I didn’t transition into a soul body that night.

That’s strange, I definitely went to sleep last night and woke up just now as proof. I should’ve transitioned my consciousness into my soul body and gone to hell, yet I didn’t.

What is happening?

I push away my thoughts and think that the solution will likely come in time, with contact from Betty whilst thinking about the problems this will cause.

Now that I now don’t have the training time from sleeping, or at least if this continues, I will have quite a few problems. No soul body when asleep means less training time and also reduced power. Although I can control how much I sleep, I am afraid that not having enough rest will instead negatively impact my training.

I quickly thought and tried to locate a solution to the dilemma, but with none available I decide to simply sleep less and train harder than before to make up for lost time. I wonder about what I can do to increase training potential and come to a crude, but effective method.

I manipulate my ‘aura’ and proceed to break the agreement I made with myself 2 weeks ago.

-Inside his body-

The black soul shakes furiously whilst ‘aura’ gets released in thousands of streams out of it and into the muscles, bones, organs, skin, eyes and even the hair of Sephtis. Simultaneously, the large ‘vein’ which leads ‘aura’ to outside the body started to contract and close, decreasing in size dramatically.

-Outer world-

I control the ‘aura’ stream to my maximum control potential, which after training solely on it for 4 whole years, wasn’t trivial. I create thousands of streams going into all the parts of my body and it also strangely enters my hair, without any conscious intent from me. I also shrink my ‘vein’ that allowed my ‘aura’ to leave my soul and exit my body to use magic, incredibly limiting my magic potential at the time.

I had converted close to all of my ‘aura’ into veins which would strengthen and increase my control of my body, forcibly making my body into that similar of a warrior. Strangely enough, there was no pain but rather just sweat. Lots and lots of sweat. There was so much sweat that a large puddle appeared on the ground.

I felt so dehydrated after my ‘aura’ increase that I felt as though I would die from thirst. I dropped the ‘weapon’ and ran with my newly strengthened body outside to the rain tank as I looked around for a cup to use. After looking for just a second, I gave up on searching and dived my head straight into the rain tank, gulping down the cold water.

After drinking an extraordinary amount of water that only Death knows, I lifted my wet head and hair, which were both sparkling with the reflection of the sunlight on the water I looked around.

I had gathered quite a crowd, and as I recall how I ran here, I thought that it wasn’t too surprising. A young 4 year old running through the orphanage at high speeds unsuited for his age would attract attention, but if you add the fact that the child is Sephtis, who naturally attracted interest due to his talent and intelligence, then you get a lot more attention.

After briefly looking at the crowd, I look down at my shirt and pants and begin to strip. This made the girls in the crowd quickly disperse and run back inside. Although that was a good thing as I dislike large crowds, my intention when I stripped was different.

My shirt and pants were completely soaked in sweat and since I had already dirtied the rainwater which was intended for heating then drinking, I had decided I may as well take a bath.

After removing my clothes, I jumped in and washed off the sweat with my hands. I discovered something interesting. The sweat wasn’t only sweat but was also mixed with fat. I appears that when I had increased my bodies strength, it got rid of excess waste in the form of fat.

Luckily however, I never ate much so the amount of fat wasn’t too much, as otherwise it would be incredibly hard to wash off. After scrubbing myself for about 20 minutes, I saw Grandma come up with another clothing set which she laid down near the rain tank that I was bathing in.

I thanked her, stood up and exited the raintank. I looked down at my body, and although since I was young, I hadn’t developed any muscles at that point in time, my body was still incredibly lean like a cheetah. I was amazed at the large change in body shape, and although I didn’t grow taller, I was quite happy with this change.

I couldn’t see inside of the raintank as the fat floated to the surface and blocked my vision. Grandma’s eyes widened as she saw my lean body but then she laughed as I started putting on the clothes.

I stop putting the clothes on and look at Grandma with a quizzical expression.

“Why are you laughing Grandma?”

“Hahaha, It’s because you looked so proud of your body when you exited the raintank. Although a lean body like yours is quite desired by men and would normally be considered ‘hot’ by women, on a child like you, it makes you look like a baby cheetah.”

“...”

