Loren spent the next week mostly practising the mana mastery technique while balancing the push-ups with other exercises to not create an imbalance in his body's muscles, he hadn't made too much progress but could faintly feel his mana focus more on his arms, once a fourth of his mana regularly entered his arms he could balance the exercise with meditating, trying to recreate the phenomenon voluntarily.
He also made a habit of throwing chewed-up biscuits up on the Goddess' statue, remembering to goad Salrie to participate each time. Priest James was going crazy trying to catch the person doing it, his main suspect being Loren of course. He wasn't planning to do all the work though, one day he went to the library, borrowed a few books and slammed them in front of Salrie. The pile was double her height.
"What's this?" Salrie tilted her head.
"Your homework, my little encyclopedia." Loren smiled 'kindly' toward Salrie.
"S-so much? And I can't even touch the books." She could already feel tired.
"I'll flip the pages for you, plus some are mine. I'll be studying Saltera's flora and fauna while you get the history and travel books."
"Alright..."
'he's making a system guide study? I thought I was done with the desk work.'
The week flew by and it was Monday before they knew it, Loren arrived at the school wearing his new uniform with a bright smile. He entered the doors, no longer just visiting but as a student. A few students eyed him with interest, his uniform was a dark blue with black outlines, indicating he was part of the above 12 class and entered at an accelerated level. Every one of the 32 students was familiar to Loren, they were all a similar age in a small town so it wasn't surprising, but 2 students in his class caught his attention. Carol, whom he stole his mana mastery technique from, and Bort, the 10-year-old who joined the class early, same as Loren.
Loren found a seat and placed down his bag, eager to start the class, he was 24 when he died but living as a child for 9 years regressed him mentally slightly, making his excitement show on his face.
"Loren? Why are you in this class? Don't tell me you're the same as Bort." A brunette girl with a bob cut sitting next to Loren called out to him.
"Yup! I'm pretty lucky, T-tory?" Loren swore he knew her but couldn't put a name to her face, it was fairly forgettable, not ugly, just forgettable.
"It's Trina! You once stuck glue to my backside, remember? I was stuck to my chair for an hour." She had a hint of aggression on her face.
"Oh yeah haha... You're not mad anymore, right? You got a few good hits in then."
"Loren..." Salrie had a slight look of disgust.
'I was 7 Salrie!'
"I feel like you'd still do it today."
A young woman walked into the class, silencing the students. Loren remembered she was the other teacher on the field from the last week, Rito called her Lory. As she stood before the class Loren leaned forward wondering what his first lesson would be. Would it be mana arts? Sword techniques? Perhaps hand-to-hand combat?
"As some of you must have noticed, we have a new student joining the class, you may know him. His name is Loren, and due to activating his mana early, he has skipped the under-12 class and arrived here. I don't believe we need any fanfare. Now, everyone pull out your notebooks."
'Loren inched even closer in his chair, ready to learn.'
"Today we will be continuing our lessons on addition and subtraction. Loren, if you need any help understanding please ask Trina next to you."
...
'F**k.'
***
After asking Trina, Loren learned that the school day always began with either mathematics, history or language, followed by physical training with sparing and weapon practice right after. Only at the end of the day would the classes pertaining theory about knights happen.
Following the gruelling class, Loren then ran 20 laps around the field, he didn't do too badly, but he was still the youngest and newest student in the cohort, being one of the last to finish. Not being dead last was already a miracle. Huffing on the ground, Loren noticed that Bort had been looking in his direction.
"Heh." With a self-satisfied smile, he turned away.
'The hell?'
"He must've been threatened by you joining the class and taking his position as the youngest. I even saw him using body enhancement to get ahead." Salrie commented.
"That's dumb." Loren picked himself up and headed towards the exercise equipment, there were dumbells, pullup bars and benches with barbells. The teachers stood nearby, instructing different students on their form in case they made a mistake.
'I wonder if this was brought here by a hero too?' It looked too similar to a modern gym for Loren not to wonder, there was even a smith machine.
Choosing to forgo weight training, Loren spent the class doing callisthenics, secretly practising his mana mastery technique with enough mana it didn't visibly show. He noticed Carol doing push-ups near him, probably doing the same thing.
When the intensive workout ended, Loren was exhausted. Luckily the school provided lunch right after, and no longer having to worry about his family's finances, Loren ate a full 3 portions of food. He spent the entire 1-hour break comatose.
Still reeling from overeating, Loren was not in his best form for sparing class and got beaten left and right, As good as he was with a sword, every student was as good, if not better, at their weapon, they had all been at the school for years after all. The only student he could get a win on was Bort, who was even more inexperienced than Loren, he always had a full win ratio against Bort. After the spar, Loren could see Bort gritting his teeth in anger.
'Boy, he does not like me.'
Loren's last spar was against Carol, her braided hair was coiled into a bun and she used a single-edged spear curved at the end. He had finally digested his food so he didn't make an ass out of himself like before, but Loren still firmly lost, from what he could tell Carol was the strongest student in the class. Falling on the ground after the spar, Loren saw Carol was still standing next to him. He started to worry she noticed he used the same technique as her, when she looked at the ground bashfully.
"M-my family were going to throw out my old dresses soon, but I wondered if you might want to take them. T-they've been cleaned of course..." Loren immediately jumped up and grabbed her shoulders.
"SHH, SHH Remember! Thanks for your kind thoughts, but err, I only like to look at clothes not wear them ok, so you don't have to bother."
"Oh, alright, I'll just throw them out then."
'Ughhh... I completely forgot about that.'
Loren sat on the ground and clutched his knees, his face crimson, while Salrie sat next to him, holding back a laugh.
"You know, she's quite the kind girl, isn't she."
"Too kind Salrie, too kind."
***
The final class had begun, and it was the class Loren looked forward to the most, combat theory. The teacher for the class was Rito, he still had a cold look when his eyes passed by Loren, you could tell the class both respected him and feared him due to the straight back and serious faces of the students.
"Knowing your enemy is the best way to increase one's strength. Today we will be going over one of the most common enemies a Kight will face when protecting their land, mana beasts. When a common animal absorbs enough mana, their body will mutate and evolve based on whatever properties the foreign mana has. If they absorb water mana they will gain the water element, if they eat many ores they can gain the properties of said ore. These mutations are rare, but each one can create an entirely new species."
Loren was interested in the topic, he had always wondered where mana breasts had originated from.
"After their first evolution, mana beasts can continue to incrementally evolve, adding small abilities per evolution. The only ability they can no longer gain after their first evolution is an element, as it has been proven that mana beasts can't have more than one element, many beast tamers have tried and failed..." This comment made Loren tilt his head.
'Really? What about our guardian beast?'
As the class continued, Salrie paid as much attention as Loren, she only knew the basics about specific information about mana beast so she found the topic intereestering. Her attention paused though when she noticed Loren was slightly hovering above his chair.
"Loren, what are you doing?"
"New mana mastery technique I came up with, I hover above my chair while using a tiny amount of mana, my body's still straining itself so it's the same principle, you like it?" Loren replied to her through gritted teeth.
Salrie's eye twitched.
'He's becoming a training maniac.'