The rest of the day was more of the same, with Noel talking about this or that adding in the occasional question to try and get to know Owari. Meanwhile he spent the entire time listening patiently while meditating, answering her questions quite smoothly showing he really was paying attention. They made two stops over the day, both to allow the driver to change, though it was also used as a rest stop to take care of various things. One thing that Noel made sure they stopped for was so she could get washed somewhere and change. Although she wasn't all that bothered by it, she knew that cleanliness was important to one's health, and it would also be a bit improper to show up to her new home as a representative for her family while looking like she hadn't cleaned herself in weeks.

Owari didn't normally bother with that stuff, he changed his clothes and rinsed his face, but otherwise didn't do anything else. Noel had rented out a room at a hotel in some town along the way just for a wash, and although she offered to let Owari use the shower after her, he declined. He wasn't actually all that dirty really, since he meditated and slowed his metabolism the normal odors one would produce over a few days didn't really come off him and he only needed to clean the grime from the fighting which was easy as a lot of it was stuck to his Haori which he folded up and kept close to clean later.

Noel had changed out of her combat uniform, unfortunately it was damaged so she would need to have it fixed up a bit. Instead she wore a fairly long yellow sundress with white tights and a big straw hat that Owari had no idea where it had been kept before this. She also had a pair of long gloves on, and most of her skin was covered up and under the shade of her hat. She looked quite a bit frailer without the thick combat attire that was designed for sturdiness and protection. However Owari was well aware that she could tear a steel beam apart with her bare hands so he didn't really pay it much mind. Seeing her dressed up more in line with what one expected a young lady from a well-known family didn't really affect Owari's mentality much.

However he still thought about a few things, and after a short consideration he chose to speak up when he saw her entering the car in her new outfit. "You look quite nice in that, you can be both cute and cool looking huh? Impressive." Owari spoke his mind honestly, though his words were mostly just praising and had no real ulterior motive to them. Of course having interacted with her so much he had given her a close look, however he wasn't really ready to consider anything more than admiration after his previous experience with relationships.

Noel however was overjoyed to hear his appraisal nonetheless, even though she could tell he was merely admiring her appearance and not actively pursuing her it definitely made her a bit more hopeful since she now confirmed he was attracted to her at least a little. "I will gratefully accept the praise. Personally, I'm not as big a fan of such outfits as they make me look small and frail. However I do like that they are light and easy to move in when compared to my heavier clothing which can grate on my skin if I don't change out and clean them often."

"It's all a matter of preference after all. My mother was a clothier and made most of the clothing in my home town so I had a certain appreciation for this stuff beat into me over my life. Although I prefer rather bland clothing that is mostly because of practicality and because it's cheaper. Everyone has certain styles that fit them for different occasions." Owari might have no real fashion sense in terms of himself, but he wasn't totally fashion dead.

"That's certainly a surprise. I didn't think you would have any interest in this type of thing." Noel had heard him mention his mother worked with clothes a few times as they spoke, but he hadn't mentioned much about his own clothing interests.

"I don't have an interest, but my mother made me learn. Though to be fair learning to sew was quite good, it helped me to practice patience and helped me practice with my fingers. I poked myself more times than I can count, but I can hold a needle steady enough to balance a thread on it. As for my actual ability to sew it's barely worth mentioning, but it was definitely helpful as I got a lot of practice with my hands." Owari hadn't really thought about it as training at the time, but it had definitely helped him somewhat with his hands.

"I suppose that would make sense. It's hard to imagine learning such an ordinary skill would help one be a better fighter in any way, but there is a lot of overlap in muscle groups so it really should help. After all the human body only has so many different parts so it would be odd if there was no overlap at all." Noel had naturally picked up a little of Owari's views in regard to the body and how it worked in a general sense.

"That's pretty much how it is with many ordinary skills most people overlook. Do you know how to dance?" Owari suddenly seemed to ask this out of nowhere.

While Noel had an idea why he brought it up she humored him out of curiosity to see where he took it. "I do, I was taught many styles of dance by my mother and aunts. They were quite strict about it as well." She added the end a bit bitterly.

