Chapter 7: Status Screen

-Year: 2010; 7 Years old; Kindergarten-

After full recovery, I was once again sent to kindergarten. Things went back to normal or at least they were supposed to have gone back to normal, but instead.

"Doggo! I'm back home! Did you miss Mommy?" I was captured by Jasmine, Naomi, and the other girls...

"Woof! Woof!..." Just like in my past life... I played the dog...

This is all teacher's fault! She gave us a stupid project about understating family, which just turned into playing pretend, and well, she grouped me with these girls! It's honestly sad...

"Why are you crying, Doggo? Aren't you happy to be a part of our family?!" Jasmine smiled ominously as she asked while petting me! Unbelievable, if it weren't for the quest I would fight her.

"Yeah, Maky... I mean Doggo, you don't want to make Mom mad..." Naomi too was doing the same.

"I'm sorry it has to be this way Doggo, but please don't be mad." Sara was also doing it! I expected better from you...

"Honestly guys, I think you like Doggo too much. We should just get rid of him. He's not even cute." Crystal commented and I don't know if she was throwing jabs at me or trying to help me.

The worst part is that even without the quest, I would get in trouble with the teacher if I revolted... This universe is against...

"Hahaha! The great me is home!" Rolls you traitor! You didn't even try to help me, you'll regret that decision.

This went on for what felt like an eternity but eventually, it was over, and I left.

(Hahaha... All of you will regret doing this in the future!) I thought to myself as I was leaving.

{Can't blame them. You do a pretty good dog.} Vandir commented.

(Shut up!...) I say then ignore him.

-Home-

While I was passing to go to my room.

|Rank 1 Grades 1, 2, and 3 goblin hoards have been more prominent each passing week. Caution is advised to everyone. Anyway whoever sees these monsters, must report them through the nearest Slayer Comn or call the number ***** through their phones. This was...|

As usual, things were getting worse, not better, though that had nothing to do with me.

Once in my room instead of the typical meditation for hours, I have already done that in the morning. Here, I mostly now focus on my physical training. My training routine consists of 30 push-ups, 30 sit-ups, 30 squats, a 3km run, flexibility exercises, reflex exercises, and martial arts practice.

Doing this every day in this body is only possible because mana accelerates my healing, otherwise, it would have been too much for a 7-year-old.

-The Next Day-

"I got you! You're it!" A kid yelled touching another's back before running away.

They were playing catch as I observed from the sidelines sitting there and meditating as I should be.

Now I feel like I've reached a point where I can do pretty much any simple thing with my mana, but it's also at this point that it seems like I can't go much further no matter how much I meditate.

According to Vandir, this is because level 1 is my current level cap, which confused me. What was he talking about? It was then that he explained. In actuality, the system has a status screen that works similarly to a video game. Everyone has a level cap where they stop growing naturally, and I reached mine... So what now?

Apparently, every individual has a path that will resonate with them the most and that path will stem from a concept, like fire, strength, weakness, or shadow, so basically almost anything can be a path. What does that have to do with my level cap?

Well, in order to raise your level cap, you must indulge in your path. Different paths have different conditions. Example: The strength path might need feats of strength like lifting something heavy, beating someone strong, or destroying something durable, or just training really hard. Understanding that, I asked what my path was... And well, it's Lust... Paths are naturally immutable, so I'm stuck with Lust...

That bastard Vandir set me up! But maybe there was still a chance it wouldn't be so bad... No, it's terrible! Back to how paths need you to indulge... The more like the path and grandiose your actions the better the effects. So in order to increase my Lust path, I either have to act perverted toward a woman or I need to make them my partner...

This didn't seem to make full sense considering the explanation, so I confronted Vandir and he explained that this happened because every individual is treated differently by the path they link themselves to, and my link to Lust is because Vandir is a part of my soul, so it's his version of lust...

