Two weeks after the incident with the village, Yuly was already about to breakthrough into the next stage. She and Al had been laboriously cultivating 'I love those fancy words' and this confirmed that Yuly's talent was ever so slightly higher than Al's own.

Yuly tapped Al's palm, which they had set as a sign for when they were about to tip over the edge. When she did, he didn't interfere, limiting himself to trying to glance at how the process was going. She took a while, but in the end she managed to breakthrough on her own. She was panting and had a thin layer of soot covering her sweat-glistening skin by the end, but that was to be expected.

This proved that her mental training had been fruitful, as before she wouldn't have been able to breakthrough without heavy help on Al's part. Telling her to train her control might not have been the most interesting of decisions, but it was extremely effective, much more than playing the hero and pushing himself to the limits to help her every time.

Al laughed inside at those trigger-happy MCs that charged forward believing in the power of friendship and shit and ended up making life harder for themselves, often almost dying.

Then he remembered how he himself was crushed to death by being trigger-happy and careless, and his ears turned slightly pink.

"Something wrong?" Yuly asked in a concerned tone as she cleaned herself with a towel.

"Nah, will you help me cultivate to the next stage?" Al asked, although he already knew the answer.

"Of course," She answered.

And so a week later, Al, too, reached High proficiency in his [E Grade Core]. He felt like his element had become somehow purer, easier to turn into pure mana and back. Of course, his capacity and regeneration had also improved.

Yuly and him had also been spending some time with Jiao and Koro. Jiao now had a High proficiency [F Grade Core], and had awakened to the wood element, but Koro was the one who gave him the biggest surprise. He had reached Mid proficiency in his [F Grade Core], but he hadn't cultivated even once.

Judging by his stone-hard wiry muscles and how he was now almost 5cm taller though, it seemed he had been training diligently. 'Does he absorb Ki by training?' When Al formed his core he had the least amount of cultivation talent of the whole orphanage, meaning whatever his method was, it was faster than cultivation.

Dual cultivation was still considerably faster, but he was training his physique at the same time. Al couldn't help but be slightly jealous. 'Ok, maybe I'm being a tad unfair here, since I reincarnated with a System and all... but what are you gonna do about it?'

Since it had been a while, he decided to head into the forest to hunt for a bit. He killed a couple of Rank 2s, but then he came around something that surprised him.

It was a white cat-like creature, and it almost seemed kind of ethereal. It had clearly directed Al, but it didn't attack him, instead staying still. Al walked towards it, but he was suddenly a bit sleepy. He raised his sword but it wasn't in his arm anymore. Suddenly everything started fading, a weird buzzing filling his ears. He felt himself fall into the ground...

He had felt something like this before, this feeling of losing control... then he remembered, it was a rare element back on Earth, but he was once attacked with it. Mind magic. He pushed his Will to the limits, thankful for the point he put in it, and managed to break out of that dream-like state.

He found himself lying face up on the floor, below a (somehow) surprised looking cat. He pushed it off of him and it seemed to suffer quite a bit from its crash with the ground. It seemed to push its head onto the ground, almost as a form of apology.

Al didn't buy it. This was clearly a Rank 1 beast, judging by its mana level, yet it somehow possessed intelligence, and a great control of its mana. Al was reluctant to kill it, but he still brought the spike down on its neck. It had tried to kill him after all.

Yet the beast didn't move. Al stopped just a few centimetres short, pondering if he should really do it. Then he remembered something he read on a beast taming manual. If you condensed your mana into a crystallised ball the size of an M&M (this world's measurements are way too vague) and feed it, and the beast's life would be linked to yours, giving you basic control over it. This method was only used by beginners however, since it was very consuming and would only work for extremely weak beasts.

Al decided to try it nonetheless. It wasn't that hard to make the marble, and when he offered it to the cat it seemed to somehow understand his intentions, immediately gulping it down. Then it started to grow. Al had read beasts needed a lot of mana to evolve, and it seemed that his marble had done the trick. The once cat-sized beast was now the size of a Doberman, and it had two fluffy tails behind it.

'Wait'

He looked again, that's why it hadn't looked just like a cat, it's tail had been fluffy, and now there were two of them! 'Wait, I seem to remember something like this... wait, wasn't it supposed to be with a fox!? It was the nine-tailed fox or something like that.' If he had encountered its bastard offspring he had hit the jackpot. They were usually considered mythical beasts of legends right?

