lina chuckled nervously. Alistair looked less than pleased as he looked at the carnage going on in the kitchen. He had witnessed lina grinding her skills in the past, so he was well aware what it entailed and how taxing it could be.
"lina…" he narrowed his eyes. "Please, tell you are not grinding your skills."
"Well… You see, I got this new skill called is now Rank D.]
"It ranked up!" lina cheered.
"Great, that ans you can clean up for the day," Alistair grumbled.
"You shouldn't have told Master about grinding. I'm well aware of my limits," lina muttered as she sliced and rolled the second batch of palmiers.
Alistair stood up from his chair and walked up to her, looming over her. It was odd seeing him like this. Thinking about it, he's never really been angry at her. Not like this.
"You're aware of your limits? My mory might be patchy, but I still rember how your grinding usually ended. You pushed yourself until your body was completely depleted of mana, then drank mana potions to keep going. To the point where your mana almost beca corrupted," he growled, but his expression looked more pained than angry.
"Do you know how hard it was to watch you scream in pain as you tried to get your raging mana under control? Do you know how hard it was—not knowing if you're even going to make it and not being able to do anything to help?!"
lina flinched. She rembered the incident. It was one of her first grinding sessions when she wasn't as aware of how many mana potions it was safe to consu. It had been unpleasant to have her mana go rampant, but it wasn't sothing she couldn't deal with. It was just incredibly painful.
But she never thought about it from Alistair's perspective. How frustrating and painful the experience must have been for him.
"I'm sorry… I never intended to push myself so far…" she muttered.
His expression softened, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a gentle embrace. "I understand you're worried that sobody else might get hurt, but rushing and getting yourself hurt isn't going to help anyone. Please, take it slowly, and trust to protect you."
"I don't want you to protect …" lina muttered, rembering how he had died protecting her. The mory instantly made her blood run cold. "I don't want you to die protecting again…"
"I promise not to die if I can help it…" he muttered.
"You CAN'T do what you did before!" She said frantically.
Alistair smiled at her. "I think we wandered away from our original topic. I just don't want you to collapse again."
"Can we co to a compromise? I could grind a little once in a while," she tried bargaining.
[You've made . You've gained 25 exp.]
[You've made . You've gained 25 exp.]
[You've made . You've gained 25 exp.]
[Congratulations! You've reached Level 29.]
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Oh, look, I reached Level 29," lina cheered.
"29? How many levels did you gain?" Alistair let her go.
She hurried to retrieve the pastries, Sienna eagerly scurrying after her.
"Today? Four," she said nonchalantly. The palmiers had risen nicely while the sugar within them had caralized to a beautiful golden-brown color. She tossed one of the still-hot ones to Sienna, who eagerly ate it and begged for .
"Four?!" Alistair sputtered.
"Making new stuff is a really good way to gain a lot of experience," lina explained, blowing on one of the palmiers to cool it down. She then offered it to Alistair.
He carefully bit into it. "Wow, this is good! It took you like 20 minutes to make?"
"It's just puff pastry and sugar. If I didn't have any puff pastry, then it would have taken way longer," she noted, trying out one as well. "These are good. Maybe we should sell these in small bags as a snack for kids. No more leftover pastry!"
Alistair sighed. "Fine, fine, I can't deny the result of your grinding, but you can't push yourself to the sa limits as you did with your magic."
"Alright, I can agree to that," she conceded.
"And you do this only while I'm around."
"You don't have to watch . I promise I'll do only light grinding."
"No, that's not why. I want to try your creations too," Alistair said cheekily and grabbed another palmier. "Otherwise, these two get all the good stuff."
lina nodded. "Alright, if it's pastries you're after, then I can agree to it."
After the most grueso cleanup of lina's life, she decided that grinding should really be kept to a minimum. Alistair even ca to help her clean, which unfortunately ended with a bag of flour being sprayed all over the place. He apologized profusely, but she wasn't really mad. It was funny seeing him covered in flour from head to toe.
But cleaning all that flour wasn't fun. Washing herself afterwards wasn't fun either. When she tried to wash flour out of her hair, it would clump together, making it even more difficult to get out. In the end, she spent about two hours in the bath, trying to get herself clean.
Gilbert also grumbled quite a bit about her experints the following few days, saying that she should have adjusted the recipes she already knew rather than rushing to make new stuff. Although he did accept adding palmiers to their assortnt. Kids absolutely loved them, especially Gilbert's version with cinnamon.
But with her weekly duties complete ca a new challenge. One that she had put in the back of her mind since the festival.
Leon sat eagerly in their living room, looking at lina. His expression was similar to that of an excited child. She still couldn't believe that she actually agreed to teach him magic. It had to be a bad idea.
"So, where do we begin? I'm sure we'll need a different location. Soplace secret where nobody could see. I know a really good spot—" Leon began eagerly, but lina cut him off.
"No, for today, we'll stay in the bakery."
"Isn't that kind of dangerous? We could accidentally damage sothing," Leon said.
"No, we'll be working on the very basics. I have a strong suspicion that your fundantals are flawed. Can you tell exactly how you learned magic?"
"From a book," Leon replied proudly.
lina cocked her head, and Sienna cocked her little head too.
"What kind of a book? Please, describe what exactly was in it."
"It was a very old book I found in the Guild archive. It described how to learn fire magic and ice magic," he said, thinking that it was all that lina wanted to know.
"Be more precise. How exactly did it describe how you could learn fire magic?"
