Hazel was walking slowly through the forest. Although Dreue was not heavy, she was still tired from the previous fight. She has yet to fully recover.
The forest side was surprisingly quiet and peaceful. She did not encounter any monsters along the way.
"We are very lucky! All the monsters in this area either ran away or hid from the impact of the explosion!" Hazel said happily. Being forced to fight a monster while she is carrying Dreue is not a situation she wants to get herself in.
"By now Gallien should have reached the town, I hope he finds a good doctor"
Hazel was lost in thoughts, so much happened in one day. The unexpected attack of the other Hobgoblins, John's severe injury, and Dreue's strange magic.
While she thinking about the various events that had occurred, she felt a movement on her back.
"It seems Dreue is finally waking up!" she put him slowly on the ground, waiting for him to open his eyes.
"Dreue…. Dreue…. Wake up!" she called his name while giving him a gentle shake.
Dreue's eye opened a little. He blinked several times; he slowly raised his hand covering his eyes from sunrays till they have time to adapt to light.
"What…happened?"
"You went into a deep sleep shortly after we cast the spell"
"What about John?"
"Gallien carried him, he went to the town ahead of us in order not to waste time and take John to a doctor as soon as possible"
"I waited for you to wake up. After a while when I saw that you were still in deep sleep, I decided to carry you so we could catch up to them as soon as possible"
"How did you carry me?" Dreue was surprised at her words, so many question marks were raised.
"On my back, how else otherwise? By the way you were pretty light" Hazel laughed gently.
To be carried on a girl's back, and to be called 'light' on top of that, Dreue was never embarrassed like this in his life.
...
Dreue and Hazel move across the forest. Dreue stayed silent for a long time, it's not that they have nothing to talk about, in fact, both of them had a lot on their minds, especially Hazel, she had so many questions, but she did not want to be the one who speaks first.
She thought Dreue was still embarrassed because of she carried him, or even maybe he was offended because she said he was light. For a man to be called light was not something good indeed.
Dreue's mind was occupied by a lot of things, as the previous embarrassment, he had already forgotten about it, after all, he had many important things to take care of.
He decided to break the awkward silence.
"How are you now Hazel? Are you fine? Casting such a powerful complicated spell is very tiring"
"I have yet to fully recover, my mana core was damaged a bit"
"But don't worry about it, it's just that I will not be able to use my full power for some time, I will make a full recovery in several days" after mentioning her mana core, Hazel hurried to explain things clearly. She knows mana core was a heavy subject for Dreue. She didn't want him to think his plan caused her mana core to suffer long-term damage.
After one does not know the true value of something except after losing it.
"Thank god" Dreue breathed a sigh of relief, Hazel was a good girl she did deserve to lose her life as a mage just because she wanted to save her friends.
"What about you Dreue? You slept for a long time, are you really fine?"
"I am good, it's just I was exhausted from using a large amount of mana as for my mana core it is already destroyed, things could not get worse" in fact Dreue's core suffered some damage, at this rate soon he will be demoted to rank one.
No mage would stay calm if he knew his core is damaged and his rank will be demoted, after all for a mage his core equals his life. As for Dreue, it is something that will happen eventually, so it would not be a big deal if it happened a bit faster.
Also, he now does not depend on his core at all. He is working on a plan that if succeeds he will be able to cast level three spells even with level one core.
"By the way, you must be curious about what I did? How we were able to cast such a powerful spell? How we were able to control it? Right?" Dreue decided to go straight to the main topic, addressing the question that had been on Hazel's mind all this time.
She was surprised by Dreue words, she thought he would try to avoid this topic. She did not think he would bring up this subject.
Hazel decided to say silent, she didn't want to force Dreue to answer this question. If he wanted to tell her, he was free to do so. If he wanted to keep his secret, it is also his choice.
Although she did not say a thing but the curiosity in her eyes and the yearning expression on her face betrayed her closed mouth.
Dreue was amused by her response.
"As I have told you before, I can sense mana, I can feel it. One way to use this ability was to detect monsters as I did before."
"What do you mean?" Hazel could not help but ask.
"My power is not detecting monsters; my power is sensing mana. Detecting monsters is simply one of the things I can do with my power, you understand the difference, right?"
Hazel nodded in response; she got his point.
"With this high mana sensitivity, I can feel the mana pathway in my body, I can somewhat guide mana through them. That means I have high talent in controlling my regulating mana"
"That fireballs spell was completely cast by you. Remember that when looking at any fireball of three, it would be smaller in size compared to the one you cast alone when we were facing the first Hobgoblin, that one which did not fly as fast as expected"
"I simply guided you to cast somewhat smaller three fireballs instead of a huge one, in terms of mana amount and core rank, you are already qualified to cast such a spell!"
"it's just that it's so complicated, it needs a high mental capacity, lots of training and experience, and maybe a good magic staff to handle three large fireballs at the same time maintaining them from collapsing, synchronizing them, shooting them at the same time."
"It seems you still don't fully understand, let me give you another example if I asked you to draw a circle on paper with your right hand, you would be able to. If I asked you to draw a square with your left hand you would be able to. But what if I asked you to draw both the circle and the square at the same time?"
"Your body is capable of doing that, it's just your mind can't handle the process without training and experience"
"A magic staff usually helps the mage handling such a thing, I simply acted as a magic staff, a very high-quality one, I was in charge of regulating and organizing the casting process, while you did that casting itself."
"Before I acted as a human monster detector, now I acted as a human magic staff." Dreue laughed loud, it seems he could still make jokes even in such situations.
Hazel did not respond to his joke; she was still thinking about his world. They enabled her to view things from a different perspective. she would forever change her way of thinking.