A lot of time has passed, Kalm have been enjoying his day. His small birthday party is fun, talking with his family properly after he fully understood the language in his past life, making new friends and meeting old friends and listening to old story the old folks got for them. He never got to do this back then because he couldn't learn the language fast enough and not so comfortable in the village life.
There's another thing he's been enjoying lately.
"I did it? That quick?! HELL YEAH!"
His progress also have improved quicker than expected. He learned mana coating in 2 months. In comparison,in his past life, it takes him 7 month. Probably because he's busy with work and don't get enough time for training, but he's still as dedicated to it as he is now.
"Alright, onto the next one"
The next step is mana skin, which is similar to mana coating but this time the mana is thicker and closer to the body. This makes his defense against physical attack higher to the point it wont even scratch him. Still, this provides a little protection against magical attack, but without it, the most basic offense spell could kill him, so it's better to have it.
In this 2 months, he's been planning on what's to focus on when training his mana core and mana manipulation for a smooth improvement.
The basics he's going to master next after mana skin are,
MANA SPIKE
As the name suggests, it's the action of spiking the amount of mana around you in order to use a skill such as heavy hit, where you concentrate all those mana into a weapon for a heavier hit. It's also for increasing defence against magic attack.
MANA RECOVERY
A technique where you recover your mana by collecting the surrounding natural mana, purify it, and turned in into your own. This fastened the mana recovery and helps getting into a fight quicker. Of course you have to sit down and focus on recovery, like meditation, but if you do it enough it could cut the recovery into more that half the time needed to recover it while doing nothing. If truly mastered, it could even be used while fighting.
After mastering those basic mana manipulation, he's going to learn how to use it in battle, again. This technique is called "Fighting spirit", where he's turning his mana into physical enhancement, such as strength, defence, speed, focus, stamina, reaction speed and so on. This is all he can do in his past life, and for that he's called as wasted potential by his colleagues.
When someone is capable of using mana, they are capable of using magic. Even the simplest offense spell, you could be respected for it, since only 30% of the population could do it. A full fledged mage is even rarer, which is only 10%. It's considered a great talent, shit it might as well be a gift by the gods in some people mind.
Learning elementals magic is the simplest magic to learn, but it's highly dependent on your bloodline, how you live your live and races. For example, Kalm parents isn't a magician, but he's highly dependent on water, so his mana might has more connection with water, therefore water element might be the only one he could use. Those on the royalties side could potentially learn more powerful magic such as wind and earth. Fire element, however, is the rarest. Even among the magician, fire is almost impossible to learn if you're not born with it. Only dwarf, those within a hero bloodline and dragon race are able to access this element. So he gives up on learning it. There's also a chance of not being able to use any magic and Kalm is praying it didn't happen to him.
That's why, in his future plan, he's going to learn basic spell such water ball. With that, he might be able get a bit higher in the rank or become an adventurer. He can't really dream big tho, he knew who's in the top and he could never imagine himself being able to do what those monster are able to do. He once saw a vice captain cast a fire ball the size of a small boulder and shoot it to into the advancing group of bandits. That attack almost wipe all of them, leaving the lucky one fleeing for Kalm and his squad to chase.
But for now, let's not dream so big and focus on the basic. Kalm is now been running around the village, greetings villagers passing by as he run. After sometime along the road he suddenly heard a concerning noises.
"Hey! Stop it"
Kalm training is interrupted by a group of kids bullying a kid somewhere near a stream of water.
"If i throw this in the water, what are you gonna do!"
"Stop! Give it back!"
There's 6 kids, 2 holding the one being bullied, 1 with a book in his hand nearing the stream and another 2 watching while mocking the kid. Kalm did hear a case of bullying back then but never saw it since he never go out this far. But now, he realised this must be it. Seems like the book hold by the kid is owned by the kid being restraint. See, as an adult he can't overlooked this, so Kalm step up to them, even with the number they got.
"Hey!"
Kalm let out a scream as loud as an adult and makes all the kids flinch before looking at him and relax after seeing a kid smaller than them.
"Huh? Aren't you the kid who's running around the village? What do you want?"
