Overlooking the small village, Milo found himself atop the hill again. It was an unusual occurrence for him to be out alone, but with the help from Uncle Renny, he was more than capable of convincing his coddling parents to let him venture out. It was no shock they were against it, he was only 4-years old after all.
He looked down at the wooden railing he demolished during his awakening, noticing an abundance of mana where there were clear hand marks. He quickly concluded that it must have been due to the excess mana escaping from his body.
He spun on his heels and dashed into the forest behind him. Despite being a child, he found himself more than capable of reinforcing his body and drawing on the mana at the same time.
It had been about a week since he first stabilised his core, and since then he was undergoing rigorous solo training. He knew that he needed to rapidly grow his strength and he was also aware of what the best way to go about this was.
He leapt upward, bouncing from one tree to another until he was perched atop a branch 30 feet in the air. He peered down at the dirt road beneath them, noticing vast amounts of undergrowth flattened by footprints. He saw it, a faint flicker of light in the distance, and the sound of a carriage being drawn across the uneven road.
'Looks like there is about to be a bandit attack'.
Yes, the best way to grow his strength was to engage in direct combat.
The carriage pulled just past the tree he was perched in. He dropped down to a branch closer to the road, at the same time, 7 figures each dressed in mossy green and black clothing sprung from the bushes. Each of the men wielded a curved blade that was about as long as an average males forearm, as well as having their faces concealed by thick black cloth.
'I'll wait …'.
As he thought this, a horn sounded from the man driving the carriage. Despite his lavish looking suit and well-kept hair, he pulled a small blade from his back pocket, parrying on the bandits slashes. The door to the carriage was kicked open and 3 guards each dressed in slick silver armour poured out, each taking up a defensive stance.
'Interesting, looks like the person in the carriage must be pretty high ranked despite the shabby looking cart'.
He caught a glimpse, a glimpse of a woman tucked away in the backseat of the carriage. A bandit attempted to rush up the steps, but he was quickly flung backward by one of the guards. The fight continued, the bandits failing miserably to make use of their superior numbers, and the guards failing to subdue the assailants.
Milo's eyes widened when he noticed one of the guards footwork, "They aren't trained!", he mumbled to himself.
Similar to his father, despite the heavy blows he could deliver, it was clear that in a drawn out battle his poor footwork and awful technique would come back to bite him. These guards were no different, despite the fancy looking armour, they were poorly trained and likely were only there to act as a deterrent.
This was proven true as after about 10 minutes, one of the guards took a heavy blow to the chest, leaving a gaping slash on the top layer of his armour.
'If not for his armour he'd be dead …'.
"Wow, would you look at that!", Milo whistled, his eyes being drawn to one of the guards who was preparing a fireball.
Milo tugged at the collar of his shirt, feeling the heat from a good distance away. "Looks like one of them is capable at least", he exclaimed with excitement, jumping from the branch.
He cupped his fingers behind his head and fell into a pattern of stretches, "My word, it feels like its been decades since I last had an actual fight!".
His heart began to tremble with excitement as he felt mana flow from his core. Immediately, he appeared behind the bandit tucked away in the far corner. He stopped before attacking, noticing the bandit turn to face him.
"So you could keep up at this speed, huh?", Milo taunted, driving his fist through the attackers heart, killing him instantly, "Not like it matters".
The bandits limp body slipped from his hand and clattered against the ground. Milo stood over him, clenching and unclenching his fists, "Concentrated reinforcement really is something", he mumbled in awe of his own strength.
His new technique that he had used was one he dabbled in with Qi in the past. Concentrated reinforcement, in simple terms, whatever body part he chose to reinforce became amplified by 10x by focusing all of his mana into that specific point. Clearly, it worked wonders in this world as well.
Using this little trick of his, he would be able to go toe to toe with the bandits despite his weaker body. A snarky grin crossed his face, "I wonder …".
"SAMUEL!", one of the other bandits roared.
Milo was forced to stop admiring his own abilities as the mana in the atmosphere was pulled towards the bandit. His speed picked up and he thrust his sword at Milo. Milo's eyes widened as it was about to pierce his head, he stayed completely still, only moving his head a couple of inches to the left, barely dodging the blow.
The bandit's momentum carried him towards Milo, who again, concentrated his power into his fist. He cocked it back, striking through the bandits head, completely shattering it as if it had been blown up by magic.
"Whoops! May have overdone it", Milo said, kneeling down by the corpse, "Ugh brutal, who would do such a thing?", he smugly taunted.
"You … !?", one of the bandits pointed his trembling blade towards Milo, "Who … are you!?".
Milo smiled tauntingly at the man, "Dead people don't need to know".
He blurred, appearing behind the bandit, driving his fist through his heart.
"HE'S JUST A KID!", one of the bandits cried.
"YEAH, GATHER UP AND CHARGE HIM AT ONCE!", another yelled.
'Ugh 4 more, what a pain in the ass'.
Milo inspected his core, noticing his mana reserves slowly beginning to dry up. He glanced around the battleground, noticing one of the guards shuffling behind the bandits, getting in position to strike. Milo smiled, he quickly covered his mouth and pointed behind the bandits.
"Aren't you forgetting someone?".
As he uttered those words, the guard slashed down the back of one of the bandits. Milo brought his hand to his forehead, letting out a manic laugh.
"You aren't very coordinated are you!".
He quickly covered his mouth again.
'Oops … let out a little bit of my old self slip out there'.
