Everything quickly smoothed itself out when the Granny clapped her hands and summoned the top five children that would have attended the tournament. I was upset to say that the hunters that came to the marshes earlier are stronger than these kids. Is this normal? If the little Master over there can be strong, shouldn’t these kids that have to face adversity everyday be the same way?
I looked around before starting the training. I only let Little Brother remain by my side and had the others go back to guard the pond. I told them to attack any humans that approached. I also warned the tribe members not to follow them because they were going to protect their young.
After Granny put her own two cents in, they obediently complied. I knew there was a reason I liked her. Besides the fact that she reminded me of the old lady who would give me some food every now and then in my past life.
“Alright, hurry up, frog man,” said one of the kids.
“Please, don’t make that my name. I may not have one, but Frog Man is not something I want it to be.”
Granny pondered a little before walking back to the big thatched hut with the rest of the Elders.
“Okay. So, do you have the energy within you?”
I decided to start off with how I compared to others.
The kids looked at me like I was crazy. Yet the look on the Little Master seemed as if it was as obvious as breathing.
“Duh, I had to get strong somehow, right?”
“Correct. Is there a way to see if someone already has some energy in them?”
“Why do you keep calling it ‘energy’? It’s Mana.”
Right, because people here use magic. Good to know.
“Mana is found in almost every living thing. Having it flow is another matter altogether. For example, I know Fire Magic.”
“Cool. Then eat these. I don’t know what they are, but I call them kelp jerky.”
The butler kept giving me odd glares, probably realizing I was more than just a six month old frog thing. No, I’m pretty sure he already has some idea what’s going on.
“Isn’t this Riverweed? This is used in some basic medicine. Nice.”
“So you already have the water energy within you? You just mentioned fire.”
“Hm? I have all the different Mana types. I am just used to using Fire Magic, that’s all.”
“Then this will make it easier.”
I handed the other children some jerky and had them feel the energy that resided in their bodies. I then performed one rotation, which garnered a rather humorous expression from the butler.
After explaining to them the parts of the body and how to feel the energy, they tried it by themselves. Since these people were humans, I expected them to easily succeed. Only the Little Master and one other kid succeeded, however.
I then told them to observe their natural energy flow for a little bit before going back to the two tired children. Good, they didn’t collapse. I could see them brimming with energy. In another hour, the other four kids easily found their natural flow and began to practice as well.
I wondered if I should have showed them the frog or heron Mana flow, but thought against it. If I had made them frog like, I might get hunted down.
By the end of that first day, the kids had already managed to produce the element they used. The five tribe members used water while the brat sprouted a little flame from his fingertips. He was quite awed by the new discovery and completely forgot about his fatigue.
As I was about to head back to the pond, the butler, Marcus, stopped me.
“You…you have to be some master that reincarnated, am I right?”
“Well, I reincarnated, but I wouldn’t call myself a master. I just had some basic information from my past life. I am surprised to see it works so well.”
“What other knowledge do you have?!”
“Just some stuff that can entertain people like moving pictures or recording things and playing them back at a future point in time. Then again, I don’t know too much about this world. For all I know, you might not have the required materials to make such items.”
The butler quietly thought to himself before replying to me.
“Well, thanks to magic, we can already do those things. Is there anything else?”
“Look, I shouldn’t be the only one to have reincarnated here, right? Which means I am not the first. I doubt I hold information that could be revolutionary anyway since all I did previously was stay at home and waste away.”
“Alright. Sorry for that. I don’t know how a mortal was able to reincarnate, though.”
“I don’t know either. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to return home to get some sleep.”
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“Hold on. You do know we could easily hunt you down, right?”
“Marcus! Stop messing with him! He’s my teacher right now! If you anger him in any way, don’t think I will go easy on you!”
The brat called out from over where he was, but a massive pressure seemed to cover Marcus, making him sweat heavily. He changed from his previously hostile attitude to a more subdued one, although he did give me a look.
“Of course. Please return tomorrow morning or I will have to go get you myself.”
“Fine.”
I walk a ways into the trees, but return to where Mr. Black was before. I did make sure that no one followed me. I didn’t see anything at first, but I did hear some rustling in the bushes. Walking forward, I saw a strange rock. Heh, if it was anyone else, they wouldn’t have recognized him.
“Hey, Mr. Black!”
“Wha?! Who! Oh…it’s Little Jumper. How are you? How is your family doing?”
“We are all doing fine. I was kind of wondering why you didn’t let us into the lake if we could have already killed some of the ‘fleshies’. By the way, what do you mean by Little Jumper? Is that my name or is that like my species?”
“Hehe, well…I knew some strong guys were heading this way and I didn’t want you little guys to get involved!”
“They still came to catch some frogs. And you didn’t answer my question.”
I jumped on his back and started slapping his shell in a rhythm.
“Ooooh…that feels weird…I called you Little Jumper since you are little and you are a frog!”
“Eh? Then what would you call me and any other frogs or animals like me?”
My webbed hands started to hurt from the hard shell so I stopped. Mr. Black was still trying to think of a name.
“It doesn’t matter. I was thinking something like Froglings or something. Frogkin, maybe?”
“No, no. It has to be something like Swimming Stalkers!”
“That makes us sound bad. Not to mention it sounds lame, Mr. Black. Then again, your naming sense is messed up.”
We spent the entire night debating names for my race. We may need more help. (You know what to do!)
The next day, I was already waiting in the village square. Or what would have been the village square if it was actually a village. Granny was actually up first and nodded in my direction when she walked out of the village hall.
If she’s blind, then she must be able to sense the Mana. That seems pretty handy. I have only been relying on my animal instincts to determine if someone is strong or not. I don’t feel that Granny is strong, but my intellect warns me otherwise.
It doesn’t matter that she has been helping me out the most, there has to be a reason. I still don’t know too much about this place, but if I can improve the relations between the people, they won’t want to harm us. Or better yet, they’ll welcome us.
Of course, that’s just wishful thinking. I already made sure that the others continued their training, either by going to the waterfall or learning some techniques from the Elder heron.
I spent another day training the children, but was surprised to see that the Little Master and the tribe member that succeeded in the cycle were ready to do it again. I guess humans are more resilient. I also spent the time trying to figure out why the humans couldn’t figure out the method normally as well.
I mean, I used it as a human, so humans should be able to use it, too. Maybe there is a strange difference between the humans of this world and the humans of my previous world.
Duh, this world has Mana.
In my world, Qi is referred to as life energy. It flows in us and can be used to help circulate the body and regain equilibrium. In this world, with all the strange powers and energy floating around, there could be many forces wrecking that equilibrium within a person’s body.
Besides that, I also learned some more about Mana and magic. So Mana isn’t something you are meant to control. It is a fuel to activate magic. Or more like spending oranges to shoot a gun. A strange analogy, I know, but you use a basket of oranges to shoot a gun that uses oranges as ammunition. Naturally, over time, the oranges regrow and you can shoot the gun again.
But what is the gun? Where is the gun? Why do I not have a gun?
Well, the metaphorical gun here is actually a Contracted Spirit that resides in a person’s bloodline. Crazy, huh? Sooo…if the bloodline is the catalyst for magic, I just need make a contract! Just like those families with a strong Spirit in their bloodline that have a powerful hold over the areas around them, like the Marshall Family.
Apparently, when the mysterious item somehow ended up underneath the herons’ place, the heron at the time made a contract with a Wind Spirit. Nice. Oh, that reminded me of Arthur and him eating the heron eggs.
They didn’t eat him yet since they are going to use him to appease their ancestors so as to bless the children that will be attending the tournament. Hehe, he seems to be in hot water! Hah…that was dumb.