"I want you stop, all of you"
After hearing that, the kids laugh.
"Uwahh! A hero has come save the day!"
"Be quiet and release him why don't you."
"Or what?"
The kid who's holding the book, is a chubby kid with a bowl cut. He does look scary unlike the other kid who's smaller than him, probably why they go along with him. Too bad Kalm isn't a kid on the inside.
The chubby kid got aggressive and started walking towards him. A fight about to broke out, which Kalm doesn't want to. With all his training, he might actually kill this kid accidentally if he hits him. So what should he do?
Without giving him time, the chubby kid ran to him while raising his hand and screaming, perhaps a tactic to scare Kalm, which is not working, Kalm just stand there while thinking of other method than killing the damn kid.
After the kid is near, he throws a punch, which Kalm swiftly dodge to the side and make the chubby kid fall face first to the ground. The kid got up, touching his face with a teary eyes and looks at the other kids.
"Hit him!"
With those order, the kids, including the one holding the bullied kid, lounge at Kalm. Oh boy this is some scary ass kid. Still, Kalm is more concerned on not killing them with his strength so he dodges all of them, and push them aside as gently as he could, which make some of them acting like they hit by a truck.
Perhaps Kalm fighting spirit is activated by accident because he's fighting... Kinda.
Not long after, all of them gets tired, while Kalm just stand there, menacingly. Some of them looks hurt, probably from falling on their own... And some pushing.
"Fuck off, all of you"
The kids doesn't seem to give up just yet, so Kalm had to use some tricks. He activate his mana, which gives him a bigger vibe infront of them. This scares them, one of them is trying to run but hesitant since he didn't get the order to from his big boss.
"Geh... We will get you for this!"
After letting out a clique yell, they runs away.
"Whew..."
Letting out a relieve sigh, he approached the bullied kid. The kid got short black hair with a small body.
"Are you alright?"
"Yea... Thank you"
The kid is still a bit shaky, so Kalm sit down with the kid. Upon closer inspection, this kid is a bit... Cute... A girl? Kalm is once again angry, why tf would they bully a helpless girl?
"What's your name?"
"Eh... Um, Terra."
"I see, I'm Kalm. What's up with them anyway?"
"I don't know... They just bully out of nowhere a week ago... What did i do?"
She cried again. Seeing her like this, Kalm might actually kill those kids if he sees them again.
Kalm just sits there, doing nothing while she cry, he didn't know how to comfort a crying kid, and surely not gonna touch her, for obvious reason.
After some time, she stopped.
"Let's go, i will bring you back home and explain this to your parents"
"Eh? You will?"
"Yea?"
"Wont those kid get you for doing that?"
"Not a big problem, i will just do it again and again, eventually they will stop"
"I see... But won't your friends be scared of them?"
"Probably, i will just fuck them up if that happen"
"Fuck?"
Whoops...
"Don't... Say that out loud"
"Oh..."
"Hey, i will introduce you to my friends, how bout that?"
"You will?"
"Yeah! Let's play together"
"Ok!"
With that they walk home together. Kalm explain everything to Terra's parents and they confronted the chubby kid family and the other. They apologized greatly for this and promise to ground them for it.
The next day, Kalm introduce Terra to his friends.
"Here Terra, meets John, Kev, Hana and Brod!"
"He- hey guys"
"Hi Terra! We heard what happened, poor you!"
With that, Hana went and hug Terra tightly. Hana is a girl with a short ponytail, a bit tall and energetic.
"Did anything happen after that?"
Brod asked, a slightly chubby kid with broad physic, like a future power lifter.
"Nothing, I'm fine now"
"Good! If that kids come again, we will deal with them!"
That kid is Kev, pretty energetic, has spike-ish hair and short in height.
"Well we won't fight them, we will just them to stop"
That one is John, a tall kid with a bowl cut and a thin build.
"Well if it comes to it, i will"
"Heh~ Kalm is scary as always" said Hana
"Oi, I won't throw actual punches, just a bit of pushing will do, I hope"
After this silly conversation, they went ahead and play together. Terra is happy with her new friends and Kalm is relieved. This motivated him into seeing the next day for some reason.