And so, two days passed. With his dire injuries disabling debilitating any possible physical training, he spent most of his bedrest… well… laying in bed, recovering. It was as though the heavens were finally gracing him with the rest that he so desperately needed…
Still, though, that didn't mean that he would.
Lieren gazed at the black cube the size of his palm and sighed, igniting Manavision, and peering deep into the crack in the middle of the impenetrable darkness.
A subtle grin formed on his lips.
Within the boundless expanse of pure white, a single ball of light sat, surrounded by seven translucent chains. On closer inspection, he could see that two of the see-through chains were broken, cut apart by some divine power. The broken links looked like it had been destroyed by itself.
He had managed to accomplish the second requirement to… to whatever it was that the black cube held, contained, or trapped.
Deactivating Manavision, Lieren sighed and leaned back on his chair. It had only been a day, but his body had mostly recovered. He didn't have bouts of pain whenever he mover and felt sharp daggers piercing his lungs whenever he breathed, and terrible convulsions every now and then. The injuries that made him feel like some fragile porcelain doll was no longer.
Turning to his side, he looked at the rising sun and felt his mind wander. Despite being relatively healthy, he found it hard to keep himself awake, as if something was pulling on his eyelids forcefully. Especially so after waking up.
He tried to keep himself busy with various things like meditation and inspecting the black cube, but all those had been for naught in the end. He was just too darn tired for some reason!
Standing up and stretching his body, he performed a few breathing exercises that Vesba had thought him to calm himself down. His body was still fatigued, after all, and he needed every bit of sleep that he could.
…If only it were that easy.
Glancing to a particular corner of his room, he said aloud:
"That's getting pretty old, don't you think?"
A light scoff responded in return, and Selen Votum's robed figure appeared in a veil of transparency, the golden embroidery of her navy robe as striking as ever. She raised a brow and walked over to him indifferently, a stack of books held in her hands.
Lieren walked over and took a few of them and set them on the mahogany table. Then, he said, a little tired:
"So, what do you have for me today?"
The shadow of a smile appeared on her brown face.
◇◆◇◆◇
While Lieren wanted to spend his well-deserved bedrest, the stern sage had other plans. For the past two days, she would come into his room at random, multiple times a day, and begin spouting basic, but very enriching lessons, battle simulations, and mana theory as well as its innumerable applications. While most — if not all — of this would be very mundane and boring for a regular ten year old kid, the inquisitive boy wasn't perturbed in the slightest.
In fact, it was perfect! Glorious, even!
Most of his knowledge, which has helped him overcome most of his pervious hurdles, had only come from what he has read and from what Harita had told him. To be perfectly honest, it was all rather rudimentary, compared to what the overly talented individuals and stupidly powerful people around him were privy to. It was about time he got some official teachings of his own, for once.
'Amazing!'
And thus, he was beyond elated. He absorbed all the magic lessons, situational simulations, and various facts and trivia that the stern sage threw at him with fervent zeal with a genuinely happy face to the point where he began looking at impassive Selen Votum in a different, but not overly clouded light.
She was, in a way, an eccentric. Just like all the people around him were.
While she did not show, or simply found no need to display it, the stern sage was more or less the same as he was. Only different in the approach.
She preferred written and spoken knowledge over all else, which she bestowed upon those with about the same zeal on learning that she had or more. Which was exactly who Lieren was. He was glutinously curious about everything magical, ever since he first read about it all those years ago, in that dark, gloomy night. Everything about it was just so fascinating, wondrous, and mystifyingly beautiful.
It was like a whole new world had opened up for him, just out of his reach. Ever since that day, he couldn't help but reach for it. He was only human, after all.
It completely changed his life. For better or worse.
Opening his mouth to ask a question, he said with energy:
"…Wait, so if a Fighter with a specialization on Enhancement and an Alchemist were to fight in close quarters were to fight, with both of them barehanded without any weapon or obstacle around, at the same level of mastery over their own spells and experiences… the Alchemist would win? How? Isn't that contradictory to what you taught me yesterday?"
Selen stopped writing on the blackboard, which she personally brought in his room while he was unconscious without his permission, and gave him a long look.
Lieren felt a little uncomfortable for a second or two. After a while, she said plainly in a clear tone:
"Unlike Fighters, which rely on augmenting their physical bodies and weapons first and foremost… Alchemists rely on their mana's unique quality and application, which they use practically as an extension of their own bodies, and thus provide a higher range of uses, and therefore allow for more fluid and dynamic combat techniques, styles, and versatility."
Lieren nodded curtly, correcting a few things from his notebook — provided by the cold-blooded attendant reluctantly — and responded inquisitively:
"Yes, I know that. But at the same time, wouldn't the Alchemist be somewhat in an advantage, given that with the nature of Transmutation varies greatly with each mage, thus making them less powerful and efficient at actual combat scenarios? I mean, with versatility comes reduced control and accuracy, right? I… I read that in a book before, about magic restrictions and conditions."
He paused, wrote a thing or two on his notebook, then continued:
"I mean, if the Alchemist and the Fighter are on the same level of skill and experience, wouldn't the Fighter emerge victorious first, since most of his tactics are theoretically straightforward, meaning that the element of surprise is with him as well? Given that the two have no knowledge of the other's battle art and abilities…"
Lieren stopped suddenly, noticing Selen's odd gaze, and looked down at his notes, searching for something that he could have missed. There wasn't, rather, there couldn't have been. He would never forget such valuable information, especially considering his teacher's critical teaching style.
After a long while of flipping notes and manic reading, the stern sage finally talked back, her voice strangely low:
"Would like to test that theory, Lieren? Just as a practical experiment, of course…"