I walked for ten minutes before I decided that it would be necessary to pick up the pace and sped up to a jog and then a run. In the years since I've arrived in this world, this body has shocked me with how well it adapted to physical strain. In just two years, I've turned this body from something that would need months in a hospital to heal into a child that was likely as or more athletic than almost any other child out there. I had gained enough lean muscle mass that I no longer looked like a starving child, but instead appeared like a kid who was beating his own dad in a fight.
I passed a puddle on my right and glanced at my reflection in the glassy surface of the water. Vibrant orange eyes, slicked pitch black hair that naturally fell into a middle part. The skin that had once been deathly pale had now gained a healthy glow, slightly marred by the blood that I hadn't yet cleaned off. God knows how, but despite scars covering the rest of my body in an intricate web, my face was left smooth and uncut. I was around four and a half feet tall, which was actually rather tall for my assumed age. I decided to make the day on which I entered this world my birthday, and because I estimated my age to be five years at that time.
Today was actually my seventh birthday.
I was broken out of the monotonous thoughts that filled my mind as I spotted the gate to enter the city. Apparently, in preparation for something the rulers of Sapin, which I found out were still alive, had made the country begin increasing its security. This left the previously easy to enter city having a guard stationed at every entrance, it really was annoying.
"Heh, looks like you survived another one of your suicidal runs through the forest kid. One of these days you're gonna die out there." A guard chimed as he saw me approach the gate. "Holy hell you got two today! What happened to your thumb?"
"This guy has it in his stomach," I said while pointing at the second wolf "he caught me by surprise after I killed the other one"
"Hmm, I know you don't have the money for a medic since you spent it all on that house… Haaa, whatever, just make sure to avoid an infection, kid. Who am I kidding? You're gonna get killed by some crazy mana beast not an infection, we both know that. Well, head into the city, we know you live here so you don't need to pay."
"Thanks a lot, Mr Wawr. See you next time I need more meat." I said as I walked through the gates.
"Just buy your food kid! Stop going on these crazy hunts! You're not even awakened…"
I ignored the guard's speech, he did that every time. Well, I guess he had a point, I didn't really need to hunt anymore. My body was strong, scarily so for a child, I could definitely get a job in manual labor instead of the work I do now. Sadly however, that would never pan out, the future was too dangerous and I needed strength to ensure my survival.
I continued walking and weaving through the streets of my city. It was a rather solidly sized place, there were around two thousand people living here and a solid 100 of them were mages. Living this close to Xyrus must have its perks for them, they wouldn't need to pay the exorbitant housing prices of the floating city, but could still have access to almost everything there. That was likely how Xinia was founded, as an easy place to stay for mages who wanted access to Xyrus.
I found myself at the door to a small slightly rickety house, this was my humble abode. It was far and away much better than the shelter I had spent more than a year in while I was homeless. Over these two years, Andreas and I had entered a 70-30 deal, I got 70 percent of the profits for the process of hunting the beast, I would skin it, keep its fur and meat and then take out its core and give it to Andreas. He would sell it through his sources and then keep 30 percent of the profit for himself. It was a business that worked well enough for me to buy this place to stay and would be how I planned to fund my way to go to the floating island of Xyrus in the future.
I slid the key into the lock to my door and opened up my way towards my humble abode. It was a simple one bathroom, one bedroom house but what made me want it was the cellar. It was a remarkably good place that I could use to store meat, skin and break down the beasts I killed and was overall a useful place for storage. The realtor had been sketchy as all hell, but that was all I could get as a child. Any reputable realtor wouldn't do business with a kid after all.
I walked downstairs and made a few new cuts on the beast, two of them to let the beasts bleed out once I hung them up. I let the blood drip into buckets and they were hung from the basement ceiling. I stabbed the abdomen of the beasts and stuck my right hand into them one at a time to fish out the mana cores. They were both in the solid black stage, ever so slightly stronger than the beast I had killed all those years ago. The strongest beast I had personally killed was in the light black stage, it was pure luck and I won't fight one of my own choice until I awaken.
