“First things first. Paulina, you use water ah magic, correct?” I asked my new pupil. I was already teag Alice to use telekinesis, so adding Paulina shouldn’t be a problem.

  “... yes, but does that matter?” Paulina asked.

  “No, not for telekinesis. But for these it does.” I said as I pulled out two cards from colle.

  Umiiruka and Gaia Power. I don’t think this is exactly necessary, but they should improve her affinity to those two attributes and make the spells of those attributes more powerful. Or perhaps easier to cast. Or more mana effit. I’m actually not sure and she is the perfect test subjebsp;

  “I’ll install these two cards into you. They should increase your affinity with the earth and water attributes. Are you fih that?” I asked.

  “You mean… you mean you influeneone’s attributes? Is that even possible?” Paulina asked.

  “Yes it is.” Alice said. “He did it to me.”

  “Alice? I did hear she learo use magic, but I just thought her attributes came in te or were weak.” Paulina said.

  “No. I only gained one because of Brian.” Alice said.

  “... I see. Then Brian, would you. Please.” Paulina turo me and asked.

  “Good. Let’s do it. You should probably either stay on your knees or sit down properly. The first install be a little intense.” I said.

  “The sed one is as well.” Aliented.

  “Well, at least the third isn’t as bad as the first two.” I added.

  “... umm, excuse me, but what do you mean by intense?” Paulina asked. She had shifted her position and was now sitting in seiza.

  “Didn’t you see the way the two of us reacted? When I install a card, a massive pulse of mana surges through your body, causing massive amounts of pleasure. And some pain as well. It be a bit intense.” I told her. “If you want to back out, now is the time.”

  “I… I … I still want it. I want you to teach me. Even if I have to gh something like that for it, I’ll do it.” Paulina said, determinatiourning to her eyes.

  “Good answer. Let’s do this.” I said as I walked up to her and held Gaia Power to her chest.

  When I installed Mystic Psma Zoo Alice, I thought you should not have any clothing on (or minimal clothing), but after Raregold Armor I learhat they don’t really matter. And I had firmed it with the other installs I’d done.

  “Install.”

  The card in my hand glowed before entering Paulina’s chest.

  “Aah.” As soon as it did, Pauli out a sexual moan. I also saw her waver a bit, so I took a light hold of her upper body with telekinesis. If I float her with it, I definitely help her stay upright.

  “Haa, haa.” After the install was pleted, Paulina was gasping for air.

  “Big sis? Are you feeling alright?” Alice asked the gasping Paulina.

  “I … I … yes. I think I am.” She answered.

  “Well, that’s good.” I said. “Are you ready for the sed one?”

  “... I think I need a few minutes before that.” Paulina said.

  “Sure. That’s fine. Alice, shall we test out Level Up?” I asked Alice.

  “Yes. Let’s.” She agreed.

  I used 2 toploaders1 of the 6 made in CH.144 already, so I only have four more left in stock. I know I have enough cards to get more, but at the same time, four Level Ups should be more than enough. I hope. At least for the tasting phase.

  (There is also level up siess to sider.) Laura reminded me. (Anything more than 5 levels in one day, and you will get at least some symptoms. Even 4 could lead to mild symptoms.)

  (Oh yeah. Thanks for the reminder.) I said back to her. I wouldn’t want to spend two days in a a again, so perhaps I should limit Level Up use to two copies per day. Or even one, depending on the results.

  Well, let’s just test it out first and make pns ter.

  (Laura, put a toploader on one of the Level Ups.)

  (Already done, Master.) Laura answered.

  (Thanks.) I said back to her as I pulled the card out of colle.

  Spoiler

  [colpse]

  I held it in my hand before activating it.

  “Level Up.” I said to activate it.

  After I did, I felt some power surge inside me, but pared to the installs, this is nothing.

  “... Did it work?” Alice asked.

  “Let me check.” I responded as I pulled open my status.

  Name: Brian WoodRace: Human !Level: 40HP: 990Mana: 118th: 305Defense: 525Magic: 375 Skills: Pack Opener LV.4 (uelekinesis LV.1 (extra)Summoner’s Unity LV.2 (extra)Dungeon Founder (extra)Summon Water Spirit (extra)Health scious (extra) Mana trol LV.2Shining Taunt LV.1 Water Spirit’s Blessing (Greater)Language prehension (humanoid)

  Yeap. Seems to have worked. I leveled up twice. Mana trol also leveled up. Did the card also cause that?

  (No. That was your will to use telekinesis to lift a person. It required mana trol at a level you didn’t have and your skill leveled up.) Laura expined.

