"Noa! Noa!"
Someone shook his bed with urgency.
"...Huh?"
Bedraggled, Noa swiftly woke up, looking around to see Dulio looking panicked.
"Why are you still sleeping?! Don't you know what happens if you're late to morning prayer?!" The tone of a man with trauma was heard from Dulio, who had woken up at his normal time of 5 AM, and had swiftly washed up.
Lavinia had done the same, not because she willingly woke up, but she had heard Dulio scrambling downstairs, so she took the opportunity to do the same.
Noa looked pretty confused, but rubbed his eyes, getting out of his bed.
Before he went to bed, he wore the training outfit that seemed to be the ONLY thing in the wardrobe other than a smaller variation of a normal priest's garb, presumably when they do something other than training.
While originally, Noa would also be worried, but with his Protection of the Faith's [Protection from Fatigue] and [Always Clean] effects, Noa just rubbed his eyes, dry rubbed his face, and shook his head to clean up the stray hairs swaying in front of his face.
Now he looked good as always.
Dulio paused, looking at Noa's rather pristine condition.
"...Are you not going to wash up?"
Noa looked at him with a questioning expression.
Dulio, even if he had woken up pretty early due to habit, this didn't mean he was a morning person. Rather he was someone who preferred to sleep in. So despite washing up, he still looked worse for wear.
Noa on the other hand, just woke up and other than the initial disorientation, actually looked much cleaner than Dulio. While the feeling of not cleaning up despite always being clean might have psychologically affected Noa, due to the Blessing he constantly felt like he just came out the shower instead.
The rubbing his eyes and face rubbing was more force of habit rather than being necessary, seeing as he never actually accumulated eye crust or face oil because of Protection of the Faith.
And with [Protection from Fatigue], just blinking a few times was enough to feel perfectly fine.
"...Why do you look cleaner than I do...?"
"It must be God's Blessing," Noa shrugged.
"What a convenient blessing..." Dulio deadpanned, his worry for naught. Funnily enough, even if Dulio hadn't waked him up, Noa's [Protection from Bad Luck] combined with his Luck would have woken him up regardless.
"I know right?"
Dulio huffed, leaving his room with Noa in tow, seeing Lavinia drowsily sway sitting on the couch, blanking out, blinking when she saw Noa.
"Mornin..." Lavinia mumbled. It was the first time she had woken up so early 'willingly'.
"Yo." Noa raised his hand in response before looking at Dulio. "So what's for breakfast?"
"We have to recite scriptures at the connected Chapel and then we can eat breakfast. I assume the staff will deliver us the food when we come back." Dulio shrugged. While he had a similar start to the day with the other trainees then go separate ways during the actual training, it was his first time only being in a separate share house style dorm.
That made Noa's expression darken and Lavinia's fall.
This... wouldn't be a good day.
--+--
Lavinia was caught nodding off during prayer recital and memorization, and was punished by having her hands raised. Unfortunately, the Nun also punished Noa and Dulio since they were now in a sense comrades in arms, and not making sure Lavinia was focusing properly was also on them.
Brother what...?
Noa had assumed that the Church would give them at least a few days to get used to it but nope!
Immediate work.
The subjects to learn were pretty easy, basic third and fourth grade subjects. It seemed that the while the Church wanted them to become their soldiers, not having basic education wouldn't be beneficial.
General Education was the class that the three had together in the mornings, and Noa had relatively breezed through all his classes, surprising the tutor.
The tutor hummed in thought when Noa hadn't asked much questions and completed most problems with ease, ignoring the jealous looks from Dulio. The tutor had wrote some notes in her notebook, presumably proposing advanced education.
Even Noa, who had been a High School Graduate, could easily solve questions meant for 4th Graders. He wasn't that dumb.
The only issue he had was with History, seeing as it was about a completely unfamiliar country other than some snippets he knew from Fate, and that was NOT reliable information, seeing as Nero was a woman.
Lavinia had to learn Italian from scratch, so she had a separate language tutor along with the general tutor.
In order to prevent familiarity and possible influences from different factions, the higher ups had decided that the tutors would be under a rotation system and not converse personal information with the three children.
With all three wielding weapons that could make them on par with Gods, while unsavory members wanted to influence them to their own faction, there was an opposing side, and they eventually compromised to prevent as much politics to influence the children until they were nurtured further.
After the General Education classes, Noa and Dulio made their way to their Swordsmanship Tutor, separating from Lavinia, who had to learn Magic.
While Noa also had compatibility with Holy Energy, due to the difficulty of finding a tutor that wasn't currently either slaying Evil or retired, it was filled with Swordsmanship until a suitable tutor could be found.
Dulio, while he didn't primarily use Swordsmanship, unless there was a reason he shouldn't such as compatibility or a specialization in a different scope, was learning the basics.
He could even say he was rather decent at it for someone who had been only learning for a year and a half.
Noa was someone who had ZERO experience in Swordsmanship.
So during the class, Dulio had smugly been the example for specific kata, then slowly became more and more humbled as Noa was learning stances, balance, and edge alignment at an extremely fast pace that even surprised the tutor.
