"Aki, how is your hair growing so much between the times you take your helmet off?" Roberto asked, staring at the dark brown hair that now reached the young man's shoulders despite being a mere bush the first time he'd taken his helmet off.

"It's more efficient to force the body to regenerate than actually creating flesh from mana, almost exponentially so when someone improves their vitality. At this point I'm practically bleeding my lifespan for a better training regimen, but then again, I'm pretty sure I'm not dying of old age even if I do live long enough to figure out what happens if you push vitality over a thousand, which would be far past the point of making this same loss of life expectancy something of the past and impossible to copy with these same methods.” He shrugged, his eyes not leaving the battlefield. Even as he explained, he’d saved two soldiers with precise shots at the monsters attacking them.

Beto was pretty sure Aki was making just as much contribution to the battlefield as himself despite the fact that he was currently empowering all classers inside his influence and coordinating with several captains.

It was a bit annoying as even he had some pride, but it was also incredibly useful. He couldn’t tell why someone that gave such little value to human life, held no nationalist spirit and had trouble trusting others was even helping the people of this village at all. He was half sure, the system translation made it rather difficult, but he didn’t think the young man was even talking portuguese despite his claims of being born and raised in the country.

Sure, he wasn’t the most invested, but Aki had saved two more people even as he diverted part of his thought process to again try and figure out what was in it for him. He must be getting access to some special path because he’d set up the first village, of course, but did he need to keep going?

He was pretty sure the armour he’d first been wearing when he’d been intimidating everyone into following the rules was made of monster materials and some rock, so his new metal armor couldn’t possibly be better than something he could make by allowing for monsters of higher level to spawn. Even if he couldn’t hunt them directly, which he fucking doubted was the case, his level 52 summon definetely could, specially considering it seemed to be an undead with infinite stamina.

Perhaps he had also obtained a skill that needed several humans under his rule to....

*PUHEEEEEEEEEEEE*

“Que caralhos?!?” As the young man echoed his own reaction to the sudden pig squeal that chilled his bones, Roberto quickly turned to look at where it came from, seeing a three meters tall wild pig with impaling tusks that didn’t seem to care about the horde, charging through it even as a much scarier presence locked into it.

Before he could realise what he was seeing, Aki had already reached the mob, catching the pig by the tusks with such a speed as to turn it on it’s side, both bodies sliding and digging through bodies and even injuring a few combatants on their side thanks to their combined bulk.

“Did he just walk on air?” His question was not answered, everyone else focused on either the fight or their own attacks. Even if they had tried to answer though, it’d be quite hard to hear with the now screaming monsters and it’s quickly sharing hide exploded through the fields of monsters.

Quickly enough, Aki was back to his side, seemingly having healed all that weren’t already dead.

"Well that's done with, but I have bad news." He paused to drink a mana and stamina potions, but he could guess what he wanted to say.

"That was a raid boss, wasn't it? The notification never said when they would be coming, but this still seems a bit too early. The hordes don't even throw level twenties at us yet, nevermind colored variants." He complained, his question getting a confirming nod. "Well, do they at least drop loot like it said or did you break it with the explosion?"

"They do, but it's more like system gacha or something. I get a notification and I need to accept it so the loot appears. Here." As he said that, suddenly a small metallic box without ornaments appeared between his hands. It didn’t have a lock, so it easily swung open to reveal a black dagger with a bone white handle. “Much like Captain Ray said when he acted as officiator, this dagger is named ‘PAAAAAIIIIINNNNN’, with five ‘As’, ‘Is’ and ‘Ns’. I see you didn’t catch the reference, but still, I'm keeping the dagger.”

……

With his new movement spell tested and training apparatus in hand, Aki decided it was enough. He’d be scouting for people to direct towards his village. He’d asked around and apparently there were two other species he had not met, which turned out to look a lot like orcs and elves, the orcs seemingly having a more tribalistic society level than the farvit and the elves having even better technology than humans.

