Mimou
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Chapter 43 : Playing cards with Hiyoko
🕑 Added 2024-10-04 20:10:08 +0000 UTCKara blinked in surprise, taken aback by his request. "Use it?" she repeated, her voice laced with confusion. "But... I don't have the skill anymore. I lost it when I switched to the Vital Sage class."
Sora gave her a patient look. "I know. But who said you can not use it anymore?"
Kara hesitated, feeling a wave of uncertainty. How could she use a skill she no longer possessed? It didn't make sense. Yet, there was something in Sora's gaze—a calm confidence—that made her want to try, even if it seemed impossible.
Taking a deep breath, Kara closed her eyes and concentrated. She reached deep within herself, searching for the familiar feeling of casting Heal, the way she had done countless times before. She could almost feel it, like a distant memory, but nothing happened.
"I can't—" she started, but Sora cut her off.
"Don't focus on the skill itself," he said, his voice low but firm. "Focus on what it did. Remember how it did. Ask your body, ask your muscles and look for those memories. You have seen the process, you have felt the process."
Kara's brow furrowed, but she nodded, trying to follow his guidance. She emptied her mind of the technical aspects, the mechanics of the skill, and focused instead on the feeling—what Heal had represented. A warmth, a flow of energy that mended wounds, restored vitality. She focused on that sensation, allowing the intent to guide her mana.
Suddenly, she felt a spark. It wasn't as strong as it used to be, but it was there—a faint pulse of healing energy. Her eyes flew open in surprise.
"I… I felt something," she whispered.
Sora smiled slightly, pleased. "Good. That's a start. Your body remembers, even if the system says you don't have the skill anymore. Now, we'll work on bringing that back and pushing you even further."
Kara looked at him, still shocked by the realization that she could tap into her lost abilities, even if it was just a spark for now. "How did you know that would work?"
Sora shrugged. "I tried it before. I've been in situations where I had to push past what the system allowed me to do. The limits are there, but they're not absolute. You just have to learn to think beyond them."
He leaned back slightly, crossing his arms. "Try it"
Sora frowned as he watched Kara struggle with her attempts to channel healing energy. Her progress was excruciatingly slow, far more than he had anticipated. He knew it wasn't supposed to be easy, but it shouldn't have been this difficult either. Five hours had passed, and although she was improving, it was inch by inch. Something was off.
"Stop for a moment," Sora said, his voice steady but firm.
Kara, drenched in sweat and visibly exhausted, paused her efforts, looking at him questioningly. Sora's mana eyes had been observing her intently, tracing the flow of energy in and out of her body. He could see the process she was going through—filtering raw mana before refining into life force. That first step was clean, but the second? The moment she transformed mana into life force, it vanished from his sight. It became something else, something he couldn't track. Life force wasn't ordinary mana; it was an entirely different kind of energy, one that he had no control over.
"The life force... It is too much to handle for a basic heal. I don't know how to solve this problem. It feels like I'm forced to create something new, as if the old recipe is outdated."
Her new class allowed her to have an incredible ratio when filtering the mana, allowing her to get much more life force for the same amount of mana as another healer. However, this increase of efficiency threw off her familiarity with the process of using Heal.
Despite his mana manipulation expertise, Sora couldn't intervene directly. All he could do was guide her on how to better filter the raw mana, but life force—she was on her own with that.
Frustrated but intrigued, Sora's mind wandered back to an idea he had when she mentioned her ability to manipulate time. Maybe there was another way.
"Let's try something different," Sora said, stepping forward with a determined glint in his eye. "Use your innate skill. Accelerate time around yourself while you practice."
Kara hesitated, her face scrunching in confusion. "But… the time-bending zone will be mana starved. How can I train when there's no mana to work with?"
"Don't worry about that," Sora said, waving her concerns away. "I'll handle it. Just focus on increasing the speed whenever you want. And take this space bag."
Still unsure, Kara nodded and created a small time-bending zone, just enough to encompass herself. The zone was tiny, barely half a meter wide and a meter high, but it would do. She activated her skill, accelerating time to ten times its normal flow. The familiar sensation of mana draining quickly within the zone hit her, but she ignored it, pushing forward with her training.
Suddenly, she felt something strange—a massive surge of mana flowing into the zone, almost overwhelming her senses. The oppressive feeling of being mana-starved vanished, replaced by a flood of energy that invigorated her. She glanced at Sora and saw him standing outside the bubble, one finger gently touching the edge of the time field. A colossal stream of mana poured from his fingertip into the zone.
