'He's doing it again...' I thought to myself as I tried to conceal my nerves.

I knew he was laughing, he did so almost every single time he found some spiritually charged entity. Usually, that meant either a fight was headed towards us, we were heading towards it, or there were magical resources ripe for the picking nearby. But, his laughs… His psychotic, borderline 'fiendish' cries were unnerving to me.

I couldn't tell if it was just a quirk of being a Monster, a remarkably prodigious one at that, or if it was part of his personality.

Outside of combat, he seemed human enough. He acted more like I imagined an older brother would when I would doubt myself. He'd comfort me, heal me, and be patient enough to bear with me when I needed the time to collect myself before heading out to train 'again.'

But then, we'd go to battle and it was like he had a built-in switch that completely changed him. Now, I'd been used to people changing in the face of battle; practically everyone did so to a certain degree if only to keep their sanity. But Nova…

Nova didn't just 'change,' he was almost unrecognizable and that was something I'd never seen happen even to Uncle Tebolt's summons. Behind the warm and caring "older brother" persona, there existed a vicious and somewhat suicidal maniac who seemed to thrive off fighting hard-won battles.

He himself said it best, back when I was still trying to get him to leave me to my fate.

"I don't care about what's pragmatic or what's most beneficial to me."

After spending two weeks practically living together, I could confidently believe that he had not been even slightly lying. After a bit of thought, it started making sense, though.

The confidence, the battle mania… How else could he have evolved 'twice' within a month and skipped through two major Ranks without that kind of mindset? It's no wonder, he thinks we have a chance of getting through the Lesser B Rank territories on the way back home.

In just the two weeks I've been with him, I've seen his growth first hand and it's… It's freaking absurd! I mean, it isn't when you consider what he's doing to progress as fast as he does, but no sane person would think of doing what he does.

No one would willingly look forward to endless slaughter just so they could have live targets to practice their Skills on. No one would rely on the pressure of a life or death battle, when they could advance safely, without constantly running on the fumes of external resources.

And that wasn't just something I'd learned from the School of Mages. It was more or less something everyone knew as common sense. After all, you were bound to be less efficient and sloppy when relying on second-hand resources to supplement your strength.

Nova, however, has practically initiated me into that kind of lifestyle by constantly feeding me usable Mana through his Magic Transference Spell. And after just a couple days, I could hardly feel the difference between my naturally regenerated Mana and his transferred Magic.

Up until then, I'd been too much of a mess to do much of anything but follow Nova as I was grieving over my Uncles' deaths and the almost guaranteed likelihood that I'd be following them to the afterlife shortly. But after days of managing to survive, with more than half the ambushes on me having been picked up by Nova's fly-scouting and nearly all our battles influenced in one way or another due to his transference of Magic over to me, I just couldn't help but ask him about it.

His response?

"Are you really asking me that?" He snorted, "Obviously, there's no such thing as 'second hand' Mana or Magic. Shouldn't you already know as much with your Understanding of Earth? I mean, you do have an Understanding of Earth right?"

When I nodded, not knowing what his point was, he didn't wait for me to ask as he continued on to say, "Well, just like you can make use of the 'second hand' Earth energies of the world through your understanding, you can make use of my 'second hand' transferred Magic to your reserves. Do you get it, now? Everyone who uses the same types of Magic has the exact same kind; this isn't like a blood type situation, where you have to match. Either you get usable Magic transferred on to you or you don't."

I… I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't believe him at first. I mean, how could I, when his contempt was directed at dogma that everyone I knew followed?

Uncle Tebolt and even Father refuse to take Mana Restoration Potions if they can help it. What were the chances that some of the strongest B and A Ranks I knew of like them were wrong and a not even month-old bird was right?

But as the days dragged on and the battles got tougher, my Magic pushed to its limits so much that I became nearly dependent on Nova's transferred Magic for most of the time… I saw the results for myself.

I too was growing at a horrifying rate and it wasn't just my Reserves because they were constantly being refilled by Nova from the neverending spellcasting I did.

No.

Everything from my magic's potency to my personal resistance towards magical attacks, physical abilities, and even my spells all skyrocketed in their rate of progression from all the constant fights we were in; this despite my preconceived notions of there existed second-hand Mana which would render all my efforts to get stronger in vain.

"We're here," Nova said as he landed effortlessly on my shoulder.

"Uh… where are we, again?" I asked, shamefaced to be caught unattentive for the umpteenth time. It was just so easy to get lost in my thoughts with how crazy my life has been these last few weeks.

"Why, we're at our second stop, of course!" He grinned, "We're at the southern edge of Aquavista Lake."

"What?! Why're we here?! Aquavista Lake has a hidden elf village and B Rank threats near its center!"

"Well, I thought it'd be easier to pass through here, you know," he rolled his eyes, "by the edge of the lake, instead of taking the shorter route which would have had us cross through a Greater B Rank territory. But, we could go back if you want."

