Lone was stunned after having heard what weapon Swind wanted to train in. His chosen weapon were strings. How was Lone supposed to teach him anything related to fighting with strings?

Lone had a very basic understanding of sword fighting and spear fighting while Eolande was well versed in illusion magic and Breena had a rudimentary understanding of daggers. However, not even any of Lone's books mentioned how to fight with something as unorthodox as strings.

Lone had asked Swind time and time again if he wanted to reconsider, but the Lemurian was surprisingly adamant that this was what he would be most skilled in and that it was what he felt he would be most comfortable using.

Lone had no idea where he could find a teacher for Swind, so he had asked him to learn basic swordsmanship from Sophie since she was the most skilled in it and Lone promised that he'd figure something out eventually in regards to fighting with strings. Swind could only relent and agree to this so he spent the next few days taking lessons from Sophie.

Breena, after having asked Lone for permission, spent most of her time with Tiera and Trella. Even if she had no plans to return to the clan permanently, she still heavily valued her childhood friendships and she wanted to spend time with the two twins.

Eolande never left Lone's side in the few days that had passed. She was worried that Brahman would try to kill him again, so she was keeping a close eye on her apprentice and fated partner.

Lone, on the other hand, had been the busiest out of all of the wanderers. He had reconstructed Lossa's body in its entirety. Much like what he had done to Breena, he was able to replace everything by simply cutting it off from Lossa's body and recreating it via Creation Magic. The only complications were her brain and heart.

These sensitive organs caused Lone to frown. It was the same with Breena, but if he simply removed the heart or brain, the patient would die. Because of this, Lone had to replace them cell by cell which was exceedingly tedious and exhausting.

After he had cured Lossa of her awakening's side-effects, he had to then recreate his own body. Normally, this was unnecessary thanks to his passive regeneration, but that ability was still sealed for another five months. This meant that his body had slowly started to kill itself after his eighth awakening the other day, so he, without telling Sophie, got Eolande to oversee him as he destroyed and repaired his own body.

He chose to keep this a secret from Sophie because she was very against Lone harming himself, and he knew that she would have protested and asked him to wait out the five months instead.

At this point, Lone had reconstructed enough people to have a perfect understanding of the human body. Were he back on Earth, he would probably be able to perform any surgery imaginable with nothing more than the simplest of surgical tools. However, by Altros' standards, he could happily claim to be one of the best, if not, the best healer on the planet.

After all of this had happened, something that Lone wasn't expecting occurred. Brahman Elksworth had come to question him. Apparently, Gilbert was a very important member of the Purity Dragonkin Clan, so he demanded Lone to tell him everything that he knew.

Lone couldn't be bothered dealing with Brahman, so he simply created a duplicate communication orb and tuned it to his and Gilbert's one before handing it to the stroppy SS-Ranker.

Brahman still questioned Lone regarding his soul oracle abilities, but Lone refused to speak about that, and Brahman could do nothing but sulk off since Eolande was always present and he was more than aware that he was no match for her.

Currently, Lone was busy reading in the archives of the Crimson Foxkin Clan. There were many interesting records that Lone had spent his time today copying. In particular, Lossa had allowed him access to all of the Crimson Foxkin Clan's fighting techniques, like the skill of Trella's that Breena had interrupted a few days ago.

'I wonder when the Foxkin Lossa warned me about will appear? We're supposed to become World Tree Keepers together, so hopefully we can get along well enough,' Lone thought in passing.

Lone was engrossed in reading a fighting manual titled, 'The Fox Crept Through The Village'. It, like most other battle techniques of the Foxkin, was stealth-based. A sudden and fiery voice broke Lone's concentration.

"So you're the one everyone is buzzing about? Just as I return from my training to become a Keeper, some unknown punk walks into my home and treats it like his own..." the voice said with clear contempt in its tone.

'Think of the devil and he shall appear,' Lone mused to himself.

Lone lowered the book he was holding and raised his eyes. A small girl maybe as tall as Eolande was right in front of him. She was a Crimson Foxkin like most others around here and she was wearing a striking red kimono that was covered in flame patterns. However, what drew Lone's attention in the most, besides her apparent age and large bushy eyebrows, was in fact, her tails.