  … so that happened. Good to know.

  (You shouldn’t rely on it. You were already close to level two mana trol. You just made the st push to level up the skill. Just your will alone will not normally level up a skill.) Laura added.

  (Well, that’s fine. I have a card for that, right?) I joked.

  (Assuming it works that way as well.) Laura said.

  “It succeeded. My level increased by two.” I said to Alice.

  “Yes! Me ! Please.” Alice said.

  “Sure. Just let me get it out.” I said as I traded the now grayed out Level Up with a fresh ohat Laura had pced a toploader onto. “Level Up.” I activated it, targeting Alice.

  As I did, I saw a soft shining light around Alice. Did that appear around me as well?

  “Status.” I heard Alice say after the glow subsided. “Yes. I leveled up. Use another on me.”

  “No, let’s not. Just in case of level up siess.” I said back.

  “Oh. Yeah. Better not then. But I think four levels wouldn’t give level up siess.” Alice said.

  “Still, better safe than si bed.” I said. “But oher hand, I think I will use a sed one on you. Just in a different way.”

  “What way?” Alice asked.

  “Well, you have things other than your status with a level, right?” I asked.

  “... do I?” Alice wondered.

  “Take another look at your status.” I told her. “Do you know what that LV at the end of your skills stands for?”

  “For level, right?” Alice said. “... does that mean? that card also?”

  “I think so.” I answered. “But there is an easy way to find out.” I said as I pulled out the third toploader copy of Level Up. “I want to increase the level of my Mana trol skill. Level Up.” I said to activate the third copy.

  I don’t know if that was actually necessary, but it might increase the ce of leveling the skill instead of myself.

  After I felt the cards effed, I opened my status again.

  Name: Brian WoodRace: Human !Level: 40HP: 990Mana: 123th: 305Defense: 525Magic: 385 Skills: Pack Opener LV.4 (uelekinesis LV.1 (extra)Summoner’s Unity LV.2 (extra)Dungeon Founder (extra)Summon Water Spirit (extra)Health scious (extra) Mana trol LV.3Shining Taunt LV.1 Water Spirit’s Blessing (Greater)Language prehension (humanoid)

  So… it worked. The skill level increased. By one. Perhaps it takes more to level up a skill and the card only do one level.

  “It succeeded. My mana trol leveled up once.” I told Alice.

  “... then, you use one on me?” Alice asked.

  “Sure. What skill do you want?” I asked.

  “Magi’s power. The new skill I got.” She answered.

  “Sure. Let’s do it.” I said as I traded the third copy of Level Up for the fourth. This is the st one I have a toploader for. Well, at the moment. “I want to increase the level of Alice’s Magi’s power. Level Up.”

  After the activation, a soft glow once again surrounded Alice.

  After it subsided, Alice again said “status” to see the results.

  “It worked. My skill leveled up.” Alice said.

  “By one level? Or two?” I asked.

  “Just one.” She answered.

  “Could you show me?” I asked.

  “Yes. Status open.” Alice said. She really is too easy going about revealiatus. I should probably tell her not to. She is getting some rare skills.

  Name: Alice WatRace: HumanLevel: 13HP: 210Mana: 81th: 105Defense: 135Magic: 585 Skills: Card Summoner LV.1 (extra)Magi’s Power LV.2 (extra) Dark Magic LV.2Mana trol LV.5 Magic Boost LV.3Quick Cast LV.2Fast Mana Recovery LV.3

  Good. Both her overall level and her skill level in Magi’s power did increase. Nice.

  Now, bay other pupil.

  “Paulina, are you ready for the sed one?” I asked.

  “... I think so. It was a lot, but I take it.” She answered.

  “Good.” I said as I walked up to her and held Umiiruka to her chest. “Install.”

  The card, once again, turo light aered into her chest.

  “Did your status ge at all?” I asked Paulina after she recovered from the sed install.

  “Yes. My water magic rose one level, but nothing happened with earth magic.” She answered.

  “I see. Well, you should probably test both of them. And pay attention to things like how much mana you use and how powerful the spell is.” I told her.

  “As you wish, teacher.” Paulina said.

  “... please don’t call me that. Just Brian is fine.” I said.

  Paulina then proceeded to use a few spells of both water ah attributes, like earth trol, stone spear, aqua stream and water trol. She seemed to get the most surprised the first time she used aqua stream, as the amount of water that the spell made seemed to be quite rge.

  “I think my spells are more mana effit now.” Paulina said. “I think I’m putting in the same amount of mana as I did before, but the effects are noticeably greater.”

