Author's Note: this chapter is going to have a temporary change in POV. I plan to do that every so often to give a more well rounded story. They will be somewhat brief stories at the end of a day. Please tell me what you think of them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Day 6
3/7 > 4/7
I wake with my body as sore as can be. I realize that I need to exercise this body besides my hunting so that I will have more stamina and strength for different aspects of the future. So for the first few hours of the morning, I spent my time in my section going through a basic calisthenic workout plan that I plan to do daily. I also go through some katas of the various martial arts I can recall from my past lives using my spear, knife, and bare hands.
{Skill [Human Soul] has been activated}
{Class [Martial Artist] has been unlocked}
{Class Skill [Martial Arts] has been acquired}
{Class Skill [Qi Circulation] has been acquired}
{Class [Rogue] has been unlocked}
{Class Skill [Knifemanship] has been acquired}
{Class Skill [Stealth] has been acquired}
Strange thing with this update is that I didn't get the [Stealth] skill until now. You have to be stealthy to catch a rabbit by surprise. Guess I had to gain experience in this body with a knife in combat to gain the [Rogue] class to gain the [Stealth] skill. It makes sense because those are the two most basic skills of that class in any rpg in my past lives. I finish my workout with a standing meditation while trying out the [Qi Circulation] skill.
{Innate Skill [Adaptation] has awakened}
{Due to Innate Skill [???], Skill [Adaptation] has transformed into Innate Skill [Cultivative Evolution]}
{Skill [Qi Circulation] has been absorbed by Skill [Cultivative Evolution]}
{Skill [Cultivative Evolution] has purified the body of toxins and healed the body of all damage}
{Skill [Pain Resistance] has been acquired}
{Skill [Poison Resistance] has been acquired}
{Skill [Disease Resistance] has been acquired}
{Skill [Piercing Resistance] has been acquired}
I wake from the meditation smelling the worst thing I have ever smelled in this life and that includes Jii's cloth after he was done with the captive women. I look at my body and see I black sludge covering most of my body and staining the [Rough Cloth Shorts] I was wearing. Good thing I wasn't wearing my hooded vest. That would have been a pain to get rid of.
Using one of the poor quality pelts I had to create a crude trash sack, I put the shorts in it and put back on the cloth I previously wore. I ran out of my section to head towards the pond near our cave that connects to the Great River that splits Kuuderun Forest in half according to Jii. Our home is in the North-Western half. When I asked about creatures on the other side, Jii, who was telling me all this two days ago, got somewhat defensive by deflecting the topic by saying that everything was the same and that we should just stay on "our" side.
It took a long time to scrub the sludge off my body. The process got expedited when I found a smallish sized rock with a large amount of moss on it by the coast. I kept my [Observation Haki] activated the whole time to prevent any creature from getting the drop on me. My current range for it seems to be around thirty meters for presence detection. I should train this ability more than the others right now for the advanced version of it will help me greatly in many of the events that happen in the original story.
As I got out of the water, I noticed that I now looked different than myself from yesterday. I was slightly taller than before and I looked just a touch more human-like. My skin was even a shade lighter of green and my eyes looked sharper. I still looked like a goblin but I looked more appealing to look at in my opinion. I hope my clothes will fit me. As I head back to the cave, a figure rises out of the water with a slight frown on its face. The figure huffs and says, "The young king is not strong enough to sense us yet sisters but he will be soon enough." The figure descends back into the water.
As I enter the cave, I hear who I can assume is Mi giving the general run down of a "normal" goblin and their general lack of intelligence to Rou and Kichi. I also overhear her compliment Rou and unintentionally insult Kichi, though only Rou and myself would know. As I am about to enter my area, I hear Mi call out "Stay away from there. The strange one picked it as his home. He is using strange magic to keep us away."
I turn to her and ask, "Who is the "Strange One" you are talking about?" She responds "They are an oddly smart goblin I assumed was an older goblin but I was told he came from our generation. Many of us were gonna ask him how he caught a horned rabbit yesterday but we saw him disappear behind that wall. When one of us went to see how, they fainted when they got close. Worst of all, a few of us saw a slimy monster run out of there earlier today."
