Otherworld Adventure

The two quickly went towards the 2nd years' wing and arrived at Lucius's classroom. When they got there some of the upperclassmen still in the class turned a curious eye towards the two.

Fina had a stiff smile plastered on her face when all that attention was directed towards her. She was still holding onto Silver so she quickly tightened her hold on him, trying to stave off the growing anxiety bubbling up inside her.

"Woof!"

"!" Fina looked down towards the cute pet formed Silver and relaxed considerably. She smiled and began petting him, oblivious to the many sparkling eyes staring at her.

Cecil looked around the classroom to find Veli's fiancé, but unfortunately he couldn't find him.

'Eh? He's not in? Or did he already go back?'

A female half-elf came up to the two and asked while smiling gently, "Are you two looking for someone?"

Cecil eyed the half-elf and replied, "Yes, I'm looking for big bro Lucius. Is he not here?"

"Lucius?"

"Yeah... y'know...fat black furred tigerkin."

"Hahaha, well he just rushed out earlier. I'm not sure where he's headed, but it seemed that he was called in by his faction."

"Thank you very much." Cecil bowed towards the half-elf and turned around.

"Thank you!" Fina thanked the upperclassman and followed after Cecil.

For some reason, Cecil thought he heard disappointed sighs coming from the classroom behind him.

"Fina..."

"Yeah?"

"Where's the Alchemist Faction again?"

"...sorry Cecil. I don't know either." Fina responded with a helpless laugh.

"Figures... actually I don't even know where the heck any of the factions are, haha!"

"That's just like you... you really don't care about anything unrelated to us huh?"

"Yup, why would I care anyway?"

"True... you're just like Lucia... or maybe Lucia's just like you."

Cecil only smiled back hearing this. He took out his MID and tried to find the information about the factions.

Fortunately he was able to quickly find them and he acquired the location of the Alchemist Faction. He dragged Fina along with him towards the Alchemist Faction's HQ. It was located in a large building complex in the residential area.

When they got there, the two youngsters saw many people in dark green robes with the faction's insignia walking in and out of the main building.

"Uh oh... do we need to be a member to go in?" Cecil thought aloud.

"I, I dunno..." The two eyed the area and the people passing by. Everyone was wearing the same green robes with the red flower insignia on the back. There wasn't anyone in the vicinity not wearing this robe.

It made the two of them stand out... and in a bad way at that. Most of the people passing by turned a blind eye towards them, but there were some that turned a hostile glare their way.

Cecil only sighed and decided to contact Lucius later. He headed back towards the dorms. He dropped off Fina and left Silver with her. He arrived back at his dorm and found that Ainz still wasn't back.

He changed into his casual clothes and sat down on the sofa lazily. "Wow... this is the first time that I'm actually just sitting around doing nothing..."

Cecil smiled ruefully and closed his eyes to rest. There really wasn't much for him to do lately. Other than supervising his friends' training, he had nothing else to do.

His cultivation had finally reached the Mana Sea Stage and he was able to stabilize it much sooner than he had thought. The only problem was that if he went into battle while activating Mana Burst or circulating his mana according to his, family's training manual that he finally created, his effective combat duration was severely cut down to only a couple of minutes.

Even last week's spar with Lucia tested the limits of his combat time and to Cecil's dismay, he was only able to battle for a maximum of 5 minutes before his body's mana levels depleted to dangerous levels.

It frustrated him, but the upside was that as he cultivated according to his new training manual, he could feel his body improve at a frightening rate. His speed, strength, reaction, just about everything basically, was constantly improving.

Cecil had a feeling that given enough time, his normal combat prowess would soon likely rival his prowess when he activated Mana Burst. Once he's at that level... what would happen if he activated Mana Burst then?

Cecil was very much excited at this thought and he very much anticipated the time when this would become reality.

Today however, he would rest. He let everyone else rest so he himself had to as well. If he overclocked their bodies and pushed his friends, it would only be detrimental to them. It would ruin their bodies as well as their determination.

Cecil greatly admired his father and grandfather's training methods, although he didn't really like the two as parents. Tricking their young son into sacrificing his childhood for his family's tradition... it left a bad taste in his mouth whenever he thought about it. Especially now that he's tasted a little of what a normal child would have experienced during their childhood.

