Chapter 391: Tea

Eiro looked within himself, inspecting his Mana Circuits. The first thing that he really tried to do once he got a good enough grasp of the concept was to practice manipulating them as quickly as he could. However, when he did so too recklessly, it was like a part of his physical body was being dragged along with it, causing sharp pain as well as a good bit of damage to the Demon. It was rather bothersome, but it was something that Eiro had to deal with for now if he wanted to improve this. Like that, the Mana Circuit manipulation skill also rose to level 17 within a few hours.

There was a very simple way that Eiro wanted to use this ability. Of course there was the aspect of simply using it to increase his combat capabilities by letting him activate certain spells instantly. But there was another aspect to it.

'Manipulation' Skills are commonly thought to be only applicable to oneself. And of course, that is correct for the most part. For the beginner grade at the very least, you can only really affect things on your body, as is often the case with beginer magic as well.

However, since 'Manipulation' skills are quite rare in the first place, it's not all too well-known that they can affect the whole concept they apply to, and not just your own. That meant that Eiro would be able to manipulate other people's Mana Circuits if he practiced enough.

And that had many possibilities. It seemed like Mana Circuits had the tendency to slowly return to their original position over time, which was still a process that took a couple of hours or even days. Eiro figured it was dependent on how practiced you were with magic, how developed your Mana Circuits were, and how much mana you had flowing through them.

There was a reason why Mana Circuits developed in that way in the first place, after all, and the development of Mana Circuits depended on all those aspects as well.

That meant that, while he wouldn't be able to completely cripple someone's ability to use magic, he would be able to either considerably weaken them, or disable them from using magic altogether. The latter was something like his goal in training toward this sort of ability, at least, and something that would certainly take quite some time even if he was able to manipulate others' Mana Circuits.

It was still his goal, though. The Demon took a deep breath and continued forming the Mana Circuits into specific patterns within his body. Ones to enhance his ability to spread infusions to let him do so quicker, ones to help him to move through whatever substance he was infused with, like the 'Shadow Step' spell he figured out.

Some of them were harder to do than others, but overall, Eiro was able to figure out some quite interesting things after practicing the high-speed control of his Mana Circuits. It took a few hours for him to reach the point at which he was satisfied with the point that he had reached for now, and then slowly pushed himself off of the ground and stretched a bit.

His body ached a bit from when he kept accidentally moving around parts of his flesh together with the circuits, but he would be fine after a little bit of sleep. The Demon stepped up to the door and walked out of the room. Luckily, it was a Saturday now and class wouldn't happen today, so he could take a nap around noon. It was already quite early in the morning right now, after all.

Eiro made his way to the sitting room and let his body drop down onto one of the couches as he took a deep breath. The Demon whispered something in a low voice, using air magic to manipulate where it would go, "Bring me the tea kit."

Only a minute or so later, one of the hidden passages opened up and three special spiders came crawling out of it. One let down the box with the different types of tea in it, another one let down the teapot, and another one let down the tea cup.

These were some of the spiders that had been specially trained in the basement. Basically, they were crawling around this place, protecting it from any possible intruders. Not that anyone really dared to come here anyway, but just in case, there would be these spiders here to take care of them.

And while that wasn't the case, they were also quite skilled housekeepers, surprisingly enough. At this point they listened to any command that Eiro gave them, they were able to get rid of rodents around and within the manor, and the few that were able to use magic could even clean this place up when Eiro himself was too bothered for it.

Eiro sat up on the couch and grabbed the teapot as the spiders crawled away again. He started to heat it up with his magic as he searched through the box of teas for something that he felt like drinking right now. He took a bit of it and placed it into the teapot. Using a bit of basic nature magic to manipulate the tea leaves, as well as some water magic, he didn't have to let this steep at all and could pour himself a cup immediately.

And just like that, Eiro sat there as he pulled a book out of his treasury, casually reading through it as he drank his tea. He did this for about an hour, until the first one beside himself showed up in this room. James.

"Morning. Are you heading out on your run now?" Eiro asked curiously, and James slowly nodded his head.

"I am. Got a problem with that..?" The light elf asked with a big groan, and Eiro stared back at him, just laughing casually, "Stop being so grumpy all the time. This training is going to help you out. You've already made a lot of progress. So did Jess and Krog, of course, but your progress is still incredibly impressive."

"Mhm. Thanks." James replied. He opened one of the doors to the gardens to do some warm-up exercises before he would start running, to not injure himself. Eiro felt a bit hurt that James wasn't talking to him at all, but he figured it was because James was barely able to breath right now. He must be concentrating quite a bit. Something that Eiro knew was a little hard for James.

And that didn't mean that James was dumb, he just didn't possess the same sort of intelligence as Jess, for example. He was street-smart, not book-smart. So for now, Eiro figured he should keep on waiting for others to wake up. Specifically, the children and Ariella, so that he could properly introduce them to each other.

It seemed like Ariella was going to live here for a while from now on, to hide out from the Undead Hunters that kept coming to this capital city, so to prevent any incidents, it would be better if he introduced them to each other.

And surprisingly, it didn't take that long for the first of the bunch to get up either, although it wasn't one of Eiro's children, not directly at least. It was Felix, who came into the room. Quite tired, but with a canvas, his paint, and his brushes underneath his arm. There was an easel already on the other side of the room that he set up yesterday, so that he didn't have to deal with that so early in the morning.

"Morning." Eiro signed as he looked at Felix.

"Good morning." Felix replied in a quiet, unsure voice. He probably wasn't used to speak without signing anymore, so it felt awkward to him. Either way, the Demon watched as Felix set the canvas up on the easel and prepared his paint shortly after.

It seemed like Felix just woke up to draw the sunrise, which seemed like a fairly basic practice to the Demon right now. And so, Eiro chose to just watch the young man paint for a while. He still held his book so that he could pretend not to be paying attention to Felix when he turned around every once in a while, since that would make him quite nervous, but whenever Felix wasn't looking, Eiro would keep watching him work.

And he was really doing quite well. His strokes were smooth and concise, and he was doing what he wanted to do without any issues. Felix didn't seem too worried about anything he was doing at all. Really... He was an incredible talent, that was clear from just a glance.

If Enka hadn't been such an asshole and let Felix explore his talents, he would probably already be a famous artist at this point. But Felix was still young, and Eiro would do his best to support the young man in his endeavors instead, so that he could follow his dreams from now on.

Throughout the next few hours, the other children slowly woke up one after another and sat down in the sitting room next to Eiro. And sooner or later, someone else showed up at the entrance to this room, with the young Hannah right next to her.

Eiro immediately stood up, setting Avalin and Leon down onto the ground after they climbed onto him immediately, and walked over toward Ariella.

"Now, you all. I have someone to introduce to you." The Demon said, pointing at the angelic figure next to him.