My eye starts twitching. Crap, I never thought about how my actions would look like to the average goblin. I scratch the back of my head and say surprisingly sheepish "Well you see here. That strange goblin is actually me and so was that slimy monster, too." Mi, Rou, and Kichi all look at me with suspicion. Well not so much Kichi because at this stage of his life, he is more of an idiot than Patrick Star.
I continued, "I can explain both incidents as best I can. A voice in my head taught me many things which included the way I hid my section. I didn't want anyone to get hurt because they were curious about what I was doing. The reason for the slime was that the voice taught me a skill it called [Qi Circulation] and something called meditation. I don't know the exact source of the slime, but I was able to wash it off in the pond." Hearing this, Rou stiffened for a moment like he heard something he wasn't expecting and Mi shouted, "How were you able to get near the pond!? Scary creatures are almost always around it."
I responded rather nonchalantly, "The slime smelled really bad. Maybe that kept the "scary creatures" away from me. I'll talk to you guys later, see y'all on the flip side." Rou's whole body freezes at that as I walk away. Afterwards, I grabbed my gear and went about my hunt for more rabbits testing out my new skills.
[Haki] may have made me too strong at this point of the story. Almost nothing could get the drop on me due to [Observation Haki] and if it did, I was able to freeze it momentarily with my [King's Haki]. I didn't even need to use any weapons due to the hardening effect of [Armament Haki] I put on my hands. Talk about knife hands and hammer fists, am I right? I should really go farther out from the cave soon. Maybe tomorrow.
POV Change Rou
'See y'all on the flip side' is a phrase I was expecting to hear in this life. I turned to Mi after the Strange Goblin left and asked "Do you have any opinion about that guy?" Mi gets flustered at me for some reason and says, "Now that I have talked to him, he kinda reminds me of a more serious but at the same time more laid back version of you, Rou." She waves her hands stopping me from responding and says "But not nearly as cool as you." I shrugged my shoulders, placed the Strange Goblin on the back burner of my mind and asked Mi if she wanted to join me and Kichi on our hunts as thanks for her information. She joins our little group and we hunt more delicious rabbits. 'It couldn't be. He was alive the last I heard about him before I died.'
Day 7
4/7 > 5/7
Crap, it's raining. It is gonna be a lot harder to hunt in this weather. I should probably stick to physical training and some handicrafts today. Maybe even connect with some of my siblings.
For the entire morning, I went about my workout until I couldn't anymore. It turns out my general fitness has skyrocketed since yesterday. It's still nowhere near my peak in my second life as an enhanced human. Just like yesterday, I ended with a standing meditation session.
{Skill [Cultivative Evolution] has healed the body of all damage}
{No toxins found}
Wow. Without the sludge I can assume were 'toxins' being expelled from my body, I can properly say that this skill of mine seems to have become an active skill instead of the passive skill it was in my second life. I wonder what this unknown skill is. It has altered two skills now. Hey Zel- "Ain't gonna tell ya." Okay, I could try and ask the system.
Darn. I guess I should just wait and see.
Wait a moment, that last bit from the system didn't seem like it was from a machine but from a person. That is another thing I gotta worry about for the future. Now that I have done my daily exercise, I should see if I even need to do any crafting today.
Turns out that my clothes still fit well enough that I shouldn't worry about them for now. I just made myself a couple of replacement shorts since it seems like the "toxin purging" may happen again and I don't want to wear the loin cloth again. It's too breezy and it provides little to no protection.
I left my section wearing my shorts and a simple shirt I made from some spare cloth I had. I kinda look like a standard peasant you would see in this time period. The only thing I am missing is some shoes to protect my feet.
I look around and see Rou working on a black ore trying to turn it into a knife. I ran back to my section and grabbed some sections of rope I had not used. I walk over to him and say, "Wrap this rope I made around the hilt before you wrap the cloth around it. It will make for a sturdier hilt and there will less of a chance you will cut yourself on any rock fragments that could pierce through just the cloth." He takes it and thanks me for it. I decide to sit down and meditate near him to answer any question a goblin could have for Rou or myself so that he can focus on what he is doing.
