.”
It feels good to get praised, I guess.
“I don't know whether you absorbed some very dense natural mana somewhere or drank a potion...”
There are too many possibilities for me to pin down just one.
Even my memory is fuzzy.
“Now all you need is real combat experience. There's an exchange event coming up this time, so participate as the first-year representative.”
Was it just my imagination, or did Carnarof's eyes glint slightly?
I hope not.
I don't want to work.
“Then can I go?”
“No, take this before you go. Aris Script, you too.”
What we were given was...
“An orange... key?”
“It's the key to a second-stage private practice room. The walls and training targets are made of much sturdier material than the first-stage ones.”
Carnarof said, pointing to the seventh floor on the building map.
The good thing was that, compared to the first-stage practice room on the eighth floor, I had one less floor to climb.
“No, but they could've given it to me sooner.”
Do you know how much trouble I went through using magic gently in there?
If I fired magic at full power, it'd break just the same even before my mana density increased.
“It was announced. You just didn't hear it.”
Huh, I see.
“Really?”
“Yes. If the practice room is judged to be too weak for the student's skill, they'll give you a key...”
“Ah.”
“So listen carefully to announcements next time.”
“Y-yes...”
“Ah, and naturally, since the mana density inside your body is different, the variables in the report need to be reset as well.”
“Huh?”
Come to think of it, yeah.
Unlike before, when I could just tweak the existing one, I had to recalculate the power from the ground up.
“Your proficiency should stay the same, so practice defensive magic as well. At least five times a day.”
But still, it wouldn't be that hard.
The work I'd put in so far wasn't going to waste.
Defensive magic... well, time would solve it.
And so I received the practice room key.
And so I went back up to the seventh floor to practice.
Sure enough, the second-stage practice room was a little larger than the first-stage one, and it had a few more kinds of weapons and targets.
Then a thought suddenly struck me.
Hmm.
“But if I break it again, won't they give me an even better room key?”
“Huh?”
“Aris, wait.”
I went into the private practice room.
“Casting, Bullet, Penny.”
A piercing three-part incantation.
—KABOOOM!!
“Aaaagh! That bastard broke the wall again!!”
And just like that, I got a yellow key—meaning a third-stage practice room key.
Hmm. So this breaks too.
* * *
[4th Floor - You have entered the Floor of Golems.]
But the practice room key I'd finally gotten never ended up being used.
Because I had to climb the tower.
In the end, all that remained was the sixth-floor practice room key and the guards' tears.