I don’t know what’s weirder: That sister is now beating the dojo’s master son black and blue or what I discovered about the so called merchant Tom.

Well, I guess I should review things from the beginning.

It was just a few days after I started my new and improved Alvin Hardcore Training™.

The so called merchant, Tom, came to our village.

I could see he had arrived soon as I wake in the morning, since people were making a fuss outside as me and Jacen took water from the river.

And I could see something was wrong at that moment as well.

First, his companions.

The people in the street say they are just rude ruffians, but considering how the housewives are almost stripping Tom naked I highly doubt that’s the case.

I mean, they are just furiously competing for a spot in front of him in order to try and be the first to batter. The men don’t even try to enter in this battle.

I don’t blame the guards for pushing them away with the pole once they get too rowdy. They even do it pretty gently I would say.

So, that’s weird.

Second, Tom himself isn’t looking down on people. On the contrary, he is dealing with everyone with a lot of respect. Listening to each one and making exchanges while taking notes in the paper piece he has in his hand.

Maybe it’s because he is taking notes that people fell offended? Most of the people in this world don’t know how to read after all. Even father doesn’t, and I’m not sure mother does.

Third, there’s his cart.

It isn’t just a four-wheels cart.

It’s a big wagon and it’s clearly loaded. His horses are being treated near the river and the poor things look like they just ran an entire marathon.

Still, he isn’t taking the spices and so on from the insides of the wagon, but from bags he has attached to the sides.

Fourth, there are at least three of the eight guards which are far superior than the others. Looking at their auras I can see the signs which separate them from the regular folk.

They are Superior Beings.

And then, finally… there are people inside the wagon. That is for sure. I can see the typical movement of four auras inside, while using [Aura Analysis].

Obviously I didn’t use [Aura Sensing], since people can notice when it’s active. If I did then I would be able to understand what is happening inside the wagon.

But [Aura Analysis] is enough to see through cloth like the wagon’s cover.

On another words, it’s suspicious. Very suspicious.

And that is why I went to grandma’s house in order to ask her what was happening… and she gave me yet another test.

This time I was to try and follow these people without being noticed. She would be by my side in [Soul Walk], but it would be good training for me to try and go on unnoticed.

So that’s what I did. Starting by the next morning I ditched the kids from the village and started following Tom. I guess Jacen said I was sick or something.

It took a whole day of traveling for him to finally reveal the people in the carriage and… to my surprise, they were green!

Three bulky men and one bulky woman. All of them with prominent teeth and strong chins. All of them with skins in tones of green.

Orcs.

It’s my first time seeing this. Demi-humans, that is.

Not that I wasn’t aware of their existence.

It seems demi-humans in this world are the product of humans going thought the process of becoming superior beings and getting “warped” by it.

They don’t become monsters or irrational beasts like the so called humanoids (which some call just ‘noids), but they do become “inhuman”.

Of course, this means they have problems with the people from this continent.

It isn’t to the level of geniuses, but demi-humans are indeed considered weird in a certain sense.

Not that I don’t understand.

Elves are humans who became very thin and fragile, with an etheric appearance. All of them seem to be sterile, and all of them have a deep sense of wonder to arts, magic and hedonistic lifestyles.

They usually make a living as artists and performers. Some of the more desired prostitutes and courtesans of the world are elves as well. It seems they are mostly all beautiful.

Then pixies are very small and have wings. They become the size of a small child, around seventy centimeters tall, and become lovers of the wilderness, talking a lot and eating sweets as well.

It seems the government uses them to deliver mail, but the common folk think of them as gossip-spreading airheads. 

But orcs have it a little worse - they become big, bulky and strong – with the problem of also becoming rude people who like to live life rough and raw, to go against authority and to surpass challenges.

Obviously they are scum in the eyes of most of the world, especially the most powerful.

The beast people, by their time, aren’t much better. They are seen as “ferocious” and “wild” at the best.

And there are other races as well, like Halflings, who are great cookers and goblins, but I digress.

In the end all of them are treated on the basis of stereotype. I don’t know how deep the stereotype is true, however.

There seems to be some degree of truth to it.

Anyhow, there were four orcs in front of me.

Tom gave them the grain and meat he got from the village and walked away. The group of four took a different path and went deeper into the woods.

I thought about following them, but grandma said it would be better to return, and that she would show me the place they are headed to in [Soul Walking] after if I wanted. It seems to be a place far away, so I returned to the village.

