Common Class (1)
I'd stayed up the entire night meditating, and yet, somehow, I felt better than I had in ages.
Probably because my Mana Heart had grown, and the blood points throughout my body had toughened with it. Mana meddled in everything—strength, vitality, aura, the whole list—so the more of it you had, the healthier you were bound to be. There was no way around it.
"I can't sit on this. I'm going out to test it right now."
The clock pointed at five in the morning. Any other day I'd still be dead asleep, but I'd just awakened an absurdly broken ability, and there was no way I was going to lie there and not try it.
I changed out of the clothes plastered to me with sweat and shoved the window open. Johann would be patrolling inside the dormitory, so if I wanted an easy escape, jumping was the way to go.
"Hup."
An ordinary person dropping from the third floor would break something important. I, on the other hand, was a superhuman who had awakened mana. I wrapped my body in it and leapt, and I landed light as a cat.
From there I tore across the dormitory garden and vaulted the shut main gate. The trains won't be running. I'll have to go on foot.
I drew mana up and broke into an easy run. My whole body felt light as a feather, and far from tiring me out, the longer I ran the higher my pace climbed. It felt like I could add something more. The idea hit, and I put it into practice at once.
"Oh. That actually works?"
The moment I sheathed my whole body in wind-attribute mana, my speed jumped again. Wind had always stood for freedom, lightness, and sheer quickness. A casual hop cleared a good ten feet, and a few kicks off the wall put me on a rooftop. Of course, surveillance crystal orbs and patrolling guards were a real risk, so I came right back down.
"Almost as fast as taking the train."
I kept running, and before I knew it I'd reached the training hall. The time was roughly what the train would have taken. Granted, the train stopped constantly and wandered in loops, while a person could cut straight along the shortest path—but even so, there was no denying I'd gotten faster.
"The mana drain is brutal, though."
My Agility stat was still a miserable D-. What I'd just pulled off was only a temporary trick, using mana to shove my physical ability to its limit. All I'd done was run, and more than half my mana was already gone. Inefficient in every direction that mattered. Best to raise my body and my mana together. Pumping only one of them is a waste.
I really, truly hated to admit it, but if I wanted to get stronger, I was going to have to keep doing strength training.
…Should I ask Professor Lucilla to lend me those gravity bracelets?
Turning the thought over, I stepped into the training hall and slipped into an empty private room.
"Finally putting this place to use."
After running into Sylvia here, I'd figured I wouldn't be back for a good long while. Staying up all night and showing up at dawn had solved that problem neatly. Come every day at this hour from now on? Honestly, it didn't sound half bad. Training first.
I worked the panel set into one wall—a touchscreen spun up by illusion magic. A few inputs later, wooden dummies burst out of the floor. I looked them over and raised my sword.
"Hah!"
I threw it at once. A measured charge of mana went in with the throw, and the wooden sword flew true and buried itself in a dummy. I used Sword Control to call it back. The dummy shredded into tatters. The sword did not return.
That was the current ceiling of my sword-throwing plus Sword Control. I meant to stack wind attribute on top of it.
"Fast and light… now!"
I breathed wind mana into the wooden sword and threw. I'd put in exactly the same amount of mana as before, and yet it was unmistakably quicker. The sword punched into the dummy in a blink, and the moment I invoked Sword Control it tore free and came back. Swift as the wind, and the blade itself felt far lighter.
"Yeah. The performance checks out."
I was feeling the worth of wind mana all over again. This was still only low-grade. If low-grade did this, what were mid-grade and high-grade going to look like?
I smiled at the pale green light of the mana and spent the rest of the time running one experiment after another. I didn't leave the training room until the morning sun was up and the hour for class was breathing down my neck.
The plan to rise at dawn and train was going to need a serious review.
Class time arrived, the mana ran dry, and fatigue came crashing in. The train jolted and clattered, my head bobbed with every lurch, and I shoved the urge to sleep back with everything I had. We'd been moving for about ten minutes when someone dropped into the seat beside me and turned to stare.
