(The next day)
At the Veridale mansion, Seraphina slowly stirred awake, her phone's alarm piercing through the morning silence. Blinking away the remnants of sleep, she found herself in an unusual situation—waking up early on a weekend. Confused, she quickly rose from her bed, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to clear the lingering drowsiness and then she remembered.
"No, no, no"
Realizing she had overslept, panic set in, urging her to speed up her morning routine. In a rush, she hurried to the bathroom for a quick bath and change of clothes. As she descended the stairs, her mother, wearing a puzzled expression, tried to comprehend her daughter's early morning hustle.
"Why is this girl up so early on weekends?"
"She wouldn't usually wake up this early."
Attempting to call out to her daughter, she watched Seraphina leave without eating breakfast, disappearing quickly from view.
"Why is she in such a rush?"
Meanwhile, at the academy's library, Seraphina burst through the doors to find Theron organizing books. His gaze met hers as he looked up.
"Oh, you arrived"
"Sorry, I'm late"
"It's fine, you seem like you rushed here"
"Have you eaten your breakfast yet?"
"Umm, no"
As if to confirm her statement, her stomach grumbled loudly, drawing both their attention. Seraphina's face flushed with embarrassment as she looked down, lightly touching her protesting stomach.
'Why did you growl?'
But what it met was another growl, and Seraphina's face flushed even more as Theron laughed at this funny scene.
"Haha."
"No worries, I haven't eaten as well. Let's go eat at a restaurant."
It was a lie, but to make her feel less guilty, Theron said it.
They arrived at a nearby restaurant and ordered some dishes. Seraphina was able to fill her stomach, but Theron, having already eaten, sipped his tea while eating a bit.
Seeing that Theron wasn't eating much, Seraphina knew that he must have lied, but she was grateful that he accepted.
After Seraphina had her fill, Theron called the waiter and paid for the table while Seraphina was taking out her card. She tried to find her card but soon realized that she had left her storage ring at home.
"Don't think about paying."
"I invited you for this kind of teaching, so I will pay for it," Theron said.
After that, they arrived back at the library.
"Are you sure we can do it here?" Seraphina asked with uncertainty.
She had only been here to borrow books but never really read here.
"It's fine."
They started to go to a desk, and then Theron touched the circular wooden orb in the middle of the desk. Then a translucent screen appeared, which surrounded their desk.
Seraphina was surprised at what had happened but asked.
"Is it a silent bubble?"
"Yes, now we can teach without disturbing and also not get disturbed by people, and people don't usually visit on the weekends."
"They usually visit on weekdays where they would grab the books they need."
"Now, let's start."
"This should be good for a start," Theron said as he placed the organized books, which he was doing when he saw Seraphina.
Theron started to make Seraphina read a page and then asked her about the key points, urging her to summarize them briefly. He made her remember by connecting them to terms she could recall easily in everyday words, creating a memorable association. Then he guided her through memorization, demonstrating the correlation between the words on a notebook. He knew she wouldn't be able to memorize everything, so he made it easy for her. After completing a page, he would quiz her on the previous one, shuffling the order to catch her off guard. After reaching the daily limit, he started asking her questions from the material, and she managed to answer half of them correctly.
"Ok, that should be good enough for today."
Seraphina was a little bit dizzy but was relieved when it was finally finished.
"Take this book and try to see if you can remember them without looking back at the book"
"If you can't remember in a few minutes, just see what it is and write it a few times"
"Don't be headstrong and try to remember them for hours on end"
Seraphina blushed when he hit the nail of her trying to remember things on end because she was a bit headstrong. She started to remember what she had been taught and thought that she could remember them quite well.
"Also don't forget to revise them the following days to see whether you remember them or not"
"Then if you remember, just revise those ones when the exam gets close because you will need learn and revise the next studies as well"
"Right, revising" Seraphina almost forgot about revising as she was feeling complacent that she could remember quite them quite well.
"Fine, let's get on with sword training"
Seraphina said as she shaked her fists up and down seeming like she was happy because she had to do physical activities.
They left the library under the lead of Seraphina.
__ __ __
"Where are we going though"
"Don't worry, we are just going to a dojo"
He saw the dojo's name and knew that it was definitely a dojo that her family owned.
"This is my family's dojo and this is my private gym"
She said as she showed him the huge space which had a gym, a shower, and other facilities for training.
"Next time, you train, you can train here. On the way back, the clerk should give you a card you can use to come here."
"What do you think about the place?"
"It's quite nice"
It was definitely a better option for training as it was not too far to go but he still wanted to ask.
"Are you sure I can use your private gym?"
"Yes, yes, its fine, it's too big for only me to use it anyways"
"Ok let's train" Seraphina said as she started stretching
"How about you do your exercises while I stretch"
After their exercises, with Theron doing the ones left from the morning jogging and running, which he did after waking up early, they proceeded.
"How about we start with hand-to-hand combat."
"If you were to lose your sword, you can only use your hands."
She said as she stretched her little fists.
"Let me test how much you can do so I can get a gauge."
She started to punch Theron, but he was able to dodge it due to her keeping her strength in check and only using what a normal human could do without body refining—essentially, rank 0. Theron dodged her strikes so many times that Seraphina had a twitch on her head as she started to make it faster and faster. As Theron dodged a strike, she also used her leg to strike, and thinking that she got him, had a smile on her face. However, as she felt no impact, she looked to see that he dodged it also. He was muttering.
"White"
While holding his nose and Seraphina heard what he said and had a blush on her face as she quickly made a punch but she remembered,
"Oh no, Watch out"
She accidentally used a bit over rank 1, but she was able to see him dodge it. As their bodies were close after the dodge, Seraphina could be seen with her right hand outstretched and Theron beside her, and their eyes were looking at each other, blinking. Seraphina backed away as she said,
"You, you, you…."
"Have a martial bone"