And this is the secret of Tom, the merchant.

He is taking orcs to the woods and releasing them.

Grandma said she isn’t sure of it, but they are probably sons and daughter of nobles who “failed” at the process of becoming superior beings and became orcs – thereof bringing disgrace to their families and being exiled from the port city.

And here I was, hopping it was something noble like Tom being a slave-freeing man.

But it doesn’t seem to be many orc slaves around. They are people who broke the curse, so most of them have backgrounds and come from families who can pay a magician to break it by force or a dojo to teach them how to do it by themselves.

They will be exiled, but not enslaved. Most of the cases. Besides, orcs like to go against authority, so they obviously make terrible slaves.

And how does this relate to sister?

Well…

No, don’t worry, she didn’t become an orc.

But the dojo’s master’s son is a playboy, and when he tried to grope her she answered by crushing his nuts.

Literally. She shoved her hand inside his pants, grabbed them and squished until a wet *pop* sound came from them. Then she held the boy’s shoulders with the other hand and ripped the boy’s balls off of his body.

Yeah.

Sister didn’t get much from all of that fuss.

The dojo’s master “forgave” her after hearing the whole of the story. It seems he had been looking for a chance to give his son a lesson for a while. Besides, this world has healing magic, so it wasn’t a permanent injury.

But I’m starting to fear she will indeed become an orc once she breaks the curse.

Well, I won’t stop loving her because of that, I think.

Orcs aren’t so ugly as in many literaly works. They aren’t monsters. I would say… the female one looked even a bit cute?

Or maybe it’s my hitting range that’s a bit too wide.

Anyhow, I have taken some time to check on her regularly. Besides that, my training is progressing fine and I have been able to learn [Magic Flexibility] on lightning, sound and light spells as well.

The lightning spells use a lot of energy, but create various sizes of electricity, electric bolts and discharges. The sound ones produce sounds like thunder and impact waves. And the light ones produce not only light but also colors.

I guess I can develop this into some sort of illusion powers later, but this would be difficult. These spells are very difficult to understand, since they are complex and give a mix of feelings.

The [high yell] spell, which increases the volume of one’s voice, and the [cotton step] spell, for example. By using them I can easily learn to reduce or increase the many sounds I produce.

But spells like the [Knock] spell, which creates the sound of something hitting wood, is different and has a weird ~~feeling~~ to it which goes beyond just higher or lower sounds. It has to do with properties of sound like tone and rhythm, which are harder to grasp.

So I can’t do things which are too complex, like holograms and illusions, even if I can make an area like my room or the kitchen become silent or provide highlighted sounds.

Let’s keep progressing.

Oh, about this matter - recently little sister started to produce sounds. I don’t think any of them actually mean “mama” or “papa”, but father and mother surely think she already can say their names.

Besides that, what happened …

Oh, right!

I have had success!

With the mana pebble creation, that is.

For a couple times small rock golems where born from the rock I was using to train [Last Breath], but since they are only five centimeters big and round they really aren’t a treat.

Seriously.

They may be hard, but a pebble-sized small golem which hasn’t even hands or legs can only vibrate of fury in your hands.

No, rock golems don’t grow arms or legs by themselves. It seems rock is too hard for them to do it. Only the clay ones grow those.

Anyway, I destroyed those.

But then I got lucky one day, and it didn’t turn into a golem. It became a thing which has a weird feeling on the hands, as if it had small tentacles made of [Aura Sensing].

I consulted with grandma and it was indeed a mana pebble.

Since it’s small there is no risk of it becoming a dungeon core, so I decided to use it as a battery and just keep pouring energy in there.

It’s better to accumulate instead of wasting it needlessly, right?

Besides it may be useful for making experiments as well.

I want to try and create a magical weapon with it.

One thing I’m sure I don’t have is the [World’s Treasure] talent, since all of my craftsmanship is poor at best.

But one can always try stuff, even if it’s just for fun, right?

So let’s see if I can convince grandma to let me pile some wood in the training center and make a small furnace so I can try and imbed this pebble into a piece of metal. 

She said the way to make magic weapons is like this, so I will try to make a baton with an electrified metallic stub.

Like a fantasy-world taser.

***

Well, it’s winter.

And I’m finally relieved from pretending to care about the kids and playing with them.

Returning to childhood?

Playing marbles, running around, eating fruit from the orchards, playing tag and being in a small gang which rules over your quarter?