With two mana cores harvested, I cleaned them with some water and stuck them in my pants pocket. It was time to deal with my wound, so I walked upstairs and opened a cabinet. It had some clean cloth, a small flask and well, that was it. There weren't a lot of items I could buy with my limited budget for first aid, so I got this. I poured a tiny bit of the liquid in the flask onto a small piece of cloth, the liquid was vodka. I needed to sterilize my cut and this was the only way that I had. I took off the temporary dressing that I had put on my thumb and winced from touching the wound. I rinsed the cut with some water and calmly placed a rag in my mouth to bite on as I moved the wetted cloth towards my leg thumb.
I groaned as I bit into the cloth in my mouth, it damn hurt. Holy fuck! I've had to do this before on smaller cuts and yet this was definitely the worst I've felt from it. I guess it makes sense because this cut was far worse than the ones I've had before. I waited for the pain to die down and then put a dressing on my thumb and wrapped a cloth tightly around the cut.
It was done.
It was time to give the mana cores to Andreas and then I would begin training for the day. I walked to Andreas' place, it was approximately the same place as it used to be, but the lean-to structure of the past had become a cabin. Andreas was very proud of the fact that he had built it himself, he seemed far more put together these days. He no longer sat on the side of the road sullenly in rags, he now had a set of proper looking clothes. He was still poor, but no longer homeless.
I knocked on the door and was promptly greeted by the old man. He still looked rugged as always when he said "Well if it isn't my student, have you come to drop off the mana cores?"
I said "Yep, old man." and handed him the cores. He smiled and said "I'll get you the money in a day, now let's go out back and practice."
I followed him behind the cabin, where there was a moderate sized open space. Andreas didn't technically own this space, but no one else used it so it became the place where he would teach me martial arts. I still didn't know exactly where he learnt all of this, I suspected he was a mage who broke their mana core. That was the only thing that would make sense with the way the man could fight despite basically being crippled. On the rare occasions where me and him sparred against each other, I had never won. Today would be a basic martial arts day, I would throw a punch and he would critique it until I got it perfect. We've been doing this for every movement that I could possibly think of and more. With and without my machete.
"You need to put more hip into your punch"
"You need to reform your guard quicker or you'll be vulnerable to a counter attack."
"Keep an eye on your footwork"
Our training session concluded when I finally performed a punch that he deemed perfect. I took a swig of water from the water skin I had at my side, I had made it from one of the beasts I had killed.
I walked away from the old man and said "See you tomorrow" before I started jogging towards the gates out of the city. I greeted the guard, who had an exasperated look on his face seeing me running right after I lost my thumb and then ran on the border of the city. I would do two full laps around the border of the city, totalling to what I approximate is 10 kilometers. I started doing this a year or so ago when I noticed that I needed more work on cardio if I wanted to last in a fight with a mana beast.
I ran through the gates to the city approximately 45 minutes later and ran home. In front of my house, I had a tree which was effectively perfect for working out. I knew very well that if I wanted to rival the might of a mana beast, I would need strength in my body to help me. And so I've been doing chin-ups, pull ups, pushups and situps consistently for almost the whole time I've been in this world.
Today was a lower body day, something that was hard to do with my limited equipment. I did 3 sets of ten reps of pistol squats with added weight in the form of a heavy rock. After my legs had somewhat recovered from that, I did weighted calf raises on each leg with as much weight as I could carry for three sets of ten reps. I moved into a stretching routine and stretched every part of my body before I walked into my home.
I grabbed a rag and a bucket of water and cleaned myself, I was sweaty as all hell and reeked. I replaced the dressing on my wound and then adopted the lotus position. It had been a long day but there was not a chance that I would miss my daily meditation. After six hours, which brought me a little while past sunset, I decided it was time for me to go to bed.
I walked to my bedroom, laid in my bed and pondered about how far I had come. I entered this world as a homeless, starving, child and now I had become a child who would break records for my strength in my previous world and was capable of fighting mythical beasts.
I was proud.
[AN: Long chapter today, I got a little bit side tracked in the first half of the chapter, which lengthened it a lot. What do you guys think of this chapter?]