Slowly Strengthening My Foundation

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It has been two weeks since I sold the potion and I've been doing a variety of things. I had been training my Qi diligently and cultivating it across my body as much as possible.

I've also been cultivating Mana and Aether as well, however, as I am now, it cannot really increase that much in just two weeks, but it is a starting point at the very least.

I've been trying to figure out new ways to utilize these energies. Qi is good for Martial Arts of all sorts, and Mana… well, Magic. Aether is good fit using Aura Techniques, but my Aether is not even strong enough yet.

In numerical values, I would need a minimum of 1000 Aether to gather enough power to form an Aura, but I have yet to even reach half of it. I am approximately at 180, close to 200…

In a few months- no, perhaps years… It is frustrating, I know, but I've already lived years in this world, I am sure that I can wait longer.

Meanwhile, the opening of my Mana Veins had yet to begin. I was simply letting my Mana cover my body for the moment, slowly getting it prepared for the opening of Mana Veins, which might be painful.

In this world, people's Mana Veins are not activated, and seem to be atrophied. The same happens to my body, if I can open them, my Magic will be able to conjure itself faster, and it might even cost less Mana too.

It is a mystery why this world's people have atrophied Mana Veins and Qi Veins. I would guess that it is because they had been depending in their Spirits for everything since the beginning, without knowing anything else than nourishing their Spirit Orbs, getting "Blessings" aka Leveling Up, and other things they have as an advantage over other worlds.

Due to these immediate powers they can gain and work with things that are more complicated and painful to acquire, such as Mana Veins, Qi Veins, and the usage of such things for the creation of complex Magic Conjuration and Martial Arts had not even been explored yet.

I suppose there might be some that had, but it never became popular all around the world. That's because it is something that requires effort, and why would you put effort into cultivating Qi when you can just use your Spirit to do everything for you? Such is the mentality of the people here.

There is also the Talents factor, which are like Classes. With both Spirits and Talents, I can see how it is very unrealistic for me to believe that they would had already been able to cultivate Qi and Aether if they're just using the powers they're already born with instead of cultivating the innate energies of every living being.

My maximum amount of Qi has increased by a few dozens, and my Mana by only a few digits progress is still progress though. I could get even more progress if I could level up, however, due to my parents knowing that I was hunting at night, they had prohibited me from doing so which meant I have to go hunt during the day now.

Of course, I can just disobey them, but I would have to either hide the corpses or leave them aside, which is a waste of money, so I preferred to simply go hunt during the day with my father.

Wolves don't appear as much in the day, they're nocturnal hunters, however, we had still caught a few while we were hunting. My father seemed exceptionally strong, more than I had thought, and he was able to go one on one against a wolf with ease. Even maintaining a good pace against a whole pack. He was a masterful user of the spear, despite having a Farmer Talent. I could tell he had polished this talent over the years of hunting.

The Skills that he gained over leveling up helped our farm as well. The plants grew healthier and there were less chances for pests to eat them away, and the vegetables often maintained their freshness for longer.

There might be more hidden potential in my father, but because he's a stoic man that usually doesn't delve deep into his own capabilities aside from his physical potential, such things had been unexplored.

The monsters had become rare in the firsts layers of the forest surrounding the village, therefore, even after two weeks of hunting, I've barely gotten much EXP, I am still yet to reach the 10k required to level it up…

However, I've been leveling other things, such as Skills. I have not been able to learn any new Skill yet, as I've concentrated more into cultivating my energies inside of my Spirit Orb's landscape. I've been practicing Throwing Technique by throwing rocks around, alongside Butcher whenever we had to butcher something we hunted with father. Alchemy can also be practiced if I use Synthesis with two rocks to make a bigger one. I haven't tried it in more detail than that, Synthesis requires a lot of Mana to make bigger things, and I don't have that amount yet.

Therefore, my Throwing Technique has reached Level 2 a few days ago, alongside Acrobatics. Meanwhile, Alchemy might be around three tenths of the required proficiency to level up, and butcher is over halfway through.

I could already notice the changes that Level 2 Throwing Technique and Acrobatics brought. Greater power, speed, and precision while throwing items was acquired, alongside greater agility and nimbleness while moving and evading enemy attacks.

It wasn't easy to level up these Skills though, and now that they require 20k proficiency, it might take way more for me to reach such amount of skill proficiency in this time…

And about normal magic? I've been able to practice all the elements I could imagine. I was able to conjure two to three of the most basic spells of each element, but I did notice that they were not very strong, my affinity with them was dim. However, I have discovered that my Blood Affinity is high, alongside Darkness… just like in my previous life.

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