Chapter 5 : The awakening
When I left for the forest it was already dawn, sneakily walked past my house to see if my mother had found the letter already. Through the kitchen window, I saw my mother marching through the kitchen with a worried face while my father tried to calm her down, he then gave her a long tight hug. It was painful to see the tears rolling down the faces of both my parents, but it had to happen.
I walked towards the forest, then something dawned on me, the gatekeepers would never let a five-and-a-half-year-old kid go out of the gates at this time of day and I can't wait until the morning because then my parents will already have informed the city guards I'm missing. my parents might have already informed the city guards that I'm missing, So I'll have to sneak past them.
***************************************
From the corner of the street, I was spying on the gate. I have been standing here for almost three hours now. ate this point it is late. It seems like the guards switch every hour.
It's just four guards who keep switching the first duo guards the gate, while the other duo parols the streets around the gate, luckily they haven't found me yet but the best time to sneak past is when they switch. When they switch they aren't alert, the next switch should be in seven minutes when before this happen I will try to get as close as I can without being seen.
When they switch I will run through the gate behind them while wearing my magic camouflaging cloak, this was also a gift from myself, I bought it for myself on my fifth birthday, with money I stole, It was expensive, but a good investment as it works great for pickpocketing. I spend quite a bit of my savings on it back then. It works very well it even fools most military-trained bodyguards, I say most as a big few have seen my trying to pickpocket their rich clients, but even more, didn't see me. So I earned my investment back in no time and it helped me get more money. Not enough to get a good beast core though. I went to a shop selling beast cores for the first time a few months ago, they are more expensive than I expected, the "well" priced one, on which I based the money I would need, all seemed to be bad, I read about beast core sellers being scammers, but this was outrageous. For the cores in the windowsill, they used some magic lighting artifacts to make the cores seem purer than they are. I had read a story about a beast core seller that, gave misinformation by saying the bigger cores are stronger, this is nonsense the bigger beast cores just come from monsters with different anatomy, for example, there are giant slugs that have a core in their clubhouse which is fifty centimeters in diameter.
The strength of a beast's core is solely dependent on the class of the beast and the purity of the core. The stronger the beast class the more power a core can give and the purer the core the longer the output time at full power. the size doesn't change anything.
The opposite, the smaller the core with the same power the rarer and thus more expensive the core is. It is also more sought after as it takes in less space than a big core would for the same power.
Anyways this isn't about cores, It comes down to Core sellers being scammers and my cloak is expensive, effective, and a good investment.
Though it wouldn't work on any of the capital guards, even if they aren't paying attention for a moment I need a distraction, but what? The switch is in a minute and I haven't found something to distract them with, but my godly luck strikes again right at the time of the switch when the four guards met a man who ran out of a nearby bar fully naked. Thank the gods for this favor, I could easily run through the gate because of this distraction.
After passing the gate the forest was only two kilometers away(1.24 miles), I can easily run that far because of my daily physical training, and despite my short legs I met the forest border in ten minutes I ran into the forest for another ten minutes. before climbing up a tree and planting my tent in it. I ate some stale bread I took from home in the tent and went to sleep. I am not deep in the forest yet so I do not have to worry about any high-class beasts in this area. So fell asleep in minutes.
******************************
After waking up I ate some more stale bread in the tent before packing it up again.
The first coming days will just be me running through the forest in the opposite direction of the capital, so I started running, with my insane stamina my body has, I can run for days.
*****************
the sun was descending after another day of running. I stopped a few times to eat because with all the running I need to eat enough food. I also stopped when I saw beasts in the forest, as I wasn't deep in the forest yet these beasts weren't strong, they were all F-class, and these weren't to hard kill as I've trained myself in many martial arts and physical strength, among those martial arts are some dagger trained fighting styles that I've mastered while training with my dad. I, however, did also meet some E-class beasts and these were hard to kill, I had to take my time with them to prevail with no injuries, for awakened this beast would be defeated by even weak awakeners in max 10 minutes. It took me one hour to safely kill an E-class beast, of course, if I did not care about injuries it wouldn't take me as long, but by doing it like this I didn't get any sort of injury. Like yesterday, when I got tired, I climbed up a tree, ate dinner, and went to bed. There I was still more than safe in my tent, so I again fell asleep in minutes.
******************************************
I repeated this for three more days until I found a clearing of trees in which I wanted to meditate, I didn't feel the presents of any beasts nearby, but as an unawakened, this sense wasn't trustworthy yet. I just hoped I was correct, I know it is risky, but I don't have a choice because of the sleep meditationI'm walking on the line of awakening and I Can't risk awakening when I am sleeping up high in the trees tonight.
I sneakily walk around the clearing for a big diameter to see if I spotted a beast, I am so deep into the forest that since yesterday I've seen A and S-class beasts. since any beast above E-class is too much to fight without getting injured, I ran sneakily through the forest for the past few days with my cloak on and when I was seen I ran for my life, I was only spotted by D-classes in these last three days. That's lucky because I'm not even sure I can outrun or hide a C-class, not even mention an A or S-class.
