At home, in the living room, Lala and Rito had their books open.
"That's rare," Mikan commented.
"Huh?" He looks at her: "What's rare, Mikan?"
"You studying," she replied.
"Well, like I said before, I want to change," he responded. "I can't keep living like before, and next week is exam week."
"Admirable. I'm glad you're taking life more seriously," she smiled a little.
"Hahaha," he scratched the back of his head.
A feeling of happiness overflowed in his heart.
"I'll make some tea for you both," she asked. "Green tea okay?"
"Yes, thank you," he nodded.
Lala said: "I'll have green tea too."
...
After studying for three hours, they decided to stop.
"Wahh, break, break~" Lala stretched.
"I'll be back later," Rito stood up.
Mikan, who was sitting on the couch watching TV, turned to him: "Going to train?"
"Yeah, I can't skip that now. At least an hour a day, I have to train," he replied.
"Aren't you pushing yourself too hard?" Mikan asked.
"Not at all," he answered.
"Then it's fine."
"Rito, can I come along?" Lala asked.
"Sure," he nodded.
"Yay~!" She finished putting away the school supplies from the table.
...
'Rito's really been working hard...'
In the spaceship's training room, Lala sat in a chair while watching Rito exercise.
'He's gotten stronger...'
Inevitably, she thought about the day they met.
When she saw Rito and Zastin start to fight, she thought about the 'Boom-Boom Merang' when Rito heroically jumped in front of her and protected her when she misthrew it, and it came back toward her.
She remembered crying when he passed out, but luckily, he survived.
'If it were now, Rito could save me again, but he could also defend himself,' she smiled, thinking about it.
"Rito, fight!" She started cheering.
"Miss Lala, it's not fair to cheer only for him," Zastin complained.
"But I want to cheer only for him~!" She stuck out her tongue.
"Atchahh… is this how it feels when your daughter starts showing preference for her boyfriend over her own father?" Zastin dramatized, putting a hand to his forehead.
"Zastin, you're funny~!" Lala laughed and clapped.
...
At first, Rito thought about using the Sage's Eyes and copying the Deviluke combat art. However, if he did that, he'd only be copying, not learning.
It was like copying what's written on the board. It would still be written in the notebook, but he wouldn't learn anything from it, and the power of the attack would be limited to the copied power Zastin used against him.
That was exactly why he didn't use the Sage's Eyes.
Another reason was that he couldn't control what he copied while the Sage's Eyes were activated.
Even when he copied Ghi Bree's metamorphoses, he couldn't choose what to copy. He simply copied what he saw. And it was a perfect replica with no room for changes.
It was like playing a game where the game character has an animal transformation, and it's always the same size, no matter how powerful the character in the game becomes.
When it hit 8:30 PM, they stopped training.
"Rito Boy, you did even better today," Zastin said with a smile.
"Here, Rito, a towel."
Looking at her, Rito smiled: "Thanks, Lala."
He turned to Zastin: "Well, with Lala cheering for me, there's no way I'd do badly, right?"
"Hahaha, true!" Zastin let out a hearty laugh with his hands on his hips.
Maybe because she found it fun, Lala also put her hands on her hips and let out a clearly fake laugh: "Hahaha-Hahaha!"
Shaking his head, he smiled and joined in the fun.
"Wahaha!"
==
==
The Divine Wind Art was capable of serving as a tracker.
He closed his eyes, and a gentle breeze passed through him. Information within a radius of a few hundred meters appeared in his mind.
He found some giant rabbits not too far away.
There were several of them in an open field.
Another thing, he realized that such a divine art was not limitless. His stamina and mental power would be drained by using this divine art. Because of this, he decided to make the giant rabbits his first targets.
A faint green light surrounded him, and he began to run at great speed with the wind.
It was as if he had become friends with the wind, and thanks to that, he managed to pass through it without losing speed.
Jumping high, he appeared on a ten-meter tree and saw the open field from above, with several rabbits eating grass and hopping happily.
For a brief moment, he activated the Sage's Eyes, and in the air, three dozen green wind spheres were created.
With almost perfect control, he fired the wind spheres toward the rabbits with 360-degree vision.
It was like a one-sided shootout.
The giant rabbits were shot without any way to defend themselves, only dodging as best they could, but after the first barrage of shots, a second came, and soon, a field that once had nearly a hundred rabbits was now left with ashes and faintly glowing spheres shining like small gemstones.
Using the wind, Rito's right hand was extended, and the glowing spheres were pulled by the wind.
Soon, in the air, hundreds of light orbs flew toward Rito.
'I love this ability!' he exclaimed in his mind, his eyes literally shining.
After collecting them, he deactivated the Sage's Eyes and jumped from the tree, landing on the ground and sitting down.
In this 'game,' he had spent half of his Spiritual Mana.
In return, he obtained a little over two hundred red light spheres and sixteen purple light spheres.
With his eyes closed, he breathed in the fresh air and felt his mind calm.
Little by little, his Spiritual Mana was recovering.
At this rate, he would need about 30 minutes to fully recover.
As a precaution, he let the wind around him alert him if anything approached within a 500-meter radius.
...
39 minutes later...
Opening his eyes, Rito cracked his neck and fingers.
'Alright. I'm one hundred percent recovered!' He smiled a little.
He could very well have continued hunting with 50% of his Spiritual Mana, but he saw no reason to do so.
For him, it was much more advantageous to always be at 100%.
As a wise man once said: Better to have too much than too little.
Another thing, in this dimension, he simply needed to breathe to recover. As a dimension rich in Spiritual Mana, that was to be expected at the very least.
Of course, if he had a meditation skill, his recovery could be much faster. Anyway, he didn't even want to think about that anymore.
Moving out, using the wind around him to warn if it detected any animals, he advanced north.
==
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