'It was a good thing that I'm not an a.d.u.l.t yet... I'd probably resent them more...' Cecil chuckled lightly.

Cecil did, however, resign himself to become the family head when the time came, but he didn't want to act this way towards his future children. Letting his future kids experience the crap that he had to go through...

"Yeah, not happening, I bet my future wife would scold me to no end just like how Mom and Granny do to father and grandpa..."

Cecil spread his body down onto the sofa and closed his eyes to rest. 'What the heck am I thinking? I'm still a kid... I've got lots of time before then... for now I should enjoy... this.'

The boy soon fell into a deep sleep on the sofa with a peaceful smile on his face.

********

"Cel~ Cel~ wake up~ Cel~!"

Hearing the familiar voice, Cecil slowly opened up his eyes. He groggily stared back at the brightly smiling face of his 'childhood' friend.

He began rubbing his eyes and turned his head to look around the room. He found the rest of Little Kings, as well as some additional people, inside the room sitting and chatting. Ainz was at the dining table eating with a red-skinned giant.

If Cecil wasn't mistaken then this giant was the one that Ainz had knocked out in last month's magic combat assessment.

'I think his name was Sor'ak... or something'

The room was pretty lively, but Cecil still felt exhausted for some reason. He quickly started swaying before almost collapsing back onto the sofa. Lucia quickly caught him before he fell over. The girl smiled helplessly and quickly helped him into his room.

"Geez... you haven't even eaten yet. The other guys in class even decided to drop by but here you are, sleeping away."

After pulling the blanket over Cecil and tucking him to sleep, Lucia was about to walk out of the room before she saw the appalling state her friend's room was in.

Strewn all over the desk and the floor... as well as hung up on the walls, were parchments and scrolls that had rune enchantments and formulas on them. For some reason, Cecil's sword and spear were also out of their sheaths and placed on top of the desk. It wasn't only his main weapons, all his daggers, needles and other small weapons he always kept on his body were strewn all over the desk.

Lucia helplessly sighed before she began tidying up his room. While she was doing this, Ainz appeared by the door and saw her cleaning the room. Along with him were also the rest of Little Kings and some of the friends they invited back to their dorm.

Lucia looked back at them and only gestured for them to be quiet. They nodded in reply and quickly peeked around the room. It was the first time anyone in Little Kings saw their leader's room.

It was a really messy. Scrolls and parchments that seemed to be research notes were all over the place. They saw the variety of weapons on top of the desk and the weapon rack that was redesigned to be an open cabinet full of rare metals and materials.

"Hey Eli... isn't that moonlight ore over there?" Fina whispered.

"Y-yeah... do you see that blue one? Isn't that blurite?"

"There's also a piece of chimerite next to it..." Velicia added softly.

"...where in the world did he get these?"

While the 3 girls were eyeing the precious stones and ores on the cabinet, Ainz was staring at the weapons on the table. He never really took notice, but his friend really had a variety of weapons equipped all over his body and he'd use it all with skillful technique.

"Cecil... he's pretty outrageous huh?"

"Well, we already know that." Fina replied.

Ainz laughed, "Yeah, I guess so. I wonder why he appears so exhausted though... he was pretty energetic during class..."

The 4 quickly went back towards the dorm's living room. Everyone had just finished eating Lucia's home-cooked dinner and they too were just as surprised as everyone else had been when they found out that Lucia had great culinary skills.

When Lucia finished tidying up the room, everyone else was just about ready to head back. Lucia turned to look back at her sleeping friend and she took a quick glance at her wrist.

She eyed the bracelet that kept track of Cecil's mana levels and was relieved to see that the bracelet's color was still green. It hadn't changed at all ever since they separated today at class. She was worried to leave Cecil alone and find that he had secretly went out to train by lonesome and accidentally overuse his mana.

But during the whole day when she kept a constant eye at the bracelet, the gem embedded on it had never changed color. It looks like Cecil was only tired today due to other reasons.

"Good night Cel." She closed the door and together with the girls went back towards their dorm.