Al told Yuly their new cultivation schedule. She had been doing mental training these past months, and Al guessed she had a bit more to go until she reached the equivalent of E Grade.

Thus, they would cultivate for two days at a time, and the third day, Al would use for hunting while Yuly kept up her mental training.

Al also went to visit Koro, who thankfully hadn't gotten even bulkier (though Al didn't know if that would even be possible), but his muscles seemed slightly... wirier, more fibrous than before. Al grimaced when he imagined the massive amounts of meat Koro probably had to eat. 

He had also showed off some flashy stunts using lightning enhancement to Jiao, who despite growing up maintained that childish attitude of his, and wowed and whoooed at every little trick. 'Well, I say growing up, but he's still 4 years old.' Al realised that he may be the only 'normal' kid from his group of friends

He managed to find a couple of Rank 2 beasts that day, firstly a Spiky boi that he skewered through the eye and out the back of its head before it even noticed him, then a Bear-boar he ran under and pierced straight through its thick chest muscle and up to its heart.

He went back to the camp and told the adults to get the device they had built for this occasion. Since the Bear-boar's fur was tough it was a good product to sell, and its meat was tough, but properly boiled it had a huge amount of proteins, and there were huge quantities of it.

So, they had bought sharp knifes that could slice its hide and meat, and made a wooden bed with wheels that could be pulled by Koro (which at this point was like a beast of burden).

Al left them to it and went back, rejoicing at how effective the experience boost from his class was, since he was almost two thirds of the way towards the next level already.

Over the next weeks, Al kept cultivating and farming. He now had five porcuspines, and had managed to collect a plethorae of tusks and Hornductors to sell at the village. He was almost level 8 too, though each level required considerably more exp than the last.

He had been using his skills in combat a lot, specially the enhancement ones, though evolved skills were much slower to upgrade.

A small problem had arisen though. The village people had started to question where all the advanced materials the orphanage was now selling came from, as Al had suspected would happen, and had sent a search party to scout their forests.

Al only knew this because his enhanced hearing had allowed to hear the sounds of voices when he was out hunting, and when he sneakily reached their source he found a party of three grizzly-looking men, that were trudging through the forest without a care for stealth, and making indecent jokes nonstop.

That reminded Al of those predictable side-antagonists that are only there for the MC to show off in manhua and wuxia novels, and he couldn't imagine why the village would decide to sent people like them. They did sport some Bear-boar tusk weapons, though more than a sword they resembled some kind of pointy paddle. 'Not enough carvers huh?' Were they supposed to be strong in comparison to other villagers?

In any case, Al didn't want to kill them just because of their nasty looks and demeanour, so he followed them along to gather some more intel. Apparently they were sent here by the village head, and although they weren't too happy about it, they seemed to have been offered some sort of... indecent reward if they were successful.

Since they were only pawns, although foul ones, he knocked the three out easily by hitting the back of their necks and quickly went to his room, where he wrote a note telling the men to give the paper to the village head, and below he wrote -Dangerous beasts prowl through these woods. Your men got lucky to find me before one of those. Do not come here again, it is your final warning.-

He felt pretty damn cool when writing that, and he sped back to the men. He climbed a nearby tree and woke them up with a glorious zap, taking care not to damage the note. Once he was a good distance away he used [Lightning Palm] to provide some light, since it had quickly gotten dark. Winter was yet to end.

As he went back, he decided to take a little detour. Al liked the atmosphere of the forest at night.

Al hoped this incident would put an end to the village's snooping, but he very much doubted it. Life wasn't convenient like that, Al learned that a long time ago. The hard way. 'Aaaah, I feel like an old man when I ramble on like that'

Suddenly a blue screen appeared in front of him and threw him out of his musings

[Lightning Palm] Skill has reached Mid proficiency. It is now much more stable as a light source, and when used for attacking its effect persists longer.

This was great, since it meant he didn't have to constantly expend a bit of focus to keep the light source active. His Intelligence was so high it barely inconvenienced him, but still.

His mood was now ruined though, so he swiftly made his way to his room and called it a day.

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When Al woke up the next day, he immediately went to tell the adults about the mishap with the party of men. They were surprised when Al said he took the three down without them noticing, but at this point they had just accepted that Al was simply something else.

They agreed on acting like nothing had ever happened once they returned to the village for supplies, but Al would accompany them on their next venture just in case.

As winter slowly started to recede, Al managed to reach level 8, and decided it was prime time to allocate his points.

Perception had been extremely useful, so he allocated a point there, bringing it up to E-. He then put his first point into Will, since he had already ignored it for long enough, and making it reach E+ Grade.