"So that's what he meant," Kara thought, her heart racing. Remembering the description of his supreme skill, she realized that Sora could channel unimaginable amounts of mana. He was feeding the bubble directly with more than enough energy to sustain her training. 'What a monster...'
Seeing the opportunity, Kara pushed the time flow further. Twenty times. Thirty times. A hundred times. And still, the mana kept coming. How was this possible? She was training 100 seconds inside for every second that passed outside, and yet Sora's mana input was more than enough. His ability to generate and manipulate mana was unlike anything she had ever seen. She cautiously pushed the boundaries further.
Two hundred times. Five hundred. One thousand. Three thousand.
At three thousand times the normal speed, the world outside seemed frozen, but inside, everything felt normal. Kara's mind was completely focused on honing her control over life force and refining her healing abilities. She pushed herself harder, using the constant flow of mana Sora provided to experiment, fail, and refine again and again.
Outside the bubble, Sora observed her progress. He could see the immense amount of mana she was absorbing, but it didn't bother him in the slightest. His mana regeneration was absurd, more than enough to keep up with her. He watched her as she sat cross-legged, focusing deeply. Occasionally, she would stand up and couldn't move in the cramped space, and every so often, she would close her eyes and fall asleep for just two seconds before waking up again, adjusting the time space to mostly surround Sora's finger and her own body. He would see her finish her food in a few cycles. It seemed like she didn't prepare much. She opened his space bag and discovered the stack of food inside. There was enough for 5 years.
After a few minutes of observing, Sora stopped paying close attention. She was clearly making progress, and there was no need to micromanage.
As Sora waited, passing the time while Kara was immersed in her accelerated training bubble, he found himself growing increasingly bored. He stood outside the time field, watching as the world moved on around them, with only the faint hum of mana flowing from his fingertip into the bubble.
But after a while, even that lost its novelty. He glanced down at Hiyoko, the little bird perched on his shoulder, preening its feathers and tilting its head curiously at the strange sight of Kara in her frozen training.
"Bored too, huh?" Sora murmured, scratching Hiyoko's head gently.
Hiyoko chirped softly, flapping its wings in agreement.
Sora smiled. "Wanna play some cards?" he asked, pulling a deck from his pocket.
Hiyoko's eyes brightened, and it immediately hopped down from his shoulder to the ground, ready for some action. Sora shuffled the deck, then crouched down and laid out the cards, dealing them between himself and the bird.
The game wasn't anything fancy—just a simple game of matching pairs. Hiyoko, with its sharp eyes, turned out to be an unexpectedly good opponent, picking the correct cards with its beak far more often than not. It even chirped victoriously whenever it won a round, hopping excitedly.
"Not bad, Hiyoko," Sora chuckled, watching the little bird play with an intensity that made him laugh. "Maybe I'll train you to be a gambler instead of the ultimate bird king."
They played several rounds, Hiyoko sometimes hopping around in a circle when it got excited, and at other times nuzzling Sora's hand when he shuffled the cards. It was a small distraction from the long wait, but it did the job of keeping Sora entertained.
Every now and then, he glanced over at Kara's bubble, checking on her progress. Time passed swiftly for them, but Sora and Hiyoko seemed to have settled into a strange rhythm—playing cards, making light conversation (though Hiyoko mostly chirped), and watching the world move by.
It wasn't much, but the small moments helped break up the long hours. Hiyoko's antics, whether it was playing cards or simply fluttering around him, kept the mood light, allowing Sora to enjoy the downtime between Kara's intensive training.
Three days later, Sora felt the time bubble collapse with a sudden pop. Kara emerged, and Sora immediately sensed the difference. She radiated with life force—an overwhelming amount of it. For the first time, Sora felt that Kara could actually be a threat to him if she wanted to be. Her entire presence had transformed.
Her hair had grown longer, nearly 20 centimeters more than when she started, and there was a profound change in her demeanor. Her eyes, sharp and steady, carried a depth of wisdom and strength that hadn't been there before. It was like her mind had gone through years of battle, training, and reflection in the span of a few days.
Kara smiled faintly, her voice low and slightly shaky. "It feels like... forever since we last spoke."
Sora, his eyes narrowing slightly in approval, crossed his arms. "You've changed."
Kara nodded, a strange calm washing over her. "I tried so hard.... Recreating a skill was so difficult... But the reward... It is worth it..."
Sora gave her a slow nod, impressed but not surprised. "Good. I'm happy for you"
