A few weeks passed since Mika began practicing her Mana Control, and a lot happened to her.

Sitting on the ground in a lotus position, Mika released all the mana with her Core and began creating shapes, cubes, cylinders, spheres, cones, rectangular prisms, and everything in between. She went down the list of all the shapes she could think of and imprinted them onto her mana.

Each shape had straight edges and flat planes, proving how proficient she’d become.

Clenching her fist, Mika reabsorbed her mana back into her core. With a smile on her face, she stood up, wiping the dust off of her clothes, and walked over to another part of the village.

“My mana control has improved a lot in just a few weeks. Is this a benefit of creating a mana circuit unique to myself? Or am I just that talented?” Mika wondered but shrugged her shoulders, not caring too much, and thought back to her training over the last few weeks.

Contrary to what she would’ve liked, she didn’t actually spend most of her time training her mana.

While training her mana control, she would run out of mana after about an hour and then have to wait another 6-8 hours until her core replenished its mana. She could shorten this time if she meditated with mana stones, only focusing on refilling her core, but Mika regarded that as a waste of time and energy.

She could spend her time doing other, more useful things!

So, Mika spent most of her time either training her swordsmanship/body, sparing with some of the Elves, researching mana cultivation in her [Mind Space], talking with Joralf, or inspiring the Elven children.

It’s been a year since her last breakthrough in her Body Cultivation, and she could feel she was close to another one.

What’s the best and most efficient way to train her body cultivation? Fighting, of course! Thus, she asked the adult Elves if they could spar with her to stimulate her growth.

However, that’s when she ran into a bit of a problem.

‘Elves have some weak-ass bodies!’

That’s right! Most Elves, simply in terms of overall body strength, could hardly compete with Mika in a physical fight. No, it’d be more accurate to say they didn’t stand a chance.

All the Elves preferred using magic or long-range attacks, so their CQC skills were trash, and while Mana Cultivation does make the body stronger, it’s nothing compared to an actual Body Cultivator.

With Mika’s Early-Stage Absolute Sword Body Cultivation, she can take on beasts at the 5th or maybe even 6th Stage of the Black Core Realm. With this kind of strength, even an Elf at the Peak of the Black Core Realm might not be her match purely in terms of body strength. That, combined with their terrible weapon and CQC skills, allowed Mika to dominate her opponents.

Of course, it was a different story when they used magic, to which Mika often found herself on the losing end, but it was a good learning experience that she didn’t shy away from. Fighting against opponents who could shoot wind blades at her from afar or shoot out vines to restrict her movements gave her insight into how she should deal with mages in the future.

Mika also spent a lot of her free time in her [Mind Space], researching how to expand her Mana Core to break through to the next stage. This seemed simple, and in truth, it was. However, it was time-consuming because she needed to test the limit of her Core’s expansion and how it affected each subsequent stage.

Mika couldn’t do this before, but now that her [Mind Space] was level 3, everything became more realistic and easier to create. Thus, she made significant progress in this regard and felt like she was on the cusp of finalizing her Mana Cultivation Technique.

However, Mika wasn’t the only one who saw improvements over the last few weeks…

“Welcome to another day of playtime, kids! I hope you all went home and practiced what I taught you yesterday!” Mika stood in front of a bunch of Elf children ranging from anywhere between 4 years old and 12 years old.

A series of groans resounded throughout the area.

“Ugh! Why does she have to call it playtime?”

“I know! I’d much rather be at home playing in the trees than suffering here!”

The children complained, but there wasn’t anything they could do. Their parents forced them to Mika’s playtime sessions, and they weren’t strong or fast enough to beat her in a fight, so they had no choice but to stay.

Mika glanced at all the children and noticed the slight twitches in their muscles.

She nodded inwardly and thought, ‘It seems they followed the workouts I showed them when they got home.’

Then she spoke to them in a loud voice, “Today, we won’t be running laps around the village or working out. Instead, I’m going to give you guys a demonstration,” She turned around and said, “Beleg, come here!”

Soon, a tall, handsome elf with an awkward expression appeared next to Mika. He looked at her, turned his head to the kids, and then went back to looking at Mika. His becoming increasingly ugly, and he couldn’t help but voice out his complaints, “Ummm… Young Mika, there’s really no need for us-”

Mika ignored him and announced to the kids, “Today, I’m going to show you why training your body is so important!”

Without warning, Mika twisted her hips and punched Beleg’s stomach.

*Pow!*

Beleg's abdomen bent, and he went tumbling to the ground.

“Cough… Cough… Cough…” After a moment, he lay weakly on the ground, trying to catch his breath as Mika had just knocked the wind out of him.

“Woah!! Big Sis Mika is so strong?!” The children stood up with bright eyes and stared at Mika in admiration! They didn’t expect that she was so strong she could even send the adults flying!

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Mika turned back around and faced the kids with a neutral expression.

“As you can see, although Beleg is more powerful than me if he could use his mana, his body is so weak that he can’t even take a single punch from me. If he had trained his body even a little, he wouldn’t be writhing on the ground so pathetically right now!” Mika ruthlessly said, making Beleg want to crawl into a hole and hide.

Even though he had agreed to Mika’s request, he still felt like crap being humiliated like this in front of a bunch of kids.

After that little demonstration, Mika answered all the children’s questions and then returned to Joralf’s place to talk with him.

As soon as she entered, she found the man reclining in his chair, reading something.

“Welcome back, young Mika. It seems you’ve finished training the children early today,” He put down the book and said with a gentle smile.

Mika nodded, “Yeah. For my last training session, I wanted to give them a demonstration and some motivation to keep working out.”

“It’s about that time, huh?” Joralf muttered, but he wasn’t too surprised by Mika’s words. He could tell that Mika never intended to stay in the village.

