Although it was still afternoon, the clouds were already starting to turn dark. Sylvia and Serene had no intentions to go back though, instead they decided to camp outdoors. Sylvia grabbed a few logs from the surrounding forest and compiled it up into one pile. Serene observes Sylvia quietly throughout all this, but Sylvia notices Serene’s gaze.

  “Uhh Serene? Do you need anything? You’ve been looking at me intensely for the past few minutes.” excimed Sylvia as she looked into Serene’s direction.

  “No — it’s nothing.”

  “Huh, okay then.”

  Sylvia grabbed one st log and threw it into the pile that she had already made earlier. A few seconds ter, she constructed a small fireball on her right palm and casted it towards the pile of logs — successfully lighting the campfire. She sat on a rge tree trunk, opposite of Serene.

  “Now that’s done, can I ask a few questions about you Serene?”

  “...as long as it’s in the realm of my capabilities, I’ll try my best to answer your questions.”

  “Your spells — I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. From what I know, people usually use the typical fire water earth wind spells. I’ve never seen anything simir to your spells before.”

  “Resonate.” answered Serene coldly.

  “Resonate?”

  “If you feel a special connection with an animal or a pnt, you can resonate with them. This allows you to use spells that normal people wouldn’t be able to use.”

  “Oooooo I love the sound of that! How do you get it?”

  “It’ll require a lot of training. I’ll be upfront about it, at your current stage — there’s no way you can resonate.”

  “HUHHH???” this revetion confused Sylvia.

  “You just started your journey. It’ll take years for you to be able to resonate.”

  “Awww, okay then that’s gonna be my next goal! I don’t care if it takes me multiple years to resonate, I want to resonate with a butterfly~”

  “...there are some special cases though.”

  “Wha— can you tell me?”

  “Show me what you’re capable of. I can determine how long it’ll take for you to resonate after seeing what your current capabilities are.”

  “Are you saying that… we need to fight? Wait, that's not it right? Our power levels are drastically different, if I were to fight you now I’d probably die as soon as I step forw—”

  “No, we're not fighting each other.” Serene was quick to shut down Sylvia’s bizarre thoughts.

  “Oh. What’re we doing then?”

  “Go find us something to eat. I’ll follow you from behind to see what you can come up with.”

  “That doesn’t sound too hard, okay then!” Sylvia immediately got up from her seat and used her Agility Enhancement spell to quickly find a group of boars like what she had previously done.

  Serene quickly followed Sylvia to see what kind of wacky ideas she could come up with. She tried her best to not get too close to Sylvia so that it wouldn’t ruin Sylvia’s focus.

  …I already know what her current capabilities are. This test’s secondary purpose is to shut down Sylvia’s thoughts of learning “Resonate”. With her current powers, it wouldn’t take long for her to completely learn it. If she learns it, there’s a high chance she’ll be targeted by the government which would be bad. Besides, it would also ruin the fun for her so I’ll try my best to prevent her from learning it for the time being.

  Soon after, Sylvia found a group of boars. Like previously, she constructed multiple fme daggers and aimed one towards the boar's head. She threw it and the fme dagger pierced through the boar’s skull and killed it, making the other boars panic. However, due to Sylvia’s Agility Enhancement, she managed to close her distance with the boars and killed them one-by-one with a fme dagger by piercing their stomach.

  “And done! What do you think, Serene? Do you think that I’m a worthy candidate for Resonate?” asked Sylvia smugly — she felt proud that she could kill five boars in less than thirty seconds which was a huge improvement from her previous record.

  “No.” Serene was quick on shutting down Sylvia’s hopes and dreams of learning Resonate.

  “That wasn’t enough? Wait… did you purposefully pick this test so that we’ll have something to eat?” Sylvia finally noticed what Serene’s true intentions were for this test.

  “...”

  “I can’t believe it was this easy for me to be tricked. I swear that I will never be tricked again for my entire life!”

  “...I doubt that’s going to st.”

  “HEY! Okay you might be right — anyways I’m starving, let’s cook these boars up and eat!”