At his conniving stare, I nearly snorted. Just like an older brother, he could be aggravating on an incomprehensible level.

"Oh don't look at me like that," he continued smirking, "I thought you'd appreciate the change in scenery. If not you, then at least I look forward to taking a dive in the lake. It's been a nightmare having to rely on my Personal Water Spell to get rid of all the blood on me after our fights."

"Personal Water Spell?" The words came out before I could even process them, but when I did… I was the one who got angry as I asked, "You… You've had Water Magic all this time and you've been using it behind my back?! That's cruel!"

"Wha—" he looked caught off guard by my accusation as he fired back, "What do you mean "behind your back?" How do you think I've managed to stay moderately clear through all the bloodbaths we've created?! I've eaten hundreds of fully grown bears in front of you, you know! Where did you think their blood went while I was halfway through with them?"

"Uh… I don't know," I said, once again growing red-faced as my inattentiveness was pointed out to me. "But, you could have mentioned it or something," I said as I kicked at a rock on the ground. "It's been weeks since I got the chance to clean myself up with a shower or a bath. It's not easy fighting with dust and dirt all over you from casting thousands of Earth Spells, you know..."

For a moment, I thought I saw his eye twitch and his expression shift into a horrified cringe, but then I blinked and he just looked at me impassively as he said, "Well, now you know, so uh… Once we leave after a couple weeks of training by the edge of the lake, we can arrange showers for you during your resting time."

"Great! Though, now that we're here..." I gave him a sideways look, "You don't mind watching my back while I take a dip in the lake before we get down to 'more training,' right?"

"N-no," He coughed, "Not at all."

Well, that was odd. But right now, I couldn't be bothered by thinking of his random eccentricities. There was a body of water calling out to me, whispering sweet nothings regarding the pleasures of being clean; of having clean clothes, too!

Forget modesty, there probably wasn't another person for hundreds of kilometers. So, I started throwing off articles of clothing as I ran over to the lake and dived in.

Cold!

I would have screamed had the last two weeks of my life not made the terribly frigid temperatures of the lake seem like heaven otherwise. Though, it was still terribly, terribly cold, so I called out to Nova, "Hey!"

He almost looked constipated as he looked right at me and asked, "What now?"

"Come over here, please!"

He nearly fell from the branch he had been perched on. He managed to catch himself, but it took a noticeably long time for him to fly and hover over where I was before he asked, "What do you want..." He looked remarkably uncomfortable for some reason.

"It's cold, so could you please warm up the water with a Fire Spell?"

His gaze threatened to pierce holes through my eyes as he stared grim-faced until eventually, he shook his head, helplessly smiling before his expression became mischievous.

Oh crap…

He charged up a Tier 4 Fireball Spell and chucked it right into the water next to me.

Boom!

The difference in temperature caused the collision of fire and water to explode into a wave of nearly boiling water which totally engulfed me. A split second was all it took for the water to go from ice-cold to scalding-hot.

Had I not been a Mage with superfluous Magic Resistance, Nova's 'prank' might have severely wounded me or outright killed me. But he'd seen me shrug off being electrocuted by Standard C Rank Monsters; he knew this much would just annoy me.

'Well screw him! Two can play at that game,' I would have snorted had I not been launched meters into the lake, where it was deep enough for me to find myself fully submerged.

I broke through to the surface and took a deep breath as I wiped the water from my eyes as well as the hair sticking to my face. Looking up, I found him laughing like what he'd done was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.

I narrowed my eyes as my Magic worked double-time to form earthen barrels from the bottom of the lake right up to the surface of the water next to me. A fraction of a second was all it took for my Magic to call for the earth at the bottom of the lake to rush up the barrel and displace the water therein, shooting it at Nova like a pressurized, if bootlegged, version of the Novice-level Waterball Spell.

"Gah!" Nova managed to keep his Transmission Spell up as he gagged from being hit by no less than five shots of water. "Ok, I kind of deserve that," he admitted, "but we should really stop now before we start attracting unwanted attention."

"Yeah? Well, you should have thought of that before starting a water-splashing fight with me," I turned my head up away from him.

"Yeah, yeah… Do you still want a warm bath, or whatever?"

"Are you going to be a jerk about it?"

"No..."

"Well, in that case, some warm water would be nice."

At that, he grumbled something incoherent before casting a Tier 3 Fire Augment Spell that carefully regulated the water around me to be, at most, only a few degrees higher than a person's normal internal temperature.

'Welp, I better appreciate this now while I have the chance,' I thought as I started scrubbing away at my skin. Knowing Nova, the moment I finished resting here, we'd be back at it, seeking out monsters to kill and resources for him to consume.

To a certain extent, I was kind of glad he decided to mess around for a bit with that Fireball he shot at the water next to me. It did well in getting me to relax, if only for a couple minutes.

Perhaps, that's why he did it in the first place.