In other words, because Vandir is a disgusting perverted degenerate, I have to deal with a disgusting perverted degenerate Lust Path... This how it will go since my ability to level up right now depends on something called a main class, which depends on my Path! Finally, to make things worse my main class is Harem Collector courtesy of Vandir! This bastard!

Fortunately, I guess... My control over mana has little to do with my physical training, so for a while, I can focus on training my body without having to worry about the Lust path, but eventually, I'll have to deal with it and decide what I'll do about it...

Anyway, in the meantime, I looked at my status screen and it was looking good, I think.

[Status Screen]

[Name: Makiel Faurith

Species: Human

Sex: Male

Age: 7 years old

Bloodline: None

Physique: None

Affinities: Lust,

Path: Lust

Cap.Exp: 0/25

T.Lv: 1/1

Exp: 0/0

Main Class: Harem Collector(Apprentice Tier).Lv: 1

Secondary Class: None

Support Class: None

Titles: None

Attributes:

Condition: Good(Fine)

MP: 10/10

STM: 10/10

Strength: 2

Dexterity: 2

Vitality: 2

Magic: 2

Willpower: 2

Agility: 2

Undistributed attribute points: 0

Charisma: 6

Luck: 9

Energy Control: I-

Energy Level: Child rank

Soul stage: Moral

Soul grade: 1st

Skills: Basic Mana Control(I++ rank)-1 mp/5s; Basic Mana Disruption-4~20 mp;

Techniques: None

Superpowers: None

Magic: None]

I have a lot of work to do....

-Weeks Later-

The training has been going well, and it seems like it will go smoothly if I keep my physical training going strong.

While I was meditating more so out of habit rather than necessity, the kids were playing around the kindergarten grounds.

As if to say that we've had enough peace, I feel the presence of something I didn't quite want to look at again for a while. Goblins... Green ones, in a group of 7.

4 small frail ones, 2 muscular small ones, and a tall muscular one, but not as big as the blue one from before. All of them carry basic weapons.

They jumped over the fence and invaded the playground as if they owned it.

Seeing this I wanted to flare up my mana, but I couldn't show off because of the quest...

(I'm lucky that until now most of my studs have just gone mostly unnoticed. So how do I do this?... I know since I can only use the mana disruption twice, I'll have to use Rolls to my advantage and let him take care of the rest...

(I would like to take them somewhere isolated and deal with them there, but there are too many witnesses for that. For now, I'll just use my mana as projectiles to stop them.) I decided upon pondering the situation.

While I was focused on trying to solve this discretely, one of the frail goblins got closer and one was about to attack a boy right in front of it with a mace. Scared of the monster the kid was paralyzed in place.

Seeing this, I focused my mana on my finger before flicking it. Using 1 mp the flick mana shot knocked the weapon out of the goblin's hand without being noticeable.

Right after one of the muscular short goblins was attacking another kid, but I used something a bit different and went for a whole hand throw this time since I wasn't sure the flick would be enough. The mana throw cost 2 mp, making me unable to use mana disruption more than once for a while.

A small ball of mana hit the muscular short goblin's head knocking it out cold and allowing for another kid to run. Maybe the flick would have been enough...

As this was happening and the teachers seeing what was going on began guiding the kids inside.

In response to my interference, the 6 still-standing goblins turned their attention to me, then charged.

However, before they reached me, my teacher got ahold of me and run toward the inside.

One of the goblins, a frail one got close and was about slash at us.

Using my 3 mp, I molded the mana into a hand-sized spike and headshot the goblin as it approached killing it immediately. This allowed us to reach the inside, where luckily it seems the other kids got brought inside as well.

Right now, I can only use mana disruption once as I only have 4 mp left, and taking into consideration that it takes 40 minutes for my mp to fill up to 10 from 0, I won't get another mp for 4 minutes... Which is worrying, but for now it's fine.

The teachers already reported the incident and it seems we'll only have to hold out until the Slayers get here.

(It seems a crisis was avoided...) I sighed in relief.

"Teacher! Sara, Rolls, Crystal, and Marion aren't here!" Jasmine told the teacher.