"It was a rather lengthy process. First, I had to focus on lighting a candle fla. I started with the help of matches, then with flint, then by rubbing it with my hands until I finally could do it without touching it. It took a whole year before I could light a candle without touching it."
lina was shocked by his dedication. Most would have given up, but Leon kept going for a whole year. lina wasn't sure if she could keep going for so long for sothing as ager as lighting a candle.
"And after that?"
"After that, it described how to increase the power of my fire and build up resistance so I don't get burned. Resistance was grueling—spending hours in a hot sauna during sumr is not fun," Leon chuckled.
"It described resistance building. Interesting. Give your hand," lina outstretched her hand.
Leon touched her hand, and she channeled a bit of mana into her palm. She wanted to check exactly how resistant he was. "Tell when it feels hot."
He nodded seriously, keeping his gaze on his hand. lina slowly increased the heat. Leon didn't react at first, then furrowed his brow.
"That feels a bit hot," he said once she had reached the temperature needed to cook at. He actually had built a resistance to heat. She kept going hotter until he finally pulled away when the temperature reached the water's boiling point.
"That was too hot," Leon said, gingerly cradling his hand. However, there wasn't a burn mark on it. He had pulled back when he felt discomfort rather than actual pain. lina wasn't sure if her heat resistance was this good—she hadn't really tried to improve it.
"You have a really good heat resistance," lina noted. "How much fire can you produce? Let's go to the kitchen to check."
They went up to the oven, where lina urged him to show how hot a fla he could create. This was where problems began. lina could instantly see how unsteady his created fla was. It flickered about while Leon furrowed his brow and likely pushed mana into it to keep it going.
She could also see stray mana coming from Leon's palm. Lots of stray mana. He had no clue how to properly guide his mana to where he wanted it to go, thus, he wasted a large portion of it. As a result, the fla he created wasn't very large. In fact, it wasn't even enough to heat the oven.
"I see," lina said thoughtfully. "What other kind of magic can you do? I know you can freeze water."
"I can also manipulate water," Leon said smugly.
lina gave him the task of transporting water from one bowl on one side of the kitchen to a bowl on the other side of the kitchen. He perford better with this task, losing less mana. His control over water was steadier than over flas, and he lost a little bit of water in the process.
Freezing water was what he excelled at. There was almost no mana lost here as Leon quickly froze water. He was also able to freeze it to varying degrees—by creating a thin layer of ice on top, or encasing the water in a layer of ice, freezing the water solid, or just chilling it. Although chilling water was more difficult for him than just straight-up freezing it.
"Anything else you can do?" She asked.
"No, this is it…" he said sowhat shafully.
"This is actually quite amazing, especially for soone without a System," lina said, and Leon perked up. "However, your fundantals are nonexistent. You clearly have no clue how to manipulate mana, and you rely on your gut, don't you? This is why it's easier for you to work with water and ice. I suspect you have a natural affinity for those elents."
"For ice? But I've never managed to create ice on my own," he protested.
"That's because to create ice, you first need to create water. Even if you happen to have the highest affinity with ice, you need to know how to create water first. These two elents go hand in hand," lina explained.
"Oh… that makes sense. So you'll be teaching how to create water?" Leon asked excitedly.
"No," she said, and he deflated. "To do magic properly, you need to be able to control your mana first. For sobody without a System, it is crucial to understand the mana flow."
"How do I do that?" He asked.
"ditation," lina said sagely.
Leon groaned. "No! The book ntioned sothing like that, but it seed so boring that I ignored it."
"The boring stuff is the most important. I suggest you read those ditation techniques in your book. Of course, I'll teach you so as well. We'll try to figure out which one works best for you."
There were various ditation techniques. There was the breathing technique, which entailed focusing on one's breath. This usually worked better for those who had an affinity for fire, so Leon didn't take well to it. There was the visualization thod, which involved imagining the mana flow within oneself. It was lina's go-to thod, but it didn't seem to work for Leon.
They also tried dynamic ditation, which involved performing a set of specific motions. But Leon was surprisingly stiff and couldn't do the motions fluidly enough. This thod could work well for him once he learned the motions, but that would take ti.
Until then, lina decided that the best thod for Leon for the ti being was the environntal attunent thod.
"What is that?" Leon asked, looking rather haggard from all of the practice.
"Simple, you go fishing," lina said.
"Fishing?" He asked in confusion.
"Yeah. You said it yourself—you feel most in tune with your magic when you're fishing, and that's because it is an actual ditation technique. But instead of sitting there and waiting for fish, you focus on the world around you. Try to perceive the mana flowing in the grass, the air, the water."
"Can that actually work?" He asked suspiciously.
"I suspect it already worked for you, but you just didn't know it. Do try it when you have the ti. Other than that, I think we're done for the day," lina said.
"Alright, thank you very much!" Leon said and bowed before lina. "I'll go and try that environntal ditation this evening."
"There's no rush. ditation takes ti," lina said, escorting him to the door.
"Okay, I'll do my best," Leon said, and then suddenly perked up right at the door. "Right, I was supposed to deliver a ssage from Erina, but I was so excited about learning magic that I forgot."
"What ssage?" lina asked curiously.
Leon leaned in closer and whispered. "Sobody has been asking about you around town. And not just about you, but about your magic pastries as well."
"What? Who?"
"I don't know, but I definitely wasn't sobody from Sunglow. Erina said you should go talk to her."
lina frowned as the image of the man dressed in black flashed before her. Strangers asking about her magic pastries could only an trouble.
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