"And my classes are [Healer] and [Alchemist] with no subclass."
.
At the mention of my 'poor choice of classes' the Rigor lost it and burst out laughing, and making as much noise as possible, slapping the table a couple of times in the process.
.
"Hahaha that's da best joke I heard in a while lad, but come on be serious, what's your rank and class?"
.
I was at a lost for word, did he think this was a joke?
I peeked at the other to see their reaction, James, Chloe and Jogur looked at me weird, and Manami, she was staring daggers at Rigor.
Noticing the intense stare directed towards him, Rigor got confused.
.
"Wait, ya were serious?"
.
Scratching the back of my head, I responded, faking being embarrassed.
"Yeah, those are actually my classes and rank."
.
Rigor, noticing his mistake, awkwardly apologized.
"My bad lad, I really thought ya were joking."
.
At this point, Manami interrupted.
"Enough, I'll forgive Rigor since he didn't mean arm, but I will not tolerate this behavior in the future."
The pressure she exerted gave everyone in the room a shiver down their spine.
Being looked down on by such pressure, Rigor's body Stiffed and he made a military salute.
"AYE AYE MAM!"
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"Good, just don't make the same mistake."
.
Rigor looked like a sad puppy who just got scolded.
.
Chloe tried to reassure me, like I did for her.
"S-so you were also a healer."
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'please, don't pity me, I really don't care.'
.
Thinking about it, Rigor's reaction was normal, [Healers] are in today's norm, not a good class.
Why you might ask, well that's because potions exist, potions have multiple grade, from grade 1 to grade 10, anything above grade 10 is considered an elixir, which only an expert chemist can produce.
But I disgrace, potions under grade 6 are relatively cheap, cheaper than the average healer's salary.
Not only that but potion are easier to transport, generally speaking healers are bad at fighting, you might retort and say that [Shield] and [Buff] make the healer class worth it.
.
Unfortunately, that's just not true, a tank is more reliable than [shield], and any intermediate level mage can apply buffs.
All in all, most people that chose [Healer] have another fighting oriented class to counter the drawbacks.
Me selecting [Alchemist], a class seemingly useless in combat as my only second option, it's normal for people to think of me as an idiot or, like Rigor, think it's a joke.
.
After this the first session finally started, since no exam were scheduled before a while, we just did a general study, reviewing basic theme and similar stuff like math.
I didn't do much but read and help answer some question Chloe had from time to time.
Though there is one thing I noticed during this session, for some reason she kept glancing at Jogur, and every time she did so she would blush and bury her face in the book she was holding.
.
Now I may have low perception, but I wasn't blind, and it didn't take a genius to figure out this girl had a serious crush on one of the protagonist.
Knowing him, he wouldn't notice indirect flirting, he's the type of dense guy who can't figure out when someone is into them.
Suddenly a devilish idea sprouted in my mind, I should help these kids match up.
.
So, waiting for Chloe to ask one of her question, I made my play.
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"I don't really know about this one, perhaps Jogur should be able to help."
Winking in a fashion that only she would see.
.
Seemingly understanding where I was getting at, she flushed red and stuttered even more than she usually does.
"I-I c-can't, I-I d-don't want to b-bother him."
.
"What's the problem."
Having heard his name being mentioned, the ever so serious Jogur came at the perfect timing.
.
Before she could respond, I jumped in.
"Oh it's nothing really, Chloe had a question about something I don't know much about and thought you might be more knowledgeable about the subject."
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"OH, if that's all, it's no issue."
Going over to where she was sitting, he proceeded to help her with her question, while she blushed for the entire duration of it.
Jogur is a kind soul who loves to help others, and he becomes even more eager to help when it comes to his hobby.
Becoming more comfortable around him, she began to ask him question on her own, with that my plan ended in a success.
.
Exchanging looks with me, she silently mouthed 'thank you', I gave her a thumb's up.
.
###
.
The group study ended on a pretty good note, Rigor even came to me afterward to apologize, I told him that it was alright, and that it didn't matter that much.
Still, he insisted about wanting to make it up to me, in the end we settled on him buying me dinner at some fancy place whenever he got the chance.
Turns out he was from a fairly rich family, I'm gonna have to make sure I get my... no, his money's worth out of that meal.
.
On my way to the training ground, I checked my watch, I still had a little under 2 hours before dinner time.
Though my body was aching all over due to PE class, I forced myself on keeping up a routine, telling myself 'If I quit now, it'll be all for nothing!'.
.
Having done cardio in the morning and in PE, I chose to focus on strength training.
Arriving at the training ground, I could see multiple people already exercising, some were using the different machines you would see in any gym, while some were sparring with each other.
Thankfully, George didn't seem to be present, he had been pestering me recently like the cliché bully in a high school drama.
.
I directed myself towards the rack with all the one-handed weights when an idea suddenly popped in my head.
I checked my surrounding to make sure no one was looking my way, and once the coast was clear I summoned a [shield], warped it around one of the lighter weight handle, and lifted.
It seemed as if it hadn't budged, but when looking at it closely, you could clearly see it floating.
Summoning another [shield] and fusing it with the one holding the weight, I managed to make it float and move around a bit, though it was very sluggish and didn't really move where I wanted it to.
.
Putting the weight down and removing the [shield], I felt excited seeing the possibilities this discovery brought, perhaps if I trained this more I could hold and use a weapon with my shield.
But my excitement was cut short as I started to feel light-headed, this apparently took a greater toll on my mind than anticipated.
.
Feeling I should keep this hidden for now, as I felt it would bring unnecessary trouble, a possible trump card should remain hidden until it is ready.
