Chapter 180: Serena’s Training III
Chapter 180: Serena’s Training III
"You sit down on that one." Adrian pointed at the second magic circle right in front of him.
Serena walked over and awkwardly sat down on the steel sheet.
"Now, the core process is incredibly similar to what we just did." Adrian explained. "But what you need to do now is slightly different. This specific magic circle will automatically attack your mana veins for you. So you can just focus one hundred percent of your energy on purely healing and repairing those cracks."
He tapped the runes on the steel plate.
"You do not have to focus on circulating your mana outside of your body anymore." Adrian added. "And this controlled environment will give you a lot more stability. It is probably much safer to use this method until you actually get used to the pain."
He looked up at her. "Tell me once you get used to the baseline pain, and I will manually increase the magical output of the magic circles."
Serena responded with a not and Adrian dug into his dungeon and pulled out two mana crystals. He placed them directly into the center of the steel plate, locking them onto a smaller, centralized runic circle.
"Get ready." Adrian warned her.
The grooves of the magic circles instantly started glowing with a blue light.
Adrian closed his eyes and started meditating. He did the exact same process that Serena was doing. He let the array aggressively attack his sturdy D rank mana veins, cracking the pathways while he hyper focused on repairing the damage.
Serena did the exact same thing on her own plate.
They continued the silent, agonizing training for exactly one hour.
But then Adrian’s stomach let out a loud growl.
Adrian snapped his eyes open. He quickly leaned forward and grabbed the glowing mana crystals from the center of the plate.
The exact second he pulled the power source away, the magic circles immediately stopped working. The blue light died out.
Serena opened her eyes and looked up at him in confusion.
"Sorry." Adrian chuckled awkwardly. "I completely forgot that you were starving. And I just made you train even harder while you were incredibly hungry."
"No, no, that is fine!" Serena insisted quickly. "You said you wanted to prioritize this training. I really do not mind skipping a meal or two."
"No." Adrian shook his head firmly. "A healthy stomach equals a healthy mind. And we must eat if we want to survive this torture."
He looked around the empty basement.
"There is no need to go upstairs and grab food from the kitchens, or get the servants to deliver us something." Adrian said. "I already have something that we can eat right now. But I hope you do not mind eating the cheap rations that regular soldiers usually eat."
"No, that is perfectly fine." Serena smiled softly. "As long as it gives me the energy to keep going, I will eat anything you make."
Adrian nodded.
He reached into his spatial storage and pulled out a few pieces of hardtack and a few thick slabs of dry pemmican.
"Well, these are the rations that I sort of stole from the enemy a few months ago when I participated in a war." Adrian explained casually. "And they are still perfectly good to eat."
He pulled a heavy iron pot out of his ring. He dumped some fresh water inside along with a handful of salt and just tapped a small heating rune on the bottom to get it boiling. The pot was basically just a deeper version of the magic pan Aria built for him.
He grabbed the dry pemmican next. He smashed the preserved meat and fat down into a gross paste and threw it right into the bubbling water. And he did the exact same thing to the hardtack. He crushed the rock hard thing into a fine powder and dumped it into the water to thicken the broth.
While the thick, sludgy stew boiled over the heat, he took out a few more solid pieces of hardtack and pemmican.
He tossed a brick of pemmican over to Serena and kept the second one for himself.
He took a massive bite of the meat while they waited. Then he tried to bite straight into a hardtack biscuit, only to realize that it was ridiculously solid. He actually managed to snap a chunk off with his teeth and he could technically chew the thing. But he hated the feeling of chewing on something this hard.
He didn’t like hard things in his mouth.
Once the iron pot finally came to a rolling boil, Adrian grabbed two large wooden bowls. He poured the thick gruel into the bowls and handed a portion over to Serena.
This time, Adrian did not crush the hardtack into powder. He just cracked the tough biscuits into big jagged chunks and dumped them straight into the bowl.
He bit into the pemmican and washed it down with the gruel . Then he fished out the pieces of hardtack now that they were finally soaked and soft.
Serena sat quietly on the stone and just copied him.
They finished the meal a few minutes later, wiped their mouths clean and got right back to work.
"Okay." Adrian said. "Now let’s go right back to training."
Adrian walked back over to his magic circle. But he just let out a frustrated sigh the second he sat back down.
’I really thought this whole cooking setup would be faster.’ Adrian thought, annoyed. ’But making this basic thing took almost ten minutes. Ten minutes of cooking is not really worth it for this.’
It was an incredibly simple meal. It had a good amount of salt, and it honestly tasted pretty decent for war rations. Because he absolutely hated the mushy and sludgy texture of that boiled hardtack.
’I definitely need to find something else to cook next time.’ Adrian planned in his head. ’Something that is even simpler and faster to cook. At least for the next time we do this.’
He pushed the thoughts about food aside and placed the mana crystals back onto the steel plate.
The runes lit up, and the two of them went right back to their training.