Finally he put yet another point into Dexterity, so that his body would become more and more like it used to be. It was stil a long way off, but every little bit helped.

As he mentally accepted the changes, he once again felt as if his body had been freed up. He also felt his senses becoming keener, and finally the mana inside him seemed to compress slightly, making room for more of it to be absorbed.

Al checked his Status, as he felt cheeky grin forming on his face.

Alberto Peñas

Age: 2 years

Level 8

Class: Prodigy of the Lightning Rapier 

Strength

E

Dexterity

D

Toughness

F+

Will

E+

Intelligence

E+

Charisma

E-

Perception

E-

Assignable

0

Skills:

[Mana Manipulation] (High)

[E Grade Core] (Mid)

[Physical Augmentation] (Low)

[Sense Enrichment] (Low)

[Lightning Palm] (Mid)

[Quick Steps] (Mid)

Al then decided to stop hunting for now, since there were only so many Rank 2s, and concentrate his efforts on cultivating. Yuly and him were still some ways away from the next stage, but she already had about E Grade Intelligence and Will. The training hadn't augmented her mana capacity or natural regeneration, but the leaps in the quantity and quality of her mana control were impressive.

After a couple of days though, the plan was cut short, as it was time for Al to escort the adults to the village. He went along with every adult except Mr. Chu, who could already walk again but would have serious trouble travelling long distances, plus someone had to take care of the children.

No mishaps happened along the way, and the five reached the village as planned. Since the village people thought Al was a teenager with some kind of growth defect, he disguised himself as a normal toddler by using a baggy beanie to cover his extremely telling hair and eyes, and clinged onto Khan-Wan's arm as if he was struggling to walk.

As expected, there was trouble. The village head, a mean-looking man in his late fifties who had heaps of wrinkles from constant frowning, came to meet them. He had only seen him from afar on previous visits, but now that he saw him up-closed, he had several scars running down his arms, and one even crossing his forehead. 'A retired fighter huh...'

"Welcome, may I know why you repelled our envoys?" He said in a more diplomatic tone that Al had expected.

Khan-Wan, who was pretty decent at acting, replied. "Envoys? Sorry, we haven't had any such people come"

The man's expression soured. He replied, taking out the note Al had written. "Then what's this!?"

Khan-Wan put on a thinking face, which Al thought was pretty hilarious, and told a complete lie. "Well, maybe a child of the orphanage encountered them. We sometimes send them out to search for Rank 2 monsters, then send parties to take them down," She said, pausing for a moment.

"If the men were repelled by one of our children, they would have probably turned into monster food sooner or later, so the letter was probably out of good Will!" She added with a comically cheerful tone.

The man was practically fuming at this point, "Oh, I see, if your children are so strong then you must be martial master right? Please enlighten me seniors!" He said as he packed his fist with mana and prepared for a punch.

'F Grade High proficiency...' Al thought as he snapped into action. His strength wasn't nearly enough to stop the fist, so he grabbed his arm and let out two [Lightning Palm]s, making his arm jerk wildly and completely stopping his attack, and leaving a heavy singed smell. 

"Don't worry, a kid like me is more than enough for you." Al said as the man toppled onto the ground. But suddenly his enhanced hearing picked up on something. Or, more accurately, didn't pick up on something. The man wasn't breathing. 'I couldn't have caused him a heart attack...right?' Suddenly a pool of blood started forming below the man's head. Rolling him around, Al found a sharp rock coloured crimson were his head had fallen. 

He was dead.

The people around Al seemed to notice too, but instead of being outraged, they were cheering.

When the people started congregating around them, they told them stories. Apparently that man was a war veteran who got injured in a battle against some nation. Although he had been a soldier of the lowest rank, they gave him a small village in the outskirts of the colonised land as a reward. 

He who just wanted to keep fighting, had adopted aggressive policies and had oppressed those who denounced him for more than 20 years, so the people were more than happy to see him dead.

Al left the adults there to figure things out and went back home.

He'd just killed a person.

Sure, not directly, but he might just have if the rock hadn't done it for him. It wasn't like he was the first human he ever killed, in fact he had killed people in self-defense even after the integration happened. That wasn't what concerned him.

It was that he hadn't felt anything. No regret, no remorse, no sadness. Nothing.

Thinking back, On Earth he had killed groups of bandits and thiefs without any feelings whatsoever too, he just hadn't thought about it since he was always in some kind of danger.

'I don't have that excuse now.'

While having that kind of thoughts, he became a blur that crossed through the forest.