  After multiple trips, Sylvia and Serene managed to carry the boars back to their campsite. Due to the boar’s weight, they could only carry one boar at a time. However, both Sylvia and Serene had their own Agility Enhancement spells which made the whole process much easier. Afterwards, they cut the boar's meat into multiple bite size pieces and skewered it onto a stick and let it cook over the campfire’s open fmes.

  “We’ve still got tons of meat leftover, it’d be a waste if we were to throw this out. Is there any way we can preserve it?”

  “Ice spells.”

  “Awww, I haven’t learned ice spells yet. Okay that’s on my bucket list now! That’s going to come in handy whenever I need to preserve food.”

  Sylvia’s thoughts were filled with another spell reted thing. She was too busy thinking about what she could use the ice spells for that she hadn’t even realized Serene’s hands were slowly moving towards the leftover boar meats. Soon enough, the meats that were once normal temperature turned freezing cold in an instant.

  “I take my eyes off of you for a second and you do something weird that I can’t do. Can you teach me ice reted spells, Serene?”

  “You’ll naturally learn it.”

  “You’re not a great teacher huh?” said Sylvia as she ughed quietly. She couldn’t imagine someone like Serene teaching anything.

  Compared to before, Sylvia had gotten so much more comfortable being around Serene. She could talk with Serene casually and ugh things off like friends do. However, this feeling was not mutual between the two.

  Is she… treating me like a friend? I can’t remember when was the st time I felt loved by someone… No — she’s merely using me as a tool to improve herself. There’s no way that she sees me as someone that she can be friends with. If she thinks that someone as destructive and cold as me can be friends with her, then something is wrong with her.

  “You’re dozing off again—” Sylvia suddenly got close to Serene’s face, which surprised Serene. “—your eyes have bags under them. You should get some sleep, take better care of yourself, okay?”

  “No, that’s not nee—”

  “Yes, it’s needed. You’ve been forcing your body too much. It would be bad if your body were to shut down during a fight, right? I know we may have only met each other today, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”

  “...fine.”

  With a defeated look, Serene immediately y down on the grass and curled herself up, trying to sleep. When Sylvia got up and observed Serene, she was shocked to see that Serene was already sleeping.

  “Not needed huh? It sure looks like you needed a good night's sleep. Well, it’s not really night right now but it’s the perfect weather to fall asleep in.”

  Sylvia made sure to not fall asleep herself just in case any monsters were to attack them during their slumber.

  “She definitely avoided talking about Resonate with me after the test. Could it be because I’m still too weak to learn it? If that’s the case, I shouldn’t think about it too much.”

  She soon came to terms with her inability to learn Resonate for now. However, she was curious to learn something else that she saw today.

  “Freezing food would be so convenient on my journey. Serene did say that I would learn it naturally for whatever that’s worth, so right now I should be able to learn it?”

  Sylvia picked up a small tree branch and held it. She wanted to freeze this tree branch.

  “It’s the same procedure as my previous few elemental spells, right?”

  Sylvia thought about the cold nights that she always has every night and how the wind flows in through the windows. The gentle breeze brushing her skin as the cold temperature fills the room. Sylvia channeled her memoria into her veins, closed her eyes and drew what looked to be a badly drawn snowfke in the air and opened her eyes. However, the outcome was not what she had expected.

  “Where did the tree branch go? I think I felt the wind touching my hands for a second there, did the tree branch get blown away by the wind?”

  Sylvia was bewildered to see the outcome. Instead of feeling a cold tree branch, she felt like the tree branch fell out of her grasp.

  “I might’ve imagined too much wind during that scenario. Okay, time to find another branch and try this experiment again! I won’t stop until I successfully cast a spell that freezes a tree branch.”

  Sylvia went ahead and picked up another tree branch and closed her eyes again. This time, she imagined the snow during its season and how she had always constructed a snowman whenever there’s snow around. She imagined the coldness of the snow and used it as a base to channel her memoria and freeze the tree branch she was holding. She then drew a snowfke in the air again, this time with better accuracy than before and opened her eyes.

