Over the next weeks Al and Yuly focused on cultivation, and Al did some Skill training every evening too.

Yuly had managed to reach the Strengthening Realm (AKA [D Grade Core], since it's kind of a mouthful in English) with a fair bit of help on Al's part. It had been quite taxing to get there, but hadn't exhausted them to the point of lying on the floor panting like on previous instances.

The manuals Al had read were pretty vague and slightly contradictory in what they said about this realm, but what Al had managed to piece together was that when reaching D Grade, their core would now constantly absorb mana and pump it back out, especially when it was topped off.

This apparently greatly increased the training speed of physical stats, since the way to get stronger and tougher was to infuse your body with mana after ripping it apart by training. Al wasn't sure how it worked for Dexterity, but he guessed it somehow improve the training speed too.

The effect wasn't very noticeable at Low proficiency, since the core was just pumping ambient mana to the inside of your body, but at Mid it would change it to the much more infusable pure or atributeless mana, and at High it would modify it to be mana attuned to your element, perfect for absorption. Al would pick his stat training back up once he reached that stage.

It probably wouldn't do anything to increase his Dexterity, since it was already extremely high for his cultivation realm, but his Strength and especially his Toughness would benefit immensely.

He would also make Yuly do physical training, even if he had to force her, since she could get killed any moment with that weak body of hers.

Al finally managed to reach the next realm one week after Yuly. He had been getting frustrated since he hadn't gotten a single skill upgrade this past month, and since he had barely been hunting, leaving most of it to Misty, he hadn't levels up either.

When the mana around his core finally reached that satisfying inflexion point, he rejoiced at the blue screen in front of him.

[E Grade Core] skill has evolved into [D Grade Core]. It provides mana capacity and regeneration equal to that of D- Grade Will and Intelligence, and provides a small passive boost to physical training efficacy.

By this point he was actually storing more mana in his Core than the rest of his body combined, and the Core was responsible for half of his mana regeneration. It was also interesting how the System worded the bonus to physical training, as if it wasn't something that occurred naturally, but a sort of extra feature.

After discussing the changes he went through with Yuly and respectfully declining to continue cultivating, he went out to clear his head by hunting for a while. He didn't find any Rank 2's for half an hour, then he stumbled upon a rabbit hole in the ground. These were common to see, since although the rain tended to slowly fill them up with mud, it took a long time and new ones were created constantly.

He entered it in search for prey, and found three pairs of hungry-looking eyes watching Al from a large crevice at the side of the hole. It was three Supra rabbits.

Al, unwilling to duke it out with them in their home turf, quickly got out by using Quick Step, the took out some throwing Spines while the three rabbits effortlessly hopped out. Al felt the ground beneath him crumble, and swiftly jumped to the side by combining Quick Step and [Physical Augmentation] to his legs.

He effortlessly got out of the predicament, but then the ground he was going to land on started crumbling too. He stepped on the loose dirt, and aimed for a ledge as he activated his earlier combo, careful to not overextend his mana.

But by the time he realised, the ledge was crumbling too, along with all the land in front of him. 'Really!? A triple combo? These fuckers...' Al wouldn't die from the fall or even be severely damaged other than maybe a leg fracture, but he didn't give up and started desperately looking for anything to use Quick Step and push himself off of.

Suddenly he felt something forming beneath his left foot and 10% of his mana was gone in an instant. He pushed against the matter beneath his foot with Quick Step and landed on safe ground messily, disconcerted about what he had just done.

Then he saw the blue screen in front of him, and all his doubts were blown away.

Quick Step has reached High proficiency. You can now propel yourself off air by creating a platform of compressed mana. This action has a very high mana cost.

He read it as he mercilessly pierced the caroid arteries of the three groggy bunnies using [Flash], and his mouth turned into a toothy grin. 'Damn, I've always wanted to be able to fly! Well, this is technically walking on air, but that's just as cool, it's like an upgraded double jump! This is going to open up a whole slew of attack tactics!'

Al rested for a few hours while switching from using the skill to regenerating his mana. He found out that each platform took only a fraction of a second to make, but he could only form them just under his feet, and they only lasted a second before dissipating. After a few hours of testing, he tried something out.

He climbed on top of a especially tall tree and launched himself off of his highest branch. Then he used Quick step to leap again in mid air, then a second, third and fourth time. He jumped about fifty meters, which didn't sound like much, but it allowed Al to see the vast forests in all directions that surrounded the orphanage, along with the stream that reached into the tall mountain ranges that surrounded the forests in almost all directions, and the sun starting to peek from a valley in between of two of the mountains.

