"AAHHHHHH!"
Kain panicked as he remembered the sensation of what felt like thousands of worms crawling beneath his skin as it decayed. The immense pain that wracked through his bones with each breath. The feeling of gradually losing his mind as he could no longer distinguish reality from fiction.
He calmed down as he looked down at his smooth, tanned skin.
Sigh 'I haven't thought about my past life in close to a decade' He shivered, 'And for good reason. I forgot how terrible my ending was'
He laid down in bed for nearly an hour just staring at his skylight as he tried to compose himself.
'If I have to relive that experience every time Bea infects me, I don't know if I could do this. Even with my college admission on the line.'
"Ah! That's right Bea!"
The last that he remembered Bea was forcefully recalled from his brain by the System to his star space.
Through the bond he could sense…guilt(?) coming from Bea.
Kain looked at Bea's status window.
942/1000 SP. 'It worked!'
And compared to the 935 SP it was prior to infecting him, it seems to be even more effective than hunting white-grade spiritual creatures.
With trepidation, Kain opened his own status window, hoping that the damage wasn't too severe.
His spiritual power was now at 905 SP. A drop equal to the amount that Bea's increased.
However, it was easier to recover lost spiritual power than it was to condense spiritual power to permanently increase the amount of spiritual power you possess.
It could even be recovered passively with enough time.
It was the difference in effort between filling a partly empty 1-litre jar to exactly 1 litre of water, compared to trying to stretch the width of that same jar to make it suddenly hold 2 litres of water.
He saw a flashing red star next to his other personal information, such as height and constitution, which he rarely looked at.
Clicking on the star next to his mental strength reading he received the message:
*Abnormal status in host detected triggering a temporary 30% decline in mental strength. It is advised to avoid any exertions in mental strength for at least 24 hours to avoid this condition from becoming permanent*
"Haaa…. So I can't even study or condense spiritual power. The academic exam is in 13 days. I'll feed Bea every 3 days and make sure to get proper rest for at least 24 hours before the exam. Based on the current SP Bea was able to achieve in a sitting, she should be able to upgrade to red-grade safely before the Dark Moon entrance exam in 20 days."
"I'm practically killing myself to reach 2-stars prior to the admissions test, which should safely land me in the top 10% of applicants. But how did that monster Bridget talked about during her admissions test almost reach 3-stars!?"
To avoid using any mental strength, Kain informed his family that he would be coming down for dinner and went to sleep with the sun still out.
----------
When he woke up the next day, he still didn't feel at 100%, but he was reluctant to waste anymore time.
He cracked open one of his textbooks but was forced to close it in only 10 minutes after not being able to concentrate.
"Haaaaa….. I guess I really do need to completely rest my mind for the full 24 hours. The next time I let Bea infect me I will have to set some kind of time restriction to hopefully reduce the penalty"
Unable to just sit around he decided to go for a walk into the city.
His first stop was to the blacksmith to return the space ring.
However, when he arrived he was suddenly reminded of his plan to buy an enchanted armor.
He had originally thought that he'd have to go hunting a couple more times in order to afford one, but due to how much he made the last time he went hunting, he could look to see if he could afford one now.
It's not as if he could do anything else better with his time with the penalty currently in effect.
Even if he couldn't afford one he liked, he'd at least have an idea of how much more to save.
With that thought in mind, after returning the ring to Pheneos he went to the back of the shop where the enchanted armours were located.
Both Pheneos and his teacher seemed busy in the back room so he didn't bother them with requesting descriptions when he could read the general effects of each armour for himself.
It took nearly an hour to read the descriptions of all the armour suitable for those with red-grade spiritual power. That is, 2-star armours—he decided to remain optimistic that he would condense his second star by the time of the exam.
After reading them all he had a headache. Whether it was due to all the reading or having to make a decision he wasn't sure.