Meanwhile, back at home...
As Alex exited his meditation, only thirty minutes had passed as the clock pointed at six.
He could feel he had already reached his daily limit, as the connections between the mana nodes had reached an equilibrium.
"Why didn't I just go with them?" Alex murmured to himself as he started regretting his irrational action.
After getting up from the bed, he headed back to the living room before standing at the bookshelf.
"What other book can I read?"
Looking through all the selections, Alex eventually found one that interested him.
But as he sat down on the sofa and began reading it. He was soon bored out of his mind again.
He was just too burnt to read, so he put the book back on the bookshelf as he lay flat on the sofa.
"I'm so bored! Why is this world so boring? Why are there no video games!"
Alex complained out loud in the living room as he rolled around the sofa, punching the soft pillow out of anger.
But suddenly, he came to a complete stop as he sat back up from the sofa before looking down at what he had just done.
"When did I have such a big mood swing? Is this period really affecting me this much?"
Alex immediately headed to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror.
In the reflection, he could see a young boy with long hair and a slightly feminine face.
"Come on, Alex, stop acting like a little bitch and calm back down... Are you a real man or not, Alex?"
After asking himself the question out loud right in front of the mirror, he couldn't open his mouth and answer it back.
It was almost as if he couldn't convince himself that he was a man at this point.
His feminine, high-pitched voice had remained the same, and his muscles didn't grow as expected despite his classmate already growing.
Not to mention his chest, which had gone from a flat plain to almost the size of his fingertip, and the pain he still felt down below.
From all angles, his body was growing to be a woman, no matter how much he wanted to tell himself that he was a man.
"Maybe I'm just a woman... No, no, no, I need to get that thought out of my head."
Alex immediately rushed out of the bathroom and ran past the two rooms before arriving in the backyard.
Despite the cold air blowing onto his face, it didn't help at all, as he felt more conflicted than ever.
A sense of disgust began to develop as he couldn't believe what he had just suggested to himself.
Yet, the baseline he had always set for himself was starting to erode more and more as he couldn't get the idea out of his mind.
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut Up! I'm a guy! I'm not a woman! I will never be a woman!"
As Alex started banging his head against the tree, leaves started falling until a drop of blood on his forehead made him stop.
"See you!"
As Luqing and the two sisters walked in the opposite direction of their four friends, they were finally heading back home.
"Luqing, what do you think of the meditation room?" Sophia curiously asked as they walked down the streets.
"It's pretty cool... It kind of reminded me about what my master described as a natural spirit stone place."
As Luqing answered, the two both knew the master she was talking about wasn't Fredrick.
Instead, it was her teacher who had taught her about meditation in the past.
"Luqing, Luqing, how strong was your master? Was she as strong as Miss Meiya?" Mary curiously asked this time.
"He's... I don't think he's stronger than Mom... But he's definitely stronger than me."
"Huh... Wait, how did he arrive on this side of the world?" Sophia asked as she suddenly realized something.
Luqing fell into silence, seemingly to be thinking of something before she spoke up again.
"I think he was being wanted as a... fugitive? Or at least that's what several of the people told me back in Regina."
Both girls became even more curious, but they didn't ask any further as they arrived at the front door.
After opening the door with the key, they were a little surprised to find the house empty except for Alex, who was sitting on the sofa reading a book.
"Welcome back." Alex welcomed the three as Luqing closed the door behind her.
"Where's mom and Miss Meiya?"
Sophia asked as she and Mary threw their backpack aside before sitting down.
"I don't know. They haven't shown up since I got back home... Hey, don't take my book away."
As Alex tried to take his book back from Sophia's hand, she quickly lifted it into the air.
"Who told you to be so rude and just give us the silent treatment to all of us?"
Alex fell into silence for a second before he jumped up to grab his book out of Sophia's hand.
"I just didn't feel well today... Do you two have your periods yet?" Alex asked as he resumed reading the book.
"We are on our period right now. We barely felt that much pain, unlike someone who put up a——"
Just before Sophia could finish, Mary quickly covered her mouth before giving her an eye signal.
"Ahem, can you at least try not to be so rude about it? Just, you know, tell us you're not feeling well."
"Fine, fine... I'll tell you and your friends that I'm not feeling well. Are you happy, Mom?"
"Hmph! Whatever..."
As Sophia shifted her attention over to Mary instead, Alex's heart was skipping like crazy.
If Mary hadn't covered Sophia's mouth at the very last second, his secret would have been fully exposed to Luqing right there.