Al quickly started falling though, but he slowed his fall with a set of four well-placed air jumps, and enhanced his legs when he made contact with the ground. He couldn't see the sun anymore, but Al guessed it would once again peak from behind the valley in a few short moments.

He swiftly headed back and immediately slipped under his blankets, since he really needed to rest.

The next day he kept training the skills that hadn't evolved recently, and he was rewarded.

[Lightning Palm] skill has evolved into [Palm of the Storm]. It will now be capable of being thrown once it reaches a certain mana concentration.

Al was extremely excited to test this new functionality, so he immediately started pouring mana into the space above his palm.

He didn't notice any different to how it was before, so he kept pouring even more mana, to the point where he could barely control it. Then suddenly the ball of lightning seemed to become almost tangible. The watermelon-sized ball was resting in his hand, instead of being attached to it.

Pointing towards a sturdy-looking tree, he threw it overhead like one would throw a ball, and it acquired incredible speed, as if there was no air resistance, though it was visibly diminishing the further it got. When it hit the tree 20 meters away it had lost around half of its mass, yet it still created a -quite literally- thunderous sound, and charred a huge part of its bark, even eating into the wood. Two or three more hits would be able to topple it.

'Nice, I finally have a spell! Well, it's not really very efficient, since that took almost a quarter of my mana, but now I have a proper ranged skill,' Al thought while looking at the damage.

He couldn't wait to see how his new skill would evolve. He wouldn't use it a lot to hunt though, since it was very consuming and would ruin the furs.

The next three months were pretty boring for Al. He did some hunting, but left most of it to Misty. He did manage to reach level 11 though, but he decided to wait before distributing the point. He also got his [Flash] skill to Mid proficiency, but it only gave an upgrade in mana and stamina efficiency. He also managed to get [Physical Augmentation] to the next grade, and it made it gave him greatly increased efficiency the longer he used the skill.

It kicked off when he'd been using it for around 30 seconds, and the efficiency stopped growing at around 5 minutes, and stayed at -75% mana usage as long as he didn't increase or decrease the output. This made it possible to have full [Body Enhancement] constantly active in a battle, which was HUGE.

Of course it made it so that he couldn't do sudden bursts of enhancement without losing the efficiency bonus, but that was what [Quick Steps] and [Flash] were for.

A while later Al also advanced [Sense Enrichment], and the efficiency upgrade was the same.

What Al had been doing the most though was cultivating, and both him and Yuly were almost at the next stage. Truthfully this wasn't because his potential had suddenly caught up to Yuly, but because he had also been cultivating on his own after they finished their sessions.

He had been sleeping around 6-7 hours a day, and since his Toughness was now F+, higher than a normal adult, it was enough for him, while Yuly had to sleep for 10-11 hours.

Yuly reached Mid D Grade just one day before Al, and when he finally expelled the impurities on the outer layer of his now almost Tennis ball-sized core, the fabled blue screen appeared in front of him.

[D Grade Core] skill has reached Mid proficiency. It gives mana capacity and regeneration equal to that of D Grade Will and Intelligence, and provides a sizeable passive boost in physical training efficacy.

The physical training boost had gone from small to sizeable, so Al felt it was time. For the moment, he decided to focus on physical training.

He decided to get Yuly do train too, though only for her to get to around F Grade, and wait for the next stage to train her further. He asked Koro -who now looked like a downsized version of the world's most muscular man, but hard on esteroids and with every muscle twice as hard as it should be- to help Yuly do some light muscle training, and then asked Jiao to keep Koro in check, telling him it was a super important secret mission.

Al was a bit worried about Yuly, but if the day came that she crawled to him crying and covered in mud and bruises, she would stop the training. 'Shut up, I'm not a sadist.'

And so, for the next weeks Al's training routine consisted on running and weaving in between trees, purposefully crashing into some of those trees while trying to minimise the damage, hitting trees with his bare knuckles monk style, and going to Yuly so she could heal him when he was too battered to keep going.

It netted some good rewards, since his Toughness reached E- Grade around 8 days in, meaning it was close to reaching E Grade, and towards the end his Strength finally reached E+ Grade.

Extremely proud of his gains over the past few months, Al checked his Status.

Alberto Peñas

Age: 2 years

Level 11

Class: Prodigy of the Lightning Rapier

Strength

E+

Dexterity

D+

Toughness

E-

Will

E+

Intelligence

D-

Charisma

E-

Perception

E-

Assignable

1

Skills:

[Mana Manipulation] (High)

[D Grade Core] (Mid)

[Physical Augmentation] (Mid)

[Sense Enrichment] (Mid)

[Palm of the Storm] (Low)

[Quick Steps] (High)

[Flash] (Mid)