They rushed back, but Mrs. Roberts didn't let them enter her class. They were lucky enough that she didn't give them a warning or sent them to detention despite being known for her strictness. After her class was over, they entered the classroom and went on with their school day normally.

Midway through the afternoon classes, Luke suddenly realized he was feeling well. Way too well.

His headache was gone.

Once again, the answer was his phoenix heart. He should've thought about it before. Phoenixes were magical creatures and both their magic limits and magic-related regeneration were better than usual.

Since ancient times on Earth, the heart was considered by many cultures the center of decision making. Though the physical heart wasn't related to one's thoughts, it still had some connection to it. Even Luke's memories didn't have knowledge about how that relationship worked, but his phoenix heart was definitely improving how fast he could recover from willpower fatigue.

That went against some system rules in his memories though.

To begin with, his physical recovery came from his hybrid race, and it should only affect a single aspect of his. That could be explained by it being just a different kind of recovery, but close enough that it was still considered, well, recovery, and thus still applied. That felt a bit far-fetched though, as it didn't happen to any other hybrid race he knew of.

Another explanation could be that it was a direct effect of his heart as an item, not his hybrid race—which was one of the effects of his heart. That, however, would mean the Check Item function of the system wasn't working. It was supposed to tell everything about an item, and it explained about his perfect memory but said nothing about fatigue.

He even double-checked it just to make sure.

Eternal Phoenix's Heart

Rank: Perfect

Type: Physical Enhancement

The heart of an Eternal Phoenix.

Unlike the Myriad subspecies of phoenixes, the Eternal subspecies doesn't revive in the past upon death, but focuses on living forever. Phoenixes' stats are better than normal, and due to its focus on the future, the Eternal Phoenix's stats are better than other phoenixes.

Like all phoenixes, it has perfect memory. However, in its eternal life, it has learned the value of selecting what to remember. It can forget anything at will, and nothing can make it forget anything unless it wants to.

Upon being bound to someone, it'll replace their heart.

If the host is not a phoenix, they'll become a phoenix-hybrid.

Indeed, it was just as he remembered—which wasn't a surprise, considering he had perfect memory.

His only theory was to what was happening was that the system rules had changed now that it was getting rid of the demonic influence over itself. He just added it to the list of mysteries about the system.

Either way, a faster recovery would increase his mana channels' building speed by leaps and bounds. In fact, he would start right now. The class was going slow at best, so he pretended to read from the book while hiding his eyes. He then closed his eyes and focused.

Yesterday, his mana channel had reached the place where his mana core would be built. Today, he would work on the core itself.

A mana core was a hollow sphere the size of a baby's fist. He had to create it from the middle because he didn't want to remove parts of his soul to create space. Just like he had done with his drill, he was pushing the substance which souls were made of out of the way rather than removing it.

Souls healed too, but it was much slower than the body. As such, just by pushing some mana through his channel everyday, he would already prevent the healing from happening.

As he kept building the core—a process that now involved expanding the hole there rather than drilling, and was much less painful—he estimated it would take him about three to four days to finish.

Luke kept at it for ten minutes, then paid attention to the class for another ten minutes. That would keep him from getting either willpower fatigue or an F in the final exams. The rest of the classes went like that.

Eventually, the last bell rung and it was time to leave. Luke went to his locker and was putting his things there when Akira asked, "Aren't you going to study at home?"

"Oh," he said surprised. "I can do that now, can't I?" He took everything with him, though he didn't actually need it with his perfect memory. It just felt like a small victory over Jackson to do it because he could.

The limousine was waiting for them at the exit. The trip to the Akira house went without a hitch. Once there, Luke found tea and biscuits waiting for them.

Having that much food to eat all the time was amazing.

"Kells—" Akira started, but Luke interrupted her.

"Luke," he said, surprising himself a bit with his courage.

"What?"

"Call me Luke, please. We're friends, aren't we?"

That was a bit of a leap, but not a huge one. He had decided to trust her with a big secret, after all, even if he hadn't revealed everything yet. At the very least, they were more than mere acquaintances and should treat each other at a first name basis.

She seemed to agree. "Then call me Sakura, please." She blushed slightly at that.

Her reaction wasn't strange. From what he knew, in Japanese culture, calling someone by the first name was much more special than in the US, especially between a boy and a girl that had met at high school. It made him even happier that she would let him do so, though she was certainly just adapting to US culture rather than it having any sort of special meaning.

"Luke, can I ask for a favor?" She looked very torn about it.

"Of course. That's what friends are for." He felt a little like an idiot repeating it, but it had been so long that it felt wonderful to have a friend.

"Could you..." She took a deep breath. "...train me?"

Luke raised an eyebrow. "Train you? In what?"

She fidget with her hands. Asking for help was clearly hard for her. "Fighting. I was always praised as a genius martial artist, but you're much better than me. I want to learn."

"Oh. Of course, I can do that. I'm not sure how good of a teacher I am though. As you know, I never received formal education."

"Even sparring will help," she said quickly, like an overly willing child.

Luke nodded. "That's true. From what I saw, you're good, you just lack real combat experience. My guess is that you've only fought other martial artists in competitions."

She nodded too. "Yes."

"We can do it in an hour, then." Fighting on a full stomach was a terrible idea.

"Thank you." She bowed with her head. "My elder has also asked me to inform you that the clothes in your room's wardrobe are a gift, and that your grandfather has ordered you to accept them."

Luke could only give an awkward smile to that. He didn't even know where his old clothes or his grandpa's old armchair had ended up. Not that losing the old things would be an issue. He could only accept the gift.

After the tea, he checked on the twenty brand-new sets of clothes, plus two school uniforms. They were all of not overly expensive, yet high quality brands. He was also surprised and pleased to find a kimono with a black belt there.