Maybe those beasts spotted me but didn't care as I am so weak to them, so luckily I didn't meet any kill-hungry apex predators. There was no beast near the clearing or a 5-kilometer(3.1 miles) radius. It is very suspicious but I need to meditate before the sun falls because then the beasts start to get hungry.
I sat down in the clearing and started meditating.
After a few minutes of meditating, I felt the threshold coming closer and closer, Until out of nowhere I felt gigantic power fly out of my body It hurt, because it was too much mana bursting out of my small mana channels, like pushing a big carrot through your veins.
It hurt abnormally much until my conscious could not handle the pain and I fainted.
**********************************
When I woke up the sun was rising, so It is morning again. I expected to be unconscious for a day, but if it's morning it has only been around eight hours.
when I looked around the first thing I noticed was the lack of trees, I was in a clearing, but I didn't see trees for ten kilometers(6.21 miles). then I realized, normally I can't look 10 kilometers far, this must be the improved physique. I read that after the awakening the human body takes about ten percent of the reabsorbed mana and improves your body's senses, strength, vitality, ETC. of course because I have so much more mana than the average awakener so my ten percent is so much more, this means I have a big advantage against any human awakener because this physique improvement only happens when awakening, you can't use mana to permanently improve your body as far as I know of.
This feels unfair toward other people. who have to train for years to gain the same physical strength I received overnight, and the way my senses have improved, people can do this temporarily, but to have it permanently on the level I have now received is unrecorded.
The world feels so vibrant now like all my senses are on a higher resolution, It's amazing.
Anyways, the ground in this 10km radius looks scorched, what would mean it was created by my mana outburst? I know I have a lot of mana compared to others but to see what it could do feels impossible. the only thing on the black scorched ground is beast cores. This is because beast cores are made of pure mana so they can not be destroyed with mana. But would so many beasts have gathered in this 10km radius, they must have been attracted to the sudden mana coming out of my body, but this would also mean my mana burned them all to ashes. I can even see some cores that feel like A and S-cores feeling the mana signature coming from them. I'm so confused. Did I kill S-class beasts with my awakening, I guess it is possible because it comes out so concentrated, but what?! I started picking up all the cores in the area there were more than 500! 500! this is truly surreal! when running around gathering the cores I felt the wind, I run so much faster than I used to and did not even have the slightest sign of fatigue after picking them all up, it must be the Physique. I felt so free, a little too free, then I used my sense to feel my body, there isn't anything on me?
My clothes have been burned to ashes because of the mana outburst, I'm naked!
After picking up all the cores and putting them in a pile, I counted and sensed them.
There are two hundred forty-one B-class cores, one hundred ninety-eight A-class cores, and one hundred twenty-three S-class cores. This small pile of cores is worth a fortune.
I have an S-class core among the S-class cores that fit perfectly into my pendant. I brought it with me of course. It wasn't the purest of the S-class cores but it is more than I could ever dream of this could fool some of the strongest mages in our continent. I decide to use the B-class cores to practice mana engraving, the process of engraving certain runes into a beast core to make them do certain things, The mana engraving these days isn't as good as it used to be.
It's a sort of lost art. That's why relics are so expensive these days, no mana engraver has ever been able to get close to ten percent of one of the weaker engraved relics. I of course am going to change that, I just don't know how yet. first I need a way of taking all of these cores with me because even if I still had my backpack I wouldn't be able to take all of them with me. luckily I had written a way of engraving a space inventory into a beast core, and though not as good as the ancient ones it would work. The bad news is the book I wrote it in is incinerated. so have to do it out of memory, though it is impossible it will take some B-class cores until I'll get it right. By the time I succeeded in engraving a B-class core with a space engraving, I used sixteen B-cores, which isn't too bad. I also realized that engraving is time-consuming and it makes me hungry, it is already midday and I haven't eaten anything since yesterday. I do not have any food, so I need to hunt. I assume no beast dares to enter this area since the whole awakening explosion thing, so I need to leave this area.
I put the cores in the B-core space inventory and ran away with it, it was a little awkward, but in the future, I can use a small core to make one for a ring or bracelet that would be handy.
when I was twenty kilometers out of the awakening zone. I heard a beast from 1 km away after running close to it I felt its mana signature and it was S-class, so obviously I ran for my life. I killed S-classes with the awakening, but I am nowhere near beating one. it takes ten military-trained high-awakeners to kill one. Maybe now you understand how unbelievable it is That I alone killed one hundred twenty-three S-classes. The explosion only needs to be stronger than the strongest S-class of course, but still to one-shot an S-class!
Luckily the S-class beast Didn't sense me, or ignored me, so I could easily run away.
After running north for a few km, I finally sensed a D-class, but even this one was on the stronger side of the D-class. I would need to run for another day to see E-classes and I am way too hungry for that, so let's test this new physique.