'She looks upset at me... How to handle this... Hmm... Well, she's supposedly childish according to Lossa, so maybe I can fool her?' Lone hoped.

"You have eight tails? Who are you?" Lone asked, perfectly acting the ignorant fool. For once, his nearly unused skill, Actor, was given a chance to shine.

This seemingly six or seven-year-old Foxkin had eight perfectly crimson tails. This was the most that Lone had ever seen on another Foxkin. Even Lossa only had seven, and he had been told that this young girl was very powerful, so caution was Lone's main course of action for now.

'Is there more tail than person? How does she keep herself balanced with all of that fur just swinging about so wildly?' Lone thought in wonder as he stared at the girls exceedingly fluffy and large tails.

"Hmpf! Trying to gain a tactical advantage over me mentally, very smart! Everyone knows who I am!" the small girl stated with confidence while she crossed her arms over her chest angrily.

Lone cocked his head to the side and wore a thoughtful look for a second before he chuckled slightly and resumed reading his book. He kicked his feet up onto a nearby table and completely ignored the young-looking girl.

"Eh?" the girl looked confused. 'D-Does he really not know who I am?!' She was flustered. She had genuinely believed that Lone knew who she was, so she was now feeling embarrassed.

"Y-You really don't know who I am?" With a quiet and meagre voice, the young girl looked at lone with a pitiful face.

'Okay, Even I can't keep stringing her along like this when she's acting so cutely,' Lone sighed internally before he put his book down and stood up. He walked towards the nervous girl and kneeled before her.

"Of course I know who you are," Lone said while he outstretched his hand and patted the girl's head lightly. He made sure to act as friendly as he could because he didn't want to enrage her.

"You do?" The girl raised her face and didn't even bother to remove Lone's comforting hand. This was thanks to Lone's charm stat, so luckily for him, the situation was developing exactly how he wanted it to... For now at least.

"Naturally. You're Rachel Redtail. First in line for the Matriarchy, genius fire mage, A-Ranker, future World Tree Keeper and above all else, master of cuteness. Am I right?" Lone smiled happily.

"Ehehehehe~" Rachel was smiling from ear to ear. She looked rather adorable. However, a few seconds passed before she suddenly slapped Lone's hand away and growled fiercely. She then jumped a few meters away and her entire tiny figure was engulfed in orange flames.

"I almost fell for your tricks!" she hissed, "I'm here because you're stealing my place at the World Tree, aren't you?!" she added.

'Fuck! It didn't work! My sources said she was weak to being treated like a child despite being twenty-two years old! Damn it, this got unnecessarily tough... Besides, I wasn't told I had taken her place... When was that decided?' Lone thought.

"Wait a minute! Let me expla-"

"No! You won't trick me with your good looks and sweet words! E-Even if your headpats feel really nice... You're a bad person and a thief! Meet me outside! I'm gonna fight you and beat you to prove that I should be the one to go, not you!" Rachel said this before she disappeared completely.

Silence reigned over the room. Several ancient records had been burnt to a crisp and many others were scattered all over the floor from Rachel's flames.

"Fuck. I heard she was really childish, but isn't this going too far? What do I do now?" Lone mumbled to himself.

Eolande appeared next to him with a smile on her face, clearly having just stepped out of an illusion of some sort that had hidden her completely. "Did she just teleport? Hmm, no, she turned into a flame and travelled through the air. That's fascinating. I suppose you should go fight her, Husband. Afterall, you did 'steal' from the poor girl, didn't you?"

"Oh, piss off. The problem is, can I even beat her?" Despite his words, Lone's blood was pumping and his legs moved on their own towards the exit. It was finally time for him to fight with someone who he wasn't confident he could beat and this excited Lone, even if it scared him as well.

Elsewhere, in an open field, Sophie was training Swind with Breena watching over them. Sophie's movements came to a halt and a shock ran through her body.

"Miss-ss Sophie?" Swind said with a puzzled expression on his scale covered face. Normally, he would have called Sophie by her surname like he did with Lone, however, Swind could hardly speak the Beastman common tongue without tripping over every few words, let alone saying a complex name like 'Vladimirovich'.

"I sense a disturbance," Sophie claimed seriously before she created a barrier disk and got on it. She then flew away at a blistering speed. Her target: Lone. Sophie's powers to detect threats was, indeed, very frightening.