"Does anyone know what is eight times three?"

Several hands shot up into the air. Except for Erin, who didn’t know how to do multiplication because Raymond hadn’t yet taught her.

"It is twenty four well done! What about six times seven?"

Not wanting to look out of place however, Erin hesitatingly raised her hand. Only for her to be immediately singled out and called upon.

"Why don’t we let Erin try?"

Erin:?!?

Immediate worst outcome possible. Only comparable to when you asked someone for water and they handed you their bottle, only to notice that they’re the type of person to wash it every once in a blue moon when the mold and grime on it was enough to fully cover the glass and turn it opaque. But you can’t exactly just back out now after already having asked them for water since you didn’t want to look like a jerk. So in the end, you were forced to drink from it anyways and experience four different ecosystems slide down your throat. As you violently and mentally gagged while doing your best not to show it lest you offend them.

...two different forms of hell.

Erin froze, her hand still stuck in the air. Her eyes flickered towards Charlotte next to her as she pleaded for help through her eyes.

"Erin? Do you not know the answer?"

Erin’s tail was currently invisible and intangible with the help of Sienna’s disguise magic. Otherwise however, it would have destroyed several chairs already.

Charlotte, noticing the problem. Quietly wrote down on a piece of paper the answer, and handed it to her.

"42!"

"Great job Erin!"

Erin let out a breath of relief. Turning to Charlotte who was sitting next to her.

"Thank you."

"No problem."

The rest of the class went relatively smoothly, with Erin learning from her mistake and never again raising her hand.

To be honest, she wasn’t really listening either. At some point, it just got really boring and she stopped listening.

She also didn’t understand a single thing the teacher was saying. But all of her classmates seemed to understand, and she didn’t want to look out of place. So she just nodded along each time. Even when she tried to focus and listen, she didn’t understand.

Eventually, when they moved outdoors to the next class. Erin couldn’t help but feel worried again.

What if, she didn’t understand this class as well?!

Thankfully, since this was a prestigious academy meant to prepare awakened. The next class was actually just to help them train their mana control. Not more theoretical knowledge, but actual practical lessons.

Since they were all trained from young to harness mana. They must have definitely been very good at it!

Whereas Erin had only recently just unblocked her mana. Which also destroyed a wall inside their house on accident. According to dad, it was because her control was lacking.

Seeing all her classmates were so proficient already, Erin quietly shuffled her feet. Unsure again of what to do exactly.

"Charlotte..? What are we supposed to do?"

"Did no one teach you any mana cultivation techniques?"

All awakened had to absorb mana to grow stronger after all. With the different types of mana, there were naturally lots of different ways to absorb mana to grow stronger. Some were more efficient, some made you faster rather then stronger. The process and the effects were the same but the results were different depending on the user and their attunement.

Or if you were lazy/an angel or demon. You could just do absolutely nothing and let the passive mana and energy absorption make you stronger. At the cost of it being as fast as a sloth with two broken legs.

Charlotte naturally had a secret mana cultivation technique exclusive to the Asteria Family. One for her current level, and one for in the future when she formed her core.

But she could teach a few of the basics to Erin. The stuff that every awakened knew how to do.

"loosen and relax your body. Some techniques call for standing to keep you awake but sitting is usually easier."

Charlotte was considered one of the best in their class so far. They had yet to test their potential scores, but Charlotte was definitely going to get a decently high score. So she felt very confident about teaching Erin.

"Now open up your body to the ambient mana. Let it flow into you and don’t let any of your own mana escape."

Following along to Charlotte’s instructions. Erin instinctively let mana flow into her, something she had always been able to do but wasn’t aware of. Every inhale and every part of her body greedily absorbing the ambient mana in the air.

Compared to before, when she was just cycling her mana throughout her body. Absorbing so much mana like this felt really strange to her. It was like a black hole had been awakened inside of her. Hungrily sucking up mana.

In fact, no matter how hard she tried. The black hole remained as hungry as when she started. Drinking up every last drop of mana in the surroundings.

