...

Days later, Alexander's room

"Jesus, the scars are heavy."

A young wolf-kin stood in his room, with a height of around 1.60 m (~5.25 ft) before his mirror, fully naked, and looked at his body, trying to process how much he had changed over the months.

For one, he was scarred massively. Almost every part of his body, besides, fortunately, his face, was either deformed with scars, discolored, or roughed out. He touched his tail slightly, which made him frown. The fur did grow fully back, but when he felt the skin underneath it, it was much less sensitive, as the skin on his tail was fully scarred.

Even though Ipe's healing helped a lot to either bring back some skin instead of scar tissue or make them fade, it was nonetheless something he couldn't resolve. For him to get his normal skin, he would need something akin to a nature-dweller healer who went through at least the second blooming, which was a rarity and highly cherished by the temple.

Alexander was promised that if he wanted to regain his old looks, he could visit the nature-dweller territory where some of those healers resided. They were rather amiable toward the family members of druids and would heal him.

However, he never had any problems with his body image, on Earth or here. It was far from what he would describe as beautiful, but he also saw the good points in it, "I bet chicks dig the rough guy look, right?"

However, looking more closely at himself, he also noticed that his face had become more feminine and that the fur on his tail and ears had become more fluffy and delicate, almost like Janina's, "Is this some weird side-effect?..." Yet, looking at his private region, which was also scarred, everything was still there, "...hm, maybe it will go away after I am older? Who cares, honestly."

Beside his very childish looks, his body, in contrast, was very well developed. Muscles were more significant than what he imagined a typical 7-year-old had but also much more defined, so it didn't look weird. He found himself quite charismatic as he did some alluring poses in front of the mirror, "Who is the man?..." He winked and snapped at himself, making finger pistols, "...you are the man, pew, pew!"

After some minutes of inspecting his body, he sighed, "Well, at least I am not dead..." The scars reminded him of the torture he went through for the last months: From not being able to move at all because of an assassination to the despair he experienced to get well again.

Some days ago, he even had a sparring session with his Grandmother and gave his all. Even though the ending was quite anti-climatic since he suddenly received a skill, [Flash], and subconsciously used it while misconstructing the propulsion spell wrongly, which made him trip, crashing his head against the ground, knocking him out for good, he nonetheless, felt much stronger, which also showed in his skills and attributes.

He opened his system window.

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kiruschka/kiruschka.github.io/main/Chapter_98_to_102/Chapter_102/Alexander_system_window_102.svg]

He learned a spell yesterday with which he could change the design of his system window, as his usual one was too cluttered for his taste. However, he only changed the color, tried to sort the skills into categories, etc. He made it only more pleasant to look at and didn't change anything else, as the spell was only cosmetical.

The spell was made out of two parts. The first put a thin mana layer over his window, which would then analyze the different parts, dividing them automatically into their appropriate components. Afterward, the second part of the spell was built like a website builder. He could change colors, sizes, and so on by changing some nodes, lines, etc., here and there, which were allowed according to the manual.

While it sounded relatively simple and rather useless for others, for Alexander, it was the opposite. It was a spell that would be a game-changer for the future, especially in data gathering and other fields.

Sadly, when it comes to creating and changing the spells, he had zero experience and would need years before he could start creating something new and unbelievable.

He quickly put the thoughts away, as he was too far away from even trying it out, and looked at his system window, filling him with unimaginable pride, 'This should be one of the highest levels in history before going through legacy, right?'

In Alexander's mind, he was obviously cheating his way to this level since he was reborn with knowledge from his previous life while having an incredible family who supported him in almost every endeavor he put his mind to. Even though they were a little crazy, he would never attribute any of his success to only himself, but this didn't mean that he didn't work his ass off to achieve such heights.

However, many more things happened besides the meteoric rise in attributes, which more than doubled partly. One of them was his new skills. For one, he got an array of resistance-focused skills which came probably from the potions he was fed, like [Hex Resistance], [Heat Resistance], [Cold Resistance], [Curse Resistance], [Disease Resistance], [Major Abnormal Status Resistance], etc. All of them were also at a high level, giving him not a single night where he could sleep through as he had one skill test after the other.

Even his teacher got annoyed seeing him, sometimes giving him the clear without him doing his test, which he found weird. He always thought she represented the system window, but there seemed to be much more behind it. Though, he ignored it, not even wanting to go into such philosophical questions, as he had more than enough other things to worry about.

Other than that, he got a multitude of other mental fortitude skills like [Unbreakable Will], while some other skills just changed, like [Intermediate Pain Resistance] to [Major Intermediate Pain Resistance].

