Al opened his eyes, panting and sweating profusely. his whole skin was now covered in a thin layer of soot, but he paid it no mind as he focused on the mana inside him, sensing the newly improved core that lay behind his navel, now bigger than a pool ball.

He looked at Yuly who was also in a similarly exhausted state, and it took only a gaze for her to guess Al’s intentions and leave the room with a small smile.

It had taken him more than a year since they reached the city, but his core had finally reached C Rank. Yuly had gotten there over a month before though, and that was with Al aiding his cultivation with the fire cores that they had collected at the destroyed farm. His compatibility wasn’t perfect, but without them he would have taken much longer.

'Seriously, that girl's talent is really something else.'

Unhurriedly, he looked at the blue screen that appeared in front of him, already knowing more or less what it would say, having heard it from Yuly.

Your core has reached C grade. It will now provide mana capacity and regeneration equal to that of C- Grade Intelligence and Will, a prominent boost to physical training efficiency, and a slight boost to internal mana flow, control, and the power of internal mana skills.

Satisfied, Al opened his Status.

Alberto Peñas

Age: 5 years

Level 21

Class: Prodigy of the Lightning Rapier 

Strength

D+

Dexterity

B-

Toughness

C-

Will

D-

Intelligence

D-

Charisma

E-

Perception

E

Assignable

0

Skills:

[Mana Molding] (Mid)

[C Grade Core] (Low)

[Physical Augmentation] (High)

[Sense Enrichment] (High)

[Palm of the Storm] (Mid)

[Impulse] (Mid)

[Flash] (High)

[Zapper] (High)

[Piercing Throw] (High)

[Carving] (Mid)

[Thunderclap (Low)

‘A lot of things have changed in the past year.’

Firstly, he reached level 21. It didn’t seem like much, but after level 20 every level up became ridiculously hard. The big fight against the black beasts had gotten him most of the way there, but he just recently leveled up and put the point into Dexterity. It was now almost as high as it was in his past life, and he decided to invest in other stats when he leveled up.

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Then there were the skill upgrades. [Mana Molding] finally reached High proficiency, giving him a big boost in controlling large amounts of mana. Unfortunately the enhancement skills still hadn't evolved for a second time, although he was almost certain that they could.

He didn’t use [Palm of the Storm] much, so it didn’t improve either, but Al had been training [Impulse] every now and then, and he felt it was just about to reach High proficiency.

He hadn’t trained [Flash] or [Zapper] at all due to a lack of targets, so they remained the same, but several months ago [Piercing Throw] reached High proficiency. It provided an increase in the maximum force that could be exerted, though it lost accuracy after a certain threshold.

[Carving] also improved due to Al doing it as a kind of hobby, making his works more detailed, though Al very much doubted that the skill would ever be actually useful.

Finally, there was the skill he acquired at level 20, [Thunderclap]. Just like with [Palm of the Storm], you had to gather the mana on top of your hand, or in this case hands, but this skill worked by rapidly making the two masses of elemental mana collide as violently as possible by forcefully clapping your hands once. It caused a giant blinding light along with a deafening thunder, making it extremely useful in stunning enemies. 

It was really hard to train though, since Al would have to go deep into the forest so he wouldn’t upset anyone. And, even though the effects were slightly dampened due to his lightning resistance and him being the caster, it still left his ears ringing every time he used the skill. 

It was especially bad with enhanced senses.

The skill also consumed quite a bit of mana, so Al almost ever practiced it. This led to it staying at Low proficiency.

Going out of the room that has been specifically designed for Yuly and Al to cultivate, he strolled down the corridor of the small mansion that had been prepared for them by Caeman. 

Yuly was already gone, probably to attend her private lessons on healing techniques with an expert healer who was also a close friend of the lord.

She would be back at noon to make lunch though, along with Koro, who was training with lord Caeman himself. 

They had become quite close during the past few months, and their fighting styles were also fairly similar, so the man had taken Koro as a disciple of sorts. 

They could only train together for a couple of hours each day due to how busy Caeman was, but Koro had shown noticeable improvements in technique, despite not gaining a lot of raw stats from training due to the... meh mana concentration in the city.

Yuly’s cooking had also been steadily improving, completely overshadowing Al’s. Al did contribute too though, doimg a lot of the housework himself due to having the most amount of free time.

