“Ah… I don’t know if we can enter a city anytime soon…” There was no voice to accompany the words that appeared in her head.

“Shut up!” With red cheeks, even to the point, it was possible to see that the blue hair tucked behind her ear was in drastic contrast with the red tip.

Leo could be seen in her peripheral vision, laughing terribly hard. Back bending, almost falling over. How was she supposed to know that the time spent inside the dungeon was not nearly as long as what they had imagined it to be. Racing out of the city, she was getting a headache trying to control her physical senses.

At most, there was maybe a week left. Never willing to admit it. She was too excited and didn’t even notice the snow even after they left the city. Such an embarrassing endeavor. Cities were places that it wasn’t impossible to ignore weather like snow. Actually, cities took pride in their ability for their inhabitants and visitors to be able to easily ignore things like snowy or cold weather. Knowing a Grade E had failed to notice, even as someone who had just broken through. That was an amazing sales pitch, undoubtedly seeming unfeasible, while in reality plausible.

Starting with a sad sigh, “Ah, just admit it, your entire face turned red within an hour. Instead of turning back, who tried to lie through their teeth that they just wanted to see the difference between Grades F and E?”

Refusing to even look at him, she was partially regretting allowing him to learn their language. When he used it, the amount of information she received wasn’t as substantial. As if being careful to ensure she had no avenues to escape down, he ruthlessly mocked her. Worse, he had an uncanny memory for the things she said. Constantly using the things she said against herself, it was the worst.

“So, my dear Jessica.” Ignoring him the best she could. Not giving up, “Jesssssssssssica. Oh, JESSICA!”

“What?!”

Looking at him with an enraged red face. Silence, golden and sweet. Just as she thought he wouldn’t, “So tell me about those differences between Grade F and Grade E.”

Turning around, she pulled the covers over her head and refused to come out. The difference between them, she really did want to know. Only it wasn’t something she could tell. Feelings aside, only practicing could accomplish this, thus time would tell. Still, thinking back. Being put on the spot, she spat out a long list of excuses.

Ultimately, she spent an insanely cold night outside. Very quickly coming to her senses, she woke up feeling like she had slept in a freezing array, such a thing was used to keep certain items well below cold. The first real use of her Grade E mana was pitifully used to unfreeze her body. While cities took great pride to showcase their status. Everything came down to money.

Status was that type of double edge sword. Power could attribute many things, money however was a necessity. Larger a city was, the greater their status. Alongside this, larger also meant a larger area of influence. Which would mean, not only did they need to care for these locations with their long reaching tentacles. It became important to also expand out. More amending a place was. The more likely someone would be willing to visit or live there.

Influence outside a city became increasingly important. This involved population. A city could only hold a certain number of people. Small settlements, villages, and towns in the surrounding area depended on them. With this influence, their population directly or indirectly involved would expand.

Most never thought about this, but the importance of population, which was often thought arbitrary. Only, population was good when good, while bad when bad. Part of the good and bad could contribute to those that visit the area. One experience could become a knife that aided or bleed them. Alternatively, one positive effect came down to talent. The larger the population, the higher number of possible skilled individuals to put to use.

Now the question needed to be asked. How much influence could one show to profit? Golden question, one which Jessica needed to learn all too well. Within a period of twenty hours. That was the length it took to reach the next location. Near the end, one lost their direction, the other never had any direction to begin with. They got lucky. Finding a small city after wondering a bit randomly.

Still suffering from the overly sensitive senses. Jessica could do nothing but learn to slowly control her mana to adjust to her new powers. Grating at first, slowly she learned to control sound. Taste was by far the easiest. Keeping her mouth closed allowed her to slowly get used to her new life. Finally was smell. That one was not something she could do anything about.

Now time was on her side. Possibly against her, wanting nothing more than to rush back. With no other reason than to celebrate. Childish as it might be, it was something she wished to see the praise in the old man’s eyes. Since they were together, turning into one for two deal with Uncle Beast.

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Taking a deep breath, time went on. Having moved onto the next day. Without a dungeon, she found a small, secluded place. Pulling out her daggers, she fixed one of them to her wrist. Relaxing her body, she had Leo go around and see if he could find anyone spying on them. Once given the all clear, beginning that dance from the dungeon one more time.

No set pattern. From wolves, to wild dogs. Even felines to goblins and even an ogre. From one to the other, she envisioned all types of creatures. Attacking from below, sliding to the side with a stab from the side. A heavy slice coming from above. Flipping backwards, she cheekily drew the fiber as she rotated it in front of her. While impractical to deal with flying debris, what did it matter in a simple practical exercise.