"Dancing is just a type of fancy footwork that teaches you how to maintain balance and coordinate your legs while finding and moving in certain rhythms." Owari already figured she knew what he meant, but pointing it out would open the topic up to more discussion.

"That's true, there are even some martial arts that use dancing directly in their fighting style. Sword dancers for instance." She easily accepted his reasoning, though he took a more objective standpoint. She had thought more along these lines where one incorporates dance moves into their fighting styles, but Owari had seen it more as a method of training. "Do you know how to dance?" She asked offhandedly, as if as an afterthought.

"I do." When he said this his tone was a bit odd, and Noel was a bit surprised as she detected some bitterness in it. However the type of bitterness was different from her own which came from the painstaking effort and difficulty. Not to mention his concise answer despite having just been so talkative.

"Is something the matter?" She asked uncertainty, as this was the first time she had seen him express such a negative emotion so openly since meeting him. Owari was a lot like Lance and was very go with the flow, however he was more calm and silent and preferred just watching the happenings instead of getting involved.

Owari thought for a few moments before shrugging. "I had originally learned because a friend of mine I grew up with once told me when we were young that I had to learn. She told me that if I didn't then she wouldn't agree to marry me since I wouldn't be able to dance with her at the wedding." He had moved on from all that to some extent, so he didn't hide it.

When Noel heard this she was very startled. After all the implication was that he had someone he was pursuing, but after calming herself and thinking about it she realized that things obviously hadn't turned out well considering his tone. "Did you have many friends back home?" Although she didn't want to dredge up bad memories, she was a bit curious about his life back in his hometown. He had mentioned a few things here or there but never went into detail about it.

"Not really. I had two neighbors who were the same age. We grew up together and were basically inseparable. However as we grew up we all changed a lot and grew apart. I'm sure you've guessed by now but I'm not exactly the picture of charisma, I didn't really have any friends but them. Before I left some stuff happened and I decided we had all just grown too distant and were no longer compatible, so we cut ties and went our separate ways." He said this with a rather flat tone and didn't seem to have any opinion on the matter one way or the other.

"It must have been quite lonely not having too many friends who shared your interests." Noel let loose a sigh as she reminisced on her own childhood locked away and interacting with only a few people. Most of the people her age she had met when she was already a teenager.

"It doesn't really matter. The past is over with already anyway. At least for now I don't feel so lonely." Owari just chuckled as he watched Noel's reaction. He figured she might not have had it much easier then him in regards to making friends, but for very different reasons.

"What do you mean by that?" She suddenly snapped back to the present and asked for clarification, however her only response was a slight smile from Owari who seemed content to leave her stewing in her own curiosity. She was a bit surprised by this teasing side of him, so she wasn't sure what to say.

"You should share some stuff about yourself now, it's only fair after all." Owari went out of his way to ask about her, something he had done little of outside of fighting stuff. Although she couldn't get what he had said before out of her mind completely, his sudden interest did cause her to be distracted.

Soon enough Noel started to talk about her childhood and her family, doing her best not to make her family look too bad considering some of the harsher aspects of her childhood that she knew were done with her future and well-being in mind. She had a lot of good memories as well that she could share, so she tried to focus on those. Among which was how she had learned the violin. Having an affinity for sound allowed her to have a certain appreciation for art which most might not. Because of that she actually knew how to play a great number of instruments. However her favorite was the violin, there were a few reasons for this.

Mostly she liked how it fit in her arms, not to mention how she could learn it even when she was little and weak, and that she could play more vigorous music as she grew stronger giving her a longer time with the instrument then many others. She also described the noise it gave off as being pleasant on the skin, which Owari didn't quite understand other than that she seemed to have the ability to feel the vibrations of some noises with her skin, and that she especially liked the noises the violin made.

She shared stories similar to this over the next few hours, and unlike before where Owari listened with his eyes closed he left them open as he watched her talking. Though his eyes were noticeably distant, he wasn't just starring in one direction pretending to be looking. Since this concerned her personal life and fondest memories, Owari didn't want to just passively listen. He split off a bit of extra attention to watch her and ask a question here or there. It was definitely a bit draining on him as were any interactions with people were, but he didn't hate it. In fact he quite enjoyed it and found the entire experience pleasant. Eventually she started to run out of stories and started to change between various subjects as they came to mind.

