The next two months passed by in a flash. Kayn had made many improvements and was even able to make his first friend close to his age since being born in this world.
Kayn had gone on several missions with Kinzie thus far and was happily surprised with her. Her scouting was impeccable, not to mention her skill with a bow. He could only imagine that she probably would have been able to kill a few more wolves had her bow not been broken while fighting.
However, something Kayn thought was rather amusing was the fact that on Earth, elves tended to be masters of the bow, and here he was, working with a half-elf who was very sufficient in use of a bow.
During this time Kayn even got a bit distracted due to his hormones and ended up taking a good look at Kinzie.
She was 17 years old, almost 18 just like his sister, roughly 1.65m (5'5") tall and had light green hair that extended to just below her shoulders that she generally wore in a pony tail. Her body had an athletic build, but she still had plenty of feminine charm to draw Kayn's attention. She even had quite the beautiful face, Kayn didn't think it was close to his mother's level, but beautiful none-the-less.
He didn't like being distracted while on a mission, but he also couldn't help but stare when she was in front of him walking back to town, since in his mind that was her best asset. So, most of the time he would do his best to walk next to her or in front to keep his mind focused.
Unfortunately for Kayn, Kinzie didn't stick around him only during his time as Shin. She also visited the healers house a few more times for treatment of injuries. The old healer became suspicious of her intentions and thought it would be an amusing show to always assign her to Kayn.
Luckily for Kayn, since his outfit protected him from normal slicing wounds, he really only had to heal anything that bruised him, which was not often since he was becoming more and more agile and skilled at dodging with more experience.
Kinzie would often talk about her missions with Shin, to which Kayn had to pretend to know nothing about them and ask questions that anyone curious about adventuring would. She even asked Kayn if he wanted to be the healer of their party to which he politely declined.
During these two months, anytime Kayn worked as a healer he would adjust his spells to become more efficient.
Elder Loren noticed from time to time how his spell effects would differ, but she could only shake her head. The boy she took in must have not only had an excellent education as a child, but also be a genius to be able to invent and alter spells at his age, which she still wasn't sure about.
She wasn't aware that Kayn had a heavenly ability called Analyze which increased his mind's capacity and capability, nor that he had already evolved it thrice.
In fact, due to Kayn's help, Kinzie seemed to be improving in both mind, body, and spell casting at incredible rates.
It was at that point that Kayn understood the first 3 ranks of Analyze seemed to mostly depend on how much knowledge he stored and was able to process, or more aptly, digest.
Since Kayn had a rank 3 mind, his processing speed was far faster than anyone his age, so adjusting his own spells to obtain the desired effects wasn't as hard as Kayn expected.
Kayn also completed several missions alone during this time. He did quite a few gathering missions since he could add to his personal stash at the same time that he accumulated mission completions for the guild.
One of the things that he discovered was that core stones appeared in rune beasts of D-class and above. He figured he probably got ripped off by the guild with the corpse of the alpha wolf, but that was in the past.
Even though it was not guaranteed that every beast had a core stone, if they did have one, then it would sell for more since mages could use them to advance their cores or they could be used for various crafts. Even if a low-class beast stone only improved an individual's core very slightly, it was still worth it to some people.
However, absorbing core stones to quickly advance your core also had drawbacks. First, the diminishing returns; even if you kept absorbing the core stone essence, at some point they would have no effect.
Second, the more you absorbed at lower core ranks, the harder it would be to advance during the latter stages, diminishing your potential. Most people would avoid absorbing them unless they were of extremely high quality and had an elemental affinity that would help their core not only advance, but become better attuned with their element.
While Kayn was on hunting missions, he would perform full dissections of any new beast that he killed. He wanted to have a thorough understanding of all rune beasts to not only increase his knowledge, but increase his hunting efficiency and reduce the danger to himself.
Kayn had also decided to utilize beasts as live test subjects for different healing practices. Although, he couldn't help but realize that he didn't seem to care that his practices would be extremely unethical back on Earth.
This was a new world, and his family and personal power came first. He didn't mind essentially torturing some of these wild beasts if it helped him improve his spells and obtain helpful anatomical and physiological information to improve. He drew the line though at intelligent humanoid races, such as humans, elves, demons, and so on.
Mana was essentially a cure all in this world if implemented correctly. He even succeeded in creating a regeneration spell that would potentially restore the missing part to full capacity. In theory, that is.