Yeah, fun for a couple days. Then it gets boring as fuck.

I really need to find something to do when spring is back.

But what?

Right now me and Jacen will be staying home and helping mother with the pent-up chores like knitting and sewing, but it’s just three months.

What to do after that, I wonder?

***

Grandma allowed me to try the electric baton building project, but I didn’t have much success so far.

Maybe it’s because winter has come, and trying to imbue a crystal in hot iron in the middle of snow, at night, isn’t exactly easy.

I’m not cold since I use [Aura Cushion], but the mana pebble broke into pieces.

I tried using the small pieces then, but in the end the efficiency of the baton was just too low. It doesn’t store even a tenth of the energy amount it used to.

Besides I don’t know how to program the baton to release the energy inside as lightning.

Grandma said it had to do with manipulating the little soul inside the mana pebble by adding a primitive artificial mind to it.

I don’t know soul magic and mind magic, but there was a similar concept on earth. On a kind of magic called chaos magic, creating artificial “servers” was possible.

When I started to do it grandma observed the process and corrected many points where I was doing the wrong thing.

According to her I was splitting a small piece of my mind and soul and modulating it, while the process shouldn’t be like this.

 I should be able to create a small mind without the need to split a piece of my own.

So I will be letting this project rest a bit until she teaches me mind magic. Until there my rod will be just a small piece of metal with small mana pebble pieces embedded on it.

***

So, the day has come.

The day when my body reached the same level as my qigong technique.

What does that mean?

Well, that means I can now get the same amount of energy by simply training my body with swings that I would get by doing qigong.

Remember how I measured my aura gathering speed as being 30x faster than sister’s, a few years ago?

Well, I measured it again today.

And I have reached that level. The one where I have a body which is able to take as much aura from food as if I was doing qigong constantly as a baby.

Now, this does bring a small problem…

Because I redid the measurement again, and I discovered doing qigong doesn’t make me 30x faster than the previous 30x.

I don’t have an aura gathering speed, with qigong, 900x faster than sister. And the reason is clear as long as someone has the [Aura Analysis] ability.

That is because I’m already at 100% absorption from food. There isn’t any more aura I can absorb from the food I eat.

So the qigong only increases my speed in proportion to how much I can take from the void.

Currently that’s worth two or three meals for every hour of training… so my current aura gathering speed, while doing qigong, is around 4x my normal speed… which means 120x more than sister’s speed.

It’s a fair amount, but it also means my growth will become slower unless I do something about it.

I mean, it’s nice that I have grown so much, but not getting more aura from food means it’s becoming more and more useless to train the [Body Refining] technique.

If I concentrate on expanding my connection to the Void I should be able to increase my aura recovery speed much more than by keep training the [Body Refining] technique.

However, I can’t stop training it because I need to go through the first [real bottleneck] on human’s aura gathering amount.

On another words, if I quit training my [Body Refining] technique I can prioritize the speed of aura gathering but will turn my total amount smaller.

Grandma’s opinion is the same as ever – slow but safe.

She thinks I should keep training the [Body Refining] technique as much as possible, and only care about increasing my aura recovery speed after I have gone through the bottleneck.

But I don’t want to.

I have a cheat body exactly to be able to do this kind of things, right?

Reckless things which will bring me more power.

Or maybe I’m being immature in this.

I mean, the [Body Refining] technique isn’t here to only give me more aura capacity, but also to effectively increase my body’s physical abilities.

So it decreases my aura consumption by increasing my physical strength.

Shouldn’t I think on this as something that will somewhat makes my aura accumulation more effective?

Uuuhm…

That reminds me…

This whole thing is becoming very complex.

Shouldn’t I make a log or something?

I remember the goddess saying something about me getting the chance to create a game system to represent my growth.

Maybe I should do something about it. Put my strength into numbers, that is.

On the other side, I do have perfect memory, so I don’t need to.

But giving numbers to my strength would make possible for me to make calculations easier and look for the more effective way to train myself.

But I have to do math.

Argh.

I’m back here again. On the mental dialogues and discussions.

Forget this shit.

Let’s do something else and leave these ideas for later.

Besides, today is hot bath day.

So I better hurry up with this water buckets. Since sister left it has become increasingly difficult to fill the bathtub.

Me and Jacen, since we need to keep our power hidden, take two whole days to do it by ourselves.

It’s a bit annoying~~~

***

Aaahh~~~

It´s useless in the end.

I can’t stop thinking on it.