With that in mind, I picked up two 25 kg weights (with my hands this time), put on some music and started training.
.
About thirty minutes before lunchtime, I choose to take a break and try out the virtual capsule for the first time.
Thanks to the wonder of magic and technology, the time inside the capsule was slowed down by a factor of two, any higher than that, and it would apparently cause damage to the brain.
.
Propping myself correctly inside the machine, I put on the helmet that was hanging from its top, and pressed the start button.
Shortly after, I was transported inside the virtual world.
Inside a white void, a list of settings appeared in front of me, this being my first time in VR I pressed the button [default] marked on it.
A new window popped up asking me if I was sure of my choice, pressing [yes], the white void around me transformed into a medieval styled training ground.
.
I went on a small tour to trying out all the different training available.
They had everything one would need to practice combat skills, from bow target practice to a one on one fight with an NPC, but since this was in VR, none of them were for physical training.
Unfortunately, training [alchemist] skills didn't seem to be possible either.
Normally [analyze] would give me information about what something is made of and how it's structured, but trying the skill on a virtual object yielded no result since the object isn't physically there.
Well, it wasn't all that bad, as I could still train [healer] skills.
.
I decide to use the rest of the time I had left fighting with the NPC.
Sure it was on easy mod, and I struggled a lot, but it slowly gave me some much-needed combat experience.
.
###
.
Arriving in my room, I immediately flopped down on the bed and started concentrating.
Two days ago, I discovered I could raise my Mana potential by unblocking some spots in my Mana veins.
My first attempt a removing the blockage using [Modify] got rid of about a third, and so was my second try, so today, the third should remove the rest.
I was excited to see the result, but I preferred to save it for last, and so doing my painful routine to [Modify] Strength, Agility, and Defense,
It was as painful as ever, but perhaps since I was using it more often, I started to get used to the pain.
.
Having saved it for last, I began clearing the blockage as I did the first two times, and the usual pain came along.
But as I was getting closer and closer to unblocking it, the pain became more and more intense, I was struggling to breath, and it was hard to concentrate on what I was doing.
But I pushed through, and as I managed to finally unblock the spot, I felt as if I got hit by a strike of lighting, the pain was so intense I passed out right there and then.
.
###
.
"Hugh! What happened?"
.
I woke up with a painful headache, drenched in sweat from head to toe.
Looking at the clock on the wall, its hands indicated [6:39].
.
"Did I mess up something?"
.
Using [Analyze] I could tell the blockage was completely gone, so I knew it was a success, so what caused the pain?
Shrugging, I put the thought on hold, I would surely find the reason sooner or later.
Right now I wanted to see how much stat I gained, opening my status I stared blankly at it.
[Mana: 1.263 -- 11.4/20]
.
Rubbing my eyes a couple of times to make sure I wasn't seeing things.
.
I just couldn't believe it, the increase in stat was insane, I got near 0.300 in normal stat.
What was most choking was the whopping 0.3 PS increase after unblocking one of those weird Mana vein blockage.
I had about 12 of those all around my body, counting this one, if each take 3 use of [Modify] to unblock, and like this one give 0.1 PS on the first two use and 0.3 on the last, so 0.5 each.
There's still 11 blocks left, 11 × 0.5 = 5.5 ... 5.5 + 11.4 = 16.9 ...
.
"Gulp~"
.
"I-if I unblock them all, I'll have 16.9 PS in Mana, I'll be one step closer to the protagonist."
I was trembling from excitement, or was it pain?
.
"!!!"
.
YUP, it's definitely pain!
.
Looks like I won't be able to move the rest of the day. Good thing today is a rest day, I won't have to be forced to do Mr. Martinez hellish training.
.
In this fashion, a week and a half passed by, I avoided fully unblocking my blockage except on my rest day.
I unblocked a second one only for the same pain to occur, well at least this time I didn't pass out.
.
My strength and stamina having finally being over 1 Mr. Martinez training was finally becoming bearable if not for the fact he was increasing the difficulty.
He even let me participate in today's class, he was all smile saying weird stuff like being proud of my effort and such.
.
'Effort my ass, you punch and kick me when I slow down!' is what I wanted to say, but I wasn't ready to die a second time.
If not for the fact that both [Heal] and [Buff] existed, I would have given up a long time ago.
.
Well it wasn't all bad, My Mana now exceeded 2 point and both [Heal] and [Buff] were now level 5.
I could [Heal] way more than before, but most important I could now give ether six 5% buff that last 7 minutes each or focus them into a single 30% buff that last the same amount of time.
.
Right now I was on my way to Manami study group, we held the club every school day, nothing much happened except maybe for the fact that Chloe got closer to Jogur.
.
Seeing as I had arrived earlier than everyone and by a large margin, I choose to take a small nap while waiting for everyone to arrive.
.
###
.
"Cough! Cough!"
.
Hearing the rude sounding type of cough made to catch one's attention, I woke up.
Opening my eye half way, I saw Manami staring at me with her arm crossed , but something was off about her.
Not wanting to be too rude, I greeted her with a still half asleep face.
.
"Yo."
.
"..."
.
Why was she not responding? Then I finally noticed what was different as I fully woke up.
This wasn't Manami, this was Tami her sister, she had short hair cut to her chin, and just like Manami she had a pointy elf ear, but hers was on the left.
If not for their completely different personality, they looked exactly the same, as if one of them was looking in a mirror.
.
Straightening my back, I politely presented myself, or tried to.
.
"Hello, my name is Th-"
.
"Theodore Lettore rank 600, [Healer] and [Alchemist], I know." she said rather pissed off.
.
'Just what did I do to make her mad. (TヮT) '