Mino re-entered the room to notice many of the boys sitting with
their eyes closed, meditating.
Zay was doing handstands while
his lackeys were doing other exercises. Just when their eyes
met, Zay flashed a belittling smile.
Mino just avetrted his eyes
and took his seat beside the grey wolf eared boy.
He asked him,
"You are?"
"Furloc Ashpelt. Wolf-human, grey."
"What's with the colour of the fur of a wolf?"
"Nothing much. This country doesn't discriminate much, but
purple wolves get a bit more importance since they are more talented. Also, fur colour is important in nearly all races."
"I see. One of the people patrolling here is a purple wolf, isn't
he?"
"Ye. Sir Iso is one . He's in charge of the morning training
routine."
"We have to train every morning?"
"I won't leak out the routine to you. You'll get to know it soon.
Today was a break day."
"Woah, they actually give breaks?"
"Normally they don't, but one of the boys here killed his friend
out of frustration. Naturally, he was killed too by the staff, to set an example.
We got a day off, they got to scare us, a win-win situation in my
opinion."
Mino stared at Furloc's beautiful but soiled face in sheer horror.
The way he nonchalantly declared about the deaths and even the fact that it was actually beneficial to him scared him shitless.
Dreading of what the future had in store for him, Mino broke out
into a cold sweat.
"Well, I get what you think, but you have to get used to it."
Furloc stated this with a firm expression, which both surprised
and impressed Mino.
That instantly changed into a look of
curiosity as questions followed,
"Did you meet the healer and her sister?"
"Oh, the font sisters?"
Mino inwardly chuckled when he spoke the stupid name he
himself had given.
"Give them nicknames as much as you like, but don't come to
me crying when you find your balls missing, 'kay?"
[Fuck, I'm doomed.]
Gulping dryly, Mino made a vow not to call them by this
nickname.
But when the matter of the girls was brought, Mino
remembered he had something to ask.
"Hey, that massive beating and healing earlier gave me stat
gains, can you tell why?"
Mino scrunched his face up as he
brought that uncomfortable topic up for discussion again,
lowering his voice so that he would be unheard of.
"Overcompensation and training I guess."
Furloc gave a hearty chuckle, clearly amused.
Mino knew what overcompensation was, so he didn't ask how that affected stats. But was curious about training.
"Training?"
"Yeah. Training your body and soul gives your stat boosts and
exp, helping you with levelling up."
"I see..."
Mino felt a pang of regret as Warret's advice of regular training
really turned out to be something important, at least in this world.
"Well, I may be able to use a small amount of Mana. Someone in the girls' cell told me so."
"OH REALLY!!"
Furloc's shouted garnered the attention of the entire crowd.
"Do you know the feeling of Mana circulating through your
body?"
"I have felt the swirling of my internal mana, but after the
damage to my meridians, I can no longer do that."
Finishing his words, Mino turned to see Furloc giving him a
stare full of pity. Having had enough, Mino raised his fist.
"Oi wait wait wait wait, I can snap your arm like a twig, even
though I don't look so strong. If you beat me then I will retaliate."
The gentle look on Furloc's face betrayed the true meaning of
the words he just spoke. Instantly Mino took a step backwards,
nervousness writ over his face.
"Haha, I won't beat you until you beat me. Okay, lemme explain
the feeling of wielding Mana. I am not an expert, so don't get
your hopes up."
Furloc then took in deep breath slowly, Mino followed him and
did the same.
After about a minute, Furloc said, I can feel it swirling about in
my body. Can you?"
"Nope." came the disheartened reply of Mino.
[How the fuck can I, you at least need to instruct me...just deep
breaths aren't fucking enough y'know!]
"Keep trying. Close your eyes and focus."
Repeatedly taking in deep lungfuls of breath, Mino closed his
eyes. Then, he tried to get rid of the external distractions, mainly the sounds.