The rate of her mana absorption abruptly increased, turning her nearby surroundings desolate of mana. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Even Charlotte, who was originally sitting next to her felt stunned at just how much mana she was absorbing. Her own mana cultivation had to be paused since she was no longer able to absorb any more mana.

A few of the surrounding students caught up in Erin’s area also frowned. Their techniques paused due to the sudden lack of mana.

"Erin?"

Their teacher, naturally having noticed what was going on. Worriedly called her out. But seeing that she was still fine however, he restrained the other students from interrupting her. Only letting then watch.

If she was truly in danger, then he would step in and stop her. But otherwise, he also wanted to see Erin’s talent in this department. As a new student, he was naturally curious about her after all.

After sitting like that for another five minutes. Erin finally stopped, for a brief moment. Her pupils becoming vertical slits, anyone who did notice the strange feature however. Immediately had their memory wiped by a bat residing in her shadow, letting out a cute yawn as it happily ’chewed’ the memories.

The mana left around Erin was red, giving her a fiery red aura. Despite the lack of actual heat, everyone watching felt as if they were standing right in front of a massive inferno.

Paired with her red hair, the previous cute Erin disappeared. Replaced by an Erin that looked extremely menacing to these other kids!

For the first few seconds that is.

"D-dizzy..."

Erin’s head spun. The massive influx of mana making her feel nauseous, head spinning as she struggled to keep upright.

"How are you? How do you feel?"

"Bleh..."

***

"Weee—!"

Raymond ran his fingers through his hair. Looking at Erin, who had suddenly become energetic and was currently running throughout the apartment.

Just an hour ago, she looked sick enough and simply layed down with her mouth slightly open. Turning into a stationary statue and barely moving an inch during all that time.

Yet she was currently moving around as if she had never been sick a day in her life.

Based on what had happened however, Raymond did actually get a bit of an idea of what exactly had happened.

With Erin’s blockage, trying to use mana was extremely difficult for her, and clearly. She had never actively absorbed mana, instead relying on the passive absorption to refill her mana.

Dragons were large majestic creatures, and they naturally required a lot of mana to function. Which was why Raymond had been a bit confused on this when he first met her. How was she functioning if she never actively absorbed mana?

But this did clear up a few things.

Apparently, Erin had essentially been in a low power mode for basically the whole time. Now that she had finally absorbed mana however, she flipped the switch and went from low power mode into regular mode again. Frantically absorbing mana for this switch.

This also explained why Erin in particular liked to sleep so much, she was just regaining energy.

Raymond really wished Flare was here right now. He could use a lot of advice here.

While it was a good thing that Erin had finally gotten enough mana to enter regular mode. Sustaining it was also another issue.

Raymond had his own mana cultivation technique as well, but he didn’t use it in Terra for a simple reason. It was just too destructive for the dimension. Like using a massive bucket to drain a swimming pool. Terra might have been big, but given enough effort from Raymond. He could easily cause some serious damage to the realm.

The same thing with Erin, rather then being in the human realm. She was supposed to be in the dragon realm. With a much higher mana density that could allow her to sustain her mana cultivation and continue growing. Rather then remain in a low power mode.

The two of them simply weren’t built for Terra. While Erin was at least partially fine, Raymond was pretty sure he could turn entire areas into desolate wastelands free of mana for years if he tried.

He would have loved to let Erin keep on going and absorbing mana as she needed. But the ethical concerns behind doing such a thing and leaving behind a few wastelands of mana concerned him.

If he could, the best option would be for Erin to be able to freely go from the human realm to the dragon realm and simply absorb mana there. But no human had ever entered the dragon realm and it wasn’t very likely that was about to change any time soon.

Another option would be for Raymond to transport Erin to other dimensions without life that had mana and let her absorb the mana from there instead. He knew of a few that would suffice. Except he wasn’t strong enough to leave dimensions himself, let alone bring another with him.

Other options were too expensive and not sustainable in the long term either. Especially concerning Erin’s growth, and the fact that she would only require more as time went on.

A unique problem that existed purely because the two of them didn’t belong to this realm.

Raymond let out a sigh.