He looked at it and asked "Do you have a name, little one?" The cat seemed puzzled for a moment, then slowly and grandiosely shook his head, it was almost as if it meant "You are not worthy to hear my real name, mortal."

Al didn't let the annoying gesture get to him and started thinking. 'What name would suit this cat?'

Al was really bad at naming, and he hadn't had a pet in his life. It gave an almost royal feel, so he was going to go for Palace (no one would know what it means anyway) but he wouldn't want to say a name that long every time, and shortening it to Pal would be even worse. King or Queen would assume its gender, so that wouldn't cut it. '

'Hmm, maybe I should center the name on its whiteness instead?'

Al felt stupid thinking so hard about it, but eventually settled on a decent-enough name.

"You'll be called Misty!" 'it’s not regal at all, but it reminds me of how misterious the cat is, and obviously mist is white. It also kinda made my mind hazy like mist before...'

The cat seemed to reluctantly accept the name, maybe not turning Al down merely because of how much he struggled to find a name. Being a toddler as he was, he could probably climb on its back, but physical strength didn't seem to be the beast's forte so it would be faster for it to just walk along side him. Al hoped it would be able to turn back into its small form, but real life wasn't that convenient.

As they headed back, Al tried several different things. Misty was obviously prideful, but it loved being rubbed behind its ears. When he stopped rubbing however, it seemed horrified by its earlier behaviour and quickly regained its composure, trying to act like nothing happened.

When they reached the gate (Al doubted Misty would be able to jump over the wall) he took out his key and opened it from the inside, letting Misty in. The cat seemed less than impressed by his humble abode, but he ignored its critical looks.

He presented his new 'pet' to the adults, who were already desensitised to his crazy sheinanigans, and then showed it to his friends. Jiao immediately tried to ride it, but Misty just shook him off. Koro had wanted to fight it, but when Al told him that Misty's body wasn't very strong he scuffed and said "Of course. A runt like you could only ever have a weak pet." But then Misty sent some kind of mental attack his way and he started spasming before he passed out. He decided to wash his hands on that and watched as Misty went to play with Yuly, who seemed to like the cat a lot.

She started cuddling Misty's fluffy white fur, he felt kind of bitter for whatever reason and commanded her to come with him.

After having shown Misty the orphanage, they went to Al's room and he interrogated the cat. Al could only ask yes or no questions, but it would have to do for now.

What he gathered:

Misty is from some sort of higher realm. 'Called it.' She was surprised this was the first thing Al asked, but it had been his first hypothesis. She also nodded when he asked if it had been banished from there, but it apparently wasn't permanent. Then he asked if Misty came to this forest because of the thick mana, and a sort of 'half nod' was the reply.

What Al did found out was that it had to Rank up in order to get back home, and apparently it had to get to Rank 9. 'Figures, with the 9 tails and all.' That also reminded him of the 9 supposed realms of cultivation, and Misty confirmed that there were 9 realms that corresponded to the 9 tiers of beasts in the mortal world. When Al tried to ask about the place Misty came from, she refused to answer. 'Of course it couldn't be that easy'

With that figured out, Al went to sleep and set off the next day with Misty to test the cat's combat potential.

He had learned that it had only two different spells, but hadn't managed to figure out just with yes-no questions what they were exactly. What he did know was that one was the spell Misty used on him, and the other one was the thing it used on Koro.

After a couple of hours, Al pretty much had Misty's spells figured out. The one he took was used to slowly make the target dizzy and reduce its responsiveness, and it was the only one Misty had been capable of using at Rank 1, and consumed a lot of mana. At low power however, it simply decreased the target perception without it noticing, which went pretty well with Al's sneak attacks.

His class wasn't designed for that, but hey, if it works it works.

The second one was a direct mental attacker that stunned creatures with high Will for short periods and outright knocked out those with low Will. It also consumed very little mana. It wouldn't be able to knock out the average human, but for beasts and for Koro it worked wonders.

Only the Supra-bunnys had been able to resist getting K.O'd thus far, and their speed-hunting had gotten Al to level 9.

He put the point into Dexterity once again and ran around for a while to get used to it.

While he jumped from trunk to trunk, he thought 'This feels as if I'd gotten an Ultra Legendary at a gacha game.'