By visualising, of course. He imagined a
spiral and tried to imagine how would it feel if water moved in a
spiral on his skin. A single drop of water, moving in a spiral
pattern.
Simply, moving in a circular orbit, but the orbit is getting
smaller every moment. After accurately recreating the feeling,
he felt encouraged and tried to feel a full stream of water
moving in a spiral.
He kept on focusing harder and harder, so
much so that he couldn't even hear any noises before.
It was
silent, the surroundings were as still as the surface of a pond on
a windless day.
Finally, after who knows how much time, Mino
got the hang of imagining a continuous feeling.
So it was time to move on to the next stage of his plan, i.e. try to
imagine the same feeling but on the insides of his body.
Mino
knew fully well that it was going to be exponentially harder,
because if plain water is flowing inside you, then how the fuck
are you alive!!!
Mino tried to make a simple approach. Imagining a drop of
blood spiralling in his chest. But it failed miserably. He couldn't
put his finger on the sensation!
Attempt 2 was trying to feel the movement of water in his
stomach, since it was the only viable thing he could think of.
But
pinpointing the movement of a drop of water was extremely
hard, since he could feel the water in his stomach clearly only
when he downed half a bottle at once.
In his process of imagining the feel of movement of water, a
brilliant idea struck him!
[Why can't I just try to-!]
Without finishing his thoughts, he set to action. Re-imagining
the drop of water spiralling on his chest, he slowly started to
imagine the water drop sinking inside his body.
If it was mana,
then that was surely possible, wasn't it? And it would also help him recreate the 3-D feeling! It was like killing two birds in one
stone!
Mino had a hunch that his method would really help him clear
the first step!
Without hesitation, he started. A drop, a very small
bead of any fluid, not necessarily water, starting moving
diagonally downwards, bending at every movement, going
closer to the centre.
He wanted to create a vortex, not a helix.
He imagined the bead penetrating his skin, flowing through his
muscle, ignoring his bones, and moving on downwards....
"Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!"
All of a sudden, Mino clutched his and started shouting at the
top of his lungs. Furloc was taken aback! Just a moment before
Mino was ignoring the distractions like a pro and now he's
screaming in pain!
"Hey Mino! What's wrong! Why are you-!"
Mino finally opened his eyes and inhaled sharply. A guy passed
a mug of water to him.
Mino breathed out a hasty thanks before gulping down the
water greedily at a crazy rate.
Water had never felt so good and
refreshing! It really lived up to its name of the elixir of life!
Panting, he rubbed his temples. This lingering pain was
incomparable to the sharp, white hot pain he suffered a few
moments ago.
He had felt like his head was cut open and salt water
was poured in, followed by passing electricity.
He hadn't actually
did that, but thought that the pain would be similar to that.
Stinging and sizzling.
"Feeling okay now?" Furloc asked, a hint of concern on his face.
"No...my head's reeling." Mino grumbled.
Surprisingly, someone... or something else grumbled too. It was Mino's stomach. Hearing that, many of the boys started
laughing, Zay was rolling on the floor.
"Hahaha! The less you know!" Zay snickered.
"What's that asshole saying, Furloc?" Mino furrowed his
eyebrows and asked the grey wolf, who gave Mino a look of pity
before hurriedly averting his eyes while whistling in a pathetic
manner.
"Stop whistling, you are insulting the art of whistling, Furloc."
Mino was clearly irritated because Furloc was trying to hide
something important, and even more because Furloc's whistling
didn't have any tone in it.
His curiosity was gonna be sated soon. Doro approached the prison bars
and banged his batons on them, creating loud clangs.
Surprisingly, he opened the prison door and shouted,
"Get your asses outta here if ya want er free dinner bois."
Not waiting for a moment, he went to the girl's room and
repeated the same actions, just replaced the 'bois' with 'gals'.
Note: Dinner means meal at night only. Mino woke up at night
after the transmigration. He was rescued and he slept
throughout the whole day. Only at evening of the next day, he
woke up. And now it's night again.