Time skip
It's been roughly a week since Keitaro had started training Yuta.
He had forced the boy to train every single day, not a day had passed without the boy doing a lot of exercises and draining whatever remnant of energy he had left in his body.
Multiple times, Yuta was pushed to the breaking point. His body was weak, he had a lot of cursed energy, sure, but Keitaro had sealed away his access to his cursed energy.
He had placed a weird seal on him, which practically put an off button to all of Yuta's cursed energy.
Yuta only had access to his cursed energy when it came to the control test.
It wasn't that Yuta wasn't trying; it was more like Yuta had way too much cursed energy, speaking twice the amount of Satoru.
And he was the second strongest sorcerer alive... as of now.
After seeing Yuta struggle for a while, Keitaro decided to help his student. One evening, as the two trained under the soft glow of the sun,
Keitaro placed a reassuring hand on Yuta's shoulder.
"Yuta," he said, his tone steady and calm, "you're trying too hard to control something that flows naturally. You have so much cursed energy that you're overloading the seal without realizing it. Let me help guide it for you. Trust me."
Yuta, of course, trusted Keitaro. He had no reason not to trust this man. He had, after all, somehow been the sole author whose books about cursed energy had actually helped him improve.
Plus, he was practically the sensei of everyone here... and most people in Tokyo High.
Keitaro smiled, and with a subtle flow of cursed energy, he began channeling it into Yuta's body. The cursed energy intertwined with Yuta's own, creating a guiding flow that gently coaxed his energy into the seal.
For the first time, the seal lit up perfectly, stabilizing at a clean 70%.
"Now, it should be muscle memory," Keitaro added, withdrawing his hand from Yuta's shoulder.
It took Yuta about 40 minutes before he himself got to 70%, which was good.
Keitaro then had Yuta run laps... about 100 laps, at his maximum, no holding back.
He had to watch the teenage boy fall so many times, but each time, he watched as Yuta gritted his teeth, dug his hand into the ground, and pushed himself back up.
By lap 30, Yuta was shaking... his body seemingly about to collapse.
Keitaro, however, just kept watching. The second it got life-threatening, he would swoop in and save his student.
'Run... Run... don't fall, just keep moving forward,' Yuta yelled at himself mentally. He could feel himself snapping in and out of consciousness. It did not take a genius to realize he was drained.
However, he didn't back down. If he wanted the strength to protect everyone, he had to keep going.
No matter.
Maki could be next to Keitaro. Keitaro looked at his daughter and said,
"How was your mission?"
"It was quite boring. It was just a grade 2 curse," she said, sounding tired.
Her eyes then landed on Yuta.
"What is he doing?"
"He is training his stamina. I have him running without his cursed energy to buff him," Keitaro carefully explained, to which Maki looked confused.
"You call that running... that's a walking pace."
Keitaro looked back up at Yuta; yeah, the boy was jogging very slowly, the light drained from his face.
Quickly doing a hand seal, Keitaro slightly loosened the seal, allowing cursed energy in the boy's body to help him recover some stamina.
"Not everyone is like you," he said, slightly booping her nose.
"Stop that, I don't like it," she added, looking annoyed, though the embarrassed blush on her cheek did not help her case.
"Make me."
She looked a bit annoyed but looked away.
Guess she didn't mind being his daughter.
"I might just cut your hand for doing this," she shot back.
"Someone feeling feisty, or need I remind you, you are still not at my level?" he said calmly.
"I have gotten way stronger since our last spar. You won't win so easily this time," she said confidently.
"You didn't say I would lose."
She just held her tongue at that. She walked straight into that trap.
"Sure, I will fight you tomorrow."
He patted her head as he watched Yuta finish his lap... utterly drained from any form of energy.
The boy looked like his soul had been sucked out of his body.
Keitaro walked toward the boy, leaned down to his level, before slowly raising his hand, placing it above the boy's head.
A light aura emanated from his hands as he began to use reverse curse energy in order to undo any damage that the boy may have caused to himself by accident.
He did not want his prodigy to die on him or wreck his body so soon, and this was why he was doing this.
Yuta had potential, and he would make sure to nurture him into someone very strong.
Though he would have to trick Maki into training Yuta in swordsmanship later, he did have a date with Shoko later that day.