A strange Boar
The sky today was grey, the day was weird, even the forest was quiet, the cicadas that used to sing in this time of the year were nowhere to be found, no animal seems to get out but weirdest of all was the cold not physical cold but the sensation as if something terrible was to happen today, I wonder why.
"Today is weird." goon 3 spoke.
"Maybe a storm is coming?" Cammile spoke while wiping the sweat out of her face with a towel, they were all here today, the slaves, I mean workers building the courtyard's wall it was almost done and the weeds on the ground were already pulled off leaving only solid ground where we would soon be paved with concrete, where would I get the concrete you ask? limestone there were already 5 crude ovens on the back of the cabin to make, sure it wasn't actual modern concrete it is called Roman Concrete, something used in my time in Rome, it was stopped to be used in the medieval times only to be reused in the future and created in a better way (The modern Concrete).
It was surprising how easy to get lime and volcanic ash was in this place, it was probably a volcanic area that cooled down with time so there are large deposits of volcanic rocks, obsidian, and other materials on the soil and the hills.
"Camille come with me."
"Yes, master!" She spoke as she skipped her way towards me sitting in seiza in front of me.
"Your talent is a lot better than I expected so I will be personally taking care of you and your training, from now on I will teach you to write and read my language and other important things."
"Yes, Master!" She said, her eyes shining as she stared at me like I was some sort of god, it was weird and I kinda liked it, sure there were some religions that firmed around me because as you know I didn't age but I was never into that so I always faked my death and moved along towards another place to live.
"Well, then let's start with the basics..." I was ready to start when I heard screams outside.
"What's wrong now?" I spoke to myself as I got outside of my cabin with Camille by my side, moving towards the group that was at the top of my new fence.
"What's wrong?"
"Master, There's a monster there!" Bart spoke as he pointed towards the forest.
"Monster?" I looked there and there it was a very big boar at least 3 times the size of a normal one, on his head, there was a bighorn with a metallic grey color that resembled more the horn of a rhino than anything.
"What the hell?" A window popped by the side of the creature.
[Mutated Boar (Metal Horned Boar) Lv.1 Magic Beast]
[Has a hard hide that resembles chainmail and a metallic horn, the biometal can be used to make weapons the same way as steel, and the hide if tanned properly can be as resilient as metal plating.]
"I think it's looking at us." Goon 3 spoke and my eyes widened.
"Get out of the wall now!" I screamed, making sure to send some of my bloodlusts for them, they ran out of the wall just before it was shattered by the charging beast as it roared, I pulled kori from its sheat and slashed at the boar, feeling the rebound of its hard skin, the cut was shallow but I was able to draw blood from its body, I quickly jumped backward avoiding its horn, covering my sword in Qi I swung once again this time making a big cut on its neck, it screamed for a couple of seconds before falling dead on the ground, the ice that normally spread easily was barely making an effect on the creature's body.
"What the hell is this creature!" Marcus asked looking at the dead body on the ground, it was at least the size of a cow.
"A Mutated animal, but why did it mutate?" I asked myself while looking at the body, a window appeared in front of me, and looking at the reaction of the people around me.
"Master another of that thing appeared in front of me..." Camille said to me and I nodded and smiled this is clearly the system taking effect on animals!
Why was I happy you would ask that is of course because of the challenge, just look at the mutated boar on the ground it was already as big as a cow with skin as tough as chain mail, this means that with enough time creatures akin to the titans in legends will walk on this lands.
"Bring me a knife!" Soon one of my "workers" brought me a knife, I covered the blade with Qi and started butchering the boar's corpse, meat on one side, skin on the other, and the bones, the entire skeleton was Metalic grey, a window popped by the side of the skeleton.
[Metal Horned Boar Skeleton (Grade 9 Material)]
[A bio-Metal That can be processed into anything the same way as iron.]
"Daimos, call your father and bring a carriage, we are going to his forge and we are taking this with us."
"What about the beast meat?" He asked.
"Let's make soup for everyone with it, its a lot of meat after all."
"To... everyone?" The eyes of everybody there shined with light and I could hear they gulping while starring at the pile of meat.
"Yes, go on" I spoke.
"Thank you, master!" They all bowed to me and a message popped in my front with various names on it, the number of people on the divine swordswoman title jumped to 7, it was that easy to buy them? I asked myself but decided to ignore it for now.
Soon we reached the smithy.
"So what did ya bring there?" Alfred asked
"Let's not talk here bring the body to the back."
"Body, you didn't kill anybody did ya?" Alfred asked looking at me suspiciously.
"Let me show you." As we reached the smithy, I took the tarp that covered the wagon out.
"A metal statue? what good craftsmanship."
"This is not a statue. this creature attacked my cabin today in the morning, the meat was already eaten, but the bones were made of metal and the hide is as tough as chainmail." He looked at me and at the boar skeleton then at Daimos who just nodded his head.
"I'm kinda skeptical here."
"don't be, if there was one, there will be others they will definitely show up on the city's outskirt and in the forest, I came today to turn the hide into leather and to see what can I make with the skeleton."
"Alright come on then." We entered the smithy, the place was now a lot better equipped than a day ago, I noticed that the anvil and the hammer were now made of Damascus metal, even the forge was better built.
"Suprised right? I don't know why but since you showed me those techniques I was able to increase my ability by leaps and bounds, even the back pain I had for a long time is now gone!"
"What level is your blacksmithing skill?" I asked.
"Blacksmithing?"
"when the weird white thing appears, there's a lot of things written on it, after the word 'Blacksmithing' what symbol is it?" I scraped with a piece of chalk on the anvil the word."
