Standing in the corridor outside Zoey's room, Daron extended his hearing senses towards the inside of the room.
Inside the room, he could hear that Zoey and Rachel were getting along just fine.
"Hehe, so, did you hear about that boy down the street?"
"No. Come on Zoey! I just arrived here a few days ago, how will I know anything. Come on, spill the gossip!"
"Hehe, apparently, he fell in love with a noble lady. And she 'fell in love' with him too!"
"Oh!"
"But then, it turned out that she was just messing around with him! And sent him back to the streets from where he came, never to see him again!"
"No!"
"Yes, and this poor fellow's name was Daron!"
"Pffft"
Rachel, who was drinking some tea with Zoey spat out all the liquid she had taken in between her exclaiming 'No!' and the name Zoey spoke.
"Hehehe"
Both Zoey and Rachel fell into a series of hysterical laughter from this small conversation.
On the other side, Daron simply shook his head and walked away, thinking to himself,
'Kids will be kids…'
[Master, you are also a kid, not even 8 years old yet.]
'…'
Daron did not respond, and simply went back to his room and splashed some cold water on his reddening face. Even though he did not mean to, his body was starting to have unconscious reactions to random things. He was slowly becoming increasingly moody. Just now, from the single sentence of Sirious, he felt so embarrassed, even though he actually was not.
[Master, this is the starting stage of your puberty]
'Damn it! Didn't you say it would come when I was nine?'
[These are the beginning stages master.]
'Beginning stages for 2 years almost!?'
[after adjustment, your puberty will go on for nearly 32 years… 1.5 years of beginning stages should be expected.]
'Tch.'
Daron just cursed in his mind as he returned to his room. Currently, he was too weak to practice the mana absorption method. Even though his Vitality had increased back to it's peak, in fact, it had gone slightly above, he was still low on Vitality.
The pill had increased his total vitality; however, his current vitality was still 5 points below this total figure. Therefore, he needed to rest for at least 1 day to recover this slowly.
Daron quickly formed a plan and recorded it using Sirious as a side-note.
He made a plan to use the 9 days plus 1 day of recovery to complete his increasing of his mana to 1 within 100 days.
Also, during those days of recovery, he also decided to spend his time reading the fire-ball spell manual. Unlike the mana absorption method, this manual was a level higher, and hence would require him to put in much more time and effort to actually complete those.
And since the old man had given him the Nutrition potions and Grade 1 Vitality pills, he had also excused Daron from managing the house. After a whole year of child-labour, Daron had finally been accepted as a true disciple of the old man, and could stop being used as a Roomba.
With this plan in mind, Daron began reading the manual for the fire-spell, putting away all his other thoughts about everything else, putting all his focus onto the book. Within this mansion, he was completely safe, and it somehow gave him the same comfort he had felt in his room back on earth. It gave him the feeling of comfort of having someone with you, while still being completely free of doing anything. Back on earth, this feeling had vanished after the death of his family members on by one, and he had felt it back at the orphanage. But then, catastrophe struck and Bard was destroyed, from the day he escaped, now was the first time that feeling had returned to him.
In this past one year, he had not felt much, just a need to become stronger, to prevent something from happening once more. However, now, he had once more gained that feeling, which made him stop reading for a moment, falling into a slight daze.
And without knowing it, Daron fell asleep.
As it turned out, reading during the period of recovery was not possible, since all he could do was sleep and eat during this time. Things like fatigue, could only be recovered over time. Even if he went to the church, they could definitely use 'miracles' to disperse his fatigue. However, that was only the act of pushing it back and suppressing the fatigue, as soon as the effects of the 'miracle' wore out, he would definitely face a wave of even worse tiredness.
[Master, I have revised the plan to actually resting during the days of recovery. The Fireball spell can be learnt later on]
And just like that, 90 days passed, and today, was the day that Daron would finally gain 1 mana, and be able to finally cast spells!