Roel was currently standing on the Ascart House's training field, swinging his sword down on wooden targets. A 9-year-old child wielding an edgeless metal practice sword against a resilient wooden target would have usually been a monotonous cycle of repeating the same movements again and again.
But something was different today.
Bam! Bam! Crack!
Swinging with all his might, Roel split open the wooden target in just three strikes. Even the practice sword had dented slightly under the sheer force of the blows. This was absolutely a show of superhuman strength.
It was impossible for an ordinary human to smash one of these wooden targets in just three strikes, especially when bludgeoning it with an edgeless blade.
"So this is Origin Level 6, the System's tier E?"
Roel retracted his blade, feeling gratified. His body had undergone a massive change over the last few days, especially the mana in his body.
A week ago, Roel spent a great deal of money to purchase two serums from the System, only to be incapacitated for three whole days after consuming them. After he regained consciousness, Carter strictly instructed Roel to continue resting in bed, so as to ensure that his body recuperated properly. He even went to the extent of ordering Anna to keep a close eye on him.
Under Anna's watchful gaze, Roel could only flop around in bed out of boredom for another three days before he was finally liberated. As such, this was the first time he was testing out his newfound strength.
During his three days of enforced rest, Roel felt the serums' energy gradually being assimilated into his body, causing him to become more and more energetic with each passing day. Sometimes, he even found himself unable to sleep at night. His five senses grew much sharper, and his reflexes were faster than ever.
It was only this morning that Roel had a look at his User Interface and realized that his tier had risen to E. That was why he immediately rushed to the training field to try his hand.
His newfound strength was truly amazing. He felt that he could slice an unarmored enemy in half without much issue. Even if he had to face a mountain tiger right now, he didn't think that he would necessarily lose.
While Roel was satisfied with his growth, he didn't let complacency get to his head. The enhancement serum could only bring his constitution and talent as far as tier E. There was still a long way to go if he wanted to further raise his Degree of Assimilation to Origin Level 5.
"Eyy, I'll probably have to find another way to raise money soon."
Roel had two boxes of gold coins stowed away securely in his little personal vault, but his gut feeling told him that it would be far from sufficient. For the first time ever since his transmigration, he felt that he was really poor.
Even after pumping so much money in, it would still be hard for him to catch up to the footsteps of true prodigies like Alicia and Nora. As the game's capture targets, they were blessed with superior bloodlines that allowed them to achieve far more than ordinary people could despite exerting just half the effort. The only solace for him was that such elites numbered in the minority in this world.
Even though Alicia usually appeared docile in Roel's presence, the reality was that she was far stronger than the previous F- Roel. Even with two years of disparity in their ages, her proficiency in spells was far above Roel's.
That being said, the two of them had their own strengths and weaknesses. Alicia was known for her regenerative ability, but her offensive prowess was lacking by comparison. It was the opposite for Roel, where he had great strength but ordinary recovery.
In any case, after testing out his physical prowess on the wooden targets, Roel proceeded to the next segment—spell practice.
He picked up a spellbook, which he hadn't touched for a very long time, and began looking through the spells inside.
It was common knowledge that all of the basic spells, prior to obtaining an Origin Attribute, were transitory spells. At Origin Level 7, the spells that one could learn were mostly functional spells that had little offensive power, such as Phantom Hands and Minor Heatwave. In his former world in a certain popular game, these could barely even count as level 0 spells. They were only good for minor chores like retrieving objects or drying one's clothes.
Origin Level 6 was viewed as the minimum requirement to learn spells that were actually useful for offensive purposes. Those at this level would find their bodies undergoing a set of changes that brought about a significant enhancement in their control over mana, thus opening up a vast new array of spells that could be learned.
A veteran militia soldier would usually have quite a few decent spells up his sleeves, and what Roel wanted to learn was something practical that would be of help to him.
After an hour of nitpicking, Roel finally narrowed down the list of spells he wanted to learn.
[Focused Burst
Channels one's mana within the body toward a chosen body part to strengthen its speed and resilience. Can be used for both offense and defense.]
[Spell Gloves
Imbues magic power onto one's hands to fend against enemy attacks. The gloves' resilience is dependent on the attribute of the imbued mana instead of the amount of mana used.]
[Controlled Breathing
A distinctive breathing method that requires the use of mana. It can significantly reduce the depletion of one's stamina, allowing one to stand strong in a prolonged battle.]
The three spells were all Origin Level 6 support type spells that Roel found in the spellbook.
Why support type? The preferred way of fighting at this level was still close-quarter combat; spells more or less played an auxiliary role. The reason for that was not too hard to figure out—the offensive type spells at this level were simply too ineffective. Take this for example…
[Flamethrower
Creates magical spell flames. The amount of damage it can inflict in the short-run is limited, but it is useful as a feint.]
"…"
This was basically the kind of offensive type spell that one could learn at Origin Level 6. Roel didn't think something like that was useful in the long-run, unless you wanted it for roasting meat. Unless he were to get stuck at Origin Level 6 for too long, otherwise he wouldn't bother wasting time learning such showy yet useless stuff.
Shortly after Roel recovered, Carter travelled back to the Holy Knight Order. He had piled up quite a bit of work in the days he stayed at the Ascart House looking after Roel, so it didn't seem likely that he would be able to return anytime soon.
As a result, Roel and Alicia returned to their comfortable twosome life. The days that followed were quite peaceful.
Roel, having gained real transcendental abilities for the first time in his two lives, could now hardly curb his excitement at all. He put his all into learning everything there was to know about spells. At the same time, he also upped the intensity of his physical training several fold too, resulting in a massive improvement in his swordsmanship.
With this, he finally graduated from being a weakling.
Alicia had been working hard during this period of time too. It appeared that Roel's illness had sparked something within her.
She was able to integrate into the Ascart House successfully due to Roel and Carter's efforts, and she began developing a sense of responsibility toward the house too. She felt that she needed to contribute back to her adoptive family, especially after she learned that it was nigh impossible for her Lord Brother to gain transcendental abilities.
Well, it went without saying that she was unaware that her brother was a pay-to-win player who dumped all of his fortune into the cash shop to squeeze out some transcendental abilities from his tiny body.
After the autumn harvest came to an end, Roel was relieved of his responsibilities as a tax official. There was currently nothing in the Affection Points Shop that caught his interest, so he decided to put that aside for now and focus on developing his individual ability.
That being said, the three-times-a-day Affection Points farming sessions with Alicia still continued, and he was always able to harvest quite a substantial amount each time. Furthermore, he noticed that the amount of Affection Points he was getting out of the servants was increasing as well.
Anna had been quite happy during this period of time too. Being able to watch over the sweet, budding romance between the young master and the young miss, together with her colleagues, had become her daily dose of bliss. The adorable interactions between the two of them would always leave her squealing excitedly in her mind without fail.
Such peaceful days passed in a flash.
Before one could notice, autumn had already come to an end, and winter was on the verge of setting in.