Jun holed up for a few days, going through battle simulations in his mind while testing out hs various skill in projected battles against Kawamura.

He added this to his training, sometimes even going through the motions of a battle even without an opponent, it actually expedited the growth of Jun's martial skills by a fair bit.

Eventually though he went back out there into the world and met Irina who had been looking for him the past few days, not knowing where he actually lived.

"Ju-kun!" The little girl flusteredly called out once she saw him.

"Hey Jun, where have you been the past few days?" Issei who was also around asked.

"You know, doing stuff . . ." Jun didn't explain but just as Issei was about to complain about the vagueness of Jun's words, Irina grabbed the boy and dragged him away to talk to him.

"Ju-kun . . . Are you mad at me?" She nervously asked.

*sigh*

Jun patted her head. He really had no hobby of bullying little kids.

"Of course not. Not like it was your fault." He shrugged.

Irina heaved a sigh of relief and said.

"Can you come and have dinner at my house tonight. Otou-san really wants to make up for . . . what happened." She requested.

Jun just looked at her for a bit and when tears threatened to appear, he finally relented.

'The last thing I want right now is to deal with a crying kid . . .' He thought.

"Sure . . . I'll go." Jun accepted the invitation.

"That's great!" Irina exclaimed and hugged him before suddenly recoilingback with a blush, looking away while sneaking glances at Jun.

'You can't get more obvious than that . . .' Jun thought.

Jun hung around for a bit, just keeping Issei and Irina company without doing anything really, pretty much how it always was until it was time for the two to return home.

Reminding Jun to come to her house by dinnertime, Irina also left while Jun also returned home to change and then, after a bit of meditation which was becoming a habit for him, he left to go to Irina's house.

By this point, his skills in magecraft were sufficient for him to manipulate the minds of the people in the orphanage to not care at all about his actions.

A bit later, he arrived at his destination to find Irina's mother and the girl herself welcoming him.

"Welcome Jun-kun, I have been looking forward to meeting you since my Irina doesn't stop talking about you." Mrs. Shidou greeted.

She was a beautiful woman, looking like a grown up Irina but with luscious black hair.

Irina pouted her her mother for saying something like that but she ignored her daughter with a smile as if was greatly enjoying the situation.

"It's a pleasure to Mrs. Shidou." Jun politely greeted back.

"Such manners, it's hard to think of you as a friend of my daughter. And please, it's just Miya to you since you're a potential future son in law." Miya laughed.

'I question your character of you're speaking about marriage to a bunch of kids but I'll reserve judgement.' Jun thought.

'Alright, Miya-san." he acquiesced to her request.

"Kaa-san!" Irina complained with a full blush.

Drama aside the two welcomed Jun into their home and Touji didn't seem downhearted as Jun thought he'd be since the battle with his subordinate had happened.

'Hmm . . . Maybe they didn't fight that battle yet and just face something like a stray devil?' Jun theorized.

But then, Jun spotted someone who didn't belong. It was Kawamura.

"Kawamura-kun came here to apologize for his actions." Touji said as Irina looked worried something might happen and Miya doubted it was a good idea.

"His expression of discontent tells me you just force him to come." Jun commented.

Kawamura seemed to want to say something that was no apology but Touji shut him down with a glared.

"I apologize for my previous actions." He said through his teeth, only lowering his head so that people didn't see his expression.

"Your lack of sincerity and obvious hostility towards me, makes you apology honestly insulting." Jun responded.

"You-!" Kawamura started.

"You what? Failure of an exorcist that got thrashed by a seven year old. You attacked me for no reason, got schooled and now doesn't want to realize your mistakes because of your injured pride." Jun mocked.

"Alright this is enough!" Touji shouted.

"Yeah, it really is." Jun said before turning to leave.

"Where are you going!?" Irina asked flusteredly with tears in the corner of her eyes.

"Home." Jun replied.

"And as for you." Jun turned towards Kawamura.

"Bother me again and I'll make sure to finish you off before the rest of your buddies arrive." He declared.

