So. It turned out that I found a cheat.

Well, probably anybody in my position would have realized it if they knew even the most basic thing about how the human body improved.

You see, muscles got stronger after getting damaged and healing up.

And <Healing> didn't erase the damage your body suffered, but instead helped it heal itself.

You see where I'm going with this?

After I learned <Healing> from Roxy... making sure to have her nearby while I used the spell with both the incantation and the magic circle to make sure nothing terrible happened, I pretended to go to bed early. But instead, I started experimenting again.

It was a simple test. I would do pushups until I couldn't anymore, heal myself up, and try again.

Summing up my results:

Baseline: 10 pushups

Healing round 1: 11 pushups

Healing round 2: 12 pushups

Healing round 3: 14 pushups

...It was very incremental. Doing some quick math, the gain seemed to be about... 10% improvement each time.

Almost nothing.

But it cost almost nothing too.

Miss Roxy warned me about the mana cost in using <Healing> too much... but that wasn't a problem for me for a few reasons.

First: I had a crap ton of mana.

I wasn't sure if I had more than Miss Roxy since her staff shined as bright as the morning sun if I stared at it too long, but when I tested my limits one time, it took me converting my mana into a hundred water balls to get anywhere near tired.

Second: I could see mana and use it more efficiently.

I didn't try it out in the beginning since I was afraid of causing an explosion or some other catastrophe, but since I had a teacher to keep an eye on things, I started trying to cast magic from the floating mana I saw.

I couldn't actually grab it, but I could use a bit of my mana to attract it over and use it that way. For example, if I wanted to use some 'blue' mana to cast water spells, I could cut off a bit of my mana, turn it blue, and then use that to gather up all the floating mana to use for my spell.

Miss Roxy had a weird way of just summoning all that mana whenever she needed it with her staff without using a thread of mana like me, but I still didn't know how to do that. And I couldn't really ask either without spilling the beans that I could see mana...

Right now, Miss Roxy and I had a good working relationship. She was nice and seemed like she had fun answering all my questions. Even if they caught her off guard at times.

But I didn't know how she'd react if I suddenly told her that I could see mana... Maybe I should bring it up subtly first to make sure it wasn't anything crazy. I remember that 'Mage Sight' or something was pretty common in the stories and games I used to enjoy, so there was bound to be something similar.

But just in case there wasn't, I'd keep quiet about that. For now.

Anyway, long story short: it took a lot for me to run out of mana. In game terms, I basically had a bunch of MP reduction passives that made simple spells free.

Which meant I could abuse the crap out of healing and buff up!

And that was just by casting <Healing> by the book, too.

I had a feeling that if I messed around with it properly, I could tweak things and maybe do crazy stuff like refine my nerves and reflexes... but I could also break something, so I didn't do that.

While I'd love to bounce those questions off Miss Roxy to see her thoughts... I was pretty sure that she didn't know enough about the human body to tell me. She could guess, but guesses were dangerous when it came to this stuff.

On the upside, the Holy Country of Milis was a thing, and Mom's side of the family lived there. That country was famous for healing magic and had tons of experts there.

Maybe in the future I'd swing by and bounce some ideas off of them to see if I could do proper superhuman tweaking.

But at the moment, I was just stuck with basic supplements essentially.

Still, continuous 10% improvement was better than nothing. And considering that I was still only three years old...

"I can't slack now." I pushed myself off the ground and focused.

I didn't have an excuse this time. If I squandered my life away after getting this head start... I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Even if I miraculously got a third chance after that, I'd just quit then and there.

I slapped my cheeks and muttered, "You've got this, Rudy."

I was lucky. I was lucky enough to be born fully aware and able to see mana. I was lucky enough to be born to loving parents who supported me without expectations. I was lucky enough to have a kind and caring maid that was essentially a second supportive mother. And now I was lucky enough to have a magic teacher who was a hardworking genius who could explain and help me work through questions I had on magic.

If my life ended in vain again after all of this, I might as well never have been born in the first place.

So...

Fire. Water. Wind. Earth... Fire was too dangerous to practice inside, but the other three I could work on.

A ball of water, wind, and dirt.

Splitting my attention to each of those, I started slowly training my body. Push ups, sit ups, squats, jumping jacks...

Move your body! Work your body! You can go and be somebody!

"That's right!" I grit my teeth and started doing push ups. "You've got this! You can do it! One! Two! Three! Fo-"

"Ahn~!"

A sudden load moan, followed by a squeaking mattress.

I stumbled, dropping to the ground with a thud. At the same time, the water ball fell on my back and the wind ball exploded, sending dirt everywhere.

"Geez..." I brushed myself off and held out my hand, cleaning up the mess by sending out a blue thread and a brown thread, gathering up the water and dirt. After that, I tossed it all out the window and let out a deep sigh.

"P-Paul. Oh Milis! N-Nnnn~!"

"...Mom's definitely a loud one, huh?" I let out another deep sigh and walked to the door.

I didn't judge. Mom and Dad loved each other very much. And considering how often they did it, I was looking forward to a younger brother or sister soon.

But they *did* know that they weren't the only ones in this house, right?

My room was the furthest from theirs, and I could still hear them going at it. If that was the case, what about Miss Lilia and Miss Roxy, huh?

Did my parents not care, or did they like the thrill of that?

...Actually, I didn't want to know.

All I knew was that I wanted to have at least one quiet night for once. So...

"...Yeah. Let's play that card."

The bathroom was along the way to their room. It'd be embarrassing for everyone involved, but if I groggily opened the door and asked what they were doing, they'd definitely quiet down a bit.

...Though considering how into it my mom got, that might just involve some kinkier stuff like gags to keep her quiet...

Ew.

Anyway, plan formulated. Now to execute.

I opened the door and started walking over. It was dark though, so I held out my hand and conjured a tiny flame. Not a big one, but just about the size of a lit candle.

With that done, I yawned to get in the proper state of mind to pull of my act.

And then I saw something ahead of me that shouldn't be there.

At first, my mind didn't register it.

I saw blue. I saw some pale skin tinged pink. And between my mom's voice, I heard some soft feminine panting overlapping it.

But then I blinked and realized that I wasn't dreaming, nor was I hallucinating.

My parents' room was in the middle of the hallway. The bathroom was at the end.

And I realized why the sound carried so much. The door was open just a crack. The door to my parents' room, that is.

But that wasn't important. Instead...

There was someone sitting there. Right beside the door and leaning against the wall. One hand buried in her blouse and the other much lower, buried in her thighs.

Miss Roxy.

I blinked.

Miss Roxy noticed me and froze.

I blinked again and slowly turned around, walking back into my room.

...I didn't see anything. Yep. Definitely didn't see anything tonight.

Even if I did... I wasn't going to judge. Miss Roxy was about that age, right? Right. And since the internet wasn't a thing here, she had to work with, um... whatever source material she could find.

Right.

So...

...Let's just dump all of my mana and knock myself out. Yeah, that's probably for the best.

I closed the room behind me and then slipped into my bed. After that, I held out my right hand and spooled out all of my mana as fast as I could.

For a split second, I saw it floating around in the air as a crimson haze. And then I blacked out.