Chapter 23: Too Lazy
It had been about a week since Nami had first met Max. Throughout the whole week, the guy had done nothing but cultivate in his room. He had only got out to shower occasionally and of course, buy a dose of Carpi-Fun in the small store within the underground facility every morning. He had truly been living a life as a shut-in, avoiding social interactions since he found them bothersome.
Well, at least he had two extra pairs of clothes now, thanks to Dylan. Nami had learned that Max had never actually changed his clothes. All he had ever done was head to a public shower and toss his worn clothes into the washing machine before retrieving them after shower.
To be fair, she had never changed her clothes, either. But that was to be expected. Common fairies had never felt the need for a variety of clothing. Since half of their bodies were made of mana, their flesh part never actually sweated or emitted body odor. They never went dirty, basically.
Right now, she was humming a song her mother used to sing to her while brushing her hair with her long fingers. She sat on the edge of Max's bed while the guy himself was seen sitting on the floor and clawing the air.
Well, Nami's eyes were able to see that he was not merely clawing the air; he was actually pushing a handful of mana into his hand before shoving it inside his chest. Also, he wasn't wearing his gloves. He had trained himself to make use of mana within his body without relying on his gloves. Still, he would wear them once he was out of his room. He conveyed that they provided him comfort, not to mention looking cool.
Max had exhausted his weekly supply of mana stones since the day before. It had taken him that long due to the fact that one was supposed to cultivate moderately, lest they risked destabilizing their Mana Regulator. This was especially true to those still forming their first ring, since at this stage, the mana inside their bodies was akin to the fragile foundation of a sand castle. So with the absence of mana stones, Max opted to steal mana from the atmosphere, which he was currently doing.
To Nami's surprise, Max was able to identify how much mana was too much and how much was too meager while only relying on his senses. Other people didn't have this problem from absorbing mana stones since they were basically like batches of readymade products, whose classes of mana quantities adhered to the standard of the stones' qualities.
For example, you'd get roughly the same amount of mana from one low-quality mana stone as you'd get from other low-quality stones. They were not uniformed, of course. But there was still a standard mana size to all within the same quality.
Max was also able to make sure that the kinetic mana he spent to capture potential mana in the air was significantly less than the potential mana he received. He basically always measured that his total revenue always trumped the total cost he had to pay, which equaled profit.
So far, he was able to draw in potential mana that amounted to up to four times the kinetic mana he spent, which was equivalent to how much was stored within the baselines of medium-quality mana stones. That was his current limit, which he knew he would be able to surpass once he refined the efficiency of his mana-capturing method.
'This is boring,' Nami conveyed to Max, who had just finished stabilizing the mana he'd absorbed within his ring foundation.
At this point, both Nami and Max had grown used to having their mental connection always kept up. Therefore, Nami hadn't once severed that connection ever since that moment where she had been afraid of Leo.
This had led to a few comical moments where the distance limit of their connection basically pushed Nami to follow Max everywhere, including to the shower. At the time, she hadn't really thought much about the repercussions; she was just perching on his head as usual, totally not minding the fact that he had told her he was about to take a shower.
Back in The Ancient Ruins, given her then-young age, she hadn't truly comprehended the concept of shower. Fairies didn't shower, after all. Not to mention, apart from the time she was let out to be used as a magic resource, her slavers always kept her within her cage. Which meant, she hadn't known much about human needs and behaviors. And that included one of the basic ones—shower.
And so, she hadn't cared much when Max entered one of the stalls, with her reclining on his head without a care in the world.
But when he pulled his shirt up, forcing her to fly away, her eyes landed on Max's bony torso. It was just her instinct, but she immediately found herself wondering, 'I'm not supposed to see him naked, am I?'
So when Max was starting to take off his pants, Nami reflexively looked away. Max observed this from his peripheral vision and began cackling—if it could even be called one, since there was no sound coming out of his mouth. Nami could see his shoulders hopping up and down, and her face grew red from embarrassment.
'Hey, why are you backing away now?' Max asked. 'I told you I was gonna take a shower. But you still followed me anyway. Figured you wouldn't mind seeing a human naked. Well, I myself don't mind you seeing me naked. Or rather, I really don't care.'
Right. He was a human, and she was a fairy. There shouldn't be any shame in seeing each other naked. It was basically like a cat seeing a dog without their fur. There was an inherent difference between the two species, creating a fact that the two could never feel any attraction—or any other feeling, for that matter—toward each other's body.
Convinced by the theory she cooked up on her own, Nami shoved away her embarrassment and faced the now-completely naked Max.
'Huh, so that's how you look,' she conveyed to him. 'Basically a skeleton with skin.'
