Alex woke up in his now-own bed.
He felt like he had gained a new life. Still, he took out the book and started writing again.
Today, as he expected, he finished writing the mana control method "Senturion."
It was of master level — a tier 2 training method.
He couldn't wait to finally try it, but he had to help Susan with breakfast, as Evelyn had to go to school. Today he would also start helping Susan reach the magic path after she returned.
And so, he started his day.
He actually liked cooking — quite a lot, in fact. It brought him a sense of peace while he did it, and also a sense of happiness when others enjoyed his cooking.
After Susan arrived from taking Eve to school, she left the house together with Alex and they went to the riverside.
"Sit here, relax, and start breathing as told by the book. Try to feel the wind mana in the air, and visualize yourself breathing it in, then breathe out," Alex started explaining.
Susan, after last night and seeing that Alex wouldn't take a no for an answer, agreed to be taught magic by him.
She also didn't want to go again through the powerlessness she felt when the thugs had kept Evelyn as a hostage, so she was extra motivated — even more now that she suddenly found herself with another kid to look after, even though said kid was already strong enough to easily beat the thugs.
Alex, on the other hand, wanted to teach her wind magic first. As one said, there was no better defense than a great offense.
Teaching her water magic first would have been useless, since it was only for defensive purposes — it would only delay the inevitable if someone intended to hurt her.
But a person with a severed neck couldn't do anything to harm you at all.
From time to time, he actually used his own mana to stir the mana in the air so Susan could feel it easier. This was something he came up with on the spot, but it seemed so natural that he tried it — and it worked!
It only took Susan an hour to grasp wind breathing, vastly shorter than it had taken him. Now the gathering of mana to form the core began.
And while Susan did wind breathing, he, on the other hand, sat down next to her and started practicing "Senturion," the mana control technique.
'The concept is simple: focus on releasing a minimal amount of mana through one of the pores of the body, then try to increase the number of pores you release mana through, and repeat this until you are out of mana,' Alex reminisced about the book.
He started trying, and safe to say, he didn't even succeed with one. What did succeed was the pain that crept up his arm — the place where he decided the first pore was going to be.
Still, he persevered. By now, he and pain could be considered quite nice friends, seeing how close they were in the jungle.
After one hour of hard trying, failing, and enduring pain, he managed to maintain one pore, successfully entering the mana control method.
Opening his status, he saw it:
—STATUS—
Mana Control: Senturion (Master) (0.0002%)
'Well… I'm doomed,' Alex died internally.
Doing some basic calculations, he realized that to reach 100%, he needed to maintain five million pores simultaneously.
"Insane…" Alex muttered.
"What's insane?" Susan asked, hearing him.
"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking to myself," Alex said hurriedly.
"I'm more curious now…" Susan, feeling Alex's answer was weird, had a feeling he was hiding stuff again — which pained her. But she knew they had only just gotten to know each other, and when he was ready, he would tell her.
Her intuition was frighteningly correct — Alex was, in fact hididng something, and he indeed had the intention to tell her about his dreams the day he could explain why he had them. But that was not why he said that.
They both returned to what they were doing.
Alex found it easier to add new pores after he got the hang of it, and in a few hours, he could manage 50 pores — a whopping 0.001% of progression.
He had a feeling that he would not feel any benefits until he reached 1%.
Susan also stopped meditating and turned to speak to Alex.
"Hey, Alex, how long will I have to do this?"
"Well, I think it took me five days to actually manage to make the core, but I was hungry, wet, and cold — it affected my concentration. So maybe it'll take you much less than it did me.
"But you'll have to keep going at it, since without a core you leak a little bit of mana every hour, so if you stop doing it for too long, you'll lose your progress," Alex said, paying no mind to his chilling words.
"Ugh…" Susan was dispirited.
'I didn't expect it to be easy, but losing progress… really? Also, how can you be so calm speaking about being hungry, wet, and cold? What the hell!' she thought.
Susan never used obscene words in front of her kids, but her mind had more colorful descriptions.
After they finished their training, the kitchen awaited. Here, Susan was queen, and Alex the mere apprentice.
The moment they entered and put on their aprons, Susan turned to Alex and gifted him a devilish smile.
"Now… you're on my territory, boy. Go chop the vegetables, pronto!" she said, stern like a military man.
"Hahaha, going!" Alex laughed and got to it.
He finished preparing the meal while Susan went to fetch Evelyn from school.
They finished eating, and as Evelyn still had energy left, Alex once again played catch the water bird with her. Summer was approaching, so getting a bit wet wasn't anything extraordinary.
Susan was surprised by that, but as she watched Eve run with such a bright smile behind the water bird, it renewed her motivation to train harder.
'I want to play catch the water bird with her too!' she thought.
After she placed the now-tired Evelyn on her bed, she came out to find a cup of cold lemon tea waiting for her.
She suddenly thought that adopting Alex was one of the greatest decisions of her life.
"I'm thinking of going to look for work at the alchemy shop," Alex said.