A week had gone by, and Derb had spent most of the time training, barely even talking to his housemates. “Dumb… sword… should have… asked for a... dagger.” Derb was attacking a tree-like it slandered his mother. While he finally got good enough to swing it without his ass meeting the floor he was still swinging without any grace, not unlike a toddler playing baseball. He Stopped for a second, the orb in his chest was refilled. “Connor, charge me.” His now named imp complied, sending a stream of purple energy shooting directly into Derb’s back. His teacher had talked about how naming the imp would raise its potential, since it would raise its strength compared to that of an unnamed imp. Unlike Derb, who only had to sit down and meditate, demons could only raise their power by establishing their place of power over others. Only once a demon had defeated enough powerful people and monsters in combat would they rank up. Derb was thankful he was human, they could technically grow faster than humans if they battled regularly but Derb didn’t think many of them would ever make it that long.

While resting Derb felt his muscle slowly start to go numb and then bulge, an effect that came with the orb filling him with strength. He realized a long time ago that the burning of his mana from the orb was because he was doing a two-man job. His summon was supposed to supply the energy while Derb needed to compress it into his body. The process made it simpler and longer since Derb barely had to use anything compared to his imp. It was still Derb who bottomed out his mana first, however. The imp was at the top choices of lesser demons, which meant it was quite useful, stronger than Derb currently at least. Derb set the sword gingerly against the ruined tree before the spell wore off. As he sat down he felt the strength leave his body, making him groan in pain and displeasure. He’d been doing this for an hour now, it was about time he went to his teacher to help fix him up. Asking his little imp to help him up he set towards the house. He was well inside the forest, he didn’t want to make the scenery around his teacher’s house look ugly after all. Fortunately, the barrier his teacher set up reached far into the forest, enough for Derb to not feel scared about checking his surroundings. His imp floated under Derb’s shoulder arm in arm. “Connor I swear if you hit me with your nails I’m sending you back to the void.” He didn’t know if his imp could understand him or just followed orders but at least it nodded and reacted to derb. Something he needed after so much lonely training.

Once Derb got home he collapsed on one of the comfy chairs. “Doctor! I need a doctor...” Derb dramatically said, clutching his chest with a hand. Nobody came though, and it confused him. He didn’t see his teacher leave the house yet, and Tiffany and Hannah were probably still during their lesson. So the teacher should have been here to guide them. “There’s our little test subject.” Derb looked up from contemplation to see the trio in front of him. “Tiffany, put what I taught you to good use and heal his injuries.” The old man couldn’t help but smile when he saw the anxiousness on Derb’s face “Do you really… is that safe? I’m not gonna blow up am I?” Tiffany was the one to get mad at this. “Do you think I’m a child? Master spent all this month teaching me this spell, he says I’m ready.” Derb couldn’t help but not trust the teacher’s words. Hannah also spoke up “master is tired of treating your wounds every day, he thought to use you as training for Hannah as a load off his back.” Derb sighed and relaxed into his chair. “That didn’t answer my question, but whatever. Please do it soon Tiff. My arms feel like they’re falling off.” Teacher was here so he wasn’t worried about her screwing it up. She neared, now suddenly more anxious than before. Derb looked at the mana revolving around her and found it to be different from the spells he made. While his almost sought out to strengthen and ravage the surroundings, hers was much calmer. It seemed to gently flow and trickle out of her until it made a small tether connecting herself to Derb. That’s when he felt the rush, not anywhere near what his teacher could do, but he could tell how hard this was to do. The sheer amount she used was already nearing Derb’s cap and he could tell she had plenty more to spare. Eventually, she cut off the connection when she felt my body was better. “Why inflict so many wounds to your body every day? It can’t be nice, you have a gift for magic, why take up the sword?” Derb stood and stretched his stiff body, he always felt like he slept 10 hours after healing and always felt a little weaker afterward. “You wouldn’t understand a man’s romance, even I barely do. I want to use a sword because of its status for adventure! To be able to take the world by force!”

Tiffany was staring at a moron, the only problem was that unlike Hannah and Gerald, she hadn’t caught up to the idea that he was just joking. “Adventure? Can’t you do that with magic?” Derb froze, “well technically yes, but my heart wouldn’t be in it, you know?” He didn’t want to tell her the truth, that the blacksmith deemed it worthless to train Derb before he could at least swing the sword long enough to last a real battle. He was basically told to swing his sword nonstop until he was able to handle the weight. Before Tiffany asked another question, the teacher spoke up. “My student, don’t listen to his words, while they sound meaningful they carry about as much weight as air. Go and follow him to the training area, you can train with him there. I still have to teach Hannah her own attributes.” Tiffany nodded, she was happy to help Derb after all this time, it reminded her of when they first met, how satisfying it was to help someone so helpless in her hands. Derb looked at Tiffany’s expression and felt a chill go up his spine… “Hey uh, Tiff… let’s just go now, I’m sure you’ll be a big help.” she just nodded without responding, and they headed off.

