As every day Luz trained with Jodoc the parrot. As of now, his control over the elements such as fire and water was acceptable for a mage apprentice.
"Jodoc, I don't want to play gardener simulator 2021," Luz complained to himself as he strolled through Master Simon's garden.
The parrot had the glorious idea of giving Luz his job of watering the plants in Master Simon's garden. His justification for that was: "we can increase your fine-tuning over the water element since each plant needs a limited amount of water."
And that's how Luz ended up doing nothing more than watering the plants using water summoning spells, while Jodoc added some other things to the pure water Luz summoned.
"No, no, no. If I'm going to be your babysitter, then you're going to do the chores that I have to do tonight," the parrot screeched while lightly biting Luz's ear.
'I'd better not provoke him further. Otherwise, he'll force me to do more chores, like cleaning the whole damn magic tower. Who knows what lurks there in the dark,' went through Luz's head, and he shuddered.
Luz muttered [water] and summoned a mass of water that floated above his left palm. After concentrating enough, he was able to break the water mass above his hand onto two unequal pieces before sending the shorter one floating towards one of the plants.
However, Jodoc merely gave him a side-eye, as he snickered: "That's not 25ml. That's 23ml."
Unfortunally, the parrot forgot that controlling two different bodies of water was quite a burden for a mage apprentice. His remarks could easily distract one further, which is why the latter lost control.
Seeing how the two masses collapsed, the parrot shrieked loudly and seized the control of the two water masses.
After getting the mess under control, Jodoc sighed loudly in relief before commenting: "You're good for nothing and almost got us two killed. Do you know how expensive and how much care these plants need??"
"You mean he would kill you for letting me, a mage apprentice, do your job," Luz retorted back.
"I don't care. You're doing this job just to gain greater control over water. Trust me, if you can master the watering here, Master Simon will be amazed," the parrot replied with a laugh.
"I doubt it. You probably are trying to shift the responsibility of taking care of these plants onto me. But alright," Luz sighed and continued, watering the plants.
For the job that Jodoc could do in ten seconds, Luz took several hours with breaks for mana recovery factored in. In the end, he was nothing more but a sweating mess who was lying on the ground as his gaze shifted from one plant to another. They looked beautiful, and the colors he saw today were far more than he saw in the first half of his life.
"You did a great job with that one. If you keep doing this, your mana control should get above average compared to other mage apprentices. But for now, get some rest. Tomorrow we'll continue," Jodoc told him before leaving the tired Luz alone on the ground.
Luz remained lying there for an hour until hunger forced him to leave.
"I'd better get something to eat, or I'll starve," Luz thought as he walked to the canteen.
There, he ate ten plates, which was an astonishing amount even for Luz.
"Hmm. It must be because of those pesky parasites. Simon said that they were in symbiosis with me. But bullshit. they are parasites that only take nutrients from me without giving anything in return," Luz grumbled to himself as he ate his food. Even after his tenth plate, Luz heard in his body the phrase: "More."
"No. You've had enough," Luz cursed back and left the canteen.
'If I continued eating like that, the canteen might go bankrupt because of me.'
Unfortunally, Luz didn't know how good his metabolism was. It didn't take Luz an hour before he ran back into the canteen. But this time, Luz looked way thinner, having lost a few kilos.
From that moment on, it was clear that something was wrong with Luz. Even though he continued to eat calmly, the cook called some magicians to inform them regarding Luz's current behavior.
High energy consumption is not uncommon among higher mages when they use certain spells. But it is unheard of for apprentice mages to have such high energy consumption. A high mana consumption could be explained. But there are no apprentice spells that require anywhere near that much energy.
In Luz's body, an evolutionary cascade got triggered as all the parasites began their evolutions at the same moment.
Since any evolution takes quite a lot of energy, it was no wonder why Luz was losing bodyweight so fast. If one knew what was truly happening in Luz's body, one would scream which idiot came up with such a stupid idea since it was one of the stupidest life and death fight.
His energy consumption per second was way higher than the energy absorption, which Luz took with eating.
"Shit. If it continues like that, I'm going to die," Luz's thoughts screamed as he stopped even chewing his meal properly and swallowed them directly.
Seeing what was happening, it is no wonder that a silent crowd was slowly gathering around Luz to watch this maniac trying to survive. Most of them thought he was putting on a show since he was only known for eating much.
But a few of them realized how serious the situation was. Those ones immediately bought more plates to Luz's place while others began carrying the tally of plates away that was slowly building up.
The number of empty plates grew to twenty-three till Master Simon could be seen teleporting into the room with a group of three other mages, who wore white clothes.
One of them immediately sent the crowd to the exit. Simon was cursing loudly since it merely took him a glance to realize what was happening. He immediately inserted several tubes into Luz's body. The latter continued eating with teary eyes as he thought about how he will die because he couldn't eat fast enough.
By now, he had lost another 6 kilograms, and loose skin hung from his body. Luz's eyes were red with anger while he couldn't stop eating out of fear even though nutrient solutions were now flowing into his body.
Unfortunately for them, the parasites saw the nutrient solution only as a reason to increase their energy intake, which made Master Simon even more furious. He immediately shouted: "Shit, what the hell is going on? Such a high energy consumption shouldn't even be possible for me."
The other mages connected without commenting another nutrient-dense container to Luz, just out of precaution.
"I will keep you alive, Luz. I cannot let such a parasite like you go to waste. You have already cost me so many resources. I will milk your body like a cow for every penny and research data I can get out of you," Master Simon laughed painfully.
"I think he's going mad," whispered one of the mages in white to their partner. The latter merely commented: "Well, you know these nutritions are expensive. We would all go mad if we wasted so many containers on a stupid mage apprentice."
The former nodded before responding: "Well, that must be one of the stranger mage apprentices. I want some data on him. Just to know what the hell is going on."
"Forget it. Such pieces of information won't do you any good. It's already a miracle how they let such a creature run freely."
"Master Brian, why must you bring me my misfortune. I have always been a good subject," muttered Simon, whose heart ached.
'At least Luz seems to be getting better. Remember Simon, only with a living Luz can you take good data. We will take a closer look at some of his cells later. I need to see how the parasites have developed in Luz's body," Simon began muttering to himself to calm his nerves.
"Simon, just shut the fuck up for a minute," Jodoc, the parrot screeched, who was sitting on his shoulder, before bitting his ear.
Meanwhile, Master Brian strolled into the cafeteria to see what was causing the commotion over there. When he saw Luz with a pile of expensive nutrient containers, his gaze turned gloomy.
'It's always the same person who creates unrest here. I only bought a simple slave to give him a chance to live. Why do the gods have to curse me,' Brian thought before shouting with a laugh, "Simon, you deserve this for your stupid experiments."
"You, wait and see. This boy will surpass you one day," Simon cursed back.
"Yes, but you will be poorer than any citizen of this city before it happens," Brian shouted back in laughter.
Luz's energy consumption slowly began declining. The parasites finished their evolution and were saturated with nutrients. The mages said goodbye to Simon, who merely sighed as he removed all the tubes of the latter's body. Unfortunally, Simon couldn't rest yet, since immediately after that, Luz's body began twitching uncontrollably.
This shocked Simon to the core, who thought that his discipline was overdosing on nutrients. He immediately ripped Luz's shirt. But there, he saw merely how Luz's mana core was hot.
"Wow, and now he turned into a beginner mage," the parrot screeched loudly.
"I wish that we could be happy about that, but that bastard shocks me one moment after the next one," Simon sighed before teleporting the three back to his tower.
