"Mnh" Lily winced as a streak of sunlight fell on her eyelids, she trashed around for a bit before opening her eyes, blinking a few times, and sitting up on the bed.

Right, she was in her room. Not the one in the back-water village a ways off from the capital, but the one given to her by her... Mom.

"You're finally awake" Said Lilith, smiling at her while sitting on a chair she placed next to her bed.

"Morning" Lily scratched her eyes, she felt... sleepy.

Lilith chuckled before standing, picking up the sleepy Hero from the bed, and carrying her outside the room. She seemed especially amused when Lily mumbled things along the lines of "I can do it myself" while still half-asleep

Things went by in a blur, they took a bath, had breakfast and Lilith carried her to their usual spot in the garden. Only when she was served some hot tea from a maid(?) that suspiciously disappeared in the shadows did things click and she asked, "Did it work?"

"Yes, yes it did." The kindhearted Demon Queen laughed at her antics before taking a sip of her drink and speaking, "How do you feel?"

"Fine" Lily drank some herself then mumbled "A bit tired though"

"That's not too unexpected, you're a being of mana now, your body used up most of its reserves in the transformation, and you're low on what's now your lifeforce, so you'll feel tired for a while. Don't worry though, it'll pass soon, if you want it to go quicker we can go hunt some monsters outside the city" Lilith smiled and used some simple magic to make a mirror and showed it to Lily "What do you think?"

Lily was stunned, her eyes now matched her mother's. Only after looking for a while did she remember to answer the question, "Ah, I wouldn't mind hunting today" She then smiled, "It'll be fun"

Lilith grinned. She quickly finished her cup before speaking, "Then let's go!"

"H-huh, right now?" 

"Of course! There's no better time than the present, it'll be a good lesson and mother-daughter bonding time"

"M-mom, wait up!" She quickly finished her tea before standing and running up to Lilith with a pout on her face

...

It didn't take long until they reached the forest, mostly because Lilith teleported them directly there, saving them the trouble of using horses. Well, they're faster than horses either way, but you get the gist.

"Alrighty! You know, hunting your first monster and absorbing their mana is a rite of passage for demons, well, it's quite an ancient practice, but I think it'll be fun" Lilith said while she stretched in preparation for their hunt "I'll be guiding you until we find a suitable monster, then I'll let you fight it on your own." Of course, she'd be ready to step in a moment's notice.

Lily sighed, her mom was so excited to bring her here that they didn't even pick up any weapons, not that they needed any, but she expected at least a bow or a sword on hand. Not to mention they were both wearing casual clothes. "You'll help me track it?"

Lilith hummed "Only if you need my help"

Lily shrugged "Alright then"

They walked a bit further into the forest, neither particularly bothered about the sinister vibe it gave, although Lily did whisper something about a 'Demonic forest' before Lilith stopped and spoke "As a demon, you should be much more sensitive to mana now. Why don't you try to sense a powerful mana signature we can hunt?"

Lily gave her a 'why didn't you say so earlier?' look but did as she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, while this is something human mages can do, it only helps with identifying concentrations of mana closeby, so it's useful as a way to sense any spells being cast, but they can't sense internal mana without directly touching the owner. While she was going on a tangent, she started sensing all the mana around, while mana is everywhere, she did sense a few signatures that had a decent amount of it, meaning they were likely monsters. However, there was one in particular a few hundred meters west that had a massive amount, so she opened her eyes and pointed to the direction she sensed it from "That way"

Lilith smiled and nodded "Then shall we pick up the pace a bit?"

"Mn" They started dashing through the forest, though they both were running extremely fast, they were also entirely silent in their steps, having already cast spells to mask their sound and scent. It didn't take long until they reached a wide clearing with a massive black bear with patches of white fur on its back lying down, seemingly resting. Its most noticeable trait was its two canine teeth being as long as Lilith's forearm. The monster easily dwarfed them both and was as big as many of the trees around.

"Hm, a Bear-Tooth" Lilith said while Lily just nodded, looking around for a bit longer, they noticed a path of fallen trees to the side, showing the destructive path the monster took to get here. 

"So I just have to kill it?" Lily tilted her head towards Lilith

"Yep, I'll be watching from afar, just call me if you need help. I'll step in if you're in danger" Lilith hugged her daughter before opening a tear in space next to them and stepping through, supposedly going to some vantage point nearby.

Lily shook her head at her mom's antics, she doubted she'd need any help to kill even an S-Rank, much less a B-Rank like this one. Sighing, she decided to try sniping it from where she was, about to use a light arrow to deal with it quickly, but then she remembered the small detail that said spell is made out of light, and would immediately give away her position in the forest's shadow. Humming, she was about to use a wind spell, but something deep inside her told her to use it instead, so she shrugged and just went with her gut. Focusing on the speed, strength, and size of the spell she wanted, she then pushed that gut feeling out, she raised her left arm horizontally while twisting it to the right, with her index and middle fingers pointed forward, then used her right hand as if pulling back a bowstring, a <Dark Arrow> quickly forming between her hands, she breathed in, then out. As if on cue, the spell fired out at incredible speeds toward the bear, almost instantly reaching its target, it had little more than enough time to open its eyes wide before it struck its side, no sound could be heard as the darkness ate away at its insides, killing it quickly.

Lily smiled and walked up to the body, yawning a bit, she reached it, but then noticed a small problem.

"Um, mom? How do I absorb its mana?"

She swore she heard a distant laugh from a tree.

Nory

Well, when I was writing the part where she killed the bear, my playlist ended up playing a jujusu kaisen song, so yeah, anyways, I'm back! I got tired of procrastinating on this story, so I'll try to write more consistently from now on. Frankly, I had absolutely no motivation at all to do anything, but I had such a great idea for a future chapter I just had to pick this up again, even if even that took like a month. Also, the next chapter won't take too long to come out, as I already have it more or less planned out. Feel free to annoy me in the comments if I keep procrastinating, I'm the kind of person that lacks motivation to do stuff on my own, but if I have a few readers who really want to read my story, I'll probably write it faster.