Furthermore, his mana got weird. He could feel a demonic aura, like that of his Mother, coming of it. Looking into himself, he saw how his mana veins and core were all reddish and had deposits on the inner walls, which he couldn't remove with Ipe's help. It was incredibly damaging since his mana now smelled, which was not the case before. Its attribute was that it thoroughly killed any scent.

Alexander conjured a new construct he had learned. A ball made out of water appeared before him, which made him frown, 'The smell is fucking annoying.' He used his alchemy and conjured a contraption beside it, a ball made out of water, which, fortunately, didn't smell.

He dispelled his contraption and construct and didn't know if concentrating on his mana veins was such a good idea, but what was done was done, and the positives outweighed the smell. His veins widened, making his mana output faster. He could now drain himself in seconds if he conjured dozens of spells simultaneously.

Next, the better body wasn't there only for show. Alexander could now use the skill that almost killed him when he was little: [Body Overload (Mana)]. The name was a little deceptive, but it worked by pushing mana through his veins at high speed, affecting all his other organs and body parts, making him almost burn up, and increasing his physical prowess to incredible degrees.

After the little spar with his Grandmother, which killed his confidence since he could barely scratch her, he tested the skill more often, with Ipe always looking over him. Little to say, it was a great skill that he wanted to teach every other soldier since it was only a combination of [Mana Sense], [Mana Absorption], and [Mana Emission], so to say, easy to learn. But that also meant that he needed to somehow teach them the [Mana Absorption] and [Mana Emission] skills through easy and straightforward ways, but he already had an idea how to do it, and his first victim would be Lorient.

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Besides all that, the most significant change came after his Mother used her demonic energy on his brain. She didn't initially concentrate on specific parts like he wanted and only surrounded his head with it.

By his Grandmother's accounts, most would die immediately the moment someone made even a little mistake while rummaging inside someone's brain with basically a scalpel, so his Mother wouldn't even think about doing this, as it was too dangerous.

However, the effects he got from only some superficial treatment were substantial. His emotional state felt more robust, and his mind worked even faster. However, his senses had the same weird side effect as his mana since he always smelled a pungent stench of miasma. He liked it, though, and it didn't disturb his ability to sense others.

Nonetheless, while he had many positive changes, the negatives were on his ass again: Minor aches were still there, and he was back at counteracting them but in a much more significant way. He was wearing a new mana artifact, which increased his weight by eight times, which was not even close to what he needed to feel any strain. The same went for the mana collar around his neck, which was an intermediate version, but even though it had a somewhat more sophisticated mechanism, he could crack it in seconds by brute-forcing his way. All he did was conjure a water contraption around it and just iterate the code. The electric shocks the collar gave off couldn't penetrate the demineralized water, and he cracked it after the two hundred-something try.

He needed better things, so he asked his Mother to write to his uncle early on. The answer came pretty fast, with his aunt answering and now demanding, besides his services in testing their items, to send some girls to him for a couple of rendezvous, which he agreed to.

After becoming friends with Patricia, he would do just the same with the others. Besides that, he was more or less inclined to think that, going by what his Grandmother told him, they wouldn't be interested in him because of his looks. The trend for younger nobles at the moment was fair skin and a more androgynous look, so he had no chance in this case, which actually played very well into his goals since he wanted to make friends and connections, not getting a harem made out of underaged canine-kin girls.

For good or worse, he needed the Cold-Snout household to allow him to operate in their territory, and by being friendly to some girls, he figured that it could work out. However, he wouldn't bet on it since they were children. Still, every little positive thing would accumulate over time, making it easier to develop the projects he wanted to make into reality.

Then there was also Nila from the Nine-Fire household on the way here, who he needed to sponsor if he wanted to have a much easier time in their territory with his charity. Besides, he was also doing Narsiz a favor as Linuel had some weird problems with her sister.

Besides the girls, he also forced his way into a loan inquiry from the Silver-Tail household, wanting to write a separate letter to the new Lord named Bartholomew, wanting to give him a preferential deal for something else, which he would then discuss with him when he arrived in the following weeks or months.

Regardless of his great changes and meetings, it came at a significant cost. All his projects have been lying on ice for the last few months, and with everything on his plate now, this wouldn't change so fast. The only project somewhat on track was the one he instructed Ocilia with, but even for that, he had no real hope that it was ready for his finetuning.

However, with some luck, his other ones were finished as he gave well-thought-out instructions before getting injured, and all they needed was some finetuning. He went to the wardrobe, choosing his clothes for the day, "Quite the crunch."

It wasn't only a selfish desire that drove him now to expedite much faster but also that he was incredibly thankful to everyone who was there for him for the last months. Time was costly, and he knew it. So, anything less than using all his knowledge to bring technology and, with it, prosperity into this world and to their fiefs was the minimum he could do.

Unfortunately, it didn't make him feel any better because, even though he filled their treasury up to the brim, brought Green more prestige, and tried to help everyone around him in every way possible, it also benefited him.

Alexander only saw paying back the favors he was given if he needed to sacrifice something, but everything he gave felt more like a trade he wouldn't lose on, making his conscience not feel any less heavy.

Patricia was one of the people he owed a lot. When he went through his body-strengthening process, after every session, at night, she was always there for him, trying to relax him when he was on the brink of a breakdown.

Little to say, he cried like a baby most of the time, as he could barely cope with what he went through. While his siblings were also there for him, it was the case that she was there for him the most, which made him immensely grateful.

So, before she would leave in a couple of days, he wanted to give her all the fundamental mana skills and the [Body Overload (Mana)] skill. He would also finance her endeavors to get stronger, which he had already talked with his Grandmother about. Everything she bought for Patricia, he would pay to get the most out of it.

For some reason, his Grandmother agreed quickly, not even thinking twice after he told her that he would also give her the mana skills. However, he was also truly thankful to the old hag. Even though she had some weird plans for him, it didn't mean he was ungrateful for her helping him massively, especially with Ipe and Lili staying with him.

He took first his undergarments, putting them on while deciding what his plans were for the day. He would first finish the mana ink and then visit the carpenter and smith for his Guttenberg press. Afterward, he would go to Ocilia and pray that the mana rooms were mostly done.

Afterward, he had a short meeting with Green, discussing hopefully the ready-and-done mana ink. She was ecstatic learning that he was done, and Alexander knew that gold, at this point, wouldn't be even a thought he would care about. She would probably throw the gold at him like there was no tomorrow.

Next, he would need to have a lesson with Anastasia since he didn't reach the intermediate Tier in [Law], for which he would need a couple more months, at most, and would then start with his judge duties, 'I need more people.'

After putting undergarments on, he chose some more casual clothes made out of linen and some loafers. His mind slowly was filled with dread, 'This is gonna be a long fucking day.'

He had too little time to do anything substantial and needed at least half a dozen people assisting him if he wanted to start his more grandiose projects without hindering his lessons and training. So, he was ready to get Ocilia's siblings up to speed as fast as possible while trying to get more people from Salyna.

If every day was like today, he would have only around four to five hours to train his movement skills, physical prowess, magic, and alchemy together. It was too little time.

Besides that, he also needed much more time for his next project, which he was most excited about, and the main reason he would need all the cooperation he could get from other territories: Trains.

He wanted to build a more efficient way to trade and move between cities in the east. But such a project needed a ton of requirements, like making an efficient refinery for steel, opening up the routes by flattening the land, and so on. Then, there was obviously the mechanical aspect of trains, but their principle was relatively straightforward from what he remembered. In rough terms, a train was nothing more than a giant metal block on wheels with a steam machine inside, acting as a motor.

However, Alexander also needed to talk with his Mother later about experimenting with mana stones, which were used as an energy source in mana items. He wanted to use them instead of coal or other natural resources, but first, he needed to see how efficient mana stones were in terms of energy and, most importantly, how much they would cost.

If they were too expensive and inefficient, he would need to think about ways to reduce the environmental damage he would create by burning coal en mass, but since magic was a thing, he was sure there was a suitable solution.

It was his dream to connect the whole east of Moorgrel. Trade would become a breeze; people could move faster and more safely between cities, transforming it into something extraordinary, far outside everyone's imagination.

Before that, though, he would bet that there was something like that already out there in other territories. He needed those blueprints before he reinvented the wheel. Instead, He would try to improve already existing concepts if they were good enough.

Regardless of the more grand projects he was far away from, he also needed to develop more miscellaneous stuff like modern writing ware, like pencils, fountain pens, pens in general, etc. Especially for the students and since, in his honest opinion, it sucked to write with feathers. It was relatively easy to develop and would increase productivity if everyone had better and cheaper writing utensils.

There was a drive in him. Something called him to change the world, and it would be a crime if he wouldn't use every drop of his knowledge not to do it. However, it was also exciting to him to see how he could affect it, even with little things. So, he was eager to see how more grand projects would shape society.

He looked around the room and went to a commode, opening it and choosing a pocket watch, "You look nice..." He picked a silver one, which looked the roughest but also something he could just throw around, and it would still work.

Alexander looked the last time into the mirror, trying to ascertain his looks, but gave up halfway through as he was never the guy who cared a lot about it as long as he looked somewhat acceptable. He went out of the door with a smile, finishing up his old projects and starting some new ones.

Author's Post Chapter: As you can see, the System Window is much more organized, and I forgot some skills, like [Poetry], in the previous chapters. So, if you think some unreasonable skills shouldn't be there or I forgot some that should be there, please feel free to suggest since I can easily make some mistakes. However, I think overall, it's fine.