Once they got well into the forest Derb had started swinging again. While Derb hadn’t noticed himself, everyone else in the house had recognized his growth, he grew an extra inch making him 6’1, a good height for any individual. Tiffany wondered if she would have a growth spurt as well, being tall must be so freeing. She was only just 14 so she still had plenty of time to grow… 10 inches to be 6 foot… that seemed reasonable. “Hey, tiff… are you going to heal me or not. I’m telling the teacher if you're slacking off.” she broke out of her stupor to hurriedly heal Derb, who in all accounts could take much more but was whining about the pain. “This is real nice, how long can you keep that up?” Tiffany giggled, of course, Derb would be worrying about such a small amount of mana. “Up to 10 minutes at a time!” The shock of such a revelation caused him to miss the entire tree like an idiot and fall face-first into the floor. Tiffany started full-blown laughing at this, all the while healing him of any minor wounds. “Wait so uh… 30 seconds is all my mana… multiply by 2… YOU HAVE 20 TIMES MY MANA?” She nodded, it wasn’t really shocking. “Healers have a constant stream of buffs and support that don't require much effort to be constantly used. They help in growing mana capacity, our mana pools get bigger than normal as a result.” She paused before continuing, hesitation in her voice… “But my mana is only around 4 times bigger than the average mage… your mana pool is very low. So it just seems that large.” Derb was hit with this bombshell… he knew his mana was low… but a fifth of normal seemed like way too big a gap.

“Just… heal me when I look tired, I don’t wanna talk anymore...” and thus a depressed Derb, an apologetic Tiffany, and an apathetic imp named Connor trained for that day, eventually returning after about 4 hours to eat. “Hey… what are we eating when we get home? Sandwiches again?’ This got a glare from Tiffany, still a little angry about the whole argument they had. “Make your own food, make sure it has a lot of protein, healing tends to increase metabolism to ridiculous levels, I’m sure it’s why you became so skinny.” ooh, that’s why derb felt like he was constantly in a state of hunger, go figure. “Please, make me food, you’re way too good at cooking for me not to at least ask…I can’t even cook, what do you want for your services?” Tiffany froze, was her cooking good enough to be a service? “I… I’ll make your food, so stop worrying. Eheh” Christ, the girl was easy to read, she really took pride in her ability to cook, huh? “Wonderful! For a second I thought I’d have to miss out on your amazing food.” She may not have been as bad as Hannah at taking compliments but she was still pretty weak. “Ehehe, I learned a new recipe yesterday! An apple pie, let’s make it right now!” Goddamnit, “what about the meat? For my health?” His words went from one ear out the other, apparently because she was already rushing ahead to get started. This was going to be a long week…

The days went by as Derb trained, and he only became more of a glutton. After 3 weeks of a constant schedule doing nothing but mana training, physical training, getting healed, and then eating ungodly amounts, Derb finally started showing results. The results were pretty insane, his body was leaner but much more toned. His strength training was much more effective, as he could now swing the sword as if it was merely half the weight it was before. This was mainly due to the mana strengthening inside his body, but also in the way he learned to handle the weight that came with a sword so dense. At this point, he could take most medium trees out in about 6 chops. With rough fingers that had thick calluses thanks to the healing done by Tiffany and his lean body and face, he was starting to look like a genuine warrior. “Tiff, my shoulder hurts, I thought you said you healed it?” he was still the same on the inside, however. “I already healed it, you just swing that sword like it’s made of feathers, have you tried asking the blacksmith if you’re ready to actually learn the proper way to hold that thing?” in the three weeks they spent together Tiffany and Derb Actually became closer, which just meant Tiffany was no longer taking Derb’s shit while Derb became a lot more… honest. “Wow, that’s a good idea, maybe I should go twice a day instead of just going every day like I already do. You’re so smart Tiff. AAUGH.” He felt a shock run down his back for what must have been the dozenth time that day.

Tiffany had a self-defense magic called zap, which she has only ever used on derb. while it only stunned most, those with a dark attribute were more severely affected, so Derb was the perfect victim. “I get it, I’m sorry… sheesh you need to learn how to lighten up Tiff, heal me?” All she did was sigh and continue the healing process, it was annoying that zapping derb only caused more work for her. That didn’t stop her from correcting Derb’s ways though. she felt like she could change him to a proper man if she was a bit more forceful, something she learned from Hannah. “You know, I never really got a chance to properly thank you for all this, huh?” Hannah looked his way, what was he talking about? “It’s been fun hanging out with someone other than Connor, I usually always zone out in my head but it’s been fun talking to you for once. Thanks for being even a little bit patient with me Tiff it means a lot.” Tiffany was shocked… was this another way to get something from her? He tended to try to shower her with compliments before slipping in something undesirable… but the bad part never came, he even seemed a bit bashful at her silence. “I… um, thank you, I had fun too.” She felt all warm inside, why was he being so nice today? Could it be he- “So uh… I was thinking maybe you could come with me to the blacksmith and help convince hi- AAUGH!”

With a now dead expression, she zapped derb, not even letting him finish his sentence. “Why would you need little ol’ me?” Another zap caused Derb to jump away in fear, still holding onto the sword. “Calm down, I have no idea what’s happening, please explain what I did wrong.” She sighed, he probably didn’t even know he was doing it. “Let’s… just go, I’ll try my best to convince him.” Derb smiled, “and then we’ll have sandwiches, uh, I’ll make them.” Derb added the last part when he saw Tiffany glare at him. With a smile, tiff walked right past him. “Make some of them tuna, they’re my favorite.”