"Yeah! We looked and we couldn't find them!" Naomi right behind her added with teary eyes.

"Holy! Sh-... Calm down! Kids, we'll definitely find them, just wait here." The teacher who was obviously going through it got up and left the main room where we were, leaving us with her assistant.

(... This woman is quite brave... She's actually going out there to look for the kids...) I was impressed by her but I wasn't going to stand by either, so I prepared to sneak out, which wasn't hard with all the commotion and crying right now.

____________________________________________

(Third Person's POV)

On the outside, Rolls found himself fighting 2 goblins, the tall one and one of the short muscular ones, while around him, the bodies of the 3 goblins already laying on the ground motionless.

Watching this unfold, were Sara, Crystal, and Marion, who was standing in front of the two wary of the monsters.

The tall goblins attacked with multiple swings at a speed that troubled Rolls who was already breathing heavily as he tried to keep up with both enemies.

At that time, the short muscular goblin takes the chance to attack the other kids seeing Rolls too weak to do anything about it.

Seeing this happen, Rolls' mana flared up, and he began punching the tall goblin faster and faster leaving it no chance to attack before going a final blow to the head indenting it and killing the goblin.

While that was happening the other goblin had already gotten close to the others and Marion jumped in its path to protect the girls, getting stabbed by the goblin's dagger.

This was followed by it getting decapitated by a kick from Rolls' mana-powered leg.

*Huff!* *Huff* *Huff* Rolls' tiredness made it hard for him to move.

"Marion! Stay put!" Sara immediately ran to Marion who was just stabbed and held onto him, while Crystal followed right behind going to check on Rolls.

"Are you ok?... I'll admit... You're much cooler than I thought." Crystal expressed.

However at that moment as they were relieved, one of the goblins on the ground got up and charged at them. This was the goblin Makiel had knocked out earlier.

Tired from the altercation before, Rolls couldn't react in time and had an axe coming for his head.

However, at that time, Crystal who saw this coming his way, subconsciously used her mana and tackled the goblin out of the way.

"Don't touch him!" She yelled as she did so.

Right after she did so, Makiel came from inside and shot a mana spike at the goblin who was getting up.

Once the goblin was down, everyone relaxed a bit and Makiel walked up to them, only to right after being found by their teacher who was now carrying a knife using a sort of bowl as a helmet and overall dressed heavy.

The teacher was confused seeing Makiel there but didn't dwell on it and took everyone inside, and soon slayers, as well as an ambulance, arrived at the scene.

-Later-

After receiving a scolding for going outside, Makiel found himself in a corner and began talking to Vandir.

(What is going on? First, it's Jasmine's miracle. Now Crystal can use her mana just like that... It feels like I'm being scammed by you...) Makiel complained.

{Relax, it's not that complicated. What the bossy brat experiences ere a false awakening, it's something I'll explain better later, but the gist of it is that it awakens abilities you already have a natural affinity towards temporally. I just forced her to experience one,} Vandir explained.

(Is this safe?) Makiel wondered.

{It has side effects but it's not too bad. She just won't be able to use mana at all for the next 5 years.} Vandir calmly responded.

(Did you tell her that?) Makiel questioned.

{No, but it doesn't matter, she wasn't going to use mana anyway. As for the Crystal Girl, it's pretty simple. Just like they have been saying in the news for a while now, mana is getting denser on the planet every day. As a side effect of that, it becomes easier to access, especially for individuals like Crystap who have a naturally larger mana pool than most.

{Don't let that bother you though, since that only applies to subconscious reactions unless the person in question is some sort of genius at mana control, they will have to learn step by step as you did.} Vandir elaborated.

(... Fine, but don't go around taking people's ability to use mana without their permission. At least not to people I know... Anyway, back to training we go.) Makiel advised before getting up to go exercise.

Just like that, another day went by and he saw that even though he had taken some steps toward his goal, there was still a lot go be learned and mastered before he could call himself, strong.