The fight quickly finished up after the guard who appeared down and out regained his fighting spirit. With even numbers, despite their poor training the guards were still more than capable of fending off a few bandits. Milo looked across the road, noticing a small iridescent orb hovering slightly above each of the dead bandits body.
'SWALLOW IT UP!'.
A scratchy, hoarse and downright creepy voice probed his mind. Milo pulled away from his thoughts for a moment and continued to focus on the guards. His attention was drawn back to the carriage as footsteps echoed throughout the forest.
A woman who appeared no older than 40 stepped out, her curly brown hair flowing in the wind and her deep brown eyes settling on Milo. She lifted her grey and blue dress by about half an inch and began to walk towards him. She leant down, placing a warm hand on his cheek.
"Just a boy", she said, a tone of sadness seeping into her voice.
Milo pulled his face away and clicked his tongue, "Yeah, so what".
"We appreciate the assistance!", one of the guards declared, dropping to a knee next to the woman.
"Don't mention it. You should probably be on your way now".
Milo was trying to hurry them along so he can investigate these orbs in more detail. He was aware that it was something to do with him as it appeared the guards had no idea they were present. Finally, with a small nod and a brief stint of hesitation, the woman and her guards bundled back into the carriage and began to slowly … painstakingly slowly, move away.
'SWALLOW IT UP!', the voice called out again.
Milo glanced around, stumbling over towards one of the orbs.
'Was that a psychological attack?'.
No that wasn't it, he had dealt with countless of those in his previous life. This voice calling out to him … was himself. Buried somewhere deep in his conscious, threatening to resurface at any given moment.
He reached out, placing his hand on the small orb. As soon as he made contact, he was forced to pull away hearing a sudden cacophony of blood curdling screams, taunts and other noises. He rubbed his temples, thinking to himself.
'Damn … it contains much more power than I could have possibly imagined'.
Slumping back to the ground, Milo cupped his hands in the usual meditating position. He did the only thing he deemed as reasonable and began to draw on the mana surrounding him. As he had expected, when he did this, the small orb slowly began to gravitate towards him, bobbing up and down in front of his core.
He carefully directed mana down towards his palm and into his emblem, he reached out, finally managing to firmly grip the orb. Had this been later on during his life with his mana more developed, this act would have been as simple as breathing to Milo.
The issue at hand for him, was attempting to take a soul into his body with such an immature core. He released the mana from his palm, carefully encasing the orb as it floated delicately above his palm. The faint purple glow it once emanated slowly began to seep into his palm, illuminating his skin in an ashy red rash that stretched all the way down his forearm.
A searing pain washed over his arm, he trembled relentlessly but managed to keep the firm grip on the orb.
'STOP YOU … DISGUSTING … BRAT … WHAT … ARE … YOU!?'.
Words from the soul of the man Milo had killed began to flood his mind. He stretched his free hand up towards his head, scratching at it as a pounding headache stretched along his forehead.
Milo remained still, continuing to take the soul into his body. After minutes of searing pain and headaches, the soul of the deceased bandit had finally merged with Milo's being. He stood and stretched, moving along to the next soul.
He could feel it, deep inside his core, the swirling of another presence. It was a skill that was transferable from his old world, the ability to sense someone. It was a perfect skill for fighting at night, but in this situation where his body now housed another soul, it began to be more of a hinderance.
'HEY … STOP … THAT!'.
The voice began to slur its words, until it faded into nothing. The presence Milo felt disappeared and all that was left were the embers of a dying soul, constantly spraying potent mana throughout his entire body. He rolled up his sleeves, looking down at his wounded arm. Slowly, the mana was beginning to heal it, on his other forearm, his veins began to bulge, and his muscles began to ache.
'This is crazy … It's like I doubled my muscles … wait, that's not accurate either, what the hell is happening to my body?'.
He couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation for what was currently happening with his body. The only thing he could think of was that somehow, the strength of the soul he had swallowed was strengthening his muscles, core, bones, joints, organs, everything, with the strength the bandit once possessed.
But that was wholly unreasonable, right?
'That's just stealing someone else's strength and killing their soul entirely'.
If this was to be the case, the soul he consumed would now become a lost soul. It was an act that rarely happened, a soul vanishing without any warning, but in this case it seemed to be the truth. He could no longer sense it after all, even the dying embers that stood like a flame flickering in the dark, eventually was swallowed by Milo's mana.
He placed his hand on the next soul but was quickly pushed away by it. He looked down at his trembling hand, noticing the top layer of skin burned away. He looked back towards the orb, scowling, the orb flickered and the faint purple light that clung to it quickly dimmed out. One by one, each of the 6 orbs shot towards the sky, vanishing into the air above him.
'I guess I was at my capacity …'.
He shook his hand, cooling it down. He directed the mana towards the burn, it was able to repair a thin layer to mask the damage, but he would still require first aid. With an annoyed click of his tongue, Milo spun and began dashing through the forest once again.
'I should have seen that coming given I only just awakened, but it's still frustrating regardless'.
While he was aware of his muscle growth, he began to notice another change in his body, particularly his core. The excess mana that the soul had left behind had yet again filled his core, propelling it towards another opportunity for growth. It wasn't as simple as just jumping through a stage and reaching Creation 2. What he needed was time, time to refine his core and fully make the mana his.
He let out another sigh, "It's never easy is it", he said coming to a sudden stop, noticing the same carriage parked just outside of his house.