Yet, who cared. She was in a good mood and wanted to celebrate a little with showboating. She could feel a bit of impressed emotion coming from the seal. Causing a smile to start to appear on her face. Quickly disappearing, drawing a sharp breath. No matter how often she felt it, cutting herself always hurt. Focusing back on her own movement and image training. This continued for the days she remained in the city.

Her record was somewhere around twenty. Difference of five. From peak to beginning of the next grade. Sounding as simple as one wished to make it. There was a world apart from each other. From one to five was less than impressive. Even so, everything from five beyond. Mana was bleeding through her body with every single action. Concise, focused, without delay or any obscenity.

There were a large number of different methods. From techniques, stances, arts. There was no limit to the number of secrets methods found to attack, defend, or kill. Ultimately, that was the goal. Kill your opponent. Killing wasn’t just the taking of life, one could simply kill any will to retaliate or opposition.

Jessica was never taught anything like that. Basic movements, swing, parry, and block. From there, a weapon was chosen. Daggers in this case didn’t allow realistic blocking, doing so could be very dangerous and only used as a last resort. Though they could be blocked against. Thereafter, it was even more important to know how to block, thus having an idea of how someone will move against them. As for any basic movements outside the very basics, she was never taught that.

Originally believing that she wasn’t important enough to be taught. Growing older showed her this wasn’t the truth. Only after leaving home did she finally start to come to terms with why the old man taught her this way. Without question, she met many difficulties. Slowly, as she crawled in the dirt, from wallowing to actually accomplishing anything.

Jessica had no limits. Everything she accomplished was by her own hands. Nothing was off limits. Without needing to uproot bad habits, in terms of fighting she was very jagged. Very strong in certain aspects. Only everything she learned was by her own hands, this led it to being able to adapt slowly to everything. In this method, she started to struggle immensely. At a snails pace, those once jagged edges were being rounded out.

What scared her was this method was extraordinarily beneficial against intelligent beings. Unpredictable and often times stupid. Which only added even more unpredictability. Of course, she also had many flaws because of this. Something she was able to find out very easy. Ouch…

Flinching, she fell to her knees, breathing laboriously. Her left hand had a number of cuts. Her right was as clean as could be. The emergency cutoff switch had caused her to lose confidence in the fiber integrity. Coming apart at different angles and parts, she didn’t trust using it anymore. Having taken all parts she found, it needed to be repaired.

Seeing her own breath, she wanted to speak but couldn’t. Instead, watching Leo in the distance. After being stared at for a lengthy amount of time, he finally understood the meaning behind the stare. Scratching his cheek, he shook his head before speaking otherwise, “Twenty-one.”

“Ha, that seems, to be my current limit. Ha…” She found it very hard to breath and her limbs were heavy. Her left hand also stung as she would use the fiber to preform semi aerial attacks.

“It is still rather impressive. The amount of mana usage seems to tank around the tenth and sixteenth rotations. To be able to last this long is a huge improvement.”

Trying to regain her breath, “It, still isn’t enough.”

Being stared at, she could do nothing about it. Moving back to the inn. Waiting an entire week, in total it had been roughly two weeks since they left the dungeon. Moving out, they still had to face some flurries and rain. Freezing as they were, still allowed them the ability to travel between the cities. During this time, she started to get more comfortable with her new body.

At the insistence of Leo, she slowed down her pace. It was alright, while feeling full of energy, she too wanted to slow down a little. Even if reluctant at first, the weather started to enter spring and from snow there was a bit of rain. Soon the weather reached a state that was hard not to enjoy.

Even while being amazed by the quick succession of the weather. Leo and her moved off-road for a while. Strangely enough, with some worry, the two somehow made it without any issues. Expectation dictated that they run into one or two low grade beings. Not so much people as magic beasts, at least. However, nothing of such was met on their journey.

With Leo finally reaching a state of lessor completion. She had to avoid two creatures that appeared to be completely monsters. While not completely accurate, Leo had felt mana, and she followed up with a feeling of dread. Somehow, she was practically very lucky.

Going off-road in random locations between cities. What one would find are small bundles of low graded creatures. Nothing dangerous was usually found. Not when there were cities so close, so that begged the question of how was it that the two didn’t find a single low grade creature to test her strength against. The only other option at that time was another dungeon.

She denied the thought before it came out as a suggestion from her mouth. One reason or another, she wanted to see the old man and celebrate. The closer they came, the more excited she was. Nobody could have expected the result. At least not Jessica herself. What happened when she entered Aruna was not joyous.