He put the kimono on and went back to building his mana core until it was time to fight.

Luke's bedroom had a brand new digital clock on the bedside table. His lateness for breakfast that day had been noted and someone was telling him not to do it again. Rather than being annoyed by it, Luke was thankful. That reminded him of his broken wrist watch. He took it off and left it beside the clock.

When it was time, he went to the dojo in his new kimono. Sakura was already waiting for him there. They bowed respectful to each other.

Then came a massacre under the guise of a lesson.

Luke had a lot of knowledge, but no teaching skill. He could only explain things to Sakura by showing it to her, which was okay, but he also could only correct her by either touching her or countering her movements in a spar.

The touching had been very awkward at first. She was way too beautiful for his feeble eternal phoenix's heart to deal with. What was a divine beast's heart in front of outstanding beauty?

After a very awkward moment where he had to correct her posture by touching her leg very close to her butt, he resorted to giving her small half-touches, half-pushes with his fingertips instead. That made him feel like much less of a creep for abusing the lesson to touch her. He hadn't done that yet, but he couldn't deny he had felt good when he touched her, so if he kept doing it he would be acting like a pervert. His new approach to it fixed that.

The massacre itself happened when he had to show her why she couldn't do one thing or another the way she was doing it. He broke through her movements like a truck. It didn't hurt too much, but he made sure to capitalize painfully on her mistakes during spars. His memories told him that pain would be the best way for her to remember her mistakes.

It still made him feel bad to do it to her. The only reason he kept going was because she seemed grateful for it every time it happened.

She was a genius martial artist, after all.

Her genius also showed in how fast she understood and used what he taught her. It was astounding. After a single lesson, she was already showing noticeable, if minor improvements.

After a couple hours, they finished the lesson when both were on the ground, breathing haggardly. Sakura had suffered more, but she was also much fitter than him. Which reminded him that he had to train his body too.

"I'll stay at school to lift some weights tomorrow," he said. Their school had a gym too. "This body is too weak."

She laughed a bit. "If you're weak, what am I?"

'The most beautiful girl in school,' he thought, but said nothing.

She stood up and offered her hand to help him to his feet too. "Come, I'll show you something." He took her hand—it was soft and warm—and she led him back to the main building. Soon, they were climbing downstairs to the basement.

It was dark there, but she turned the lights on and Luke's jaw dropped.

They were in a fully fledged gym.

"The elder keeps his body fit in here," Sakura said. "He's very protective of it, but he said you can train here if you want."

Luke couldn't take his eyes off the state-of-art equipment. Arms and legs, core and stamina, he could train everything there. It was even better than the school's gym.

"Thank you," he said.

"I can spot for you, if you want."

"Thank you," he repeated with a smile. "I'll take your offer. I'll change my clothes and come right back."

"Me too," she said.

Soon, Luke was back wearing sweatpants, sweatshirt, and sneakers. His wardrobe had modern tight workout clothes, but he felt uncomfortable showing his body. When he arrived, that proved to be the right decision because Sakura was wearing clothes similar to his, except hers was white rather than black.

And that's when he realized his memories were lacking. He knew how to fight, how to analyze other people's strength, and even how to cripple or kill other people, but he had no idea how to build a workout plan. Or rather, he knew how to do it with mana-enhanced equipment in the tower, but they were nothing like what he saw in front of him.

The system evaluated each bodily muscle separately and only increased a stat once the average of them all was one level higher than the current stat level. Luke, for instance, had 5 points of strength. Only when the average of all his muscles reached 6 would the system increase his stat. It would then put all his muscles at least at 6, as it had done when his strength increased to 5.

So, he could either train a muscle or a muscle group to the extreme or train multiple muscles for the average to increase. The latter was much easier than the former. The stronger a muscle, the harder to train it, so training multiple weaker parts of his body was much easier.

Therefore, he needed a workout plan.

If he were planning on working out yesterday, he would've searched the internet for information on how to best use the equipment he didn't recognize. But he didn't need to do that anymore, did he?

He had a friend now.

"By any chance, do you have any idea what I should do to build some strength, agility, and endurance?" he asked.

"Yes," Sakura replied. "There's paper and pen here." She walked toward atable that was to the side. "Do you want to build muscle too?"

"Isn't that strength?" Luke asked, surprised.

She shook her head. "The training done to gain strength is different of the one to grow muscle. If you decide to focus on strength, you'll get bigger muscles anyway, but they won't grow as fast and won't be as big as they would be if you focused on growth. Likewise, if you focus on muscle growth, you'll get stronger too, but not as fast as if you focused on it. Is getting bigger muscles your aim?"

"No." As nice as it would be to get muscles, he didn't care much about it. Like she had said, training his stats would give him some muscles anyway. He could worry about looking good after he maxed his stats. "I want strength, agility, and endurance."

"I hear a hint of RPG attributes in the way you're speaking. By endurance you mean you want to last longer while doing physical activities, right?" He nodded. "And agility is speed?"

"Speed, motor skills, reaction speed, and elasticity to a smaller degree."

She nodded. "Got it." They reached the table. She sat, took paper and pen from a drawer. "I'm not a professional, but I think I can do that." She started writing. "We'll do a six-day week with a rest day. Upper body training Mondays and Thursdays, lower body Tuesdays and Fridays, and motor skills Wednesdays and Saturdays. Your endurance will increase naturally as you keep practicing everything, but I'll also include running on Mondays and Fridays."

He watched her work. She didn't just write down the exercise he had to do, but also the equipment number—only then did he see they were numbered—and the muscles he would be working out.

"Today is Wednesday," she said after she was done. "It's motor coordination day. Let's go." She stood up.