Chapter 11: Magic Artifact
Leo woke up the following morning with aching pain all over his body, especially around the shoulder and arms.
“Good morning, Leo.” Lilith greeted him the moment he opened his eyes.
“Ah… I haven’t been this sore since I first started working out…” He mumbled in a painful voice.
“It might hurt, but if you don’t wake up soon, you will be late for school.” Lilith said.
“What? What time is it right now?”
“Seven on the dot.”
Leo sighed. After spending a few seconds to resolve himself, he got off the bed and went to wash his face.
Five minutes later, he got dressed and left the dorm.
“Did you know that you like to sleep talk?” Lilith suddenly asked him as he made his way towards his homeroom.
“Really? What was I saying?” Leo was curious.
“You were dreaming about using magic, right? You were shouting ‘Black Bullet!’ and ‘Black Flame!’ out loud throughout the whole night.” Lilith chuckled at him.
Sometime later, Leo arrived at his classroom three minutes before homeroom started.
“Good morning, Leo!” His classmates greeted him with bright smiles the moment he walked through the door.
“Good morning, everybody.” Leo greeted them back with a stiff smile, which felt really awkward since he’s never had to return his classmates’ greetings in his old world.
“Did you sleep well last night, Leo?” One of the students asked him.
“Yes, I slept like a log.” He nodded.
“Good for you. I know I won’t be able to sleep properly knowing that I will be fighting Kayn in a month.”
‘Damn it, why must you bring up such an unpleasant topic so early in the morning?’ Leo cried inwardly.
“You’re fighting Kayn in a month? What a surprise. You don’t strike me as the fighting type.” Lilith said after hearing about his challenge with Kayn for the first time.
“I know you’re talented, but even with your talent, you’ll need to practice hard if you want to defeat someone like Kayn in a month. He’s someone with over 15 years of experience with magic and combat while you just started yesterday.”
“I had no choice. I will have to fight him whether I accept his challenge or not. The only difference is when I have to fight him. If I refused, he would’ve fought me there and then.” Leo sighed in a low voice.
“Don’t worry. As long as you have me as your teacher, you will be able to defeat Kayn in a month!” Lilith said in a confident manner.
‘Even though you’re teaching me magic and I cannot use magic in public?’ Leo shook his head inwardly.
After homeroom, Professor Jasmine started their first class.
“Leo, can you solve this?” Jasmine picked Leo for their first question of the day.
“I can.”
Leo stood up and walked to the board.
He returned to his seat a few moments later after leaving behind a perfect answer on the board.
‘As I thought… His performance yesterday wasn’t just a fluke! He’s somehow turned smart!’ Jasmine cheered inside her heart.
Despite not being smart in class before, Leo still managed to become her favorite student. Now that he’s smart, her impression of him increased several folds!
Time passed very quickly, and before Leo realized, it was already time to go home.
“The weekend starts tomorrow. If you’re planning on leaving the school premises, make sure to notify the school and check out at the school entrance. Have fun.” Jasmine said to the students before leaving the classroom.
“What are you going to do for the weekends, Leo?” The students asked him.
“You wanna hang out? I know a great place near our academy.”
“Sorry, but I already have plans with Miss Camille.” Leo said to them with an apologetic smile.
“Huh? The school nurse? Why?”
“She’s in charge of my recovery,” Leo gave them a random but understandable excuse.
“And I also have to prepare for my fight with Kayn.”
“I see… Then we’ll bother you another time. Good luck, Leo!” The students no longer bothered him.
Leo did not linger in the classroom and immediately headed for the training center, where Miss Camille was waiting.
“How do you feel?” Miss Camille asked him.
“Sore.”
“Good. That means you’re growing.”
Leo followed her to a private training room shortly after.
“Since we trained your upper body yesterday, we’ll train your lower body today. I want you to sprint around the room until you cannot lift your legs anymore. This will help you quickly gain more endurance.”
“I understand.” Leo said without complaining.
“Before you start, wear these around your wrists and ankles.”
Miss Camille handed him four metallic green bracelets.
“What are these?” He asked.
“They’re F-Grade magic artifacts that will boost your endurance and stamina, allowing you to train for longer.”
“Isn’t this cheating? I am artificially boosting my stamina, after all.”
“No, it’s not. It’s a hassle explaining it, so I won’t bother. However, I will say that this is a very common training method used by everyone that can afford these artifacts.”
“How much do they cost?” Leo asked out of curiosity.
“20,000 dollars each.” Miss Camille casually said.
“What?! So I am going to train with 80,000 dollars on me?! If I trip and accidentally break them during training, you better not expect me to pay for them!”
“I won’t. The school has plenty of them, anyways.”
“That’s not the issue here…” Leo sighed.
As someone who was born in a common household, 80,000 dollars is a huge amount of money that would take him years of working and saving to collect, yet he will be wearing equipment worth that much just for training. It was simply incomprehensible.
“If you don’t want to use them and make things harder on yourself, by all means.” Miss Camille said as she gestured for him to return the artifacts.
“W-Who said anything about not using them?” Leo quickly wore all four artifacts, one on each limb, and he started running laps around the room at full speed.
An hour later, Leo was surprised to see that he was still running without running out of breath.
Normally, he would run out of breath after a few minutes of sprinting at his full speed, yet he was able to run an entire hour without much trouble.
‘These magic artifacts are amazing! I feel like I can run around the world as long as I have them on me!’ Leo became even more motivated to train with these new toys.
After sprinting for another two hours, Leo finally collapsed on the floor when he exhausted all of his stamina.
“Three hours, huh? Not bad for your first time.” Miss Camille approached him.
She proceeded to retrieve something from her spatial storage and placed it on the floor before Leo.
“What is this?” He asked her after seeing the item, which was a clear glass bottle with about three ounces of green liquid inside.
“It’s a stamina potion. It will increase your stamina recovery rate. You should be back to full energy in 15 minutes after drinking it.” Miss Camille explained.
“My god! This world is amazing! No wonder why everyone is so strong! As long as I have this stamina potion, I can train all day and not run out of energy!”
However, Miss Camille shook her head and said, “Your body is too weak right now, so you’ll only be able to drink one of these every 12 hours.”
“Even so, that’s still three extra hours of work out every day!” Leo immediately drank the stamina potion and waited for his stamina to recover.
Fifteen minutes later, he was back to running laps around the room for another three hours.
Meanwhile, Miss Camille resumed reading her book near the door while she waited for him to finish.