Even as I bath I’m still thinking.

To keep training [Body Refining] or to put all of my efforts into becoming more connected to the void?

~~ I’m troubled.

“All, are you sad?”

Uhm? Oh, it’s just you.

“No. Just thinking.”

“Thinking what?”

“You know that technique grandma taught you?”

Jacen has been learning the qigong techniques from grandma. Since he doesn’t have a chance of pretending to be normal, like sister has, she decided to teach him.

“Uhm”

“Do you feel aura entering your body when you do it?”

I mean, that’s how it has always worked for me.

“Uh? Aura? No. Just the one from my belly.”

Wait… wait…

Oh shit.

Holly shit.

I just realized something.

Something, holy fuck I realized something!

“Jacen, do you imagine aura coming from above and filling your belly?”

“No. Grandma said it was bad to do that. That I would get hurt.”

I’m stupid.

I’m a big idiot who doesn’t know how to use his own powers.

Of course he doesn’t.

I have been using this together with my qigong, but it’s totally different, right?

I mean, this connection to the heavens, I knew how to do it due to my past life as an esoterism enthusiast from earth.

But I have something here I didn’t have there.

The [spiritual] talent.

I don’t need to eat, drink or breath. My body can replenish energy by itself.

But this energy, where does it comes from?

Is it from the connection I made when I’m connecting to the infinite above?

Or is it from something else?

If it’s from the infinite above, then it wouldn’t make any sense for me to be able to control it when I’m technically dead after using the [Last Breath] technique.

It’s two different things!

The energy from [above] I get from doing qigong and the energy I get naturally from having the [spiritual] talent, they are two different things, even if they might feel the same!

I mean, of course they are.

Isn’t the [spiritual] talent active at all times while the connection from above requires for me to actively train it with qigong?

They are different, even if they feel almost the same.

Now that I realize this, it’s striking obvious. The difference between both, that is.

Hahah, I’m such an idiot.

Thank you Jacen.

Thank you poop-brother.

“O-oy!”

Oh, sorry. I forgot we are nude. Here, I will release you from my surprise hug.

Now, if you guys excuse me, I have some special training to do.

I need to explore the memory of my epiphany on which is the difference between the [spiritual] talent’s energy and the energy from the connection above. With it I will be able to train both things separately at all times – effectively being able to make both trainings at the same time – that is, the one to increase my aura recovery speed and the [Body Refining] one as well.

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….

Wait.

Couldn’t I have had just put extra pressure on my mind again and multitasked this as well?

Like, the training to increase the connection to above is usually done with me entering a deep meditative state, which means I can’t make the visualizations needed to do the [Body Refining] technique.

But if I multitask this into two different things I could increase the efficiency as well.

Not to mention I could even multitask the other aspects of the technique, like the breath control.

Why haven’t I thought on this before?

…

First I have mental arguments with myself.

Then I become restless while being unable to stop it.

Then I have an epiphany and notice I had been just stupidly hitting an obvious wall the whole time and could have been making better use of my power all this time.

Isn’t this the same pattern I had to live while being on earth?

That’s a bit unnerving.

That I’m starting to manifest this kind of thing again.

Well, it’s life. Not like I know how to deal with this. Let’s go train and increase my power again.

***

Karma is a bitch.

Seriously.

There I was, seated on lotus position, when I felt something on my mouth. It was soft and weird.

I slowly pulled my consciousness from the meditative state and came back to myself…

Only to find Jacen’s dick on my mouth.

SERIOUSLY?!

I MEAN, GODDAMIT JACEN, SERIOUSLY?

YOU ARE MOUTH-RAPING ME?!

SERIOUSLY?!

I gave him a well-deserved slap on the outer tight and when he felt on the ground I proceeded to turn him around and slap his butt.

“DON´T. YOU. EVER. DO. THIS. AGAIN!”

When I stopped he was sobbing in the ground in fetal position.

Hell and witches, when have I last been so angry like this?

I think it has been years.

Literally years. It was before I reincarnated, I’m pretty sure.

Arf.

…

Okay.

You can stop now.

Oh dammit, he curled into a small ball. I thought father and mother would come to see what all the fuss was about, but I had been casting [Cotton Step] on the room this whole time.

I guess I started doing it reflexively when I snapped out.

I have to take care not to do it around regular people.

Argh.

Let’s deal with this.

I stopped casting the spell and looked at Jacen. His butt is all bloody, swelled and purple.

