The next day, upon waking up, Reed noticed something.

His eyes still had vertical slits. And he still could feel the energy from before flowing through his body.

It didn’t go away even after one day. Maybe it’s because he managed to use the power without enhancing his brain?

Reed wondered how long it would stay like that, but for now he went down into to the tower’s courtyard. He wanted to check something.

Coming into the courtyard, Reed called over his wolves. Upon their appearance, he started counting them.

In total, there are only 30 wolves left now. 70 of the wolves died in the battle against Anna.

When he finished checking the wolves numbers, Anna, looking sleepy, came down into the courtyard.

Before Anna could say anything, Reed made a tendril from his cape and launched it at her, trying to attack her chest.

Anna opened her eyes wide and quickly jumped back, making the tendril hit the ground where she stood on.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!? Sorry, I tried to kill you on instinct. It’s probably because I was annoyed at how many of my wolves you killed. FUCK YOU!! By the way, what are you doing here? …I came to see you train, of course. I might hate you, but it’s true that I want to find out the secret behind your powers. By the way, why are your eyes still like that? I can also feel that weird energy coming off of you… I don’t know. I woke up this morning and I was still in this state. Maybe it’s permanent now? Stop joking. If that was the case, you would be nearly invincible.

Anna looked annoyed at Reed. She was being a lot more expressive since the fight they had.

Reed glanced back at Anna for a moment, and said:

Before anything else, I want you to come with me for something. …?

Leading Anna behind him, Reed went towards the clearing were they had the fight yesterday.

In there, the corpses of wolves were all scattered about, most of them charred from electricity.

Reed and Anna arrived at the clearing, and then Reed looked at Anna and said:

Let’s bury them. Hah? What did you think we were going to do here? Come on, pick up these corpses and help me carry them back to the courtyard. I want to bury them by the tower. I would ask why, but I can guess the reason. Why should I help you though? I might be bound to you, but I am not your “slave”. Do it yourself.

A dangerous glint appeared in Reed’s eyes, and he made multiple tendrils appear from his cape.

Do you see those tendrils? Unless you want them in very uncomfortable places, I’d suggest you help. You brute! You can’t just order me around using violence like that! So I am guessing you want to be impaled by the tendrils? …I’ll help

Sulking, Anna helped Reed carry back the corpses to the tower, Reed also used his tendrils to make the job easier, and after every corpse had been transported, Reed got some shovels out of the tower and made Anna dig holes together with him.

When they were done with the digging, and all the corpses had been buried, Reed closed his eyes and stayed quiet for a minute. Anna looked over from the side, bored.

Then, Reed decided to start the training for the day.

Of course, the training went way differently than normal. After all, Reed was now strong enough to make holes in trees with the sheer air pressure from his punches, and fast enough to disappear while moving.

Anna looked at Reed stupefied while he did basic training in a buffed state.

Eventually Reed stopped, and started to do his mana enhancing training. Anna changed to a serious expression and started looking intensely at Reed.

Reed was about to start enhancing his muscles, when he noticed a weird source of power besides his mana inside his body.

If asked to describe it, Reed would say:

“Mana is like a river flowing through you, but that energy was like air flowing through you”

Of course, no one besides Reed would understand that explanation.

Anyways, Reed noticed this energy and tried to manipulate it, but it was impossible. Just like air, it flowed through Reed, but was impossible to touch and move around.

It seemed it’s only purpose was to be there and flow through Reed. Reed had a guess as to what the purpose of this “energy” was.

It was probably the source of the power he exhibits when his eyes become vertical slits.

Looking at the way it flowed and did whatever it wanted, Reed labeled the power flowing through him “energy”, something different from the “mana” everybody uses.

Reed then proceeded to try and test some things out. For example, what would happen if he enhanced his body while in this state? Would his powers grow even more?

Reed then tried to use his usual method of enhancing body parts, by accumulating his mana in a specific part of his body.

When he did, though…

An unimaginable pain started to flow through the entirety of his body, especially in the part where he had accumulated mana.

Agh…Aahh.

The pain was so strong, Reed couldn’t even scream properly. From the side, Anna looked intrigued by what was happening. It seemed she didn’t plan on helping.

Reed tried to remove the mana from the part where it was accumulated at, but that only served to make the mana start going wild inside of his body, increasing his pain.

For a time that seemed longer than it was, Reed kept trying to endure the pain and control the mana wildly moving about inside his body.

After many failed attempts and explosions of pain, he finally succeeded.

Huff…Huff…Huff… I saw your mana go wild inside your body, like you had lost control of it. What happened?

Anna asked, more interested in the phenomenon than worried about Reed. Reed couldn’t bother to answer her, as he was trying to recover.

The wolves around Reed were looking worried as they approached him, after seeing he had calmed down. Reed patted their heads to let them know he was okay.

After getting back enough energy to reply Anna, Reed said:

You bitch, why didn’t you help me? Don’t you know you will also die if I do? Well, it seemed to me you wouldn’t die. Besides, I wanted to see what was happening, after all maybe I could figure something out about your power. Damn you. I managed to find out the source of my power, but if you’re going to act like that, I won’t tell you. Wait, WHAT!? You’re not kidding, right? Come on, tell me, tell me! No, fuck you.

Reed was too tired to continue training today or to go hunting, so he retired himself and went to read some books in the library.

For a pretty long time, Anna followed him along and pestered him to tell her about the source of his power, but after seeing he wouldn’t answer, she also picked a book from the library, sat beside Reed and started to read.

After night came, Reed and Anna ate dinner, Reed pet Anna’s head, annoying her, and the both of them went to sleep.