"Sorry about forgetting to buy you clothes of your own while I was out," Adam tells me as I pull on the dark green tunic he'd handed me. "Back in the clans, we never really had to go buy stuff, we just provided it when needed, and I was on my own up until now. We're about the same size, so my stuff fits you. I hope that's not a problem. If it is, we can stop by the shop and buy you outfits of your own before we leave town."

I fix the belt around my waist before actually looking at Adam.

"You do realize that your tail has betrayed you, right?" I ask.

Adam looks at his tail, which began moving around happily as I began pulling on 'his' clothes. He fully intended on buying clothes for 'him' and then letting me borrow them again. It bothers me in absolutely no way that we're sharing outfits.

"Oh," he looks at me. "Well, I guess that settles things."

Snorting, I grab him and pull him against me for a kiss, using a little tongue for it.

"Let's head out," I say.

"Yeah."

We turn the key in at the front desk, then leave the town through the eastern gate. As we exit, Adam returns the bracelet he had to wear. Now that I'm thinking about it, I actually find it rather amazing the bracelet was able to withstand the speeds he was moving at and the sheer forces that must have been put upon it while he was fighting in the Dungeon. The visa bracelets for the species with restricted stays in the town must be made of something strong or enchanted for it.

Actually, they probably have to be in order to avoid having someone just break it off.

For the next couple of hours, we walk along the path mostly in silence, passing by farm after farm. There are others on this road, some with carriages, some riding horses, and others just walking, like us.

Adam explains after the group of five riding horses that horses are rare enough that usually only the wealthy have them. The animals pulling the wagons are shorter, thicker, and seem to resemble a cross between a horse and a cow, though they all have the antlers of deer. While they're good for pulling wagons and carts, they're not so great for riding on.

If someone doesn't have a horse or can't get a ride on a wagon or cart, they're probably walking between towns.

After we pass the last of the farms and have walked on the path through fields for awhile, I decide to see where we're going. Even if the actual location means nothing to me, I'm still a bit curious about our destination.

"To Finlar," Adam answers.

"Finlar?" I ask.

"Yeah," he answers. "It's a village of Otterkin situated on a river. The town is located to the north, in an area that's mostly scattered Beastkin villages and towns. A quieter, slower-paced region without very many attractions. Finlar has its own Tier I Dungeon."

"How far is it?" I ask.

"If we travel at a steady pace," he says. "We'll probably reach there in around two weeks. The only tavern we'll come across on the way will be tonight, though they don't serve Demihumans."

"So we'll be sleeping outside?"

"Will that bother you?"

"No," I answer. "Do we have stuff for sleeping on the ground?"

"I usually just take off my clothes and sleep," he tells me. "Though I know softer species usually need something more than that."

"I'll use you, then," I say, and his tail starts swishing a little. "I was thinking of training my magic a bit during the trip, Adam. Would it be a problem for me to do it as we walk, or should I only do so while we're resting?"

"Up to you," he answers. "I can handle probably anything that comes at us, so if you don't care about using up all of your Mana, go ahead and do that. Or you can use up only half just in case, and if we do get into a fight with something, I'll leave it to you if you can handle it and get good Experience. Sound good?"

"It does," I nod. "I should probably add to my spell repertoire, too. Since the barrier to learning them is much lower for me, I can probably do a few and get my skill with them in combat up decently before we arrive."

"You can," Adam nods. "I really only know fire magics outside of [Magic Bolt] and my enhancements and dragon-type Skills. You can learn whatever you want to, though. The main part of creating magic is visualization. Know what you want it to do, keep that in your mind's eye, and then just… make it happen."

"Yet this is difficult for most people?" I ask.

"Yeah," he answers. "Some people have a higher innate affinity for it. You having [Unlimited Potential] means you probably already had a decent affinity for before that bonus kicked in, and that bonus is helping you further. It means that even if you're screwing up, you'll make progress anyway. Part of the reason people struggle isn't the visualization part, it's the part where they get their magic to do it."

"Oh."