“That’s right. I plan on leaving the village soon. Although I’m grateful for your hospitality, there are things I must do, and leaving this village is the first step to completing my goals,” Mika responded.

While Joralf knew there was much more to Mika than meets the eye, he still couldn’t help but worry, “I understand what you’re saying, but I think you should seriously consider staying here until you get a bit stronger. The jungle is an unforgiving place. One wrong move and you might end up dead.”

Mika nodded in understanding. She knew she could probably stay here for the next decade and systematically train to become strong enough to leave this jungle without any interference.

‘But that’s not what I want! Doing that would be a waste. There’s a whole new world out there that I have yet to explore! How can I spend so many years of my life cooped up in this little village?’ Mika inwardly shook her head.

However, that’s only part of the reason why she wants to leave.

‘Training is the most effective when one’s life is on the line!’

That’s right! Staying here any longer will affect her training efficiency! She’d already learned what she needed to learn and practiced what she needed to practice. Now, it was time to get back out in the world and put her new skills to use.

Noticing that Mika wouldn’t budge on this, Joralf sighed, “Haaa… I expected this to happen. So, I prepared a few things for you beforehand. Hopefully, they will help you on your journey.”

He pulled out a map, a small knife, and the World Tree manuscript and handed them to Mika.

“T-There’s no need to give me these things, Chief Joralf. Not when you’ve already given me so much!” Mika stammered, trying to give the items back to him.

Joralf snorted lightly and said, “Of course, I have to do this. As an elder, I can’t in good conscience let a child like you roam the jungle without at least giving them some help.”

Then, he pointed to the items, “The knife should be self-explanatory,” He then pointed at the map, “The map is a rough sketch of The Noxious Jungle. I don’t know how much it’ll help, but having a map is certainly better than not having one.”

Mika nodded. She didn’t need to ask if the map was accurate since she trusted Joralf wouldn’t give her a faulty item.

However, she was confused about one thing.

“What about the World Tree manuscript? Why are you giving me, a human, such an important piece of paper?”

Joralf chuckled and answered calmly, “Bah! Who said it was so important? The last time someone looked at that piece of paper was decades ago, and that person was me! I don’t even know how long it’s been since someone other than me has looked at it,” He then pointed at Mika, “You, on the other hand, seem to have a genuine connection with it; more than me or anyone else has ever had with it. Who cares if you’re human? Since you respect our Progenitor so much, you might as well keep this as a memento.”

Mika stared at Joralf incredulously for a moment but just nodded her head. What else could she do? Since he was so adamant about giving it to her, then it’d be rude not to take it.

“Thank you,” Mika said sincerely and carefully stored the items in her backpack.

Joralf waved his hand, “So, which direction are you heading to go? I’m assuming you’re planning to go either South or East since you’ll find Human cities in those directions,” He inquired.

However, Mika shook her head, “I’ll head to the Barlton Kingdom later. Right now, I’m planning on going back to the sinkhole.”

“WHAT?!”

Joralf jumped out of his chair and grabbed Mika by the shoulders.

“Why?! Why do you want to go there?! With your strength, going there is nothing but suicide!”

Mika wasn’t bothered by this reaction and answered calmly, “I felt something calling to me, telling me I needed to go down the hole. I don’t know if it was a demon trying to drag me down to hell or my own consciousness playing tricks on me, but I need to check it out.”

Joralf let go of Mika’s shoulders and cleared his throat awkwardly, but soon a strange expression appeared on his face.

“That’s weird. Although people might feel curious about what might be at the bottom, I’ve never heard of a case where someone felt something call out to them.” He continued pondering but couldn’t find an explanation for what Mika had just said.

He thought that maybe the girl had just heard something weird. and taken it the wrong way, but dismissed that thought immediately. Despite looking like a child, Mika didn’t seem like the kind of person who couldn’t separate what was fake from reality.

‘Then, is there really something down there?’

That was entirely possible since, to his knowledge, everyone who has gone down has never come back up.

Unable to find an answer, Joralf stopped thinking about it. Mika looked seemed resolute on her decision, so even if he gave a million reasons why she shouldn’t go down there, she probably wouldn’t listen to him.

In the end, he could only sigh and give Mika a pat on the shoulder, “Just… be careful, alright?”

Mika gave a firm nod and smiled.

Joralf smiled back, “Why don’t you stay for dinner and have a good night’s rest before heading out tomorrow morning?”

“Thank you, Chief Joralf. I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

***

Soon, it was early the next day, and Mika stood at the gates of the Parf Edhellen Village. She wanted to leave before most of the people got out of bed, as she didn’t want to attract too much attention, but it seemed she couldn’t fool one person.

“Do you really have to leave so soon, Mika?” Aerin approached Mika with misty eyes. She’s never had a friend leave her before, and she wasn’t sure how to handle it.

Mika’s face melted at the sight of a little girl crying, but her heart was firm.

“...That’s right, Aerin. I need to leave. I have a family out there worrying about me, waiting for me to return to them, after all.”

Aerin bit her lip, feeling vexed, but she held in her tears and nodded, “Then… will we be able to see each other again?”

For a second, Mika wasn’t sure how to respond to that question, but then suddenly, an idea struck her, and she chuckled.

“Hahaha! If you work hard and become super strong, I’m sure our paths will cross in the future.”

Aerin stared at Mika blankly for a moment before determination filled her eyes, and she gave a strong nod!

“You said it! Don’t go back on your words when I become strong in the future!” Aerin declared.

Mika chuckled, turned around, and started walking away, “Then I guess I’ll see you later, Aerin.”

“Mhm! I’ll see you later, Mika!”

With that, Mika finally left Parf Edhellen Village!