Instead of circulating the Qi internally through what I assume are my meridians like the skill does automatically, I decide to try and have the Qi gather on specific parts of my body. It turns out that it is rather mentally intensive to do so without any prior knowledge of how to do so or having someone guiding you. After a while I feel myself getting close to a breakthrough, I feel a tap on my shoulder breaking my concentration. I open my eyes and see it was Rou. Rou asks, "You wanna join in the strategy meeting myself, the guy I hunt with Kichi, and the girl from yesterday Mi are having?" I breathe out the breath I didn't realize I was holding and say, "Sure, I don't mind joining y'all's meeting. I lost track of what I was doing anyway."
They go on about what types of strategies to use on their hunts while I just listen. Well it's more like Rou lists off different ideas, Mi chimes in every so often, and Kichi just nods. Mi looks over at me and asks, "Do you have any ideas….? I am sorry but what's your name? I don't want to be calling you "Strange Goblin" when you are not really strange." I replied, "Grandpa Jii named me Kou. The only idea that I give you guys that is simple enough to follow would be the "baited trap"." Kichi opens his mouth for the first time of the entire conversation and asks, "What's that?".
"Well Kichi, it is a simple concept that requires patience and a little bit of brain power. First, you choose what you want to hunt, like say a horned rabbit. Second, you would need to find out what they eat. Third, set out a bait of what they eat and wait as long as it takes. Finally, if they fall for the bait, you would then spring into action to take its life. Simple, right?" Kichi then stares at me with a blank look. Rou looks to be thinking pensively while Mi's eyes are shining. She excitedly exclaimed, "So that's how you could catch a horned rabbit by yourself. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the simple explanation."
{Skill [Human Soul] has been activated}
{Class [Scholar] has been unlocked}
{Class Skill [Teaching] has been acquired}
Hmn. That job is definitely gonna help me in learning a lot about this world and how the cultures operate amongst each other. I can just feel it.
Jii comes over, still pretending to hobble slightly with his cane, and says "It's good to see Young Kou finally associating with someone other than myself. What are you all discussing?" I respond, "They are going over their hunting plans and I am just throwing in my piece of advice into the mix." Mi jumps in, "Yeah, Kou is really wise." I corrected her, "I am not really wise, only clever. It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise. Being clever is simply knowing things but being wise is to understand when to use said knowledge."
The others just stare at me. I look at all of them and cut the silence short to say, "You guys should listen to what Jii knows about the forest we live in. He told me all about it the first day we had to hunt. It is really interesting to learn how knowledgeable he is. Granted I didn't follow his advice, but hey, I am still alive, right?" Jii became the focus of the group instead of myself and went on to tell them about the stuff he told me before.
I left the group halfway into Jii's lesson without them noticing except for Jii. It seems like he has already gotten comfortable enough with [Hamon] that he can passively sense the life around him. It seems like the "Pervy Sage" trope I was reminded of when he was described in the Novel makes even more sense now. It seems his evolution is meant for him to be a sage. His debauchery was probably just a coping mechanism he had to combat the fact he couldn't reach his true self.
I went back to my room and started meditating again. I was surprisingly able to get back the 'bottleneck', as it is sometimes referred to in cultivation stories, rather quickly. Probably because my section seems to have something calming about it. That's probably why Sei chose this area and Sato just followed her.
I open my eyes while still focusing on the meditation as best I can. I really hope something like [Parallel Processing] is a skill in this world. I know [Dual Casting] is a skill for a magic class. I then notice faint wisps of an iridescent energy seem to fluctuate from my body and the air around me.
{Skill [Human Soul] has been activated}
{Class [Druid] has been updated}
{Class Skill [Mana Sight] has been acquired}
Class [Martial Artist] has been updated}
{Class Skill [Qi Sight] has been acquired}
{Skill [???] has fused Skills [Tracking Eye], [Observation Haki], [Mana Sight], and [Qi Sight] with Inherent [Soul Sight] from Skill ["Shaman"] to form Skill [Divine Mystic Eyes of the True Perception]}
I fell to the ground in a massive amount of pain gripping my eyes. It feels like they are melting. I don't know how much time has passed because it feels like it is never going to stop. I passed out from the pain being too much for my current body to handle