Looking at his more than tripled stats, Aki noted that while his examination proved he was not in fact three times as strong as before, he could definitely hold lift rocks five times as heavy as the ones he started with.

While he was pretty sure his ability to use the strength he had was greatly increased with his dexterity, his muscle density and definition was certainly high enough that he was now perfectly slim.

Yet somehow he didn't have abs!

This greatly bothered Aki, so he'd readily doubled the amount of sit ups he did.

On other news, both his computing ability and willpower were certainly higher, the voices in his head and the inane things passing through being sorted through times more quickly. He clearly wasn't living up to what his mental stats implied to be his max like with his physical ones, but there wasn't really any way around it.

At least being crazy offered s buffer against several kinds of influences.

"Your stats are broken." Exclaimed Sara as she jabbed at her boss' face while he did sit ups. He had just taken to explaining how he had been training and his results, so she barely heard him complain about being the only one around without a 'sculpted body'. "We basically have the same amount of stats, just that I have almost nothing on mental stats." She explained, the dexterity focused fighter going a bit faster as she felt a bit frustrated.

After a week however, she was unable to just break Aki's nose whenever as he reinforced himself instead of weighting his body, which he readily did seeing the change coming his way.

"You will be training like this later on too though." He smirked at her, finally stopping his exercise. "Just a lot harder. The higher your stats the harder they are to rise. Wouldn't be surprised if you could get better without raising them too however, the human body is just not made to immediately adapt to these kinds of changes. With the amount of anima I'm giving you it should be easier to get your stats up however." He ranted, getting up and summoning a glass of juice.

"How does this even work? I've seen people train their attributes, but more than sixty points in two weeks..." Questioned the purple haired woman.

It was common sense to begin training your status before they were very high as that was obviously easier, the difficulty raising together with the level requirements.

In practice, however, it was not possible to effectively raise said statuses without obtaining XP even when raising single points made a difference. People generally trained by hunting in bursts while leveling and focusing their efforts after reaching a wall, looking for achievements to progress when they were on their limit of patience and available resources.

Skill levels were important too, but the difficulty on raising those was much simpler as hard work and a decent master would get someone up to level 6 on plenty of skills. From there on however, things escalated quite quickly.

"Basically, your soul is a very complex machine that can grow as long as it has energy and input, so if you have a steady influx of both, it is much simpler to influence it. The system mostly shows the results of that while it helps people do exactly that by acting as a focus and syphon." Aki pointed out after drinking a second glass of orange.

Leaving behind a broading Sara, he went out and prepared to pass the rest of the day practicing magic and meditating over mana pathway efficiency, when suddenly his feet stopped on their tracks, a smile that wasn't a smile forming.

*****

Sara was rather scared. Both of Aki and of her oncoming fight, though it was hard to say which was scarier.

Sure, he's a young adult with barely any combat experience and a slightly annoying personality, but every time they sparred it was obvious he wanted to kill her.

According to him, it was because of a technique he was trying to make. Not specifically aimed against her, just very focused on killing.

The oncoming fight itself was mostly her own fault though. A full five people squad was coming to recover Donald Quartz. People had already assumed she'd captured him.

Considering her schedule around the last ten days or so, how much blood she usually had on her and the fact getting phisically better from a crippling injure, she couldn't actually blame someone for thinking she was holding a captive and using them for some kind of ritual.

She'd be suspicious no matter how many beasts she brought back on her back. Even if they won this very unfair fight, her reputation was clearly never going to recover.

How would someone even explain the dissapearrence of a fully armed and prepared hunting team?!

The cultivation village only existed exactly because there was nothing around that could do that!

They had specifically come for the farming community she lived at too, the silent alarm planted there confirming someone had searched through her things both phisically and magically being the first alert they got, so there was no concrete way of denying her involvement.

"I will take the rogue first, then sneak on the ranger. Hold down or kill the big guy in full plate, his interference could lead to complications. The bare fisted woman will likely interfear, she's at level fifty, so it's best to deal with her together. If possible pretend your foot isn't fully healed, either of us could use the chance mid fight. Nothing much to comment on the sword and board guy, he looks to be a new recruit, but don't forget about him. If possible, take an injury to get rid of him, I will patch you up. Questions?"

"Not really. Let's get this over with." She sighed, shoo-ing him away and squatting up next to a berry bush.

