My magic mark began spreading over my body like it had all those times before when I was training. At this point, it took about twenty seconds for my not yet developed mark to spread over my entire body, which was considered fast for a child... but would probably get me killed in a real fight.

In the corner of my eyes, I saw the dark, intricate lines that had grown slightly thinner and also had begun to split on one side, crawl along my arms to the tips of my fingers, accompanied by a tingling sensation all over my skin.

"You should be able to feel a slight tingling sensation, that is the mana flowing through your underdeveloped marks. I want you to try and concentrate your mana into the muscles here," our teacher said, pointing to the board he had just summoned from the wooden platform with the training dummies.

Our classmates were sitting on the large blanket down below, meditating and concentrating on trying to activate their magic marks, which some still haven't been able to do. Only Alyra, Ilmar and I had been told to get to the dummies. Our teacher was walking around us as we tried to do what he told us to do. The muscles highlighted on the board were all over the body, some in the stomach and chest area, others in the legs and others in the back and shoulders and arms and such. A smile crept across my face. Along with that was another image but I managed to suppress it by making my thoughts positive.

Good thing I read so many web novels...

I recognized the muscles from an illustration. All of them contributed directly to fighting power. I felt the tingling sensation becoming stronger in the parts I was concentrating on and was suddenly overcome by something... something incredible. A feeling of power I had never felt before. My entire body felt as if it had been refreshed and upgraded several times.

"Now when you did it I want you to simply strike at the training dummy in front of you," mister Elster explained.

As I moved my arm I felt the tingling sensation become more intense and once I hit the dummy made of straw it burst, making stalks of straw fly through the air. They slowly fell to the ground as I tried to accept the fact that I had just exploded a straw dummy by barely even touching it. When I turned my head I saw Alyra and Ilmar just standing there, their dummies still intact.

...

...

...

"So..." I began when I was interrupted by the two siblings.

"How did you do that?"

"What did you do to feel the tingling?"

"How do you move the mana through your body?"

"Can you explain it?" they both asked in unison before mister Elster interfered.

"Now, now. It simply comes naturally to some. But more about that later, both of you are talented enough to figure it out, I'm sure of it." He smiled at the two before turning to me. "What you just managed to do was a technique we call [Predator's Strength]."

[Predator's Strength] huh, sounds pretty good to me.

"How many techniques are there?" I asked.

"Hmm... there are nine we know of, one of them being a passive technique called [Blood High]. But if we can trust our old stories then there are definitely far more techniques than those nine," mister Elster explained as he stroked his long hair.

"But now, let's return to training. You two should focus on figuring out how to do it-" he pointed to the siblings- "and I want you to try and replicate it," mister Elster said before he turned his attention to the students that were still working on activating their magic marks. Due to me breaking the dummy with a single hit most of them had turned their heads and the rest followed suit after they heard from the others.

"Everyone please turn your attention back to actually activating your magic marks before you start fantasizing about using them!"

A loud groaning came from the students as they returned to what they were doing after hearing mister Elsters amplified voice.

How is he doing that? Is he partially activating his mark? That must not be something easy... would it even work with wood elven magic? I mean it's focused on enhancing the body... or at least [Predator's Strength] is...

Before I could continue thinking about it I heard mister Elster's voice right next to my ear.

"Mister Lyrius please focus on training for now," he whispered, his voice still amplified.

I almost jumped.

"Right," I replied.

My magic mark was still active but the tingling sensation was far weaker than before. I replicated what I did before and led mana to my muscles. This time I should do it with some kind of proper form...

I made my stance wider, slightly turned my upper body and extended one fist out while it pulled the other next to my ribs. Then I turned my upper body back and used the momentum to throw a punch with the fist close to my body. Again the dummies burst into pieces. I smiled. I had finally learned how to use magic.

[Predator's Strength] my first magic technique... this will be a fun life. I was already beginning to think about my possible fights against monsters like dragons... Are there any dragons in this world?

_______________

Over the next hour, our teacher let us train on our own. Some other students had joined us on the platform and Alyra and Ilmar had also figured out [Predator's Strength] and were able to cause the same kind of damage to the dummies I was able to deal, which pretty much just meant that at one point mister Elster had to go and get more training dummies...

...

...

...

twice.

"Now then, you three can move on to the next technique... I sort of didn't expect there to be so much of a difference in development..." mister Elster began.

"Don't worry old man Elster, I'll watch over these three while they train on the beginner course," a too familiar voice said.

I turned my head only to be greeted by a bright smile coming from a man with large, partially broken, antlers growing from his forehead, deep black hair at shoulder length, a goatee and ears that one might mistake for daggers. A man that somehow reminded me of the typical depiction of a satyr in web novels whenever I saw him. My father.

"Dad... what brings you here?" I asked., trying to sound as energetic as I could.

"What's wrong with your old man helping out an old friend?" my father asked as he put an arm around our teacher.

"Raver, how nice to meet you. But shouldn't you be out hunting?"

"Ah, they want to train the new recruits and we need to give the animals some time to reproduce," my father replied.

