“Oi! Yuu! Help me with this, bud,” a young boy, about the age of 16, walked up to him and slammed a piece of paper on the table.

“Why did you even come to school Leo if you are just going to sleep…” a girl who appeared slightly older than the boy made a snarky comment while she was writing on a sheet of paper at her desk.

“Oi! Jaleth! Let’s fight you old hag!” The person named Leo, who was talking to Yuu, shouted at her.

Yuu quickly intervened, talking in a slightly mono-toned voice, as if he was used to this, “Enough, enough. Why can’t you ask Barey? Isn’t he the one who studies the most for history among you four?”

Even though it has been a few days, he had managed to make friends with a couple of people in the class. The two people talking were actually the people who he had met in Basic Combat, one of the three brothers. Leo, being the one who despite not being blood-related to the other two brothers, had a hyper-loud personality. He could hardly stay in place and he could hardly stay quiet.

Twirling his blondish hair, Leo avoided eye contact while feeling a bit embarrassed, “Uh… that’s cause… I accidentally ruined his date, so Barey is pissed at me. But it ain’t my fault! I was just saying hi, I didn’t know he had a hot chick against his arms who he was trying to seduce!”

The woman who had spoken earlier made a “hmph!” sound. Her name was Jaleth, she had dark skin that was like milk chocolate and she had a feisty attitude. Despite that, she was actually kind and wanted to be a healer, alchemist, and a known scholar to help save and educate others. Speaking in a more demeaning tone than before, she hissed at him, “Out of you three brothers, I don’t get why he’s such a playboy.”

“Jaleth, didn’t you like him,” Yuu butted in as he heard of the relationship she and the three brothers had. She knew them for about 8 years, meeting them after moving to the city with her family. Even though she is an adult, she is actually a tiny bit older than the oldest brother, only a few months older.

Leo, the blonde non-blood related brother was the youngest, being 16 years old. Barey, the one who Leo was talking about was the second oldest. He recently turned 18, had a feminine appearance, making Yuu mistake him for a girl at first, had black hair, used a short-sword, and also dabbled in battle-support magic.

As for the last brother, Garey, he was approaching 19 years old and had a very polarizing appearance and roles. Compared to Barey, he was the tallest, had clear outlines of muscles poking out, used a longbow, and used more destructive magic. If it weren’t for their faces, you wouldn’t think they would be blood-related.

Going back to Jaleth’s relationship, Yuu had heard that many years ago, she had a crush on Barey, but after finding out that he was a major playboy as he would almost always bring home girls his age, and even recently, older woman, she had a huge disdain for him.

“You!!!” she stared at Yuu, wanting to say something but stayed quiet.

Giggling like a child, Leo laughed at her before feeling a threatening gaze, making him look the other way. He looked back towards Yuu before coming back to the paper, “Garey is also busy so I can’t ask him. So... “ trying to put on a cute face, he pointed towards at different sections, hoping Yuu would help. “I don’t understand this math thing. Also the history of the dark wolves, I don’t understand the reasoning. And-”

“Let’s take it slowly. I may still be in my mid-twenties but you are making me feel like an old man. Let’s just start with math, I don’t have much time so I’ll help cover that for you,” Yuu grabbed a rustic pencil nearby and scribbled some equations while guiding him through problems.

Even though it took some time, Yuu finally managed to get through that small lesson. Even though back on Earth he occasionally helped at an orphanage near his house, he couldn’t handle super energetic children. At first, it would be cute to watch them run around, in this case, seeing how Leo was enthusiastic about things, but it would slowly get annoying over time.

After teaching Leo, and even helping Jaleth as she had questions about math, he quickly left the building. Passing by a fruit stand that was still open he bought three apples. The sun was starting to set and he wanted to do a bit of work before falling asleep.

Opening the door to his room, he placed down his backpack and sat down on the uncomfortable bed. He felt a nudge against his leg and looked down to see Leah jumping and making a “Hrm!” sound.

He patted her head and gave her two apples while eating the remaining one that he bought.

After he finished he gave the leftovers to Leah as she could eat the core without much worry. Even though she apparently did have a tastebud, at least from her reactions, she didn’t really have much that she disliked. The only thing that she hated that he found out was heavily-salted food or anything incredibly dry like certain biscuits or crackers.

Either way, he decided to get comfortable before practicing a technique he learned for mana. Even though magic wasn’t like Qi from the novels, where a cultivator would just have a technique to meditate and absorb a billion gallons worth into their body, mana had an interesting system where through battle, or training, their body or spells would slowly reinforce itself.

This was similar to someone who wanted to start training by doing pushups, situps, and other exercises. Obviously, just training wasn’t a guaranteed way to improve, but even if one didn’t get an inch, it was better to see an inch ahead.

Though it was rough at first, he closed his eyes and started to have an easier time to feel the mana around him. He could feel that the control over putting mana around his body was smoother, especially when he applied a slightly heavy quantity. “Compared to yesterday, I can feel my muscles growing stronger as if I could breathe with my body. Seems like today’s battle really helped, though my arm and legs are really sore…” After thinking to himself, he opened his eyes and raised a hand.

Despite feeling stronger, he still had to keep pushing through since if he were to fight Garey in pure strength, he would undoubtedly lose. Luckily, even though almost all beings couldn’t absorb mana necessarily, they could use it to nurture their bodies in getting stronger and temporarily reinforcing it. But besides physical strength, he also needed to work on conjuring the mana around him to cast magic.

He still couldn’t successfully cast even the most basic healing spell that accelerated the healing process towards an injury. Even though it did accelerate the healing process, he couldn’t do much, and for Yuu, this would at most save a second. But that was under the pretense that he could keep the spell running.

Right now, he could hold the spell for about a minute before feeling his hand start to give out, and mentally, a headache starting to pound. And this was only in an extremely small range, barely able to help a small cut.

Though he definitely had progressed compared to a few days ago as he could hardly even detect the mana around him, nevertheless cast a spell. Though if he could improve the efficiency, the way he would battle would change immensely. Even if he was stuck with healing magic, he could potentially use it in battle, making him fight as if he was a barbarian, or to help teammates.

Thinking about teammates, he started to ponder on whether he should find one, or how he could even find one. While he did have Leah, the truth was that their combat abilities were still horrible. If they were more experienced or skilled, especially with Leah hardly having any lethal attacks, or Yuu having healing magic, it’d be best to have someone help them.

Luckily there was a recruitment board in the guild, but he would probably worry about that tomorrow or the day after. With the time he had left before he had to sleep, he kept casting the novice spell, keeping it up for about half a minute before letting it go, sometimes needing to take a breath, other times, trying to not get a headache.

While many would think of practicing magic as a simple field, it was like working out your body, it took a lot of effort, and a lot of pain. Though instead of physical pain, casting magic tended to be more exhausting to the mind, sometimes even permanently damaging one’s brain if they weren’t careful.

But even despite his brain slowly feeling like hell, Yuu kept persisting. He wanted to be able to cast wondrous spells, summoning fire from thin air, heal wounds in an instant, and more. The more he stayed in this world, the more he wanted to live a new life. He still desired his previous life, but he was conflicted.

Either way, the repetitive casting did not stop for another hour until he started to feel drowsy and a bit on edge. Deciding to stop and head to sleep, the spell disappeared into thin air. He almost hit his head against the wall before rebalancing himself. Even though he only did that for an hour, he felt clear improvements.