Miles looked at the pitiful number of arrows in front of him. After the first successful one, he thought it was a given he would tackle every try, but cold reality hit his face without mercy.

The second experiment failed!

The third experiment failed!

The fourth experiment failed.

Only on the fifth try he succeeded but it didn’t help to lift his mood, after all, he was using a heavenly material, and in the scenario when he could craft without failing, he would be able to offset his expenses, but now that he failed 3 out 5 times, he was depressed.

Not that Elemental Minerals were expenses, but considering the profit just by selling it, the revenue doesn’t even match with his crafts, so it is safe to say if he were to sell elemental minerals to buy arrows, the number of arrows would be thousands of times of anything he could create. Of course, it was just a part of his aim, so he wasn’t so depressed. While forging, he was also gaining experience, thus it was priceless for him.

Still, failing despite using this cheat dropped the little amount of pride he gained after succeeding in his first try. Now, he was even more cautious than his first try and learned he shouldn’t underestimate these procedures.

“I thought I was already a master craftsman when I succeeded in my first try, I guess I became conceited in my success too much and wasn’t as careful in the second try.” He thought depressedly. “It is fine though! So long as I don’t fuck up too much, it is still worth it. After all, I still have a cave full of Elemental Minerals.

Miles heard Coin's notification, woke him from his stupor. Because of lack of space, he built his workstation in an isolated small room, thus it was close to Rayen’s bedroom. When the door opened and Rayen was about to leave, Miles already arrived at the door and saw her there. She looked a lot better already, thanks to Coin and Dodo supplying her IVs.

“Good morning Rayen.” Miles greeted with a smile.

“Brother Miles.” Rayen smiled genuinely too. She wasn’t sure of her decision to live with Miles, but after a week, she made sure Miles was genuinely nice, so she was also coming along pretty nice.

She was eating extra meals because of malnourishment when she was a captive, so Miles created a diet for her to gain some meat on her slim body. Even after a week, there were visible improvements.

“Are you ready to go to school?” Miles asked, making Rayen’s face cramp again. She was nervous when she thought about public places with a lot of other kids. But Miles already convinced her about it. She had to go to school, considering she already missed several years.

“Can’t I study from home? Dodo was helping me a lot already.” Rayen tried to weasel out of it, but Miles wasn’t going to give up on this one.

“Rayen, school isn’t a place to teach you only. It is also a place to learn socializing. You are a brilliant kid, but you have to experience social life. Life is more than texts can teach, and without seeing and living on your own, you cannot cope with humans.

Although humans are not a single-layered entity with bad or good conscience, most of the time traits are not far from each other. Treacherous people tend to lie, steal, kill and hurt more, while trustworthy people help, heal and depend on others.

But many times in life, you will see the world is not only black and white. There are many other colors and many other emotions. The most saintly person will act most heinously because of love, or the most dangerous criminal will act kindly for the same emotions.” Miles wanted to say more, but life and humans weren’t things that could be explained in a few sentences.

Since the dawn of time, humans have tried to understand their kinds and rack their brains to define human limits, but still, there aren’t any definite conclusions. That is AIs’ ultimate goal itself. True wisdom, or awakening emotions if you will.

“What if they bully me?” Rayen asked shyly. Miles knew she wasn’t worried about getting bullied but more so about if she should fight back or not. Rayen grew up in the worst condition a person can, so she was more mature and stronger than other kids her age, that is why she asked the question. She didn’t want to cause any problem for Miles.

“Because of your shy and timid nature, people in school will bully you. So, you will learn to stand for yourself. Remember one thing, never depend on my help to fight. If someone bullies you, you can fight back as much as you want, as long as you can fight back. If they dare to call their brothers, fathers, uncles, or grandfathers, I will be there to support you. But not for a peer you cannot beat.” Miles explained.

He was there to support her with everything he had if any spoiled brat called their background for them, but he didn’t want Rayen to grow up to be spoiled too.

“I understand, big brother.” Rayen nodded after some thought. He wasn’t worried about her, he was sure Rayen was going to be brilliant. The only downside was, she had lost too much time, and had a too cramped schedule. Miles put her down for one of the best schools in the Capital. With his growing finances, he was still able to afford that much, and Merlin was sponsoring her.

“Come on, it is time for you to go to school. It has been a while since the new semester, and you have to work harder to catch up.” In the week he was hunting madly, with the help of Merlin, Rayen bought materials she would need in the school.

“Okay, I am off for school then.” Rayen nodded and left the apartment.

“So this is how having a little sister feels like. I wish Marcela was as cute as her.” Miles sighed and returned to work. He was getting used to forging arrows, and he would try bullets after having a solid number of arrows.

Forging bullets was not as easy as arrows, because of their volatile natures. Bullets had more punch when fired, and could be fired without raw strength, so much more popular than arrows in F-Circle and inner, but bullets were also much more expensive. Not a regular person could afford bullets in big numbers. So not many craftsmen waste their time to forge Grunt-Rank bullets.

Before, Miles would be lost why riches like Tian Ling, Porseila, and Mihr Orril wouldn’t use higher-tier bullets with their money. Only recently Miles learned that high-tier orbs and weapons made of cores needed the energy to activate, that they weren’t for ‘kids’ in Grace-Rank.

It did make sense, after all, if a Grunt-Rank hunter could use Chaos-Rank orbs or weapons, then they could walk freely all the way to the C-Circle without any problem.

“This would be helpful in the Graders Competition, but I probably will not join this time.” Miles thought out loud, as he grabbed a few metals.