I may have slapped him while using aura.

That’s…. not nice.

I hope I didn’t break his hip.

I mean, I didn’t want to hurt him too bad. It was just the anger. It slipped. My aura-clad hand, that is.

I approached him and the little thing started trembling and curling even more.

“Jacen… I’m sorry.”

He is trying to craw away.

“Calm down, here, come with me. Calm down…”

I held his shoulder gently. He resisted at first but then gave himself into my arms.

“I will heal you now. I’m sorry. Here.”

I casted the [Deep Healing] spell on his tight and butt, and it started to get better.

I casted it a couple more times, just to be sure.

He’s still trembling, however.

“Listen, Jacen, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. But you must never put your thing into another’s person mouth without asking them first, okay? It’s very, very bad, okay?”

He is crying in my chest.

I guess he’s finally a little relieved after knowing why I beat him.

But, really, where did he got this idea from?

I put him to sleep while hugging his shoulders. It wasn’t until the next week that I discovered why.

It was me.

He had become excited when I hugged him in the bath. Then he came to the room, saw me and took advantage of the situation by himself.

That’s plain mouth rape, but it wasn’t because he is a bad person.

It’s because he’s a kid and didn’t know any better.

He didn’t want to hurt me or violate me.

It was heartbreaking seen he cowering in fear when we were naked in the bath.

I had no other option.

I mean, it was the only way to ensure he wouldn’t become traumatized for life after such a rough beating.

I gently embraced him and explained the situation.

I said I would sleep with him and that if he wanted we could do pervy things. That I was sorry for hurting him so bad, but that he should always, and I mean ALWAYS, ask for it first.

That it was not okay to just do it without asking me first.

And like that we started a very weird kind of relationship.

Does that mean I’m gay?

…

Well, I’m at least bisexual, since I did sister as well.

But, damn…

It’s weird to think on me having a relationship with Jacen just like this.

Ann onne-san… when will you come back?

I seriously need some sis-con to put my masculinity back in place.

And no, I won’t look for little sis. She is a baby, for gods’s sake.  I may be a lolicon pervert but I don’t think that much would be acceptable.

Even I have limits.

I think.

***

Jacen is just insatiable.

I don’t know if it’s because it’s winter or because he’s a damn kid, but he’s always creeping around every time the opportunity presents itself.

“All, can we do it?”

“All, I’m hard.”

“All, I want to do it.”

“All, can I put it in?”

“All, can you put it in me?”

I like sex but I’m not used to do it with men. This body of mine can get excited with him, but my mind still remembers the time when I was heterosexual, so this is very weird.

Besides, I never had a girlfriend in my past life. All of my sex was done with hookers. So I’m just not used to someone wanting it when I’m not in the mood for it.

It’s a bother, I must say.

I mean, the perks are great. He has a cute body, a nice face, and I can experience things I didn’t thought I would ever experience and like.

But it’s just a bit annoying.

Besides, he has become dependent. He’s always lowering his head to me and taking a submissive pose.

I guess in the end I avoided him becoming traumatized but created a little bit of a M side in him?

Well, luckily things will get solved once spring is back.

I guess I will try to do something about this by starting a relationship between Jacen and that “big brother” of his.

He will be conflicted anyway, being submissive to both me and him, so if I put him under the boy’s wing it’s mostly sure he will leave me alone and start chasing him.

His name was Ralphe, right?

As long as he is a little bit homo or bi I should be able to push Jacen onto him.

Yes, this seems like a good plan.

What, cold-hearted? Manipulative? Cuckholder?

Bitch, please.

I’m not my brother’s boyfriend. I’m his fuck buddy. And he wants to fuck too much.

I will get someone his age for him to fuck and do him a quickie from time to time.

It would be a totally different story if it was Ann, but Jacen has always been poop-brother. I don’t need to care, right?

…

DAMN I’m cold!

That won’t do.

What’s happening to me? Thinking those things?

Should I be a little more possessive, maybe?

He isn’t a fleshlight sex toy I can use and toss away!

… even if that’s pretty much the kind of relationship we established between us.

Aaah, I’m confused.

All of this sex and relationship business is making me lose precious focus and time.

I mean, I can argue with myself while keep my training due to my mental ability to multitask reaching a really good level, but maybe I’m putting too much attention into this?

I mean, grandma just said I should pay more attention, and it’s true.

A rosemary treant’s harpoon-thorn just grabbed my arm. I’m being pulled. Those things surely are stronger than they look.