"H-How do you know i..."
"Because I'm a Mage of course."
"M-Mage what is that?"
"Ask your son anyway what is the level?"
"Well, there's this symbol on it." he wrote 7 with the chalk on the anvil.
"Seven? you have a lot more talent in blacksmithing than expected, well anyways let's start the experiment."
Back at the cabin the sky was already turning dark I was surprised how entertaining it was to discover what I assume was a new element, well first things first the metal was strangely easy to melt, the melting point should be around the same as aluminum but when mixed with other metals it increases the original metal's traits if I would say, iron became more resilient and more flexible, copper became a better conductor as we were literally shocked just from touching it and bronze became green and as strong as steel no idea why though...
I looked at the newly forged weapon in my hands it was one of the experiments we made, a small dagger made from a mix of the special iron and copper and it was another masterpiece! I seeped my Qi into the blade and arks of electricity started to jump around the blade.
*Boom * With a thunderous sound a blade made of lightning shot forward, this feeling was a lot more violent than when I used Ether Blade with kori, the amount of Qi used by the dagger is a lot bigger than my Nodachi but it was also a lot more destructive compared to the ice I looked at the tree in front of me, full of scorch marks and a deep hole on it, even if someone was heavily armored this would pass right through the armor and cook the man inside alive, I sheeted the dagger once again and made my way inside it was already late and I was feeling tired for today...
The next day I got a huge surprise.
"You can use Qi!" I spoke aloud to Camille who was now able to make a mark on a tree from 1 meter of distance without touching the tree.
"Y-Yes it happened when I was watching you practice before, with the lightning, I felt like something inside me moved and when I tried to keep that feeling I was able to move it inside my body and then another white thing showed up I could only understand the word Ki and control thought."
"Wait you were watching me?" I asked confusedly as I don't remember seeing her there but again I was completely engrossed in my training with the new blade that still does not have a name.
"I-I-I-I was just passing by!" She spoke hurriedly and I nodded my head.
"Well it doesn't matter the motive but you did it first then the other goons so I will congratulate you!" I passed the dagger to her.
"Wh-What f-for me?!" She screamed carefully picking the dagger as it was a treasure.
"Yes, you are the first of my disciples to be able to control your Qi so a deserving reward is necessary, this blade still does not have a name so give it a good name."
"A-a present from Master..." I head a whisper but wasn't able to make out the words that were said.
"Now be careful with that I don't want you to kill someone by accident." She nodded her head very fast and then ran off towards the training grounds with the dagger in hands and I smiled.
"Things are going great." I sat down on the grass behind my cabin and closed my eyes feeling the breeze, it was a warm day, and the breeze was good I was peaceful I breathed in and felt a cold sensation spread true my body, it was very good, soon I felt like the whole world turned brighter.
*Crack *
I heard from my insides and I was able to feel something around me, floating, it entered and passed true everything, the trees, the grass, even myself, is this Qi...? no it seems like something else different but not so much life, energy? I took a deep breath and that cold sensation inside my body spread once again, it circulated around before conglomerating in the same place my Qi accumulated, both energies entered a sort of understanding as the new one went deeper forming a sphere while the Qi became a hard shell outside of it creating a symbiotic type of understanding.
[Your body created a Magi-Qi Core, you are now able to convert your Qi into elemental energy and store it inside your Core.]
[You developed a Breathing technique able to absorb lifeforce from the air and turn into Qi inside your body what will you name it?]
"Let's go with something simple, the breath of life..."
[You developed the Skill Breath of Life Lv.1 allowing you to breathe in a retain some of the natural Lifeforce in the ambient increasing your body's Qi capacity beyond its natural limit.]
I looked at my status page and was surprised to discover that my constitution level rose a lot! a single level of my advanced swordsmanship increased my constitution by 0.9!
"so that is the benefits of having a strong Qi pool but how do I transform Qi into elemental energy?" I whispered to myself in deep thought but no idea came into my mind on how to do it.
"well let's think about that later for now I need to get used to this newfound strength." I got up once again and decided to try another technique, this one will probably be better than kungfu Shaolin to increase my control over my body.
"Let's practice with my disciples they probably have even less control than I do..." soon I was in front of my disciples.
"Today I will impart on you a new technique, I noticed that all of you are growing stronger than before but that doesn't make you a real swordsman, you need to have control over your body if you want to be a real master so follow along with my movements, the 18 of you can follow along too." I pointed to the workers that were finished with the stone and wood wall surrounding the courtyard.
"The essence of Tai Chi is simple it is to defeat the hard using the soft, sure the movements may seem slow and weak but you need to have incredible control over your body and strength before you are successful in it the idea is to make it look like a weak attack." I moved my arm slowly towards the tree in front of me.
*Crack *
*Boom! *
A small crater was formed on the trunk by the seemingly slow-moving fist.
"But pack a very heavy hit on it to take the enemy by surprise, and with the opening created by the technique, you quickly eliminate your target, remember, a fight between masters is fast, can last to the blink of an eye because that's what real combat is" I spoke cooly in front of my disciples and workers and watched as they clumsily moved as I had shown them.
[you developed the skill Kung Fu (Tai Chi) Lv.1] (+0.1 CON, Permanent Increase in Body Control)
This time the feeling that normally was very prominent when I increased my strength was mild almost undetectable, probably because my strength already grew to a point that a 0.1 increase is barely enough to be felt. But then again to them, this is still a substantial increase in power, I smiled as the day passed uneventfully.