It was certainly interesting to see a male's naked body for the first time in her life. But contrary to her initial embarrassment, she found herself not at all bothered by the sight. At most, she only felt slight interest, the level at which one would feel when they discovered something novel. But that was about it.
After raising one brow when noticing the long thing dangling between his legs, Nami flew around absent-mindedly while Max turned on the shower.
She had ended up feeling bored, like how she was right now.
Max exhaled after feeling his ring foundation stabilizing. Dylan had told him that reaching the 1st Ring Formation stage actually consumed much less time than other stages. Though, the period grew exponentially after every stage, owing to the fact that the mana condensed grew in quantity as the layers became bigger the further they went from the heart. Dylan said it would probably take him a couple more weeks to finish forming his ring.
In the meantime, Dylan had advised him to learn basic techniques. But Max had been too lazy to do this, since he thought it was already enough that he had his Void Barrier and Invisibility Barrier. Not to mention the two sound attacks he had performed during the heist—he called them The Screeching Siren and Bass Boost.
Dylan still hadn't understood how he was able to perform techniques that weren't based on his Talent in kinetic magic. However, he figured he had to respect his privacy and decided not to pry further.
"I know you've learned a few techniques on your own," Dylan had said one day, "but you can at least practice them or learn a new technique that actually utilizes your Talent properly."
Max knew Dylan was right. Despite his Talent, he still wasn't that proficient at moving objects—a basic skill any person with kinetic magic Talent should find no problem performing. It also still took him a certain amount of time to prepare the two Barriers and the sound attacks. If it hadn't been for Dylan attacking the shielded guards back in the bank, Max wouldn't have had enough time preparing his sound attacks. He had to go practice these skills to shorten the casting time.
Still, he hadn't bothered to get out and train. Max had this acute disease called laziness. Sometimes he even found the whole cultivation process too bothersome and inconvenient. Why couldn't mages just instantly grow strong? Why did he have to go through all those stages? Must becoming a powerful mage require that much hard work?
Well, Max finally started to consider getting out of his room if the alternative was to be annoyed by Nami constantly complaining she was bored.
'Come on, let's get out and do something fun!' she conveyed while flying in circles around his sitting form.
Max sighed. He relented and finally got up. 'Fine.'
Nami was overjoyed seeing that her human friend started to walk toward the door. She activated her invisibility cloak and plopped onto his head as he exited his room.
Five minutes later, Max arrived in front of the room still within the southeastern section of the underground facility. The door was labeled '1st Layer Training Room'.
Max had learned that the southeastern section served as the living quarters for those still cultivating their 1st Ring and Layer—now with an addition of Rotational Friction. While the southwestern and northwestern were designated for the populace of 2nd and 3rd Ring/Layers, respectively. The northeastern section housed other facilities like the canteen, the gym, training rooms for specific Talents, a small convenience store, and recreation room.
The organization wasn't trying to act like a school, but there was still a loose system in place. Those with higher cultivations would periodically volunteer to teach those with lower cultivations, based on their Talents. There were established schedules for these training sessions, though whether the students would attend or not wasn't strictly enforced. They could come and go as they pleased. It was completely up to the individuals whether they wanted to grow stronger or not.
However, there was an unspoken taboo against those who were too lazy to cultivate and train. After all, they joined the organization not only to seek refuge from the evil fairies' grasp, but also to topple them from the government—though not all of them were in the know about the fairies.
Every one of the mages sheltering within this underground facility should possess enough will to grow powerful. And those who didn't would receive judgmental glances.
Basically, this taboo, along with the rewarding feeling of gradually growing stronger, were enough to push everyone to attend the training sessions regularly. Therefore, the training rooms—both the Talent-specified ones and the general ones within the living quarters—were never lacking students who wished to learn.
Well, apart from the times where there was no training session in the schedule. Which was exactly at that moment Max entered the room. He had expected it to be empty, but it turned out the room had been occupied with a couple of people.
Maya was seen standing with two teenagers who looked at her with admiring eyes. One was a girl with peanut butter skin tone, wearing glasses and a ponytail. She was also short; even from that distance, Max could imagine the height difference between her and himself would be appalling. The other was a dark-skinned boy with curly hair. Both looked to be slightly younger than Max.
Noticing Max's arrival, Maya beamed and said, "Oh, Max! You came just in time! Meet Mutya Rizal from Westmire and Dean Morrison from Panpearce! They just arrived here yesterday, and are both newly Awakened, just like you."
The woman then grinned wider, clearly giddy with happiness. "Three new mages from Central District within a week! This is so exciting! It's like fate has been smiling upon us these days!"
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone