Al woke up, ready to take on the world. He had been doing intensive Dexterity training for the past week, and just the day before he had managed to reach F Grade.

Today was supply day again, and ever since the Badger-Pine incident Al had been wanting to go with them to ensure their safety. Of course, they didn't want to rely on him, so the last three times they went out, all four adults capable of walking went together, with no mishaps.

This time it was imperative for him to go however, since he had to have the horns refined.

Al managed to convince them to let him go with, and each of the males strapped a horn to their backs. At this point Al wouldn't have any problem walking with one, but the men seemed to think otherwise, and insisted on carrying one each.

As they walk through the overgrown path, Al was constantly checking his surroundings, which made him miss his increased Perception more than ever before.

The trek was longer than Al expected, and he was really starting to understand why the adults hadn't let him carry a horn.

After several hours they reached the village, which was pretty small by Earth standards, with around 200 inhabitants, but judging by the conversations he'd heard on his way here it was pretty decently sized by the standards of this world.

The first thing they did after arriving was visit a carver, who normally worked with wood, but he would be better suited than a blacksmith for this kind of job.

He asked for 50 silvers to make both greatswords, but when he saw the horns he said he would give us a discount and leave it at 30 for the opportunity to work with a material this good. The adults were reluctant to buy it, but when Al reminded them that this could be pivotal for the safety of the orphanage, they reluctantly paid up. Al had already studied the money system in this world, and although 15 silvers per sword was extremely cheap, since most decent metal swords would go for around 25 to 35, it was still a big sum for farmers like them.

They made about 80 silvers per month, so losing a fourth of that to have some bones carved was a big hit.

They paid with a silver large coin and a bar and started their shopping for essentials.

When Al first heard about there being copper, silver, and gold currencies that were each worth 100 times the previous denomination, his mind immediately went to RPGs, where the money system was absolutely idiotic. If those were a real world, you would have to carry around a bag with several kilograms of copper coins just to have change, and if something costed like 73 copper you would have to go counting them one by one. 

Fortunately this world's system was smarter. Apart from the coins of every metal, there were large coins which were worth 5 times more, bars (which were just coins with a hole) worth 10, and plates, which were basically square coins, worth 25. From the prices when shopping he guestimated that each silver was worth a bit more than 10$, so they were making an abysmally low amount of money for all the people they had at the orphanage.

At least they didn't have to pay rent.

Once they arrived back at the orphanage it was already nightfall. The adults used to go out to the village in the afternoon, spend a night there and come back the following day, but after the incident they didn't feel safe leaving the children for a whole night with just one adult that was only starting to walk again.

'Gotta give it to them, they are giving their all to take care of us.'

Al went to bed early, and the next morning he decided to do some charity work.

He rallied up all the adults and told them he was going to help them form their core. Al had been surprised to hear none of them had one, since it had been extremely easy for him, but maybe if they did they wouldn't be in such a backwater place.

'I just hope they won't up and leave...'

He started with Khan-Wan, and managed to make her core before exhausting his mana. She was way too excited about it and even started sobbing, so Al briskly walked away. He managed to make a second core in a row by using every bit of his mental energy to pull mana from his surroundings, and then laid exhausted and with a throbbing headache against the wall. He did gain something from it though, as the message in front of him indicated.

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Will has reached E Grade

He laughed weakly and decided to check his Status.

Alberto Peñas

Age: 1 year

Level 3

Strength

F-

Dexterity

F

Toughness

F-

Will

E

Intelligence

E

Assignable

2

Skills:

[Mana Manipulation] (High)

[F Grade Core] (High)

[Body Enhancement] (Mid)

He had decided to get his Dexterity to E Grade before putting any points into it, as that seemed to be the point where the stat gain by training slowed down immensely.

The next day he managed to form the cores of the other three adults, and they made a request of him. They prostrated themselves, despite Al saying it was okay, and asked to help every children he could form their core

'Well you did well prostrating, since there's no way in hell I would say yes otherwise'

So, over the following week, his life was a constant cycle of forming cores and regenerating mana. Some were easier than others, which Al guessed had to do with their cultivation talent. Making Koro's core was specially hard, and he even had to get Yuly to provide mana, so he guessed Koro was better sticking to what he did best, smashing things.

Over the next 5 months, Al didn't go in to the forest, choosing to patrol from the wall. The little critters he did kill were enough to get him halfway to level 4, however. He managed to get his Dexterity up to F+ Grade, and his Strength up to F Grade. It wasn't even close to the increase in Koro's strength though, and Al had to wonder how he managed it.

The beast of a kid had to be over E Grade in strength already. Did he have some sort of special constitution? Al could still beat him easily though, since his overall power was greater, and his control much more refined. Also, much of Koro's time had sunk into training with his two new tusk swords, which looked like greatswords when Koro wielded them, so he hadn't done as much pure physical training lately.

Since in their duel weapons were not allowed, this had given him a bit of a leg-up.

Al had also been cultivating a lot, and a couple of months he tried something he had seen in many cultivation stories. He asked Yuly, who still spent many hours everyday cultivating, to sit in front of him and hold out her hands, and then he took them and started pushing mana into her through one hand and pulling it from the other, while still absorbing ambient mana.

She quickly caught on and started assisting him, and they found that it was much more efficient than normal cultivation. Yuly got muscle pain in her arms after a short while, so Al had to place a stool under their arms. 

Was it pretty? No.

Did it work? HELL YES!

Yuly had told Al that she felt she was nearing the next realm, and Al wasn't that far from it himself. He drooled when imagining the bounties he would reap upon reaching E Grade in his Core.

Finally, Al had also been using [Body Enhancement] almost on a daily basis, and, after 5 whole months, had finally gotten something to prove it.

[Body Enhancement] skill has reached High proficiency. You can now enhance your senses.

This wasn't what Al had been expecting at all, but it sure was a welcome upgrade. He had been grumpy about his low Perception for a while, and this was a good temporary substitute. He tested it with pure mana, and it seemed to just make every sense... better.

His vision became more vibrant and more detailed, allowing him to spot things at greater distances. His hearing became more acute, though it was a pain when there was a lot of ambient sound. Both his sense of taste and smell were amplified, and even his touch, though it made him conscious of every time his clothes rubbed against his skin and seemed to amplify pain too, so he wouldn't use that one very often.

When he instead tried it with lightning mana, the results were similar, but also slightly different. His vision seemed to become specially good at detecting moving objects, even when running around. It also seemed to increase it's framerate, for lack of a better term (Al was sure one existed, but he was no biologist). It seemed to synergize perfectly with his quickening from lightning [Body Enhancement], so he was very pleased.

His hearing also detected sudden sounds better, and even seemed to prioritise them somehow over background noise. In short, his combat potential had just received a massive boost, and it would be much less likely for him to get ambushed like before.

"This freaking rocks!"