The next day, the storm was over. Replacing it was a clear sky.

I felt far better after the impromptu therapy session. My goals were clearer and my judgement was no longer clouded.

The fragility of humans. How easy it is to change our mindsets. A bad afternoon can ruin a lifetime. Misfortune is su- No. I had enough of this. If I keep philosophizing, I wouldn’t come anywhere. I can do that when I am free. There will be plenty of time for that in the future. After all, I will be going to school soon. Shipped off the island for years. Neat.

I don’t actually need to go to school. I could just flee and live by myself. Either on a tropical island or a human settlement. But there are always issues. I would need a source of water, food, information, housing and more. It is just inconvenient to live on an unpopulated island. Living in a village, town or city, would bring its own set of problems. Firstly, a backstory, as to how I ended up being alone. One good enough to play on people's sympathy. Besides that, I would also need a lot of luck. Another thing to consider would be my stragness. People in Farfalla town have no reference frame for normal and have seen me grow up. They know I am not some shapeshifting monster. Others don’t. And not forgetting that I would have to cut ties with everyone. Everyone I know. And that is a little unsettling. Having nothing to my name, nothing to return to, no one that knows me and while being just a 7 year old kid. Yeah, not happening.

Besides, I need to learn a lot of things. Not as much as the other children, since I already know math, physics and most other subjects. I am still technically a 95 year old after all, even though I only have deep impressions of 27. The whole going out of my body business. Nevertheless, I still have a lifetime of knowledge in my head. Or in my soul? Since I didn’t keep the body? Well a question for another time.

This world is the equivalent of Earth’s 2000s in terms of technology. Or that is when the plot starts. So if this is 81 years before the plot, the technology should be somewhere around the 1920s? Well no. I didn’t think things through. Not all worlds develop at the same speed. In this world, magic is real. Just this is enough to derail development. A single moderately powerful hunter could create a hatsu that boosts the progress by centuries. But they don’t for whatever reason. Besides that, as far as I am aware of, there were no major wars in the hunter x hunter world. That means that there were no massive technological leaps. After all, wars are prime times for technological development.

Enough of that. The subjects I am interested in are the subjects that weren’t on Earth or differ greatly. Many of them would be of great use. For example, biology would be completely different. The average person is stronger, faster and smarter than on Earth. Just that should make a huge difference. Would medicine and biology develop differently? After all, not as many people are sick. And there are always hunters or more accurately, nen-users, that can probably cure everything. Just how would such things affect everything? Speaking of nen, there are magic beasts here. I refuse to believe that there were no dissections. Analysing a shapeshifting creature could bring insights to many different things. And shapeshifters aren’t the only ones. So what about all the other creatures? A single creature is a treasure trove of knowledge and there are probably thousands of species in the known world alone. And what about plants? Surely there exist some magical herbs right? Even if they don’t exist naturally, I refuse to believe that no nen-user in the history of the known world created a hatsu that grows magical plants. If the calendar was to be believed, there should be records of 2000 years of history hidden somewhere. But why 2000? Could the calendar have begun after humanity immigrated to the known world? That would be possible. And what about microorganisms?

Besides biology, astronomy and physics would be interesting. Seeing the differences between the laws of physics and math could be nice as well. Even though I know the equivalent of a 22nd century level math. Even if there were no people like Euler in the last few centuries, there were quite a few that neared him. After all, out of tens of billions of people after him, there were bound to be a few like him. But the clever tricks of this world should be interesting. Math and science in general developed in a whole ‘nother direction. What secrets does it hold? If there are hatsus that can see the future, what is stopping one from being able to solve any problem? Just this could revolutionize everything. Forget decades, it could make centuries worth of progress together with a few clever hatsu.

There should also be some other subjects or fields of science unknown to me. But other than science, language is also very important. It rewires the brain itself, giving one new perspective on things and a new way of thinking unique to it. It helps you approach problems from different angles and finding the best solution becomes easier. Even though I was trilingual in my past life, can’t I still learn more? There was a language engineered that made logic easier. It was an ‘expanded’ form of math that could be used to communicate most intents. Just talking in it could help one improve their logical skills.

