A slight timeskip, i've got to get Snow older soon =D

H.F.

---

A very important part of surviving in the a jungle environment is simply efficiency and being careful. This however wasn’t easy when Snow was tasked with killing increasingly more powerful foes.

Snow had survived the battle with the Ulv, he had gained the Primal Qi manipulation, but the price was a horrifying wound to his shoulder. This wound wouldn’t just disappear in the blink of an eye.

This wound would restrict his movements for a while. He had to recover his strength and try to heal his wounds.

Snow had gotten more wounds though none of them were as serious as the wound to his shoulder. He sighed and grimaced in pain as he rubbed some plant paste on it. The smell was extremely bad, but Snow had quickly learned that the sweet scent of the plants were usually the poisonous. Those that smelled like trash or poison were usually the medicinal plants which were healthy for the body.

Snow had gathered a few of these plants and just rubbed some of them on his open wound. The pain was near unbearable as the plants began to diffuse into the blood veins and burn the wound.

Snow tried to lay as still as possible while the healing process was undergoing. It was extremely difficult as the pain never ceased. Snow frowned as he thought of the Qi he had spent. It was an entire week’s worth of Qi to just be wasted for minimal benefits. He would have rather used it to unravel mana, and then reach the next Tier. or simply going the normal and more efficient path and using the Qi to increase his natural strength.

Snow was still Tier - 1 in Mana unraveling, but he was close to reaching the next layer. He just needed enough mana. Qi gained from unraveling mana could be used instead of mana to unravel Mana. Though this process was highly inefficient, which was why he needed about an entire week’s worth of Qi. But his natural mana capacity was simply too low to be able to store the required mana.

This might be confusing, but it was basically to use an inferior quality material in greater sizes to achieve the same results as a finer material in lesser sizes. Qi wasn’t inferior it just wasn't the best to unravel mana. Qi proved much better at enhancing muscles and improve nearly all physical elements. Mana itself could also infuse limbs with power, and some mages used this process. This however was also very inefficient and required an extremely high level of comprehension and concentration. As mana was way more difficult to move and control than Qi.

Snow was waiting patiently for his wounds to close, when a shadow began to wobble inside his dead tree. Even if he felt pain, he still got up and took a weak stance. He just didn’t have the energy for fighting right now.

But a familiar face exited the shadows; Grim appeared and went over to Snow. Snow was delighted and lowered his stance, he was quite happy to see Grim. Though he was mostly alone at the orphanage, he still enjoyed to have people around him. He also slightly missed someone to have a conversation with. Honestly, he was quite bored. He liked hunting, but he couldn’t hunt all the time as preparation was necessary at his level, and he had to recover from every battle. He also had to train his stance and increase his cultivation. But he spent most of his time recovering from battle.

Grim began speaking as he analysed Snow’s wounds “I’ve brought a few things for you...” Grim dropped some items on the ground. He had dropped a leather covered Tome, a Small iron short sword, and kit for maintaining his sword.

Snow had never held a real iron sword before, but he was excited. But what interested him the most was probably the tome. Snow had learned to read a long time ago, his grandfather's room were filled with books. Though most of these books contained basic knowledge, it still helped him in starting to learn different languages. Strangely, most of the books were about stratagems and basic knowledge about warfare in general. Snow had read most of the books, so he had gained a very tactical mindset. It might also be a factor to why he was so disciplined and mature.

Snow made a deep bow to Grim as he picked up the items. He wore a bright smile on his face, though he grimaced slightly as his shoulder wound opened. He didn’t want to appear weak in front of his master so he tried to suppress the pain.

Grim went over to Snow and told him a few words “I won’t help you with these wounds, you will have to survive on your own. These items are basic gear for a beginner adventurer and the tome will help you with increasing your pathetically small mana storage.”

Snow smiled again, he knew that these wounds had been his fault and carelessness. He would have to improve his reflexes in the future.

Snow picked up the Short sword, which actually was just a little longer than a normal dagger, the overall size had been reduced so he could wield it. Normal weapons were simply too big for the not even 5 year old. He made a few swings to get a feel of the swords balance and power.

