Adimia found himself surrounded by five pillars of earth about his height. He tightened his grip around a stick made of stone and swung it around him, missing the pillar he was aiming for but accidentally managing to hit another.
He stepped back into a pillar that had just sprung up from the ground. Reacting quickly, he turned to hit it as fast as he could. The stone stick smashed through the pillar, and it disintegrated. They finally stopped emerging now, letting him catch his breath.
"Damn, that's hard." He wiped the sweat off his face. In contrast to the heavy rain before, the sun was shining brightly now.
"It must've been. You left about a thousand openings. The number of times that you would've been beheaded is... worrying." Paley said, sitting on a branch.
"Okay, I didn't do *that* bad." He walked over to the tree Paley sat on and took a seat under it. Paley jumped down and joined him; he wasn't as tired physically, but creating the pillars of earth one after the other was slightly mana exhaustive.
"You can really swing that stick, though." He complimented.
"I'll take that." Adimia laughed, pausing briefly, "Thank you, man." He said.
"For what?" Paley took out a water canteen and cooled it with Ice magic.
"For training with me."
"Ah, you're welcome." Paley drank half of the refreshingly cold water and handed him the rest.
"But I'm also sorry. You're not getting much out of this, are you?"
Paley crossed his arms and sat back against the tree. "I am getting a lot out of it. I actually have an enemy to go against now, so it's much easier." He lied. Usually, he'd be using up all of his mana, creating balls of water five times larger than him or ripping a tree from the ground with wind alone.
"If you say so," Adimia replied.
"We should go back. I want to help mom with dinner." Paley stood up, stretched, and offered his hand to Adimia.
"Okay," Adimia took his help and stood up. They flew back to the orphanage; Paley helped Madella make dinner, and the rest of the day passed as usual.
The next day, at school, Bacha asked Dillie to take her to the herb study room during lunchtime because no one else knew where it was or was interested in going. It was a humid room on the second floor where they grew a wide variety of plants used in alchemy.
"Why're we here?" Dillie asked, watching Bacha fiddle with her Planteripedia ring.
"This ring stores information about every herb I know. But, it has it in a way that I'd explain it. So it's not really useful because it doesn't go into the details and stuff, you know?" She turned the ring upside down, and the bottom began to glow white, "Alright, here were go."
"You mean. That's a magic ring?" Dillie asked as a white light came out of the ring and enveloped one of the herbs before going back into the ring.
"Of course, dummy. What else would it be? A wedding ring?" Bacha laughed and turned the ring upright. "If I ever do get married, then my husband would probably have to be... Nevermind." She grinned and focused her mana into the ring.
"Your husband would be?" Dillie asked, squinting her eyes in suspicion. But she forgot her skepticism when Planteripedia's green interface appeared. Bacha pressed the buttons and found the herb she scanned.
"Look at that. The ring can scan stuff and tell me super-detailed stuff about it." She went to the next herb and began scanning it.
"Where did you even get that ring?" Dillie asked, following her around the room as she scanned everything.
"I got it when I went out with Paley." Her words fell on Dillie like an anvil.
"You two seem close..." She pried.
"Of course, we are, after all; he kissed me." Bacha referred to when Paley healed her from the bubonic plague long ago. She kissed him on the forehead, and he returned it.
"You kissed!? Where? On the lips?" Dillie was suddenly frantic.
"No, we're not there yet. It was on the forehead." Bacha said innocently.
"Phew- wait, what do you mean 'yet'!?" Bacha dodged Dillie's question and changed the topic back to her ring.
"Thirty-four new herbs. I gotta show Paley!" She hurried off.
"Wait! Answer my question!" Dillie chased after her.
Paley sat next to Jurie in the lunchroom. They were both reading, but Jurie read Aneros' story that Teerom gifted her, and Paley read a book on controlling magic.
"You're near the end of the book," He said.
"Yup," She replied, intently flipping through the pages.
"How is it so far?"
"It's so good. I can't believe that this actually happened two thousand years ago. You know, people in those days held these huge magic deathmatches in colosseums. Of course, nowadays, it'd be way too immoral, but that's where Aneros met his companion to join him on his adventure." Jurie had the same look in her eye that Teerom had when he talked of Aneros. Paley smiled at that.
