Al had his mana topped off. He had water, food and a sharp knife. He had his Porcuspine MKII, along with a bunch of normal spines to throw.

He was ready to go back to the forest.

In truth, he had avoided going to the forest because he was scared. But now that he had his enhanced senses, there was no excuse to shy away anymore.

He jumped the fence by enhancing his legs, and realised he would almost be able to jump it with pure physical force and dexterity. He may only have the strength of a regular adult, but it was packed into a low-weight toddler body.

After some walking around, he saw a hole in the ground in a place there wasn't one before. In the surroundings, several trees had been broken and were now lying next to their splintery stumps.

'A battle between beasts, huh...' Al guessed. He checked the bottom of the pit for tusks, but there was no organic matter inside. Only marks in the dirt that spoke of a serious struggle. 'Seems like those Supra Rabbits even eat the bones huh... the blood must've been taken care of by the ambient mana'

It also seemed like the rabbits only had the one pit spell, and from what he had seen it always sapped pretty much their entire mana pool. This made Al wonder where beasts stored their mana. They didn't have Cores, unless they dissipated when they died, did they store it in their bodies like the mages on Earth?

It was a mystery for another day, as Al heard movement behind him (thanks to his mana enhanced ears) And turned around to see a Supra Rabbit, all the normally greyish white fur around its mouth turned red.

"I'm gonna sell that horn of yours for a pretty penny at the village, you fucking glutton," He taunted as he rushed the beast, not giving it time to cast its signature spell. With a lightning-fast leap (Or, well, a leap using lightning) he grabbed its horn with one hand and shocked it with a [Lightning Palm] using the other. 'Damn, I can think of some cool names sometimes'.

The beast howled in outrage, but Al simply took up the knife he had prepared for this occasion and started sawing off the horn. It was easy, as the material was soft and after a few swings he was able to just tear it off.

The beast seemed to be in extreme pain as blood and mana leaked from the wound on its forehead, and it fell belly-up on the ground, desperately flailing its legs around. Al ended its misery with a swift tab at its chest, and went on his merry way, feeling the surge of experience.

For the rest of the day he fought another Spiky boi, which gave him an extra spine, and killed a bunch of Rank 1 beasts. He was rapidly closing in on level 4, so he made one last push.

It was already getting dark, but by summoning a ball of lightning in his palm, and trying to get it to be as stable as posible, he could see pretty well. It was taxing though. A Supra rabbit tried to ambush me from the back, but he had already heard it coming and turned around, using his makeshift lamp to zap the beast.

Al stabbed it through the eye with his free hand, and kept pushing forward until he reached its brain. Then he got his level up message, accompanied by another, more unexpected one:

You have reached level 4 You have created the [Lightning Palm] skill. It can be used to form a small light, zap big enemies and instantly kill small foes.

This hadn't ever happened to Al before. 'So I can create my own skills...?' He tested it and found that the light in his palm was now much more stable, and he barely had to expend any mental energy to keep it in place. He also guessed it would work better in a fight, though he had no way to test that at the moment.

He hurried back home, thinking on his situation. When he reached level 5 he would be forced to choose a class, and the more notable things one had done or gone through before that, the higher the chance was to get a high rarity class.

There might be a bonus for reaching level 5 before a certain age, but Al wanted to at least advance his core to the next stage before that.

So the next morning he went to see Yuly, and she told him that she felt she was on the verge of reaching the next realm. They started the paired cultivation, and after a couple of hours he felt a tug on his mana coming from Yuly's body, and instead of resisting it he started pumping it even faster. Yuly seemed to notice and smiled weakly, though she was clearly having trouble condensing all the mana.

Al helped a bit too, but it was like trying to pick something up with a magnet through a wall, instead of directly. He couldn't see what he did, and the effect was reduced. After some time though, they once again reached the inflexion point where the mana crystallised all on its own, and the two of them fell onto the floor, panting heavily.

After a while they got up, and Yuly told him she had only managed to do it thanks to the enormous amount of mana Al provided her with, and his help with controlling it. He said it was okay, as long as she also helped him when it was his turn to reach the next stage.

After around a week of cultivating with Yuly, he finally felt like he was going to get there too. He told her so, and then prepared for what was to come.

When he had asked, Yuly had reluctantly told Al that this last week she hadn't really been advancing much from their paired cultivation, which was probably due to the disparity in core grades.

That was about to change however, as his core suddenly started sucking up all the mana in his body, just as Yuly had described. It was pulled towards the core but then flung away by some unknown force, so Al had to fight to keep it stable. Then mana from Yuly started coming in, and it didn't seem like her mental strength was enough to control it, so Al had to concentrate extra hard. He had no idea how normal cultivators were supposed to do it, since he was just barely hanging on despite his Intelligence increase from The System.

He made the last push, and soon his core had finished forming. It had only slightly increased in size, from marble-sized to having the diameter of a quarter maybe, which was comical thinking about the ginormous amount of mana that has been put into making it. Al felt it now had a much higher capacity however, which made it worth the effort.

When he finally opened his eyes, in front of him was a knocked-out Yuly, and a notification he expected.

[F Grade Core] Skill has evolved into [E Grade Core]. It provides the mana capacity, regeneration and control equal to that of E- Grade Intelligence and Will

It was funny. He'd had some skills evolve before, so he expected this since the core was -for some reason- recognised as a skill but, honestly, it was still pretty funny seeing it.

Proudly, he opened up his Status.

Alberto Peñas

Age: 1 year

Level 4

Strength

F

Dexterity

F

Toughness

F-

Will

E

Intelligence

E

Assignable

3

Skills:

[Mana Manipulation] (High)

[E Grade Core] (Low)

[Body Enhancement] (High)

[Lightning Palm] (Low)