Honestly, he hoped to find one of the elves so he could get some classes and books, but he’d actually heard that they’d be having even more casualties than humans. Conversely, the orcs had apparently had the least casualties. This led him to another worrying fact however. The elves, despite their short comings during the tutorial, were still just as proud and xenophobic as any other society. Except the orcs, who were surprisingly friendly.

His sudden decision of scouting for more prospective people weren’t even related to him wanting to shirk training, just that now he could go out and train without wasting too many resources.

While he would theoretically never lack resources in a combat situation, that could not be applied if he was one shot or forced to spend so much in his defences that he was unable to actually steal the resources in question, so walking around at half mana and/or health was a rather stupid and cocky decision he would not be making on purpose.

His new dagger however, allowed him to train his curse, mental and pain resistances, even though two of those were now part of another skill, plus his meditation.

At some point he would outgrow it, sure but until then he could make the most of his time as an irritating passenger to his bird, who had much better tactical and actual perception than him.

It was a bit of a drag to need to reapply the effect every ten or so minutes, but his new armour was much easier to remove despite being seamless, as he basically just had to magic it to do anything. Even an actual knight would think his method laughably easier than actually taking the damned things on and off.

Especially if he finally found out how to enchant stuff and made the process even easier, but that'd be for latter.

Another thing of note to him was that riding his partially ethereal summon was surprisingly easy, possibly in part because of their combined effort to reduce their friction with the air in front, though neither had dared suggested trying to break the sound barrier yet, as it'd likely make even their lazy, linear flight, a lot harder for the mage.

Also, he was getting a shit ton of skill levels on new skills thanks to the level disparate, their speed and his control stat, which helped with correcting nuances either of them noticed.

Having a sapient mount teaching you how to ride was probably also a bit of cheat, but something as easy as this was more far too simple to replicate with the right stats, and it wasn't like people couldn't learn to do things without the respective skills either, so he quite doubted everyone was as 'careless' as him as to learn so many skills that could hardly be more situational.

He didn't need Lea nagging him about his twenty levels in cleaning being a complete waste. Even if he did end up getting a class and restricting his future skill number, he wanted to at least have most bases covered.

Even if you treated it like professional metagaming or something, there was only so many aetheric modifications that people could have before their soul exploded though, so he wasn't going too hard on that front.

Still, getting more skill and in turn more aether in your body actually increased your soul space. It was all a balancing game with how much aether you could take and how much you received.

The system offered aether to those with special achievements and classes, but it was still consumed at a great rate for growth and actual skill usage, and if you didn't have enough to sustain everything then you'd start to eat away at your skill structure first, then your body and soul until there was nothing or a equilibrium was forced into the collapsing system despite the loss of several functions, but that last part was mostly theoretical guessing on Aki's part.

Even as he let his thoughts wander and actively fought the curse in his body, Aki ended up still being able to hear the disturbance suddenly happening though. The screams were that loud.

Most weren’t even pained screams either, just war cries of an orc band furiously bashing and slashing at a four meters tall turtle with a pink name.

They all seemed so happy he decided to not really interfere, but he did jump from Lea's back, slowing down his fall with great bursts of wind and spreading his body horizontally like an actual skydiver.

When he landed, it was with almost no damage to himself or his armour. Which ended up earning him a couple of skills, but they weren't very important. Rather, he focused on keeping the orcs alive, ending up actually having to take a couple of potions as he wanted to keep himself combat ready.

In the end, the band managed to defeat the raid boss, though he couldn’t help but link that with the fact that he’d had to heal the same orcs several times despite their group numbering in the two dozen. While most seemed to not have questioned it during the fight though, everyone agreed that it was weird how they had only suffered one casualty after they’d stopped to count their losses.

“Hello everybody. It’s nice to see others taking down bosses as well, but you all should really have at least another healer for your group and some more potions for them.” Aki tried to sound non-threatening, but some people still took out their weapons. None charged him though, and he was far enough from their group that his sudden appearance had not caused any immediate attack.

“Greetings stranger. Are we to assume you were the one to heal our comrades?” One of them stepped in his direction, and she was likely theri leader considering how hard she could hit.