However, he couldn't use this spell on large wounds or regenerate limbs yet. He just didn't have enough mana and assumed the most he could manage was half of a finger in a single session. For a hand it would take multiple days, possibly even a couple weeks at his current stage.
The only problem Kayn had during this period was that his mother would always check on his progress with his normal studies. She still expected him to study and practice etiquette, mathematics, the history of Lavanth, and various other topics during his time away.
She was very displeased when Kayn failed her assessment of his progress during his first couple of check-ins and threatened to bring him back home or send him to the academy if he continued to neglect his studies.
Kayn immediately began to study diligently after that threat. He was making incredible progress in every other area; he wouldn't allow himself to be taken out of that environment for not doing something his mother asked him to.
Kayn saved most of his monetary gains, but he did use them on occasion to either splurge on a fancy meal, or buy materials to dabble around in alchemy since he had a quickly growing interest in it.
He enjoyed mixing different plants together to discover their effects, even if they were toxic and he ended up with a poison, it was still an advancement of his knowledge.
Kayn also implemented some of Earth's practices into his alchemy. By mixing mana with his previous knowledge, he was able to isolate different chemical structures to mix into potions or pills he created. These potions and pills had varying effects, but the one he was most proud of was what he dubbed a lesser healing pill.
Until that creation, only healing potions costing several gold coins or even up to a few platinum coins were available and their effects were more than most needed. Kayn had almost died from one before, so he knew that for most people using those potions was overkill, literally.
However, he didn't sell his pills to anyone. The only other person who knew of them was Kinzie. This was because she noticed Kayn, as Shin, taking one during one of their missions after he got injured and asked what it was.
He found it difficult to explain, but the solution he came up with had him telling her that he bought it from one of the local healers. But he mentioned the healer didn't want to publicize it and had only sold him a couple to use him as a guinea pig in the case of adverse side effects.
Once Kinzie took a lesser healing pill that Kayn reluctantly gave her after she sustained a few injuries, she wouldn't leave him alone while he was working as a healer until he sold her some. Even after Kayn named an exorbitant price, at least for what she could probably afford, she still provided him with the requested sum.
Kayn felt a little guilty about this since the ingredients were common and he could make dozens at a time from very few ingredients, but it was his creation after all. He only asked that Kinzie make an agreement with him to never reveal this pill to anyone, and she readily agreed.
Since she spent so much money, he was happy that she valued her life enough to purchase something that would help her survive on missions if she couldn't make it back or was in urgent need of care.
Even if it was a lesser healing pill, it would still be able to stabilize someone enough to be able to make it back to the village, assuming they had their legs to get them back in the first place. It wasn't a cure all though, it significantly reduced pain and injected a minor amount of light element around the body, but that was it.
However, Kinzie rarely went out on missions without Kayn after the first month passed. She didn't need to constantly make money, and didn't have his determination to perfect techniques.
She would go out on missions with only Kayn once or twice a week to make her weekly money since he essentially provided her with a safety net. While he wouldn't hold her hand during the missions, if she was ever having trouble with something that was above her abilities or if she was about to take a crippling blow, he would step in to assist her.
Kayn didn't want to hinder her growth or make her reliant on him though. He didn't mind that she didn't go out without him, but he wasn't going to provide her with a free ride. It was near the end of the second month that Kayn began to become disappointed with the speed at which his core was progressing.
Mana cores would grow at their own speed and the mage didn't really have much say in the rate at which they evolved. The only ways Kayn knew of to increase this rate was to find an area with high mana density and stay in it, or use core stones.
He wasn't going to use any core stones and high-density areas were rare and the only places he knew of were already occupied by a powerful individual or were in a rune beast danger zone.
Kayn decided it was time to try and develop a technique that would allow him to evolve his core quicker. With his rank 3 mind and a unique core, he figured that it may be possible.
Kayn had thought about the idea since something similar was performed by mages and cultivators in novels from his time on Earth, so why not spend some time to research his own core to increase his progress? He had already accomplished many things that were previously recorded as improbable at best and impossible at worst.
'It's time to read the tome mother gave me.' Kayn picked up a thick book that his mother gave him before he left, after telling him to read it only in private and when he had settled down a bit.
The words written on the front cover of the tome piqued his interest even more, Records of the Void.