Morning came and it was time to get back to work. His bones didn't hurt today so he knew that the first step of refining his bones was now complete. This meant that his bones were now separated into two layers, the inner layer being refined to be harder than granite and the outer layer still being just regular bone. The refining process was still on going, but he would still have to actively work to continue his current progress. Today he decided to change it up a bit and did physical exercises first. He knew that he wouldn't be able to move around much once he finished the second round. With the exercises finished, he went out for a jog. This time around, he was able to make two full laps around the property before being too tired to run anymore. Making his way back inside and eating breakfast, he rested a bit before heading back to his room to start. Mentally preparing himself, he got to work. Gathering additional mana to the now thread sized stream of mana th
Since the arrival of mana, the majority of human cities had been destroyed and it had taken almost a hundred years to rebuild to the current point. Cities were more simple now compared to humanities peak. The current building style was similar to the Middle Ages since most modern technology didn't work anymore. Some things had been adapted through time, but over all most things like vehicles and the internet were a thing of the past. The mana net had only just recently become a thing, which had allowed the production of communication and storage devices. These devices remained fairly expensive though due to materials still being hard to come across due to mutated fauna around city areas. The town had a many different kinds of shops with everything from weapons to the newly emerged tech devices. While walking down the street, Matthew finally came across the store that he was searching for. The sign simply read solutions since it wasn't a mainstream shop owned by a unio
Matthew proceeded up the stairs and knocked on the doors which was followed by a simple "Come in." The office was simple in design, but that didn't mean that the items were of low quality. The man behind the desk was a bit stocky with a head full of blonde hair with a touch of grey in his similarly blonde beard. He had an intense stare as Matthew came to stand at his desk. "How is your father doing?" the man asked after a long awkward silence "He is doing well, and he is off on business in another city currently." Matthew said a bit confused. Another long pause ensued as the man reviewed some paperwork that he eventually passed over to Matthew. "These forms are for your enrollment into the union. They also detail the communication device that you will be given in the event of an emergency. Your hunter grade will start out at will be copper. Complete
Returning home with the sword on his back, Matthew felt tired due to the fact that the sword, of unknown make, was actually fairly heavy despite its size. Placing the sword down he got out the old book and began to skim through it. He had remembered seeing a training method for getting use to a sword and some training forms that would help with this. The forms he came across mentioned that a sword's weight should match its use. A slashing sword should be slightly on the heavy side while a piercing sword should be light and even gave some brief depictions of said swords. The sword that Matthew had received was in fact designed like a piercing sword in the fact that it had a nice narrow point, but its weight and dual edges clearly were meant for slashing. The weight was another confusing factor since it was too heavy to be either. That was until he turned to the next page and found a section on what was called a ruler sword.&nbs
Before getting to his new training with the sword, he had to do the rest of his mental exercises. Beginning his perception training, he felt that the block at thirty feet just needed the right push. He began to use the same pulse method that he had used before and slowly the block crumbled, leaving his new limit at thirty-three feet. Satisfied with this, he then moved on to enhanced memory. Starting like before, creating a tiny mana sphere, he began to build it up. The whole time he was working on it he could feel the sheer amount of mana that he had to put into it was immense. It took him an entire hour to make the sphere the size of a marble where in the past it had only taken him roughly twenty minutes. Unable to cope with the mental burden any further at the moment, he turned his attention to the sword. Making his way outside, he began to imitate the sword technique that he had learned from the book. He was able to pull this off due to his hard built foundatio
The last day of his weekend, Monday, Matthew was sitting on his bed working on his bone refining. He could feel that it was almost finished and he was trying to speed up the process. He didn't care what kind of pain this would cause him, he just knew that he had to finish it. A strange power was emitting from his bones as the last layer was cracking and breaking down. Minutes passed and it finally happened, the last layer broke apart and started to fuse with the already refined bone. He had finally finished the beginning of the technique he had been practicing. It happened when the last little bit of bone finished fusing. A wave of power passed through is body touching every inch of it down to the last cell. It was soothing to say the least as that warm sensation lasted for just a few minutes. *Ding* *Status updated* *Strength - 9 -> Strength 11* *Endurance - 9 -> Endurance 11* *Stone body acquired* Matthew almost fell off the bed when he heard the notifi
It didn't take long for his mother to swing by and take his order. She greeted him happily and made short small talk with him for a moment before making her way back to the kitchen. The restaurant was a nice homey place with a warm atmosphere and was a little noisy due to sell of warm mead. It didn't take long for his mother to come back with his food before rushing off to deal with other customers. Since there wasn't a drinking age he helped himself to the mug of warm mead that his mother had placed on the table in front of him and began to dig into the hearty meal. The meal consisted of boars meat, vegetable stew, sweet bread, and fresh greens. It had been a while since he had eaten such a big meal, but he was going to treat himself this time because of his recent success. He hadn't even realized until he finished wolfing down the meal that he had even eat the bones of the boars hindquarters until he looked down at his completely clean table. Another notable fact w
Arriving at class after having complete his training, Matthew was greeted with lectures. Their contents mostly didn't apply to him either because he didn't have an affinity or simply couldn't use mana for the most part. The lectures on skills and monsters were something that he was very interested in though. "Skills are given by the system as a reward for completing certain tasks. They can come in various forms, from passive skills that work in the background like regeneration or active skills like mana sprint. There are plenty of skills out there that we have yet to discover and simply because we haven't met the requirements to activate them." Mr. Falls stated "Mr. Falls, how do we find out the requirements of this skills if no one has ever activated them before?" Jeff asked "Skills can still be researched even if we have never seen them. That is the entire purpose of the institute. They have a specific skill set that allows them to find skills and put resea