The swords shape was a straight edge which went into a point in the middle. The sword had double edges which connected at the middle point. This weapon would be excellent for slashing at short distances and stabbing with the incredibly sharp point. The sword was well balanced and the quality seemed pretty excellent.

He could feel that this sword shared many similarities with his old wooden sword, but that this sword was more focused on stabbing and slashing that striking with blunt force. This meant that he had to focus on Agility instead of Strength. he could use the Art of the Draw but he had to make the strikes different. Luckily a scabbard followed with the Iron sword.

Snow picked up and inspected the repairing kit. inside were two stones, and a piece of simple linen cloth.

An instruction manual followed which Snow read carefully.

Repairing stone = Red stone: The stone is used for repairing small damages. Grind the chipped edges against for repairs.

Sharpening stone = Yellow stone: Used for sharpening the sword, overuse can limit the sword durability. Grind the sword edges against the flat surface of the stone.

Cleaning cloth: Clean your sword from bloodstain. Cloth can contain a huge amount of liquid.

Snow was really happy with the unexpected gift. He hadn’t thought about the fact that he had to maintain his sword. Of course you could apply a rune on the sword to gain the same effects but this was a low price sword. It probably couldn’t contain too complex runes, and the draw of mana would always be a negative side effect.

When a user of an enchanted or rune engraved sword is wearing it. The user will have to spend a low amount of mana to maintain the efficiency of the runes. An item can exist without the user supplying mana, but the rune simply couldn’t display 100% of it’s power then.

Snow’s necklace was a good example, the rune he had on his necklace had a Tier - 1 protection spell. Or at least that is what he was told by Grim, this rune would required an extremely small amount of mana. But it could ‘survive’ without him wearing it for a while.

The last item and the one he looked forward to the most was the tome. On the front stood big bright letters “Introduction to basic magic” Snow began to sweat when thought of the price of this book.

Books were not cheap, even if his grandfather had many precious books. His grandfather had still taught him the value of these precious sources of knowledge. Some books of course were cheaper than others. Many required a huge sum because of the information contained. Others just had a high production cost.

Books were handwritten and copied. This was a long process and required skilled workers. Pictures and diagrams were nasty to replicate. Snow himself who enjoyed drawing and he knew the difficulty in replicating a painting or a drawing.

Snow brought the tome to his nose and took a deep breath. He could smell that the leather seemed to come from a low tier demonic beast and that the pages were made from basic paper. Paper was a valued product, it required mana to manufacture. Thus making it somewhat expensive.

Snow opened the book, he had entirely forgotten Grim who just stood with a smile on it’s face.

Grim walked away without distracting Snow. Snow seemed to be totally immersed in his new book and Grim didn’t want to distract him.

Grim disappeared the way he entered, it slightly shaked it’s head before leaving.

Snow was reading the first line of the tome.

Prologue: Magic is a profound nature of law. Whatever you do never stop cultivating and you will reach the top. Remember the simplest of solutions is likely to be the best. Don’t over think magic.

Snow raised an eyebrow as he read the Prologue of the tome. He liked the message, but couldn’t quite comprehend the message of the ‘simplest of solutions is likely to be the best.’ He thought it was something closely related to magic, and just kept the message in his mind.

Snow flipped the page. The first thing he saw was the fairly normal looking title, it was simple but it worked “Introduction to Mana”

He continued reading

Mana is the energy of this world, as a being you will absorb mana all the time. Mana is crucial for using magic, in fact Magic cannot exist without mana. Mana is highly profound and is hard to comprehend, but a person nearly always has a magical element, this element is just one section or different part of mana, this however is easier to comprehend as a Magical element is simpler than Mana.

Fighters use mana for unraveling and revealing the amounts of energy stored in it. This is called unraveling mana. This is not a process that we mages use, we want Mana instead of the energy called Qi.

Our mana is stored in something called Mana Storage, this storage is located in the brain of a being. In humans it is located in our brains, but for the higher tiers of Demonic beasts it tend to be stored in a Crystal in their brains. This is called a Beast Crystal.