Romance route, or thriller?
If it was Lucy, I'd welcome her with open arms. If it was Sylvia or Estelle, I was breaking the window and bailing. I turned my head with the feeling of a man walking a knife's edge—and thank every star in the sky, it was Lucy.
She studied me with a face that wasn't quite sure. A good thirty seconds passed before she carefully spoke.
"Um… you are Philip, right? You give off a really similar feeling, but…"
"…"
"If I'm wrong, I'm so sorry! You just look so much like my friend!"
She bowed her head as she said it, brow pinched, trembling in little starts. She looked exactly like a puppy that knew it had messed up, and it was painfully cute. I wanted to let it run a little longer, but I couldn't hold the laugh in. A small sound escaped me, and only then did Lucy look up.
"You found the right person. I'm your friend Philip."
"Grr— hey! I thought I had the wrong guy! You scared me!"
Cheeks puffed out to their limit, she pummeled my shoulder again and again. The fists were, of course, pure cotton. I put on an exaggerated show of pain and let her hit me until her anger burned itself out.
"You look completely different with the glasses and without them, Philip. It's honestly amazing."
"Ahaha…"
Appeased, she peered at me as if I were some rare specimen. From the look of it, she had me filed as one of those Japanese light-novel protagonists who becomes suspiciously, illegally handsome the moment he lifts his bangs. In reality the glasses were an artifact. I couldn't exactly tell her that, so I settled for an awkward smile.
"But Philip, why are you on this train? This one goes to the Sacred Studies hall."
"I signed up for Sacred Studies. I'm on my way to the lecture."
"Huh? Not Magic Studies, or Combat Studies?"
Lucy dipped her gaze to the sword hanging at my waist. Fair. A swordsman usually took combat classes. Unfortunately, a certain monster by the name of Sylvia had made her den in those combat classes, so once again I had no choice but to feed her something vague.
"I've been in and out of the infirmary so much that I got curious about the Church of the Heavenly God. I wanted to know what sort of being the Heavenly God actually is."
"!!!"
Lucy's eyes went perfectly round. Then she seized both my hands out of nowhere and started breathing hard.
"Philip, if you're curious about theology, don't even hesitate. Just ask me."
"Uh, sure."
"And if you ever want to visit the church, tell me! I'll be the perfect guide!"
Watching her light up, I pulled up her backstory. The orphanage where Lucy had grown up ran on sponsorship from the Church of the Heavenly God, but it hadn't pushed conversion very hard. That was the church's way—indirect proselytizing. For that reason, Lucy had been the only believer in the whole orphanage. She said the younger kids liked playing more than studying theology, didn't she?
Well, of course they did. Lucy was the strange one, caring about theology and the divine from so young. Kids that age all just want to play. So she'd had to go to church alone, and she'd never quite stopped regretting it.
"A church date with Philip… someday, for sure…!"
"…"
And here was the side effect, right on schedule. She was muttering loudly enough for the whole car to hear. I sighed on the inside. If she wanted it that badly, I'd have to go with her at least once. Whether I kept going after that… I'd decide when we got there.
"I know the Sacred Studies lecture building inside out! Leave the navigating to me!"
"I'm in your hands, Professor Lucy!"
"Ehe!"
The train pulled in at the lecture building, and Lucy and I set off for the classroom. Thanks to her guidance we didn't wander at all. We claimed a pair of empty seats in the corner, and we were still chatting when the professor I'd seen at the orientation walked in and started class.
"Some ten thousand years ago, in an age when only darkness existed in the world, the Heavenly God Arpiel was born. Lord Arpiel first scattered light across this world, and then personally fashioned humankind and gave them life…"
The lecture was considerably boring. The professor's delivery was excellent, but the sheer length native to history mixed with the murk native to theology, and the result was boring on a professional level. Even so, taking Sacred Studies was worth it for the simple fact that Lucy was beside me.
Trading notes with my favorite while we sat there face to face. In this one moment, my transmigration satisfaction score was a perfect one hundred out of one hundred.