  “I see. So that’s the effect that increasing affinity has. Good to know.” Perhaps I should install Umiiruka into Lua as well. You know, so her water magic gets a power boost. Actually, perhaps just normal Umi would do that as well. But I’m not sure. And if I use Lua as a test subject, I’ll o ask for permission first. Paulina already agreed to be a test subject, so I might try Umi on her one day.

  “Does this mean I’m ready to learn telekinesis?” Paulina asked.

  “No idea. But possibly. Now it's time to train for that.” I said.

  “trolling mana outside your body? Without a spell? Is that even possible?” Paulina wondered.

  “It is. I do it. A bit.” Alice said.

  “Let’s just show her.” I said to Alice.

  “Yes. I start.” Alice said.

  She came up to me a a small mana pulse from her right hand towards my left. I then caught it, took it i flow through my body a it back from my right hand. And I have to say, with level 3 mana trol, this was so much easier than before. I probably could do it entirely on my own, without Laura.

  (You know you don’t have to. I’ll always help you with anything.) Laura said.

  I know you will. I know.

  “... what are you doing?” Paulina asked.

  “A mana loop. You know what that is, right?” I told her.

  “Of course, but you aren’t even toug.” Paulina said.

  “Well, it wouldly be training to move mana outside your body if we were.” I said.

  “... so, you send mana bad forth without toug?” Paulina asked.

  “Yep. e join us.” I said.

  “... I? I’m not sure I do that.” Paulina said.

  “I’m sure you’ll learn soon. It didn’t take Alice that long to figure out how to do it.” I said.

  “Yes. I’ll at least try.” Paulina said.

  “No. Do, or do not. There is no try.” I said to her, quoting a line from a movie.

  “... what does that mean? How I do something if I don’t try to do it?” Paulina asked.

  “... Well, I’m actually not pletely sure. It’s something that was said to me.” I lied. “I think it means something like, if you only try, you don’t actually think you do it.” I expined.

  “Ah. I think I get it. Then I’ll do it.” Paulina said.

  I took out the two travel pelts from my fanny pad used them as cushions for us to sit on and made a circle. Alice was on my right and Paulina on my left. I decided on this order as catg the mana pulse is more difficult than sending it, so I took the position of receiving the mana pulse from Paulina, who was o this.

  At first, we were all holding hands, but with time, I seperated my arm from Alice’s and Alice separated hers from Paulina’s.

  Paulina was able to take in Alice’s, but she was hesitating in removing her hand from mine.

  “You have to do it. Don’t hesitate. I’ll catana for sure.” I said to Paulina. Holy, this entire exercise was basically pying hot potato with mana.

  “I’ll …. I’ll do it now.” Paulina said, aggressively pulling her hand away from mine.

  I was expeg for a mana pulse to e, but nothing happened.

  “... did you send it?” I asked.

  “... I … I think I did. Did you not receive it?” Paulina asked carefully.

  “No, sorry. Let’s go again.”

  This is how the practice tinued.

  “Good. I got it now.” I said after around the fifteenth time we had tried.

  We had actually ged the trainihod a bit. I cut Alice out of our loop entirely and asked her to train with Mana instead. Paulina was surprised to see Alice summoning something and even more surprised to see a human summoned, but I told her to focus oask at hand.

  But her focus was not oraining and that is why I think it took so many tries to get the remote loop going.

  “Now, let’s keep this up for a few minutes.” I said to Paulina.

  While Paulina did learn how to do the remote loop, it still took her some amount of tration. Every time she turned her head to che Alid Mana, the loop would be cut off. I think the fact that I was able to look at Alid Mana while keeping the loop was also infuriating her. Of course that part took some Laura hay part. Even if I do the loop by myself, I have to focus on it.

  “I think that is enough for the day.” I said, cutting off the loop.

  “I … I see. Thank you.” Paulina said.

  “From now on, you should practice like that at least for a bit every day. Your first goal is to be able to do that loop with minimal tration and minimal mana loss.” I told her. “Once you try telekinesis, there are another 100 things to focus on, so you have to be able to not focus on your mana trol when you do it.”

  “I … Yes. I’ll do my best.” Paulina said.

  We watched Alice sling some spells around. I also saw for the first time the new spell Alice learned before we eve Alewatch. Dark wave. I’m ly sure what it does as it didn’t seem to do any direct damage to the targets, so it’s probably some sort of status effect or something. Now she has met the dition that I set for her to get the bck pendant, so I should probably hand it over to her.

  After Alice was done, we left the training grounds.