Owari went back to closing his eyes to focus on his meditation, but he started to speak up a bit more on his own initiative afterward. He figured he couldn't just stay antisocial his whole life so he took this as a learning experience and tried to get a better idea of how to interact with others. It helped that Noel seemed to be a natural talker and never seemed to run out of things to talk about which gave him a lot to work with.

Eventually she started to get tired again, and just like the day before she didn't really seem to be interested in bringing it up and kept talking until she passed out. Owari skillfully dodged her leg this time as she swung it up onto the seat before moving over to another seat and throwing the blanket over her. He continued his meditation with renewed focus after that. He had noticed that despite the fact that he wasn't as focused as usual, he could still lower his needs by a large margin. So long as he spent the time Noel sleeps meditating seriously he would be able to forgo sleep still which he liked. This meant his meditation had improved greatly over this last week which put him in a good mood.

His sensitivity to mana also increased a bit and he could now sense some of the minute differences in mana between locations that he hadn't felt before. Because of this he was sure that the massive dip in mana by that hive mind was very unusual. He knew that magical beasts could consume mana in ways similar to how humans meditate, however that was quite the massive amount of mana to consume. Since he didn't have enough information about the hive mind or it's overall forces he couldn't make any guesses. For all he knew, that group of simulacrums that attacked the train was only one small contingent of the hive minds total forces. He would need to look into it more when he got to the city, after all hive minds were rare so he hadn't thought to research them too deeply before.

The next few hours came and went as Owari considered his future plans and reflected on his recent discoveries and integrated them into new training plans. Eventually Noel stopped snoring indicating she had woken up and a few moments later she had managed to make herself presentable enough to speak up to Owari once again. He was then able to confirm she likely had no idea how much of a sloppy sleeper she was. Since she didn't really seem to think Owari would notice she had awoken she probably didn't know she snored pretty much constantly. As for Owari, he was a very neat sleeper even when he did sleep. Because of his training which was about maintaining control over his various muscle groups and breathing, he apparently laid completely still while he slept save for his chest rising and falling. His mother had mentioned it once because apparently his father had been the same which didn't surprise him. Owari had taken his father's advice in regards to his training so they would naturally have similar habits born from that training.

The two did more of the same today as they had the previous two days, however around noon Owari suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Noel stopped talking and looked over curiously at his sudden change. Inside his hand was a palm-sized ball of silvery silk. At this point she recalled Owari mentioning that he had a ghost eye moth magical beast, and seeing it still was in a cocoon she figured it was about to hatch. Soon it started to shake as if to confirm her thoughts. As for Owari, he had sensed it hatching through the bond he had with it. It still lacked a sense of self, but it had suddenly indicated a desire for food and to escape which he had guessed was an indicator that it would hatch soon. The silk ball didn't get torn open or anything, instead it started to come loose at a few points before suddenly unraveling completely and turning into a pile of silk that covered the moth. It poked it's head out from between some of the silk and looked up at Owari. It had a very bulgy head, and it's eyes on either of its body were grey. It shook lightly and spread its wings causing the silk on it to scatter onto Owari's palm and showing it's full body. With its wings fully unraveled it was the size of his entire hand, and it’s body was taking up half his palm. However Owari knew it would get bigger in time, it was after all a magical beast born from among the largest species of moth, though he wasn't sure which one specifically.

"It looks kinda cute." Noel spoke up as she had also been observing it, she looked at it with curiosity and interest, not at all grossed out by it.

"That wasn't my first thought but I guess I can see it." Owari thought Noel was showing both how girly and not girly she was with that observation.

"What is it doing?" She raised her eyebrows as the moth started to gather up the silk around it and stuffing its face with it.

