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Days passed, and our protagonist continued honing his control over concentrating all his mana in his body in one spot.
Soon, it turned into weeks, and he could now converge all his mana within an hour to his solar plexus.
His training had comprised concentrating the mana, dispersing it, concentrating it again, and so on. The former took hours to accomplish, while the latter was done within seconds.
It was like building a sandcastle.
He had also gone to gather fruits and change locations only when he had completely concentrated all his mana inside his body, as he didn't want another encounter like the one with the rabbits again. That one could have cost his life if he had made one mistake.
He even had good control over his mana when he was sleeping or unconscious, such that not much of it went away from his solar plexus.
As for choosing the solar plexus as the main point to gather mana? Well, it didn't really have any special feature other than the fact that it was close to the middle of his body and could supply mana to all parts of his body.
The other factor was his meta-knowledge from Chinese fics and novels he had read, which might have led to this bias.
Anyway, the solar plexus wasn't a unique place in his body for mana concentration, as he could concentrate all of his mana at any point.
Our protagonist was currently sitting on a branch of a tree while biting into a red apple.
'These things are definitely tastier than in my previous life; I could bet my pinky finger on it,' he thought while taking another bite out of the apple.
He suddenly sensed a large explosion hundreds of meters away from his location. This wasn't new, as conflicts between stronger animals happened daily, but what caught his attention was that the explosions were getting louder.
'Jeez, who is the being who can't let me eat in peace?' he quickly swallowed the entire apple and focused on reducing his presence to utter nothingness.
It had worked always until now for battles between stronger animals, as they generally weren't focused on their surroundings much compared to their enemies.
He still was prepared to run if his cover was broken in the unlikely situation.
However, soon the explosions suddenly stopped and calmed down completely.
'Did the battle get over? Or did a third party come, making the other two stop fighting and choose peace as an option, or something?' he internally joked while trying to find something by looking in the direction from which the sounds were coming.
A few minutes passed like this with no sounds coming. Our protagonist hadn't moved an inch from his crouching position on the branch, hidden in the leaves due to his cautious nature.
'Should I move or wait a bit more?' he wondered about his next move.
"Oh, didn't expect a kid to be present here," a whisper-shout could be heard by the boy.
'What the fuck?' Even without fully forming this thought, he had moved his palm with a mana blade toward the source of the voice.
To his surprise, he felt the blade connect.
He turned around to see what exactly was happening.
"Oh, you also have toys to play with? That really is an ingenious use of mana now," the voice said.
He looked at the spot where his mana blade had pierced and saw it hitting the palm of the speaker, yet no scratch could be seen there.
'What the fuck? That thing could kill a normal human or mage more than ten times. I didn't even feel any obstruction from the mana. Does this mean that this is pure physical strength—like the durability of that body?' he was so baffled that he didn't even move.
He hadn't even looked at the face of the person who had sneaked up on him due to the absurdity of the situation.
"Well, you attacked me, so it's natural for me to attack you too, right?" the voice continued.
He then saw the fist slowly coming at him. No, slow would be the wrong statement—it was more like his brain was replaying the events slowly due to how fast everything happened, making it difficult for him to react.
Just as the fist was a few inches away from his position, he released the maximum output of mana from his forehead forward, propelling him backward and lowering his head.
He barely managed to dodge the punch.
Due to the sheer force of the punch, the air was thrust backward, causing a loud boom. He was hurled backward by the air along with his initial momentum from the mana burst.
He quickly back-flipped in the air, landed in a crouch, and looked at the attacker with a grim expression.
'I almost died,' his eyes widened as he finally noticed the attacker.
"It's Mereoleona fucking Vermillion," he blurted out as he recognized her face.
He didn't mind saying that out loud, as keeping his facial expression was very difficult at this moment, and she would have deduced that he knew her already.
"Oh, you know me? I didn't know that my fame was that big now," she said in a chilling voice.
"I didn't know that either until now," he replied while going over what exactly happened in the previous exchange.
"Still, didn't expect you to dodge that. Can you dodge this?" she disappeared from her spot and reappeared above him, aiming an axe kick.
However, he had already mana-burst away before her kick landed on the ground, forming a crater.
'How annoying. Not only can't I track her movements or mana, but her attacks could one-shot me,' he ducked under another punch using mana bursts.
Despite only using a few bursts, he was almost running out of mana, as each one took too much energy. Mereoleona was too fast.
Soon, he was dangerously low on mana and stopped using mana bursts, making him unable to dodge the next attack.
However, before it could land, she stopped the punch a few inches away from his face.
'Okay, as expected, she won't kill me. I'm safe—' He felt a sudden hit on his head from above.
"Ouch, what was that for?" he rubbed the part of his head, now resembling a bump.
"For attacking me earlier, what else?" she smirked.
"You were the one who startled me like that. Who sneaks up on a kid?" he accused her while pointing his finger at the big woman.
"I was expecting a spy or something, not a kid suppressing his mana fully, which most mages can't do properly," she shrugged.
"Tch, your flattery won't work on me, but I'll forgive you just because I'm in a good mood," he rubbed his nose.
"Cool, kid. So, what are you doing here?" she asked.
"I'm training, duh," he answered after a moment.
"In the middle of a grand magic zone?" she asked, baffled.
She was brave—or idiotic—enough to go to jungles to train when she was young, but they never were grand magic zones.
"Oh, we are in a grand magic zone?" he asked, confused.
'No wonder I feel my mana rising when I ate those fruits. Must be an effect of being raised in this region.'
"As far as I know," she folded her arms. "How old are you?"
"I don't know," he shrugged. He didn't know the age of this body. Plus, he didn't want to lie to Mereoleona—he had a feeling she could tell if someone was lying.
Plus, she was a captain-level magic knight; she should be able to detect lies through some random way or just from her experience.
"Oh, let's see. You seem like a 9-year-old to me. Unfortunately, I don't have a spell to check that," she gave him her estimate.
"Oh, that seems young."
"Indeed. So? Would you now say why you're here?" she asked.
"Do I really have to?" he made a face that spoke of trouble.
"I might not look like it, but I am a magic knight, so helping people unfortunately comes under my duty, and I'm curious enough," she said.
'Oh, so she's self-aware that she looks more like a thug than a magic knight,' he thought and immediately got a bonk.
"Ouch, I didn't even say anything."
"Your expression says it all," she gave him an unimpressed stare.
"Well, I woke up in a cage, with some other people in similar cages. A jailer was transporting us in a carriage—all of us were below the age of 15, as they didn't have a Grimoire, and the jailer did," he explained.
***
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