This was mainly because he refused Caeman’s offers to have Al trained by several prestigious fighters. This was because of two reasons. One, his speed-based fighting style wasn’t similar to any of the mentor’s styles nor did any of them have the Lightning element, and he preferred to train the skills he already possessed. Two, he preferred to have someone at their house at all times, and he didn’t want any servants or maids.

‘No matter how trustworthy they may seem, there’s always a chance that they’ll stab you in the back. It may just me being paranoid, but I know how ugly even the most earnest people become under the right circumstances.’

Al then sighed deeply 'Damn, look at you Al, you sound like a grumpy old man. Well, I'm technically over 30 already... Nah dude, I'm still young.'

Al forcibly stopped his incoherent train of thought as he got ready for his afternoon skill training, determined to get [Impulse] to High proficiency. 

The courtyard of the mansion had been equipped, by Al’s request, with tens of robust iron poles of varying heights, all with inscriptions to improve their durability.

He [Impulse]’d off the ground and used a second one mid-air, landing on top of one of the smaller poles with practiced ease. From there, he immediately began bouncing from pole to pole without a moment of rest, so fast that even his enhanced reflexes couldn’t keep up and sometimes he had to use [Impulse] in the air when he missed the target and try to land somewhere else. 

This could be seen from the street outside, though for normal people it only looked like a blur that flickered through the air, somehow making thick iron rods bend and sway.

The task was gruelling and mana-intensive though, so Al only did it for about 30 minutes each day, in three rounds with an hour of rest in between each of them.

Just as he exhausted the last of his mana and landed on the ground panting, a much-awaited screen appeared in front of Al.

The [Impulse] skill has reached High proficiency. You can now use it with both feet at the same time, costing over double the mana giving a much bigger speed boost than that of a normal [Impulse], by about 3,5 times. This can only be used on horizontal or slightly sloped surfaces.

‘Well, that will surely improve my explosive attacks. I bet I can pierce clean through a fucking Tusk Tank if I combine this with [Flash].’

'Guess I’ll take a couple of days of break, but then it’s back to the grind.'

----------------------------------------

As the months kept passing, the trio continued steadily growing their strength. Even Misty was doing some kind of mental training of her own, though Al was unsure of what its yield was supposed to be.

Almost another year passed, and Koro’s style changed a lot, something Al noticed thanks to their frequent duels. He was no longer randomly throwing his body around. If before he was like the human personification of a hurricane, now he was like an efficient killing machine. Well, almost. He was still a bit wild, but at least he was making good progress. Really good progress for someone who hadn't even gone through puberty yet.

Yuly had obviously grown up like any other 9 year old, but since she hadn’t been doing a lot of physical training, she hadn’t gotten leaner. Well, she still had a fairly toned body that would be unbelievable for someone her age.

Al himself had grown a lot more though, finally catching up to her height, which felt like an itch he never knew he had was finally gone.

What Yuly did improve by leaps and bounds on was her mana control, since by now she could move around several fine strands of healing mana at the same time, and she had also polished her knowledge of the human body and learned techniques to efficiently heal it.

Her cultivation, along with Al’s, had reached Mid C Grade, boosting even further their internal mana conductivity and control. Al felt like intangible channels were appearing inside him, sort of like a circulatory system, and through them, mana flowed much more easily. 

Al decided to call them mana veins.

Apart from improving his cultivation, Al had also been improving his skills, with several upgrades to show for it. 

Firstly, [Palm of the Storm] had reached High proficiency, awarding Al with a lot more control over the skill, something Al was very grateful for. It even allowed him to slightly steer the giant lightning ball after launching it, enabling him to use it almost like a honing missile. 

Well, one that hones very slightly.

Finally, there was his newest skill, [Thunderclap]. Despite not training it very often, two years was a long time, and eventually it reached Mid proficiency. It only gave a boost to its strength though, which made it even more inconvenient to train without bothering the neighbours, and his own poor ears.

‘It’s weird how no skills evolved in all this time. Maybe I have to use them a lot in actual battles for that to happen?’

Lost in thoughts, Al continued eating in silence his extremely delicious lunch, made of course by Yuly. The silence was, however, broken by Koro, who spoke up with a strong statement.

“Hey, I’ve been accepting staying here for these two years because we’ve all been getting stronger, but it’s about time for us to leave already.”