Well, let’s deal with this and think more about Jacen latter.

***

What’s the best way to deal with relationship uneasiness?

It’s obviously to create monsters and battle then in an all-out arena!

And that’s why today I decided to make it really good. I want to feel some adrenaline!

First, [nightvision] spell is off.

This will make me need to concentrate more.

Then, I’m adding slimes and mad hounds to the treant-golem mix.

Where did I get the hounds?

They followed me all the way here after I busted their nest and had them run after me.

Eighty slimes, twenty golems, five mad hounds and an encirclement of treants.

I won’t lie. This took me some time to make. The treants alone may be easier to create than their versions as food, but they still require around one-fifth of the needed energy each.

So I can create a maximum of forty before passing out.

Usually this is more than enough. I get here, create the treants, rest a bit, then kill them, set them on fire and go back home.

The energy to power my spells and techniques I take from the surrounding environment.  The threes suffer a bit with me taking energy from them and from the air, but I guess they recover as much with the treant’s smoke and ashes.

Which is another reason why today’s a day to go all out.

The amount of aura scathed around this place due to the monster’s smoke and ashes is getting to significant levels.

It’s nothing worrying, but if I’m to stay here for another two or three years small wild treants may start to be born.

So today will be my last day using this training place.

Which means I have to go out with a boom, right?

So, the number of treants has increased to roughly eighty.

This, plus the slimes, golems and mad hounds make a superb challenge.

Grandma is pretty sure I will end up with at least one missing arm, but I’m confident.

You see, I have put these monsters together after three days creating them.

Of course it was dangerous, and the last day of treant creation was almost as difficult as a regular day of training – since most of the monsters where inside the encirclement already.

But I will prevail.

So, let’s go!

***

The moment I jumped in the middle of the training grounds a number of rosemary treants shot their harpoons at me.

Typical. They always do it.

But today I can’t take my regular evasive measures, because there are slimes trying to craw on my leg and two hounds have jumped in my direction as well.

It’s weird how monsters work together naturally.

All those days spent on the same confined space and the treants haven’t shot and eaten the mad hounds yet.

Very peculiar.

Well, let’s see.

I will need to cut the harpoons on my left while jumping there and avoiding the slime pile in the ground. This means I will have to land on the tip of my left foot.

The moment I land a clay golem will swing at me, so I will need to duck and jump while cleaving it with the [Aura Sword] in my right hand.

I shall be able to topple the golem and hit the hound behind it with a kick on his neck. If I put just a little bit of aura or cast [Aura Weapon] on my feet I can cut it with a swing.

It’s useless to make plans ahead of this point. Three movements ahead the battlefield will be totally different from now.

Let’s go.

I cut the harpoons at my left and jumped. The slime pile moved a bit, so I had to land on my pinky toe. The feet joint is almost ripping apart due to the bad position I landed on.

Good thing I can reinforce it with aura. If this was earth I would have broken my foot.

I duck and rearrange my weight on the side of my feet as the golem swings at me, but a new wave of harpoons is coming from all sides.

I can’t go as planned, so I jump and stick my [Aura Sword] on the golem’s head instead of cutting his chest.

The harpoons go around and stick to his body, piercing deep.

When I look to my next landing spot, the mad hound is jumping at me already.

I can’t escape easily in the air, so I will use his body momentum.

I stick my [Aura Spear] forward and make a hound skewer while using the strength of his jump to rotate in the air and go back to where I came. Once the strength of the hound has been fully transferred to my spear I undo it and make a new one. Better than to try and take it out of his body.

I’m next to the center again, but there are too many slimes on the ground.

I need to get rid of them, so I cast a flame spell chantlessly while still mid-air.

The slimes are defeated, but I didn’t see the golem which was laying down beneath them.

Damn, these things are getting smarter!

The golem uses his arms to grab my torso. A new volley of harpoons is coming.

I have no other option, so I use [Harden] not on my body, but on the air surrounding it.

You know how [Aura Cushion] creates a small zone habitable around you, like a small barrier?

Well, this is similar. It’s as if I’m protected by an aura egg.

I obviously push the golem’s chest and slide out of his embrace.

The problem is what is coming behind me.

The egg is undone now that I have left it, so the harpoons smash my [Aura Armor].

They lost most of their strength, but there are dozens of rosemary treant harpoons inside my skin right now.

The pain is hellish.