"Well so be it then. I'm thankful that I can get some help around here..."

"You owe me," my father said before approaching us.

"Sure I do... sure I do."

"So dad, what are you going to show us?" I asked as the four of us walked over to the complicated looking course. I now noticed there were two, one much smaller and the other which I had already seen, the one that went up the tree at one point.

"Alright kids," my father began once we reached the much smaller course. "... wait, we need the board." Dad turned around to call for Elester when a wooden board with a humanoid figure and highlighted muscles appeared behind him.

"Fox," my dad mumbled.

"Alright. Since you've already learned [Predator's Strength] this will be easier to learn. It is a technique called [Predator's Agility] it grants the ability of making you more... agile, obviously. It includes things like jumping height, movement speed and such," my father explained, well enough for the three of us to easily understand.

"But didn't he forget something?" he mumbled.

The board suddenly changed and a second humanoid figure with many fine lines, all leading to the brain on it.

"Ah, there we go! This technique can be used on its own but it would be stupid to do so. Even if you can move fast that alone won't help if you can't react fast enough. So first you should learn a technique we call [Predator's Insticnt] It boosts your instincts and reflexes. We don't really know how it works just that it does," my father explained.

I mean it is obviously about the nervous system... maybe wood elves don't know about it? Or is this world in a state where they don't know about that in general? But there seems to be at least some knowledge about the inner workings of humanoid bodies...

"Well then, there's not much more to explain about this. Just try to send mana into these fine veins that lead to your brain."

All three of us nodded and we activated our magic marks. Nineteen seconds, that's an improvement. Now came the hard part. How does one actually channel mana into their nervous system? Is it the same as muscles? Different? No better way than to just try. Wait...

Instead of trying to find the veins I simply channelled mana directly into my brain.

I hope this has no side effects...

My vision became blurry for a second. When it cleared up I looked around, a leaf was falling from the treetops above us, slowly, almost too slowly. I saw my father smirking when he suddenly picked up a stick and hurled it at me. I immediately noticed and immediately reacted. It wasn't the normal, oh he threw it let me catch it. It was more like he threw it and I was already about to catch it at that moment. When I felt the rough surface of the rock with the inside of my hand I saw my father nod at me.

"And that's what it means to have the heightened reflexes and instincts," my father explained.

"How did you do it? I can't find the weird vein thingies," Ilmar complained.

"Neither can I," Alyra added.

"You don't have to," I said while looking around, noticing that I noticed the movement of everything far quicker than I would have before.

"What do you mean?" Ilmar, Alyra and my father all asked at the same time.

"Well... just channel mana in your brain," I stated.

I can't be the first to get that idea, right?

"Hmm... I think I vaguely remembering old man Elster explaining it like that when I was still young..."

"So you're telling me that you forgot how to use a technique that you can... use?" I asked my dad.

"No... I just do it, you know."

So he's the instinctive type... kind of typical for stories like this. Guy gets reborn with special powers, trains under their dad who is the instinctive type and understands nothing... typical trope. But is there anything special about me? I did awaken far too early according to logic... and maybe I will awaken to some unique type of magic in a few years or so...

This might be some typical fairy-tale reincarnation story!

When I thought about that I got excited.

No, I shouldn't be too optimistic. From what I could gather this world seems to be much darker than this beautiful and peaceful forest makes it seem. But maybe... No! No... I shouldn't.

"Alt, you okay?" Ilmar asked.

I looked at him, covered with fine lines, and slightly pulsating irises.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Good, then let's get to learning the next technique!"

"Alright then, let's get to learning [Predator's Agility]!" my father said as he pointed to the first figure on the board, the one with the highlighted muscles.

"Now, you need to keep [Predator's Instict] active while channelling mana into these muscles. Good luck!" my father said as he leaned against the tree.

Alright...

I began concentrating, keeping the technique active while activating another one. I knew that the muscles highlighted were used for the things like running and jumping but I had no clue whether or not that knowledge would help me much. But to my luck, I quickly felt the refreshed feeling I had felt before.

A smile crept over my face as I looked towards the small course and started running. I was fast, faster than ever before. I might have been actually around as fast as the fastest runners in my old world, and that with the body of a five-year-old.

The wind blew against my face as I ran past the siblings, who were still trying to activate both techniques at once, and jumped onto the first wooden post, then to the next, then I jumped and grabbed the wooden beam, swinging myself to the next post. Like that I jumped, climbed and ran. My heightened reflexes allowed me to react to things much more quickly than I could normally do. I did sometimes mess up, slipping a bit or not grabbing on well enough and needing to pull myself up and things like that. But for a first try at this, I was definitely not bad.

When I returned from my... fairly successful run Ilmar and Alyra were looking at me a bit shocked.

"So like, why can you do all of this so quickly?"

"And how come you're so much faster than we are?" Alyra against studied me, but this time with a look in her eyes that I couldn't quite describe.

"I'm just that good," I replied before turning around, reactivating the two techniques and sprinting towards the beginning of the course again.