Since Adam uses fire magics, I decide to make that my next spell, but before I do, I have a serious question to ask.

"[Magic Bolt] forms right in front of my hand," I say. "How will-"

"Your own magic will not harm you," he explains before I can finish asking. "As long as the light is still yours, you will not be blinded by it. As long as the sleep effect is still yours, you will not pass out from it. As long as the fire is still yours, it will not burn you."

"Oh!" I say. "So it's not a passive resistance to fire that protects you from burning when you clean yourself with fire magic, it's an innate trait of magic itself!"

"Yeah," he gives me an amused look. "And I do have an innate resistance to heat on top of my decent Constitution. It actually makes it harder to acquire [Heat Resistance], though once I do, it'll be properly assessed to its right value. I'm also resistant to the cold as well."

"How do you acquire a Resistance Skill?" I ask. "Considering how difficult most Skills are to obtain, I'm guessing it's more than just putting yourself in the freezing cold?"

"Yeah," he chuckles. "Exposing yourself to the extremes of it without succumbing to them is basically it. So repeated exposure to high heat can earn you [Heat Resistance], repeated exposure to stronger poisons can earn you [Poison Resistance], constant exposure to extreme pain can build up [Pain Resistance], and so on."

"Couldn't you get [Poison Resistance]," I say. "Using smaller doses as well?"

"Yeah," he nods. "It's one of the only ones that can be earned without going to the extremes. The sort of extreme normally needed is the kind that is very easily lethal, and it has to actually affect you."

"So a higher Constitution can make it difficult, too," I say.

"Correct."

I summon a [Magic Bolt] above my right palm, focusing on it as we continue walking. Something Adam said gave me an idea, but I'm going to try to raise this up another Level by decreasing its cost some more. Following his suggestion, I only use up half of my Mana during this, and that takes me a little more than ten minutes to recover.

The fact that it takes me seven sessions to decrease the cost down to 1.5 Mana per standard [Magic Bolt] is quite telling for how difficult it would be without [Unlimited Potential]. Adam confirmed that the values he gave me before regarding Experience actually do hold to similar for normal people.

I spent about 150 Mana on improving this. If we say that I have a 5% bonus to learning all magic naturally due to my affinity for magic, which is considered extremely high for a human, then it would have probably taken a normal person with the same natural bonus almost a day of constant casting and regeneration. Then factor in that I was basing that off of my Affinity, and it would probably take even longer. Same with someone with a more normal bonus to learning magic, or none at all.

Most people wouldn't do nothing but cast and work on the same spell as soon as they reach full Mana nonstop. In fact, it would be extremely difficult to considering the need for sleep. There's also the fact that I can't just pick up right where I left off after recovering but take a little bit of time to return to that state. That's added Mana that gets wasted during the start of each attempt.

What a mage would probably acquire after several weeks or months, I did in less than two hours. Not much more than an hour, really.

If I were in Adam's boots, I'd want someone like me on the team, too.

Now that I've reduced the cost for [Magic Bolt] a little again, and therefore its small cost to sustain the spell rather than shoot it, I get to work on the next part.

Visualizing someone falling asleep, I try to weave that aspect into the spell. While I might not be able to kill something with a single [Magic Bolt] at the moment, a fight might go a little bit easier if I knock it out with a single attack. Beginning work on this spell now will prove useful for me once I'm actually needed in a fight more as well.

So I continue working on this spell, trying to weave my impression of someone sleeping into it. Not just sleeping, though. I pull up a mental image of one the older boys my dad had with his harem, Nick. He's fifteen and has the same platinum-blond hair as me, though his eyes are blue instead of green. Over the last couple of years, he's begun helping me out more and more, and when he first started, it wore him out a fair bit.

I pull up a memory of him nodding off, his head slowly dropping, then jerking back up as he attempted to force himself to stay awake as he worked on his homework. A memory where his eyes began to droop as he ate dinner, his movements slowing with his exhaustion.

It takes me another hour, but I finally find success, the bolt within my powers turning lilac.