Even though Jun's raw power hadn't changed much or at all, his multiple mental battle projections had led him to discover countless ways to defeat Kawamura since he was the only opponent he could use for them.

JUn was truly about to leave but Miya took charge of the situation.

"You don't have to leave Jun-kun, I still want to get to know you and Touji-san was already about to lead Kawamura-kun out. Isn't that right dear?" She said, looking at her husband with an "I told you so" look.

Shidou Miya was a woman that emitted a strange pressure despite not being scary at all and even Jun got trapped in her pace and so, in the blink of an eye, Kawamura was gone, and Jun was having a pleasant dinner with the family of three as the housewife made conversation.

"So Jun-kun, where do you live? Irina never mentioned it." Miya asked.

"In Kuoh orphanage." Jun replied.

"Oh! I'm sorry." Miya apologized.

"No need, I don't even remember anything before the orphanage since I've lived there since I was just a few months old." Jun shrugged.

"I see . . ." Miya replied.

Then they spoke about more trivial stuff and it was generally a pleasant time. In the end, Miya insisted Jun visited again and didn't let him go until he agreed.

Back in his room, Jun dismissed his thoughts of his dinner and started pondering on his future path in magecraft.

With the help of his enhanced mental faculties, he had already pretty much grasped the basics of magecraft, the general skills that all magi were expected to have so now, it was time to begin learning specializations.

Technically, his Mind Archive, Memory Partition and Thought Acceleration were all specialized magecraft belonging to the discipline of alchemy but Jun was not sure he wanted to keep going in that route.

After all, he currently did not have the resources for such practice so he thought it was better left for the future.

Pondering for a while, he decided to ask Ahsaka for suggestions and they were as follows.

'With your talent and connection to the Root, you can create your own magecraft and develop your own magic formulae and Thaumaturgical Foundation.'

Magecraft of the Nasuverse worked by using one's Magic Circuits to tap into a Thaumaturgical Foundation and reproduce the Mysteries it related to.

These Foundations relied on their history and countless years of research by generations of magi to work stably and allow one to use magecraft connected to them.

They are essentially clusters of Magic Formulae, each of which runs a Magecraft (program) written within it when a Magus connects his Magic Circuits to it and sends Magical Energy and commands.

Foundations sometimes rely on faith and location, with one's magecraft losing its power should they leave its place of origin where the Foundation was carved into the World.

However, both Foundations that are widespread and deeply entrenched into the world, as as well those that are passed down through personal orally transmitted teachings such as the limited inheritance in clans, are different.

For the latter, as long as the rules of those Foundations are met, it is possible to exhibit the same basic effect no matter where one is in the world.

Although requiring very high levels of talent, one can create their own Magic Foundation one made haphazardly, would stop working and collapse in at most a few days, thus leaving all magecraft connected to it, impossible to use.

One great example of this, was Flat Escardos who often created magecraft on the fly, making his own Thaumaturgical Foundation in that moment which would result in him often being unable to use the same spell twice.

With Jun's talent and connection to the limitless knowledge of the Akashic Records, creating a stable Foundation that did not crumble.

'You should start making plans now even if it is nearly impossible for you to create a sufficiently stable Foundation currently because it will greatly help you in the future.' Ahsaka suggested.

'Thanks, but what about right now?' Jun asked.

'Your connection to the enables you to use True Ether as energy and thus rely on magecraft from the Age of the Gods.'

'I thus suggest Rune magecraft due to its versatility and due to the fact the Records will enable you to learn and use the Primordial runes created by Odin that contain far greater power than modern runes.' Ahsaka explained her reasoning and Jun found it very reasonable indeed.

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P.a.t.r.e.o.n is officially up!

The link is: https://www.p.a.t.r.e.o.n.com/lusoba  without the extra dots of course.

You'll get to read up to FOUR week ahead, a full month, but I'll still post here.

There's also my other novel Archon of DanMachi, do check it out!

I would greatly appreciate any support since this is going to be my breadwinner.