Spring was almost here.

In the blink of an eye, two whole months flew by. I was now slightly bigger and didn't get all that tired from the daily chores.

Taking Clintarou out for a walk? EZ. Going to school right after that? EZ. Studying for 8 hours at school and not learning a thing because I knew everything already? Boring but EZ. Coming home and hoeing away on the fields? EZ.

Now I felt like I had some energy to spare even after doing all of that.

Mainly thanks to the body strengthening that I had been doing to pick that hoe up. My body, without the need for body strengthening, was now capable of picking and using the implement. Which was to say that I did inevitably get stronger than an average 7-year-old.

But my ability to till without using internal mana meant that I could just stop strengthening my body now. I didn't need it anymore. I could stop any growth from this point on. There shouldn't be anything that would ever force me to become powerful again... I think.

So I voluntarily hit a plateau.

Nonetheless, with the excess leftover energy and vigour I had, I decided to pick up studying again.

You practically had access to the entire portion all the way up until Junior High grade online. Well, you access things higher than that as well, but it was useless for me. I just needed to know enough to get out through this phase of my life.

Using the internet, I would take an hour or two and speedrun as much of the portion as possible. Not because I was interested or extremely productive. I just wanted to get the vile task of studying over with so that I wouldn't have to worry about it for the rest of my life.

And complete I did. At least all the portion up to middle school. I still had the Junior High portion remaining on my list.

The latest things that I studied included imaginary numbers in maths, electrochemistry in chemistry, molecular inheritance in biology, kinetic forces in physics, and the management of global trade in economics.

Needless to say, these were absurd topics to teach the 12-year-olds of middle school. But unlike other homogeneous nations, this one didn't have college for nobility. Most of every noble studies all they have to by the age of 16 and then start to work in their family early.

The rule is carried by lineage, so the children would have to take the reins from their parents even if they didn't want to. So getting them into the occupation as early as possible was a pretty good idea.

The only exceptions to this rule being, the prince- since he has to lead the entire country; and those who wish to pursue strength and international power. They are the ones who join a high school that focuses on physical strength.

Well, also the homeschooled who excel a bit too much in a single field like Rune does. Not to praise him or anything.

As I progressed through the yearly portions, the time consumed for completion progressively increased. First-year of elementary took a night, the first year of middle school took a day or two. And from what I can tell junior high would take a week to finish at the bare minimum.

But I did find some interesting stuff and theories within the textbooks.

Ones I could base my own hypothesis on.

Ones I could experiment with.

Ones I could exploit.

Due to the previous turn of events, and all the physical activities that I have been doing, I was now above the average bar when it came to strength.

Something that Yuuno could and probably would eventually notice if given the time. And when she notices an increase in my strength, I wouldn't hear the end of it.

So, taking this issue into account, I decided to do the most logical thing I could think of... work towards making Yuuno even stronger than before.

If she becomes so strong that her concept of strength becomes skewed, it wouldn't matter how strong I become, I would just be some weakling to her.

So I set off on my new venture.

"Hey, Yuuno." I tapped the other person in the room who was busy studying. I thought she would give up after a weak or two, but clearly, she didn't. She was invested in doing this. She finished up to the first year of middle school on her own.

Of course, I knew she wasn't completely dumb. She was pretty smart when it came to comprehension, but her academic progress was slightly better than I had expected. Granted that most of the things we are getting taught were completely alien to her.

Taking pity on her, I did help her out when she was completely baffled, but that little favour didn't really mean much.

I kept shaking her shoulder until she snapped out of her study mode.

She finally turned her head to me.

"W-What do you want now? I'm a little busy." Her focus was awestriking. Well, time to step on it.

"I found another way to become strong."

"I'm here!" The second she heard that she was all up on my face sitting next to me. An expected reaction.

"Jeez calm down."

"I am calm." She clearly wasn't. If she had a tail, I'd bet it would be wagging real hard right about now. "Tell me."

"Ugh, whatever. So there's this thing called inductance that you'll study later."

"Wazzat?"

"Basically if you leave a charged body in contact and then take it away the charges rema- Nevermind, it's hard to explain this to a numbskull like you and I don't want to do this again a couple of months from now… So I'll just tell you about the stuff that matters to you- How you can exploit it." The point being, when the topic comes up in the last year of middle school she would have me explain induction again, so I copped out and dumbed it down for her.

"I'll just ignore that insult since you're being useful right now so just go on." The top of her eyes was flat.

Taking her interest into account I started the exposition.

"You know how mana works right? I'll just explain it so that the readers understand too." I sat back.

"What readers are you on about?" Whatever was she saying?~

"So mana is practically everywhere and is bound to every molecule. Its function is to change the base property of a molecule. Say, change the water in the air to fire. Of course, to convert water into fire there are plenty of steps you would need to take like changing the composition of water to oil and then taking it up to ignition temperature… But that's why incantations are a thing. They work algorithmically and do all of those steps one by one."

"Okay okay… I'll just pretend I got that. Also what reade-" I didn't need her interruptions in my speech.

"The strength of a mage is determined by their efficiency. One could turn water to oil to fire or ignite the ample nitrogen in the air. Both result in fire, but the stimulation you would have to provide to mana particles in the second case is significantly less compared to that of the first case.

That efficiency I just mentioned is determined by how knowledgeable the mage is. The more you know the stronger you are. But enlightenment is but one of the factors to true strength."

"At this point, you're just speaking gibberish. I just think fire spell and fire spell pops out. There's nothing complicated like that. On that note the readers that you we-"

"The second factor is what dictates your strength in particular. Mana control. Instead of knowing what you're doing, you make the mana around you do things that it shouldn't be able to.

Just by using sheer force. You're able to convert the mana bound to the molecules directly into fire without ever touching the molecule. That is because the mana inside your body is dense. Almost as dense as you." I sighed.

"What did you just say?" Her eyebrows twitched.

"Usually the mana inside our body remains shut inside. You would be able to manipulate the mana in your body completely but not let it out. Theoretically allowing you to alter your body's composition.

It is only after you open your pores and learn external mana control that you can actually use offensive spells that travel the distance. In our era, you would have to open the pores forcefully but now they only open the pores most convenient to the user when they turn 16."

"That was a long-ass exposition. How do I get strong? Tell me that and we'll be done here."

I let there be silence in the room for a second.

"I came up with two ways."

"Now we're talking." She put her hand on my shoulder and leaned in as if I were to tell her a secret. Thinking back the first method might be a little hard for her.