Besides, there are the other hounds as well. Two of them are jumping at my legs and one is aiming for my neck.

I have no other option but to quick the ground strongly and pin then down with [Aura Javelin].

But now I’m on the air again, and a new volley of harpoons is coming at me. I haven’t freed myself from the first ones yet, so these are really dangerous.

I can use [Flame Sea] to destroy all of the vines and at least avoid being pulled by the rosemary treants, but I don’t want to use wide area spells.

Call me stubborn, but this wouldn’t be a challenge if I was to just throw an area spell and kill everything.

So I will do something else. And that is to make sure I’m at least pulled where I want to go.

I make an [Aura Sycle] in my right hand and cut the vines which are holding my left hand. At this moment the new volley hits me, but I cut the new vines as well.

The treants start to pull me to them, and this time I make an [Aura Sycle] in my right hand as well, and use it to cleave the last Mad Hounds’ head.

Now comes the painful part.

I stick both [Aura Sycle’s] in the ground and let the harpoons pull on my body while using [Last Stand] to take the Aura out of my skin, concentrating it on my muscles, tendons and joints.

The harpoons tear through my skin and recoil to the treants, but the training isn’t over yet.

I quickly pull on the [Aura Sycle’s] to gain momentum and jump forward. The next instant five golems hit the ground where I was. They were doing damned body slams. That would hurt like hell if was there.

Regardless, there’s a big pile of slimes where I’m heading to, so I need to do something about that.

I quickly turn my body in the air and land with my feet on top of an earth slime, which means I slide to the side for a few meters.

Just enough to jump again, as a new volley of Harpoons come at me.

Now I’m just too close to the training camp’s borders and the rice treants are sending their tentacles to take me.

I need to act quick, so I use a peculiar technique.

It consists on making the strongest possible aura armor and then casting [Impact Wave] on myself.

It’s difficult to cast spells without using one’s hands, like how it’s necessary to be able to gain speed midair by casting this spell, but I have mastered this much technique.

If you don’t need to say anything, just convey the “feeling” to your aura, then why would you need to point at things?

Just convey the “feeling” of casting the spell to the outer border of your aura, directed at yourself, or, better yet, the feeling of receiving the spell on yourself, and it will hit you.

So now I’m a small A-Bomb.

The Alvin Bomb.

I hit the middle of the treant formation and immediately cast as many [Toxic Wind Needles] as I can.

Those scathe around and kill a lot of treants in one go.

But I still have more things to do. This technique produces slimes after all.

And there are still many golems and treants.

Well, since I have breached the treant line it’s just a matter of cutting the ones in front of me and repeating the routine a few times.

Cut and evade. Evade and duck. Jump, Alvin Bomb. Cut, cut, cut, Toxic Wind Needle.

Evade the golem’s fist, cut it in half, jump behind the golem wave, cut all of them with a really long [Aura Sword] swung as fast as possible.

Soon there’s nothing else remaining but a few slimes which I burn.

Great Training Challenge.

Results achieved:

Harpoon Volleys avoided: 32.

Harpoon Volleys which hit the [Aura Armor]: 5

Harpoon Volleys which caused damage: 2

Lost fingers: 4

Total of enemies destroyed: Eighty treants. One-hundred and ten slimes. Twenty golems. Five mad hounds.

Experience points gained: If only things where so easy!

But it was fun. I’m satisfied with myself.

Even if…

Aaah…

I passed out in the middle of the training grounds.

***

Interesting thing. Since I don’t need to sleep I also don’t exactly become unconscious unless I desire.

When my brain gives up I can remain inside of my body, in a totally void of sensitivity place, or go on [Soul Walk].

After that training I did it and was praised by grandmother.

We choose a new location for my training on the opposite direction, and soon started to build it.

Once my body had recovered enough I took a quick bath in the river, put my clothes on and returned home.

Ahn?

What I mean by “put my clothes on”?

I obviously wouldn’t train with clothes!

I mean, not only the [Shadow] spell makes my aura pitch black and therefore protects my privacy, I don’t want to go back home all dirty.

Besides, mother would get worried if the clothes where all thorn apart and full of holes. And I would need to sew them or worse, knit myself new clothing.

Nope.

I have enough sewing as it is.

So I usually train naked.

Then I take a river bath, put my clothes on, and then head back home.

Regardless.

I’m feeling happy.

So I won’t care even if Jacen asks me to do pervy things with him.

I may even enjoy it a little.

Or maybe more than a little.

To home!