Skill Acquired: [Sleep Bolt]

The bounty that awaits me now. This is a Tier II spell according to its location within my Spellbook, which means that working on it will be more difficult for me than on [Magic Bolt]. My [Mana Manipulation] Skill and my Affinity will both probably increase faster when working on this. At least, that's the hope.

It costs 3 Mana to cast at its current state, and I can probably reduce it a little using my knowledge from [Magic Bolt]. The spells are different enough that I'll probably only manage one or two Levels for it with that, though.

Looking at Adam's back, an idea comes to me. It probably won't actually knock him out, but it would still be fun to hit him with the spell.

"Don't," Adam says.

"You're walking in front of me!" I exclaim. "How did you even know I was going to do something?"

"I can sense and smell magic," he snorts. "I noticed the moment you turned it into [Sleep Bolt]. I could also sense its general location and noticed you'd aimed it at me."

"You can sense how magic is aimed?"

"Within a range," he confirms. "And the less excess Mana it has, the harder it becomes. This is a more advanced version of [Mana Sense] and [Magic Sense]. I already have an advantage over you in that due to my dragon side. Most mages would likely spend a decade or five to reach this point. You can probably manage it sooner, but not within a month or two."

"You're going to help me though, right?"

"Yeah," he answers. "But it will take practice of lesser sensing first."

"Alright," I say.

"[Magic Bolt]," he slows and starts walking beside me. "Is a spell that improves beyond just Mana efficiency by increasing the force of the magic within it. You're taking a shortcut to a degree by not focusing on the force of the magic, but how much Mana you can put into it. If you train it by strengthening the force it delivers rather than how much it holds, it will become even more powerful for the same amount of Mana."

That was something I'd been wondering about, but wasn't sure of how to manage to raise that. Everything I think of just involves putting more Mana into the spell.

"How do I do that?" I ask.

"Visualization," he answers. "Visualize a stronger force. With your ability to sense Mana and Magic, you'll eventually be able to actually tell the individual aspects of the spell's structure. Once you do, you'll be able to soar to new heights even faster. A proper mage who learns how to differentiate the parts of a spell through sensing its Mana and Magic can often strengthen its core aspect several Levels within a few months. Pretty much every mage Ranker has done this as part of their preparation for the Rank-Up Trial."

In other words, it's possible for normal people to quickly Level some Skills even without affinities. Despite this, things are still tough for people? Is something more at work here?

"The spell's core aspect is force," I cancel my [Sleep Bolt]. "So visualize force into the spell to strengthen this aspect?"

"Yes," he nods. "It can be something as simple as a punch, or a hammer striking. It could be a beast charging at full speed. The core is all that matters."

"Okay," I nod. "And for [Sleep Bolt], it would be a visualization of sleeping?"

"Correct," he confirms. "Let's move off the road, it's time for lunch."

"Did you buy food before we left?" I ask as we step into the semi-tall grasses of the fields.

"No," he answers. "It wouldn't keep for the journey, but we have plenty of fields here, and where there are fields, there is usually food. I'll be back in a minute."

Adam charges forward at a high speed, causing the grasses to part around him. I decide to flatten a section of it a little bit to sit down on and wait for his return. When he does, he's carrying four rabbits with grey-brown fur.

"Lunch time!"

Adam uses his magic to cook the rabbits, then we dig into them. They have a slightly nutty flavor, which is surprising. It's not bad, but it could use with some extra flavoring. As we travel, I'll try to see if I can find herbs and other things to spice up our meals a bit. If all we're eating is going to be meat, then we're not eating well.

After we finish lunch, Adam relaxes for a few minutes, basking in the sun. I spend a little bit working on [Sleep Bolt], then we resume our journey. Hopefully, we do get a little bit of excitement on this journey – but not the bad kind.

Otherwise, it's going to be an extremely boring journey. A journey that takes two weeks or so is fine and all, but there's definitely only so much Adam and I can talk about to pass the time and I know he's going to avoid telling me stories about his home. Maybe I can get him to tell me stories from the clans? Fables and such?

Well, maybe in a bit. I think I'm close to Leveling this for the first time.