As we grow older our storage capacity for mana grows bigger, the amount of expansion is different from being to being though. We can force the Storage Capacity to expand though. This is called forced expansion and a very special technique is required for this process.

We are mages and we hurl spells. Spells are words or maneuvers (Hand Signs etc.) that are correctly put together to program mana or the beings magical element into forming a specific object. This is how a fireball is formed for example.

Each cast of a spell will drain a user mana and it will need a long time to recover. There exist ways to increase the regeneration of a user's mana. Meditation can increase a user's ability to regenerate mana, but the price is mobility and concentration. A higher tier of meditation follows with a higher comprehension of the user magical element. Other ways exist as potions, foods, or simply the legendary enchanted items which also regenerate mana.

Magic is a profound concept and the following pages explains how to achieve feats such as casting spells and cultivate storage capacity for mana.

A bead of sweat dropped from Snow’s forehead as he comprehended the information. He was glad he could finally begin to increase his mana storage capacity. Though he wondered why he wasn’t taught about that before.

Snow continued reading for a while more.

He had read about all the parts which were necessary for Tier - 1 Mage. Though he wasn’t that rank yet, as he didn’t have the experience to cast the spells. Snow had looked for information about special attributes but wasn’t able to find anything, it wasn’t even mentioned in the book.

Snow had learned a few lightning spells, these were the ones he focused on. He had learned some of these spells but they seemed incredibly weak. He had learned spells such as lightning bolt and chain lightning. These spells might seem to be identical but they were very different. Lightning bolt was more of compressing Lightning and shooting it of as a mass of lightning, while Chain lightning was giving the lightning a path of mana to travel on. This made it possible to hit different targets and, or use mana for a longer time.

Snow began to chant a few lines from the book. When he progressed through the mantra, he could see lightning appear before him. It wasn’t a very big ball of lightning, but it still seemed incredibly bright.

He shoot the ball of as he finished the chant, the ball of lightning crackled as it flew through the air. Though it did seem to get smaller as it moved away from him. It would seem as if worked on the same principal as Sword Qi projection, when infusing it with a magical element.

Snow quickly found out that spells would really work for his fighting style, it would simply take too long to cast in battle, and as an opener he could deal more damage with a sneak attack.

He was slightly down as he quite like spells and magic. But then he thought of the method for expanding his magical storage capacity. He quickly skipped to the page on which stood ‘forced mana storage expansion’.

On the page stood a description of what it was and how it was achieved.

Forced expansion as I would like to call it, is a way to increase the Capacity of the mana a body is able to store. This is one of the most important cultivation methods for a mage. The method doesn’t change upon rising in Tiers. Though the speed of expansion can be upgraded.

Forced expansion works like this, you simply expel all the mana of your body, The body will feel pain and exhaustion, but every time you expel all the mana in your body, the storage will increase by a bit. The way this method is upgraded is simply to have spells that can clean your mana storage the best. I’ve included a spell on this page that is of fairly high rank. But you will have to be cautious. The first time you use these kinds of spells, your natural expansion of your mana storage will be halved. This means that you will have to use this method simply to keep up.

But that is not a problem as long as you cultivate regularly, in fact you will leave them behind in the dust.

Snow read the rest with glee. He was quite happy even if it would put a temporary stop to his unraveling of Qi. He could rapidly increase his capacity for mana.

Snow tested the spell out, if was just a few lines. But, quickly after that he felt an amazing exhaustion overwhelm his body. It was like all the energy had been kicked out of his body.

Snow sat down and took a meditative position. He had read the section about meditation before the expansion part. Meditation was incredibly simple, he just had to sit down and focus on his environment, though the more details he could sense the more mana he could gather. This was also how the meditation would increase in rank.

Snow felt his emptied mana storage beginning to fill up slowly, he sighed when he looked at the progress. The mana took forever to increase.

He had been sitting still for about an hour before his mana had filled up completely, but he only felt a faint increase in storage. This would take a long time for it to be worth it.

