Since Yuly got her core, she had been shut off in her room day and night, only coming out for meals and the like. The grown-ups had started to worry by the second day, but Al told them she was forming her core and they shut up in a second. That wasn't actually true, since she already had a core and was probably aiming to reach the next stage, but they didn’t need to know everything.

By the twentieth day, even Al started to worry, so he went to visit her. He found her in the stereotypical cultivation position, which was a little funny-looking since she was still a chubby toddler, and after some small talk left her to do her thing. That brings us to now. Since Al already managed to improve his core, he decided he could give Yuly some pointers on what she should be aiming for.

Her room had a heavy atmosphere at this point, even with Al coming regularly to air it out, but he didn’t mind it and instead approached Yuly.

”Hey, mind giving me a moment of your time?” Yuly opened her eyes, visibly annoyed, but motioned for Al to sit down. He complied. He had already decided not to hold back on telling Yuly anything (at least of his second life), so he said. ”You see, recently I managed to make a breakthrough regarding my core, so I thought I could help you a bit."

Yuly’s face was like a painting. A mix of shock, disbelief, and jealousness appeared on her face in a flash and was gone just as quickly.

After a few moments, she said ”...sure”

Al spent a few minutes explaining the feeling of breaking through and what it entailed, and what she should be aiming for. She seemed to understand most of it, so he left her to her own devices.

Outside, Koro and Jiao were doing a whole lot of nothing. Al had been playing with them regularly this past month, despite his grievances, but he had also been doing his fair share of cultivating and (light) training, and when there were only two people in a group, conversations tended to turn stale quickly. Even with Jiao’s over-excitable personality. ’Or is that normal for a toddler?’

Koro had also spent a lot of time doing physical training, and he was probably as strong as a flimsy teenager, but muscles also needed time to rest, hence his current stillness.

He had also gone from challenging Al almost daily to doing so just once a week or so, with still no victories to his name. And now that Al had the giant porcupine spine attached to his back under his robe, the hurdle was even higher.

The moment he saw Al, Jiao run up to him saying ”How is sister Yulia doing? Did she breakthrough!?” They aren’t siblings, by the way. It’s just a way to call someone you’re close to. ’Yup, following the tropes alright.’ If there was one difference is that this only seemed to be popular with prepubescent children, since it was deemed immature. Even Koro refused to use it, and he was five.

”Not quite, but she’s close. We’re going to be in the same stage soon.”

Al played with Jiao a little longer before heading back.

The following week was quite hectic. The first signs of winter were showing up, though that was rock bottom on the list of importantness.

Al had also tried to relearn his class skills Thrust, Footwork, and Parry, but to no avail. It was as if he had never known them at all. Really goes to show that the power the System gives you isn’t your own, but a handout.

Yuly had also managed to breakthrough after staying holed up in her room for most of the week, and she had even said ”thanks”!

Anyway, Al had kept on using the [Body Enhancement] technique to compliment the lightening from the Porcuspine (as he had decided to call it) so he could temporarily get his agility up to a semblance of what it was before, and it helped a lot in relieving stress. ’No, this is training. Training’

He also fell off trees when his mana ran out quite a lot of times, so many times in fact his Toughness went up to F- grade.

Toughness apparently also quickened natural regeneration, but it only started to matter at D Grade or above, and even then it didn’t heal anything that your body wouldn’t heal on its own.

Al hoped he would be able to find some of this genre’s trademark healing pills.

He was a bit disappointed at not being able to reach F Grade in Dexterity, but then again, he hadn’t been really been pushing his limits, just prodding to see how high those limits were.

And now that Al felt a bit more in his element, he decided to finally start raising his damn level.

He hadn't really decided what to put the point on, since people back on earth found out it was much more efficient to train your body to the limits and only then start assigning points. Al didn’t do that the first time around, and he wasn’t about to err twice.

When he, once again, jumped the wooden wall, he found that it needed much less mana, and his legs didn’t even wince upon landing. He expected this of course, but the Porcuspine was really well suited to his current build.

He took it out and soon saw a beast. It was one of the critters he was briefed on (well, everybody was, really). It was your stereotypical horned rabbit, and it had inherent Earth magic. Its horn was used to fire the spells, and it had high mana conductivity (or ‘Ki resonance’, as these guys called it), but it was pretty brittle and not well-suited for a sword.

Good thing Al already had his Porcuspine. He rushed the rabbit and, before it could muster any sort of spell, stabbed in the throat by empowering his arms. Killing it was so easy and it gave so little experience, it made Al wonder if the Sonic imitator he killed before had actually been Rank 2.

He didn’t really know this world’s power standards.

Al was about to harvest the horn with his Porcuspine when the ground started to rumble, and a 20cm long horn poked from the ground. Then it opened up further, and up came another rabbit, this time about 1,5 meters tall. It had emerged from the ground as if it was nothing.

Al winced at the sight.

’I might’ve angered the mother...’