The berries were too sweet for her taste, but they could actually be used to bake a pie or the like, so it wouldn't be strange to see someone picking them up for pocket money.

Aki had made sure to produce a corpse identical to that of Donald, which was quite creepy, specially since it looked like a normal living person, and then gave her a vial of it's blood. Just like he'd predicted, their enemies had come directly to the smaller concentration of his 'essence' hopping to take her out first.

The waiting was horrible, though she rationally knew it'd not been even two minutes since the squad had come close enough.

Had her nerves still being damaged, she'd likely not have enough concentration to notice it through the pain, but there was a small shuffle in the nearby vegetation, like there had been a small animal walking around.

*CRUNCH CRUNCH*

The sound of bones breaking and tearing through flesh passed through the silent clearing twice before everything started.

First there was a frightened scream, then a battle cry, then her body had already stepped closer to the trees and caught the lance being thrown towards her, quickly entering a posture of thrusting with her whole body, the tip of her blade reaching for the armour gap of the big man she could sense was between two trees.

It was a faint feeling, but mana had come to her. She could feel the humans in the middle of the green life around like they were fireflies to the night sky. To her high dexterity, that was enough.

Just like Aki had said, the woman rippling with muscles came forward from her hiding place, and with grace that didn't seem to fit her size, tried to hit the heavy lance pole being thrusted towards her companion.

Unfortunately, Sara's next step had the purple haired woman bursting with speed, her face impassive as blue lightning coursed through her body and weapon, finding herself several steps forward from her original position, the blade gouging the side of the neck of the dodging man and hitting bone as he stepped back from the hit, clearly in distress.

However, even as she changed her stance and grip in mere moments with most of what remained of her mana pool, the heavy palm strike against the hard wood of her lance still cracked as she was launched backwards.

For a brief moment, she saw a red haired beast with many eyes smile towards the remaining warrior, and in that brief moment as she looked over the shoulder of her opponent, ice cold fear hit her whole body like a wave of an ocean during winter.

Time seemed to start crawling slower and slower around her, then suddenly one eye turned towards her and she felt the hunger in it telling her... 'move'.

Sara obeyed.

Twisting her whole body and using her current airborne state, she got out of the way of the tree she was about to hit, the soles of her feet sliding across the dirt and grass like it was ice before she jumped right back towards her surprised opponent, the wind carrying her in both occasions.

There was little thought in her head, all erased by her fear. Instead, she fought on instinct, face impassive as she suddenly fell to the ground a small distance from her opponent.

With little doubt in her mind, she released the cumbersome lance and supported herself with her hands, spinning in place and swinging her legs towards the feet of the woman charging at her, completely upsetting her balance and avoiding the coming strike to the spine before it was even close.

She fell, but was far too experienced to simply faceplant on the ground, her fallen posture instead suggesting she intended to roll after catching herself.

*ROOOAR*

A roar passed through both women, neither able to resist the paralyzing fear that momentarily stopped both their planned actions, Aki jumping on the downed woman with a big grin, his bloodstained hands stretched towards her.

The stunning effect passed. The pugilist kicked backwards, uncertainty and confusion in her eyes obvious as she turned around for her strike.

*Puchi Crack*

Looking at the crazed man holding her now disjointed leg despite the obvious dent on his stomach and the blood flowing out of his mouth, fear started trying to overwelm her instincts again, a small squeal leaving her mouth as he pulled her closer. Trying to avoid his grip from the strange position was quite useless, his other hand holding the one she used, pulling her into another akward angle so she'd have her back facing him, the muscles on her leg brimming with pain as the limb seemed close to being ripped out before the hold on her was released.

The mind numbing pain coming from both her sides reached her even before she even reached the ground, quickly being impaled against it, her skull basically being thrown against the ground by the absurdly fast hits and knocking her out.

*****

Spitting out a ball of blood, Aki smiled. Today had been fun.

Some of his organs might not agree, but there was simply no denying his happiness at the life and death battles. The dominance of his enemies and the fear in their eyes was simply too exciting.

His Hp was a great 3 however, so moving or stopping the blood magic keeping his organs in relative order was a no go. His wolves would be there at any second and would brind him into the dungeon to heal, the fields and mana more than enough for his recovery.

Were he able to speak right now, he'd be asking Sara how much stronger was someone that'd reached level 51.