"It's hungry so it's eating. Silk is filled with a lot of nutrients, and most magical beast moths and butterflies have developed special silk that stores extra nutrition for when they complete their transition so they don't have to immediately go hunt after they wake up. After all trying to find food while starving is quite difficult, especially in the wild where magical beasts and even ordinary animals could easily kill them." Owari discussed these things as he carefully studied the moth to see what kinds of mutations it had.

"Huh, I never really thought of that. I don't really know much about moth's actually." Noel easily admitted this gap in her knowledge, after all judging by Owari's knowledge about magical beasts in general and his interest in this one specifically she hoped he'd be able to give her a lesson or two on it. She didn't really realize how much she neglected studying magical beasts in general until she had discussed some of what she did know with Owari.

"They really are quite interesting. For one they are one of the masters of mimicry. A lot of moth type magical beasts have developed camouflage type abilities. Some have even copied the abilities of more powerful magical beasts over time. On top of that the number of affinities within the moth families are more than almost any other type of magical beast since they are very adaptable and take on affinities to better suit their surroundings. Another interesting fact about them is that about 80% of silk on the market is made from moth type magical beasts who maintained their silk-producing organs after transitioning. The last 20% or so is by spider types, though their silk is usually stronger it is harder to tame spiders for various reasons." Owari was quite knowledgeable about magical beasts, but when it came to moths he was on a whole other level.

"I never really thought about the whole silk thing. Does your moth have the ability to make silk still?" Owari's enthusiasm about the subject seemed to be infectious as she quickly grew more and more interested.

"Unfortunately no, the ghost eye moth loses its silk-producing abilities during its transformation. However it's silk is a bit special so it wouldn't matter if it kept it. The silk produced by ghost eye caterpillars is infused with mana that causes it to feel very unnatural and grates on the nerves if you touch it or look at it for too long. The reason you didn't feel anything a moment ago was that it had run out of mana and was about to hatch." Owari felt it was for the best it didn't make silk, after all he didn't want to trade in silk, he wanted to be a hunter. As for why it would have strange silk, it was a defense mechanism to frighten off predators who discovered it.

"That's a shame, it looked quite pretty. I'm sure it would have sold well. Do you know what the strongest moth type magical beast is?" She didn't dwell on the silk thing long, she wasn't much of a fashion person anyway so it was merely a passing interest.

"That is a trick question. In reality moth's don't rely on strength and use tricks to survive instead. Some of them have high power such as the phoenix wing moth which has slowly evolved over generations to mimic a phoenix and have powerful fire abilities and vitality. But even then they could only be considered a low gold level magical beast. But one good thing about moth's is that in theory you can easily find one with a decent affinity that you want. The strength of their affinities are above average so they can be good starter magical beasts for mystic arts practitioners." Owari felt such questions were loaded, after all strength is subjective. Some people might say the ability to hide from anything is strong, while others might see that as being cowardly and weak.

"I guess that makes sense, but if they are so good then why don't people use them more?" Noel couldn't help but be a bit doubtful about this seeing as how she hadn't heard of this despite coming from a mystic arts focused family.

"Because most people find them ugly and gross due to their appearance." Owari just smiled as he said this, he personally felt they were quite cute so he couldn't understand other people being so afraid of them. However he didn't actually care if other people were willing to look past their bias for their own benefit. For him he was just glad that he didn't have such biases.

"Oh. That's disappointing." Noel however seemed quite let down by this reason. After a moment of thought she realized how likely this was and couldn't help but be disappointed.

The two continued to discuss moth type magical beasts, and Noel was quite surprised to hear that a number of them had sound and kinetic affinities. Even though she had inborn affinities, the more you have the better it is. The more affinity you have the more profound the mystic arts you can both use and create since you have a better understanding of the aspect in question. Though even if moth's shared affinities with Noel it wasn't a guarantee they would help much. Even though she had affinity both for sound and kinetic energy, it wasn't as simple as that. In reality she could just have an affinity for motion or vibrations and has mistaken it for two separate affinities, or has chosen to develop her mystic art with those specific affinities. There are actually an infinite combination of affinities that could exist, the world wasn't such a simple place that you could define it so easily.

