Bond. Level up. My face started heating up as I remembered the last time Seraphina and I had kissed. Was I supposed to do that again? We did shrug it off as nothing much… but…

  “Hick.”

  Seraphina turned back as I hiccuped. She looked at me. I turned my face away. There was no way I could show her my face right now.

  “Elara…?”

  “N-nothing. Let’s go!” I followed right behind her. Seraphina didn’t think much and led me to the lift instead. She put her thumb on a sensor and entered [-3] on the keypad. The lift started descending to the underground training rooms we had reserved in the Ashen Gryphon specifically for the S-Ranked Hunters. It was a place that someone like me couldn’t enter before today.

  I doubt even that Rooney guy had ever set foot in this place. As the lift descended, I turned to see Seraphina again.

  My life was turning upside down, and it was all thanks to this girl alone. My eyes couldn’t leave her. The upturned lashes were like a drape on a stage, her pointed nose a sculpted ridge, her lips. I could see them. The small cracks on her smooth lips, lines, and patterns. A heavy, hot breath left me as I licked my lips and turned away again.

  What was wrong with me?

  All of this. Is just. Bonding. It’s for the system and for my powers. For her to live longer. I could do that much.

  The lift stopped. Seraphina took the lead, and we were in the training room now. It was an enormous gym with multiple facilities, from basic mana dolls and machines to simulators and weapons, even a sparring ring in the center. A grand place, it barely looked like the top of the tower. If I had to guess, I would even say it was a little wider in area compared to the tower itself aboveground.

  “Good, right?”

  “Amazing…” I muttered back. “Wow… We’ll be training here?”

  “Correct. Come. Tell me how much mana the system says you have, by the way?”

  “50 points,” I said.

  Seraphina nodded as we neared the training dummies on the side. Instead of the Dummy XB whatever that I had practiced on for my re-evaluation test, this metal creature seemed a lot more powerful and stronger than whatever I had faced before this.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  It was a surprising situation indeed.

  “Remember, that’s just an indication of how much mana you can access. 50… that’s a little less, but we can always increase it. It doesn’t block you off or say it's an upper limit, just an indication of where you stand at the moment, that’s all.”

  50 was less? I mean, that was probably way more than an average E-Rank hunter as well.

  “Seraphina,” I said. “If you don’t mind, how much do you have?”

  This was a thing. While I knew very well about the average hunters, S-Rankers were monsters in their own right. Every single one of their stat, on top of being insanely high, was practically as valuable as a state secret. All I knew, even as a strategist, was whether or not they would be able to handle things, not their exact capabilities.

  I wondered if Seraphina would tell me, but she answered within a heartbeat.

  “It’s at 897 right now. I can’t use all of it, and a fair bit has frozen at my heart as well. Before this, it would be above 1000.”

  “Huh…?”

  My jaw dropped to the ground.

  Seraphina looked at me again, seeing me surprised, she scratched her cheek very, very lightly. “Is that less than you were expecting? I am actually very good in mana amongst S-Rankers.”

  “No, no…” I held my head. “It is way more than I could have believed.”

  1000+?

  If I had even an inkling of that information in my old position, I would have been able to make insane strategies. Damn it, meeting with the gryphon made me start to think about strategies again. Even though that is what had caused my problems in the first place…

  There was only so much someone like me, who had never been on the field, could say about things while behind a chair. I hated that.

  The real struggle was something only hunters faced.

  And because of a mistake with a single strategy.

  Lives would be lost.

  “What can you already do?” asked Seraphina. “The easiest way to increase mana is to strain yourself over and over to the point of depletion and let it recover, but that takes too long, is too risky, and won’t help with your test. I’ll teach you some basic ice-magic instead.”

  “That would be better. So far, I can only generate some cold wind.”

  I stretched my palm out and used the magic that I had tried on myself before right on her cheeks. She only blinked. Slightly tilting her head.

  Embarrassed, I pulled my hand back. Of course, she doesn’t feel cold. Of course.

  Seraphina, then, reached out too.

  She gently placed a hand back on my cheeks.

  My eyes widened. I could see her move, slowly, with every step. It was like a prey seeing a predator close in on them. Almost as if time had slowed down.

  Her hands were growing bigger as she neared in on me.

  Then, her palm landed on my cheek.

  “Say… isn’t the guild leader very charismatic?”

  Just her touch was enough to make me cold.

  My heart was racing. A warmth was spreading over my feet while my cheeks were hit with the Ice Queen’s breeze, it was a dichotomy that made the sensors in my brain go haywire.

  I nodded lightly. “I was scared… I am glad you held my hand.”

  I could see it.

  A small twitch on her lips.

  The Ice Queen’s unreadable expression was slowly becoming more normal for me. She was smiling.

  I could tell.

  Seraphina pulled her hand back and pointed at the dummy.

  “[Ice Spear]”

  A spear of ice formed in the blink of an eye. A whistle rang in my ears, a second late, as at the exact same time, the dummy’s head burst.

  “Let’s start with learning that, what say?”

  My heart was still racing.