If he had to describe the she-orc, he would be unable to start anywhere but with the biggest pair of tits he’d ever seen, as anyone likely would be independent of their sexual orientation. Despite the fact they were likely well proportioned for someone nearing two meters and something, it didn’t change the fact they were attention catching. Anyways, arms the size of his thighs, thighs that could probably break concrete even before the system, big tusks, a dark emerald green skin with some paler coloring in the scar tissue, which actually covered much of her arms and legs, but also her hands. Strangely enough, those were not as attention catching as her icy blue eyes, making great contrast with her skin and raven black hair, nevermind how they drew the gaze towards her surprisingly feminine facial features. They were hard features, and maybe someone else wouldn’t think them as beautiful, but Aki definitely did.

“That would be me, indeed.” He smiled, trying to hide how hot his body currently was. If his tastes weren’t normally like this, he’d have thought her using some kind of overleveled charm skill. Which he didn't much doubt she had. “I am Aki, the founder of a village at the foot of a mountain not too far away, currently looking for other villages to make contact with or bands of travelers to guide.”

"Yet you are not an orc. Why do you seek others?" She asked in a rather inpassived tone.

"Before that, would you prefer if I took off my helmet and showed my face? I'm not knowledgeable about your culture, but the possibility of me having pointy ears seems to not make anyone calmer." He promptly asked, getting a rather delayed nod from their representative. As the metal tore off his face in small plates, his rather featureless helmet surrounded his collarbones and neck as extra protection instead. If he had a cape, this would hold it in place for him. "As to your question, I am looking for settlers and chiefs with which to form a small country inside our zone." He explained with a big smile.

For some reason, all eyes came to rest on his face. In a way that was hard to explain. He saw confusion, attraction and even worship in one guy.

"I am sorry to ask, but are you…" The she-hulk with tusk tried to speak politely, but an orc with a bow and a crooked nose spoke over her as he drew even closer.

"Do you have a lover?!" He asked, and Aki could swear the man was drooling. The situation was a bit weird and certainly creepy, but Aki had never disliked attention.

Not that he much allowed himself to get out when there was some imperfection to the image he wished to convey, unless it was an emergency. Now that he could literally burn his hairy parts and fuzzy beard away without repercussions, he'd done so immediately, nevermind his hair style change from slightly curly to completely straight after he manipulated his skull into agreeing with him.

It'd likely been easier than normal because of some soul stuff about how he wished to look and his own healing, but now he looked rather feminine if perhaps because his features had shifted a bit as he invested into vitality and endurance.

Ironically neither strength nor agility seemed to much influence him in that way, but he'd seem it happen to others.

"Why, yes I am single. Won't be looking for that kind of partnership while establishing the country I mentioned though, and who knows when I will even find the right person." He winked at the archer, acting coquettish as he held the palm of an armoured hand to his face, his grin changing a bit as the man exhaled hard.

Before the orc could say anything else though, the representative from before hit the back of his head and glared him back to formation. The tension had partially left the clearing created by their hunt however.

"I apologize about that… miss Aki. Karou is rather overzealous about his love for female knights despite only recently learning they exist. We all belong to the Kar tribe and our village is some distance away, but I am the settlement's hunt mistress, Karta Mor, if you wish to discuss something with the chief then I can take the message." She explained, trying to regain some of the original grace, though he was still grinning meaningfully at her, having noticed how she'd looked at him. Some in her party were surprised about her answer however.

"That is good. I'm not the best at politics, but taking you guys to my village would be hard too. Either way, I would like to schedule a visit to your village tomorrow, just me, my right hand man and my summoned creature, a few hours after the daily beast horde so we can discuss the growth of our communities and the dangers the system may present in our paths. I look forward to meeting again, hunt mistress, perhaps we could get to know each other better. By the way though, I may look like this but I assure you I am a male." He laughed heartily, jumping upwards while using several spells to launch himself up, only to catch Lea's feet as she flew by to catch him, waving as he flew away.