  “The tree branch isn’t gone, which is an improvement. My right hand does feel cold though so did it work? Wait—” Sylvia soon had the idea of holding the tree branch with her left hand.

  “It actually worked — I’ll have to show this to Serene as soon as she wakes up! This is going to be extremely helpful whenever I need to freeze something up to preserve it~”

  Sylvia went back to the campsite to find Serene still sleeping. Sylvia decided to mess around with her spells during Serene’s slumber.

  “What happens if I use my cold touch first before casting a fireball? I’m sorry tree, but you’ll be the test subject for this experiment.”

  Sylvia constructed a fireball first above her right palm and then used the same procedure as earlier to lower the fireball’s temperature into freezing temperature. She had no idea how this would go, but she still threw the fireball into the test subject. As it connected with the tree, a rge mist was created that surrounded the tree. As soon as it dissipated, the tree’s trunks turned a light blue while the leaves turned dark blue.

  “Woah! The tree’s color changed drastically. Not only that — I somehow created a mist with that after the fireball connected with the tree.”

  After the small commotion, Serene woke up and was surprised to see the sight that filled her eyes as soon as she had woken up.

  “Good evening, Serene~ Before you ask, yes I was the one who created this blue tree! It was pretty surprising honestly, I combined my ice spell with my fireball and this somehow happened.”

  “...”

  “Surprised? I would be if I were you, I don’t think you expected for me to learn ice spells quickly, right? Well — I took your approach and took the “natural ways of learning” and used it to cast my very first ice spell!” Sylvia clearly had a ton of fun making fun of Serene’s teachings from earlier.

  “I’ve got nothing else to say. Let’s head back to town now.”

  “Wait already? It isn’t even night yet. Normally, I go back to the castle once it’s already night.”“Need I remind you that you were hurt badly?” Serene finally took a jab at Sylvia and reminded her of her wounds from yesterday.

  “Ahh — okay you got me there.”

  “Look who's being the hypocrite now — you said that I needed rest while you wanted to stay here until night with those wounds.”

  “OKAY OKAY! I get it, but I want to take the long way back. I want to take in the scenery if that’s fine with you~”

  “...”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s go and take a casual stroll back now, it IS 4 km after all so it’ll probably take thirty minutes to get back to town.”

  They soon walked together side-by-side. Sylvia took in the scenery well, observing the surrounding forests and all of its inhabitants. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Serene was thinking about many things during this walk.

  She already learned ice spells in the time I was sleeping? That is NOT normal. Not to mention that she already combined the ice spell that she had just learned with her fireball spell. I severely underestimated her capabilities. Who knows what other spells she could have combined in the time I was sleeping.

  “Say Serene, would you be interested in cooperating with me? It’s fine if you don’t want to, I know you probably have more pressing matters than helping a new sorcerer fulfilling her dreams of exploring the world.”

  This question shocked Serene. Due to her nature of being alone, she had never been invited to a party before with other people. She initially wanted to decline the offer. However, she knows that she can’t leave Sylvia to her own accord. Serene also has a few personal reasons for wanting to cooperate with Sylvia.

  If I were to decline this offer, Sylvia would travel alone again and possibly do something even crazier than before. That alone is enough reason for me to accept Sylvia’s offer. However, she reminds me of someone — Someone from a distant memory, but who? I’ve been searching for whoever this person is for as long as I remember and yet, I haven’t found them. I can’t even remember what their face looks like. This is the perfect moment, I could watch over Sylvia while gathering more information about this missing person.

  “You’re at it again, Serene. I know you don’t like talking and all that but I really don’t like it when you have that serious face on you. Did I do something wrong? It sure does feel like I did — I’m sorry if I did something that upset you today, I’ll make it up to you if you want.”

  “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. This is how I normally am.”

  “I guess there’s still a lot more to learn about you than meets the eye.” said Sylvia as she sighed.

  “I was quiet this time because I had to think about the offer.”

  “Really? I mean, I know you’re going to decline anyways. I doubt someone as powerful as you would have any reason to follow me on my journey of exploring the world. You’ll probably be better off using that time to fight strong enemies or someth—”

  “I accept.”