"Paley!" Bacha and Dillie burst into the room. Bacha was excited, and Dillie was angry.
"That's me," He replied as they approached him.
"Check it out!" "Is it true that you kissed her?" They both talked at the same time.
"Uh, I think I've kissed her once, yes." Paley answered Dillie's question as Bacha tried turning the Planteripedia ring, "Hey," He stopped Bacha, getting too close to her face for Dillie's comfort, "You don't want people finding out you have something so valuable. It's dangerous."
"Aww, but I want to show you all the herbs I've gathered info on!" Bacha pouted and instead sat next to him.
"You can show me at home. Speaking of which, can you give me some more Facimut Pulveris? I can feel my face changing back." Paley rubbed his cheek.
"Don't worry. I've always got some on me for you." Bacha took out a small pouch full of the powder and rubbed it on Paley's face.
"Is that not your face?" Dillie asked.
"Oh, right. You don't know. Yeah, this isn't my face." Paley leaned in after Bacha finished rubbing the powder on his face, "They've got my face on wanted posters for stealing the three most valuable books in the library."
"Yeah... I forgot that was you," Dillie laughed awkwardly, fidgeting with her fingers, "C-Can you show me your real face some time? F-For drawing purposes, of course."
"Sure. But you probably won't like it." He sat back.
"Why?"
"Everyone says I look... Uh, cold. Evil?"
"Ah, whatever. I know you're a great guy, so it won't matter to me whether you look evil or not. As long as you're still handsome..." She mumbled that last part, so Paley didn't hear it.
"Problem is that the effects take a while to wear off."
"I heard that you can drink a bucket of milk to get rid of potion effects," Jurie suggested.
"That's stupid. You just need to wash your face with really hot water for Facimut Pulveris." Bacha explained.
"How hot are we talking?" Paley asked.
After school, the orphans gathered around Paley on the playground. Dillie stood in front of him, and between them was a wooden bucket of water. Only a few other students stayed after hours, but they were all indoors.
"Alright, guess I'm doing this." He heated the water with Fire magic until it began steaming, "How long do I have to be under?"
"About ten seconds."
"Alright, my face better not be burned off this." He joked and submerged his face in the steaming hot water. Facimut Pulveris works by lessening and increasing blood flow to certain areas of the face according to how you want to look, so to get rid of its effects, you'd need to warm the entire face up and reset all the muscles to a relaxed state.
After counting to ten, Paley lifted his head out of the bucket and faced Dillie. She stared at his face, too stunned to speak.
Compared to the Paley she always saw, this was a lifeless boy with an icy gaze.
"You're..." Dillie put her hands over her chest. It was thumping loudly. There were some drawings that Paley hadn't seen when he went over to her house. They were lying in the bin, and they were all drawings of extremely hot emotionless men or just overall badasses. Paley looked exactly like the portrait she was making of him with the dreamy eyes and everything. The perfect man for Dillie.
"You're?..." He urged her to continue.
"N-Nothing. You look good." She complimented awkwardly.
"Nothing else?" Jurie teased. Paley sighed and stood up.
"Alright, now that that's over, shall we get going home?" He asked, and Dillie nodded, "I'll see you all in a bit." He left the orphans to drop Dillie off at her house.
When he dropped her off, he'd almost forgotten to gift her the Awakening ring, but managed to stop her before she knocked on her door.
"Wait," He approached her, taking the ring out, "A gift. For you." Her eyes lit up, almost with tears.
"Paley!" She hugged him, "No way. Is this real?" She touched it lightly.
"Mhm. After your dad told me about it, I thought about getting it for you and my brother."
"I can't. This is so valuable. I can't take that."
Paley sighed, opened her palm, and gave it to her. "It's a gift from me to you. If you reject it then I'm going to be upset." He looked her in the eye, which she still couldn't return because of his dreamy gaze.
"Okay..." She took it daintily. They both paused for a moment, Dillie trying to look for something to say.
"Alright, well, I should get going home." He said.
"Hm," She nodded and watched him prepare to take flight.
"See you-" Before he could finish she pulled him and kissed him on the cheek for about three full seconds.
"See you," She hurried inside, leaving him in a state of confused shock.
'Doing good things gets you kisses.' He thought and prepared to fly again, this time to the library.