Rather even Noa was confused, seeing as his aptitude wasn't even that high in Swordsmanship.
It just felt natural, looking at the instructor give examples for kata and easily being able to incorporate it into his own.
Was this also the Noah Vessel buff?
[Your Personal Skill - [Protection of the Faith] added God's Blessings [Increased General Memory], [Increased Learning], [Increased Computation Ability], [Increased Aptitude for Swordsmanship], [Increased Aptitude for Bladed Weapons], [Increased Aptitude for Cold Weapons], [Increased Aptitude for Combat], [Increased Dynamic Visual Acuity], [Increased Reaction Time], [Increased Aptitude for Holy Abilities], and [Increased Aptitude for Flame Abilities]]
...No. No it wasn't.
What the fuck was he really turning into Reinhard?!
[The description showed that the Skill 'Generated God's Blessings.' It constantly generates Blessings for the comfort of the Host. This isn't controllable.]
...I see. This skill was more broken than he expected.
[This is due to Extreme Access energy from God's System with no person to control the output of the amount of Blessings.]
Well, that made sense. So he was just a weaker Reinhard. But even that was extremely good! Protection of the Faith proving once more that it was an EX Rank Skill.
[Just a reminder, this does not create something out of nothing, only boosting Host's natural abilities, current problems, and unconscious requests that doesn't go against God's Original Intent. This means that even if Host wanted blessings against Angels, it wouldn't happen.]
...I unconsciously wanted to tell salt from sugar...?
Well, this skill was even even more broken than Noa gave credit for, which was saying a lot since he already gave the skill a shit ton a credit.
'Can I get a notification when I get a Blessing?'
[Yes.]
Noa nodded. He would see it as something similar to Mahoraga's Adaptation, but not as strong.
So he used it to flex on Dulio by already being on par with his meager Swordsmanship in the span of a 3 Hour lesson.
The trio their way to lunch and meeting up with Lavinia, who looked rather excited in contrast to Dulio's rather shitty mood.
"So how was Magic class?" Noa asked.
"It was pretty fun! We only went over the basics and it was really interesting!" Lavinia gushed, getting the attention of Dulio, who was sulking.
Dulio didn't have much skill in Magic, only being able to learn a few spells in the span of a year and a half, such as the basic Language Spells. Since his strength was centered around his Sacred Gear, he only had 2 Magic Lessons a week.
Noa only had 1.
So Dulio was pretty interested in magic, which he hadn't been able to advance that much. After all, what kind of child wouldn't be excited to fire beams of magic out his hands?
The three quickly ate their nutrient perfect food specifically prepared by hired nutritionists.
Unfortunately, the food was rather bland.
"...Is this stuff supposed to be American?" Noa mumbled, looking at the slop in his bowl next to the pity bread.
Lavinia took a scoop of the slop, frowned, but reluctantly ate it.
Dulio, used to such bland training food, wolfed it down. The faster he ate, the less time the flavor would stay in his mouth. "American food is this bad?"
Well, Noa was really referencing to how stereotypical American households seasoned with only salt and pepper, but he didn't now if that was the thing here, but nothing wrong with shitting on the U.S.(as an American). He needed Dulio to learn this early.
"Yeah, I heard that they only season stuff with salt and pepper, and..." Noa continued. It would be pretty funny if Dulio had preconceptions that American food was shit.
"Hmm..." Dulio hummed in thought.
Noa only took small bites, waiting for something.
[Protection of the Faith generates [Protection from Bad Food]]
Nice!
Noa went into his food into more fervor, the slop now tasting more like mashed potatoes than an ambiguous slop of nothing.
Dulio looked at Noa with confusion. Why the sudden change in heart...?
He looked at Lavinia for an explanation, but she could only shrug.
Well, if Noa had to eat to get energy for his first 'lesson' from Cardinal Cristaldi, then good for him, Dulio supposed.
His training style was a bonafide nightmare.
--+--
A/N: An extremely short chapter, which I do apologize for. I'm preparing for short timeskips, so this chapter was more to give the readers some info on their daily schedule.
I can't do large timeskips. It's not my specialty. I prefer smaller timeskips.
I think after the next chapter we'll have a small timeskip.
Also, I think my reasoning for Protection of the Faith is pretty decent. Also, a majority of Noa's new blessings manifestations are limited by Noa's imagination. Can't create something out of nothing.
--+--
We have Powerstone Goals!!!
I don't have confidence for my first book so doing this for fun.
500 Power Stones in the beginning for an Extra Chapter and then every 300 Power Stones for another chapter after that!
So...
500 PS - Extra Chapter
800 PS - Extra Chapter
1100 PS - Extra Chapter
And so on.
Extra chapters will be released the day after the goal is reached, from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM KST cause that's when I'm free. They'll also be generally shorter than normal chapters.
Normal Chapters will be released every day during the times from 8:00 PM to 2:00 AM KST cause I normally get inspo throughout the day.
Also, comments, powerstones, and reviews are always appreciated.