Really, there are countless aspects that are never explored in a new world. A different world has a different culture, a different way of thinking, a different way of life. A whole new perspective on everything. Just this alone would be priceless. After all, the most valuable aspect of the human race is our intellect.

Looking up at the sky, it was already nearing noon. I would have to go back again. Back to Farfalla town. The clusterfuck of people’s reactions does not appeal to me. Any sane person wouldn’t like a 6 year old to go missing for months. I came back a few times, talked to a few people, dodged some others, left a message that I would be gone again and so on. As ridiculous as that sounded, it was probably one of the best training exercises I have done. Constantly using [EN] and [GYO] as well as enhancing my hearing to avoid certain people and recognising them by aura alone.

So yeah I had to go back. If I go now, I should be there by evening. A few dozen minutes and I should be dry when there. No use looking disheveled. The sea looks calm enough and the air has no smell. From what I recall, the smell before a storm is just ozone. And the air doesn’t smell like it. So I should be fine right? Even if something happens, I should be fine on the connecting island. Plus, there was a massive storm yesterday, so I should be fine. There won’t be two storms back-to-back right?

I can swim at around 3 meters per second without aura and if I use it, I can go up to 6 for several hours. My peak speed in water is around 10 meters per second which is insane. But it also takes a lot of energy out of me. Doubling the speed requires 4 times the energy in vacuum but in water, it should be at least 10 times larger. And that is if I ignore the uneven effort distribution and bad hydrodynamics of a human body. It used to take me a whole day of swimming to get home, but the time decreased to a third of that.

As I was thinking this, I was already sitting on the connecting island. The air was still clear so I continued on my journey. But a thing was worrying me, but I didn’t know what. Confident in my countless contingencies, I swam on.

Well as it turned out, it was the smell of ozone. I realized it when I saw dark clouds on the horizon. I was only two dozen or so kilometers away from home. I should be fine right? I sped up, hoping to dodge the second storm.

The storm hit me sooner than expected. The sea became chaotic and the waves were already over a meter tall. It was only minutes before the real storm hit me, but I am still a few kilometers from shore.

As I predicted, the fearsome might of nature hit. The waves were several meters tall, but thankfully, I was near home. It is only a matter of time before I get home. This reminded me why I was scared of long sea voyages when I was little. But now I have nothing to fear.

I could see land. It was undoubtedly Farfalla island. Now the only thing left to look out for were the rocks. The back of the island, which I was rapidly approaching, was filled with sharp rocks and the water was shallow. If a wave slammed me into the ground and a rock hit some sensitive spot, it could hurt and leave a mark. Luckily, I considered this possibility in the past and removed all of the sharper rocks underground. But I didn’t remove every rock. There were still the less dangerous ones littering the seabed, but my eyes were safe and the chance of a spinal injury was null.

I slammed into solid stone. Not wanting to experience it again, I used [KO] to carve out a grip and held on. While climbing up, the waves hit me a few times, but I held on.

After escaping the range of waves, I relaxed. Looking at the marks I left behind, I would make sure to erase them. But that will come later. My legs lost their strength and I collapsed onto a tree. I took a few breaths before continuing.

Looking at my clothes, they were drenched in sea water. When I put them into the laundry, the cleaning lady would definitely notice. So I took my spare clothes that I hid in an old tree. The pair of clothes that were previously too big for me, were a perfect fit now.

Soon, I arrived outside of my room. I climbed up to the window and pulled a string. It was attached to a small mechanism and the window opened. My room was exactly as I remembered it, but there was a week’s worth of dust everywhere. It was cleaned less often than the other rooms. But I didn’t care.

With a tired groan, I slumped into the bed and fell asleep. It was nice to sleep in a soft bed again.