Each affinity could be said to represent some aspect of reality, and so the idea that there was some setlist or limit was laughable. It was just that humanity had a habit of trying to define and understand things so they gave names and classifications to different aspects in the hopes of making it easier to teach and learn about. One affinity could overlap with numerous others, for instance the storm affinity included thunder, lightning, some weather, and a bit of sound. However it focused on how these come together to form a thunderstorm and so it is weaker in many ways then any of those affinities. But the ice affinity is both water and cold, and because of that it is stronger than both in some aspects but weaker in others. It was all about which of the different aspects blended together and how. Not to mention some aspects even had mutations, such as ghost fire which has the properties of fire but also has the strange ability to disorient and confuse the senses. But it doesn't fall into multiple aspects, just fire which just complicated the entire system further.

Owari didn't envy the people who tried to classify and understand affinities. In fact such people were typically seen as madmen and left to their own devices. However nobody would ignore them or neglect them, even if their work is an exercise in futility the work they actually manage to accomplish is helpful in many ways. Owari was someone who had studied affinity to some degree, as it was basically a branch of magical beast studies and the two are interconnected in many ways. Because of that he was aware of how confusing and impossible it was to understand the whole system, but he also knew the benefits of having such understanding as it would allow you to know what were and were not good affinities and what was and wasn't fitting for your fighting style.

For instance earth type affinities would be a poor fit for Owari since they focused on blunt force, but metal affinities which are similar switch blunt force with sharpness and are infinitely more suited to a swordsman. This is only the basics of affinity as well, and Owari had a keen interest in learning about the more complex and in-depth affinities. Unlike Noel he was born without a natural affinity so it was important to choose an affinity to search for later on that fit him instead of developing a mystic art from scratch using his inherent talents.

While they talked and thought of various things, Owari had spent his time inspecting his moth. Noel noticed that he was quite distracted and mistook it for his excitement for having successfully tamed a magic beast. While it was true that he was excited, what had really got his attention was the mutations it actually had. Normal ghost eye moths had the ability to see mana and auras. They were able to visually make out mana which would allow them to see the density of mana in an area and locate otherwise hidden things since they could observe the mana within one's body. Aura is a bit more difficult to describe though, it was something like a representation of yourself. If you could read one's aura well enough you could in theory understand everything about them. Aura is also related to the sixth sense one feels when you are being watched, and the ability to see aura in ghost eye moths was just a very powerful increase in that sixth sense.

However their aura reading isn't all that impressive. A person's aura comes in many layers, and the ghost eye moth can only see the first layer, and more specifically just the part of that layer that shows how aggressive one is. For instance it would allow them to notice when a bird is about to swoop in and attack them, not to notice when a bird may be totally unaware of their presence. What Owari found about his moth was that these two sensory abilities had mutated and instead of seeing mana and aura, it could actually feel them within a space around it. Even though moths had good fields of view there were still gaps. But now that it could detect mana and aura regardless of sight, it would be much better for him. He had chosen this species for it's sensory abilities after all. There was also an added benefit as it had enhanced both senses as well, it had a finer mana sensing ability and it could even read hostility from ones aura which would prove to be very helpful.

There was another thing he had noticed which had slightly surprised him. His moth had an affinity. Ghost eye moths were said to have no real affinity, however Owari didn't fully take stock in that belief. They proved they had an affinity simply with the special mana infused silk they produced. It was just that humans couldn't benefit from the affinity because it was too weak. However the mutation this moth received seemed to have boosted it's natural abilities to a new level, and so it's affinity had developed somewhat. Owari did his best to detect and understand this affinity but it was quite difficult. The affinity was fleeting and hard to describe making it too difficult to pin down and figure out. However this wasn't because the affinity was too weak, though that did have an effect, it was because whatever it was these were just it's natural properties. For now Owari decided to call it the phantom affinity because it was as difficult to pin down as a phantom and was just out of reach. He also just happened to like the name which he felt was cool. He wasn't sure what he would do with the affinity, but before anything he'd have to study it more. After all he hadn't really heard of an affinity like it and he wasn't sure whether it fit his fighting style. More research would be required.