---

Snow was turning 5 years old. He had been in the forest for quite a few months already.

His looks were very different from when he just came here, his white hair had grown a bit, and his height had increased somewhat, but the most recognizable trait was probably his eyes and the cloths he wore.

Snow had learned to skin in the time that had passed, this was because his old clothes was made of wool and was weaved. This meant that it wasn’t very durable and provided next to nothing as protection.

Snow had been a fearsome hunter, and he had hunted many dangerous demonic beasts, one of these beasts held particularly tough but light leather. Snow seen the opportunity and skinned it with his Iron short sword. He had learned to sharpen stone and had made different tools from them. This included a small needle. He had used his old clothes which were made up of wool as strings for binding the leather together. He had crafted a basic leather armor. Though the material was from a upper Tier - 1 Predator it was still a fine armor.

Snow’s eyes hadn’t changed in colors or anything rather it seemed to show that he had gained wisdom. Snow had become very experienced with the various monsters of the forest.

However, a very important change was that he didn’t use his ‘Red Snow’ form to kill monsters, no he simply used the Iron short sword. He had learned, that not everything was about speed. Yes, speed was important but dodging and countering was crucial for his fighting style.

He could easily take down low Tier - 1 Demonic beasts with just his iron short sword. This was possible because of his remarkable increase in cultivation.

For the first few months he had focused primarily on increasing his Mana Storage Capacity with the forced expansion method. This left him not much mana to spare for Mana unraveling. But he had, had the time to train his stances and he had achieved a Rank up in the Art of the Draw. He still wasn’t able to use Sword Qi, but he could connect his strikes flawlessly. He was now a Tier - 4 Art of the Draw user.

He could probably have increased his cultivation more if he had a weapon that was appropriate for the Art of the Draw. However, he had learned to integrate the Short Sword into his stance.

Snow’s Mana Storage had increased by a very large margin, after the first few months. after which he had decided to try and increase his Mana unraveling and Qi manipulation. He had been able to increase his Mana unraveling to Tier - 3 and Qi manipulation to Tier - 2. Though the Qi manipulation only helped him gain more efficiency when using Qi. Mana unraveling on the other hand had increased by Two Tiers. This gave him a lot more Qi, but also purer Qi. With tough training he had been able to infuse his muscles and increase his natural strength by a great deal.

This meant that he no longer needed to use temporary Qi for fighting against the Strongest predators of the outer and middle section of the forest. He was advancing quicker than Grim had planned. Though Snow still needed to kill a lot of beasts. He had only filled about half of the beasts of outer and middle layer with checkmarks in his chart.

Snow sighed, he didn’t get challenged as often as he had been in the start. Now, it was only once in awhile when he hunted that he would have a serious fight.

He didn’t sustain as many injuries as he had in the past. But he was still filled with scars. His shoulder had healed a long time ago, but a brutal scar was still visible. This was also a factor for how careful and experienced he had gotten.

Snow thought briefly about it: He had wanted to enter the inner section of the forest for a while now. He really wasn’t challenged anymore, It was not that he didn’t enjoy the mindless slaughter. But he was bored with just cultivation and wanted to bet his life again. The tingling feeling of him being in his normal form had also gotten stronger, he needed to fight something stronger and soon, otherwise he would simply go mad. He longed to be in his ‘Red Snow’ form.

Snow had gotten control over his Transformation, the problem was that he had to starve himself for a week to exit the form without killing something strong. Snow had tried multiple times to enter the form without killing anything. The problem was the longer he didn’t fight anything, the stronger his bloodlust would become. At some point he would basicly just be an enraged monster longing for blood.

Snow had decided to move to the inner section of the forest. He would come back in the future and kill the rest of the demonic beasts. He wondered what challenges he would face in there?

---

Grim sighed, it hadn’t expected Snow to be able to comprehend and cultivate so diligently. It might need to make a backup plan for challenging Snow. One of it’s purposes for sending Snow to this forest was for him to get older. But if he completed it too fast he wouldn’t necessarily get that much older.

Grim grinned as it thought about letting Snow enter the Central part of the forest.