I return to putting on my clothes and look away in embarrassment as I hadn’t thought of that before and wasn’t intending to convey that type of message.

“Still, boy how did you get such a body? I also saw a pool of sweat and fat in the orphanage which I guess was yours?”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Yes, I apologise for causing a mess.”

I bow in apology and Grandma waves the matter away with her hand.

“As for how I did it, you could say that I seriously want to train as a warrior now. I will now go and replace the rainwater with water from the river”

That was probably the best excuse that I could come up with at the current time. After all, I wasn’t prepared to say the whole truth and although I could lie, I didn’t wish to do that to my caretaker for all these years. So I opted for a truth that wouldn’t give anything unnecessary away.

I ran with high speeds with a bucket to the river and filled it, running back while controlling my momentum and shaking so that the water wouldn’t spill out. I repeated this about 30 or so times before the rain tank was full again. Finally finished with the chore, I returned home.

--Time Skip--

The next few months proceeded staggeringly well. With my stronger body, I had trained far more relentlessly and became far stronger than before. Only a month afterwards, I had learned everything that Barry had to teach, which was actually a very small amount. He just told me training methods and a few techniques he picked up from the people who delivered products to us.

Although he had taught me a few methods of training, I prominently relied on information from my previous world to train. After leaving him, I also practiced swordsmanship with the weapon. Although I had initially thought that I had very limited ‘aura’ available to me for fueling ‘Death’s Illusion’, I discovered quickly that that was not the case.

Apparently, the ‘weapon’ drew out power from inside my body at my request, without me actually needing to force it out of my body with a ‘vein’. It truly was an incredible weapon. When I trained, I made the ‘weapon’ visible and played around with it’s shape a lot, trying to think of how to make it into the same sword that Betty said it could be made into.

It would appear as though I was swinging a short rod, which halfway through my swing would change into a long pole and alternate. The peculiar sight would definitely confuse others and make them wonder about what was happening.

After I spent a while playing with the ‘weapons’ extension, I decided to look into my memories for this. Expending half my concentration on training and the other half on scanning my memories, I eventually had a moment of insight while for some reason remembering some Matryoshka dolls.

I instantly stopped training and looked at the pole in my hand and willed it to become an arms length. It swiftly extended and turned into what I willed. I then imagined a bisection occurring ⅕ of the way down the shaft and it did as I willed.

“Hahaha, It was this simple.”

I laughed at my stupidity. Although I couldn’t actually change the shape from being a pole into a sword, but I could split it into 2 pieces and make one a sheath and the other a sword.*

After brandishing the sword, I felt that the sword section was about half the weight of the entire pole, with the sheath being the other half. I once again was entranced by the darkness that seemed to be mixed with the weapon. I snapped out of my trance and quickly returned to training, but this time with a new sword.

I held the sheath in my left hand in a backwards grip while I swung with the katana-like sword and was met with little wind resistance.

This is far easier than before, when I had no blade and a lot of wind resistance. The weight decrease also helps quite a bit.

Swinging my new sword, I tire out after an hour and lie down a bit to rest. I discover that the ‘weapon’ is actually far more difficult to hide when it is in 2 pieces than when it is in its original rod shape. I sheath the sword and return the ‘weapon’ back to its original shape before I lie down.

All of a sudden, with my strengthened ears, I hear a bark for help nearby and turn towards it. I stand up and walk towards the source. There I see a dog on the brink of death, with many bite wounds and claw marks on it. It also had shed a lot of its fur and was bleeding profusely out of one of the claw wounds and was whimpering.

I walk up to it and think quickly.

There is no way that I can heal this dog. I haven’t any ability of that kind. The best thing I can do is put it out of its misery.

I quickly think of the best and least painful method to do so and decide to try imposing ‘Death Aura’ to actually shatter a soul. This would be my first time doing something like this, but I quickly run into a problem. I have a limited ‘vein’ and little ‘aura’ which I can release out of my body.

I wonder which is the best method and decide to yet again try something new.

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*The sword of the ‘weapon’ is similar to this, but with a cylindrical hilt. The sheath is also cylindrical but the sword has a blade similar to a katana. In case you didn’t understand the explanation (Even I didn’t understand what I was writing), then look at the image and it will likely help you.