The weekend finally arrived, and Nero had 4 hours in which he could do whatever he wanted. After that, it would be right back to training, though on the weekends it was considerably lighter.
After all, he would not get any aether rich food on the weekend. He chose to spend his first free hour just laying in bed. Although he was used to intense training, that did not mean he was immune to the fatigue of nonstop training! The past week had been simultaneously extremely long, and extremely quick for him.
It was long because while training, whether it was with his innate ability or his spear, he was tremendously aware of each moment. It was similar to how time seemed to slow down when someone untrained performed a plank. At the same time, it was incredibly fast because Nero had absolutely no time to think.
He was completely focused on his training. When he wasn't doing either physical or innate ability training, he was studying with Ms. Zim. He barely got any time to see his friends, and while Gabriel would fill him in on any information he needed at night, that was usually a very quick conversation because Nero did not want to sacrifice his sleep.
Nero thought that he'd be able to take the training in stride, but now he had to admit that it was… tougher than he anticipated. He was not about to quit, however. He was just going to rest a bit and allow himself to do nothing for a while.
After all, even though he had only been training for a week, he had felt his growth. Eating aether rich foods was somehow speeding up his absorption of his innate card. Now if he could only get around to making Radix Augmentation his cultivation speed would immediately increase - which is exactly what he had planned for the weekend.
Or, more specifically, he was planning on increasing his knowledge about card crafting, and looking into procuring the ingredients.
Someone knocked on his door, and Nero groaned as he climbed down from bed. His body was sore, and though he had been getting massages and treatments to accelerate his healing process, no aether cards were used. Natural recovery was always best in these things.
He opened the door to the sight of Silas wearing a backpack and smiling excitedly.
"I'm glad you could make it. Welcome, come in."
"Of course, how could I miss this opportunity? No one has ever asked me to tutor them before, and especially not someone who has such strong ties with a sage.
Nero groaned once more. That was one of the rumours flying around school - that he was the sage's illegitimate child. He didn't have time to deal with such things.
"You're a little early, but I don't mind. We can get started," Nero said as he made space in his room, but then noticed that Silas was still awkwardly standing at the door.
"You see, the thing is, Vanessa also asked me to tutor her. Do you think… would you mind if I taught both of you at the same time?"
"Sure, where are we going? I doubt she can come to the boys hostel."
"School library. She should be there waiting for us."
"Excellent. Let me get changed first."
Nero took out his school uniform and walked to the bathroom to change. After the vine incident, Nero had lost almost all of his belongings. Everything had been burned to avoid any possible seeds left. That meant Nero only had a number of uniforms to choose from, not that he was complaining.
"By the way, can you arrange for this stuff? I've looked up the prices online, and everything should fit in around 200 Krims. I'll give you the cash as well," Nero said, as he handed Silas a list he had already prepared. There were well over 30 ingredients listed down, of which only a few were required for Radix Augmentation. He'd have Silas buy a few, and he'd already asked Ms.
Zim for a few, which she had already delivered. Tomorrow, he was going to make his first attempt at crafting the card. He expected to fail completely, but failure would let him know where he was lacking.
Silas was in a chipper mood, which made him stand out considering the mood of the city. But, for him personally, things had been going great. They hadn't seen a single vine back at the mansion, and after Nero came on the news, his father silently allowed him to continue their friendship.
What's more, Silas had received a special invitation to apply for an artisan college. He was pretty sure his family had arranged for it, but even so it felt nice to be recognised. Then after that, his two closest friends asked him for tuition!
On a weekend the school should have been deserted, but that was not the case today. With the upcoming recruitment, almost everyone was preparing to enter the tournament. Even if they didn't get selected for KMA, getting a good ranking would boost their application for normal college.
Besides, for whatever reason, the schools were spending even more resources on the students to help them improve than normal. Hardly anyone would give up such an opportunity.
The library in their school was not too large, but it had a number of private study rooms that students could book for study sessions, which is where Vanessa was waiting for them. Nero hadn't seen her in a while, and was surprised to discover that she had cut her hair short. It was… quite random, even if it did set her face better.
"Hey Vanessa, nice haircut," Nero said as he pulled out a chair beside her.
"Thanks, though the intention behind it is more functional than for fashion. Long, untied hair can be a real hassle in a combat situation."
"Talking about the vines?" Nero asked.
"Yeah. It was… well, I haven't experienced something like that before. It was quite revealing. Not only is long hair a greater liability, since people can grab it, but they just get everywhere!"
She was lacking her usual energetic spark, considering that she hadn't tried to make fun of Nero yet. She seemed to be displaying the appropriate reaction to a sudden traumatic event, from suddenly changing a significant thing about herself, even if it was just her hair length, to being more distracted and less focused.
Nero wondered if she was just that good of a spy, or if his original assumption had just been wrong.
Silas, as the tutor, sat opposite to them and pulled out a number of notebooks.
"Alright, for this first class, we're going to cover some basics, after which we're going to put what we learnt into practice. We're going to start with the base of cards…"
Although Nero was generally a very studious student, he could not compete with someone who had been solely focusing on one subject in particular his whole life. While Silas did reach the level of eloquence as Ms. Zim, he still knew what he was talking about. Moreover, Nero had more control over the lesson plan, as Silas would move the lecture in the direction of whatever question he asked.
The problem with creating Radix Augmentation was not that the recipe was complex, but that preparing each component was a complicated process. Once the actual components were properly prepared, crafting the card would be easy - relatively speaking.
The class proved to be extremely fruitful, and Silas had brought a number of ingredients on his own so that the two of them could try their hand at card making.
In fact, he prepared the necessary ingredients for a fairly simple illusion card called Summon Light Orb, and their task for the day was to actually craft a card using them.
Nero had to admit, the process was a fair bit more complex that he anticipated. Even after he layered all the ingredients correctly, when he actually tried to fuse them together to form the card, he failed miserably.
The ingredients were fried and began to give off smoke.
It was only now that he was doing it himself that he got a sense for what an achievement it was for Silas to craft a card before he even became a Neophyte. While in other aspects he might be lacking, but in card crafting he was practically a prodigy.
The only thing that allowed him to save face was the fact that Vanessa was equally terrible at fusing the card. But Silas had brought enough sets for them to try multiple times, and gave them tips and guidance each time they failed.
In the end, the class came to an end when they ran out of ingredients. While Vanessa seemed somewhat disappointed in her own performance, Nero was already thinking ahead of how he could continue to practise.
But such thoughts would have to wait until the next time he was free. His weekend free time was about to end, and he could practically feel Footer waiting with anticipation to continue classes.