8 Growing in many aspects

After managing to convince grandfather to train me for the foreseeable future, my daily life was met with a very large change thanks to this new addition to my routine, but it was far from being the only thing I've achieve in the three years I waited in order to be old enough to start my physical conditioning.

My research and studies have also progressed a lot in this time, with the rate of which I finished reading books having made me go over not only all the many books we hold inside our house but also any books that I was able to borrow inside the village from the other homes, so in the lack of a bookstore or library has led me to continue my studies exclusively through my Scroll.

I'm confidant that in a few more years I'll have gone over and learned all the knowledge that I need in the academic side of things as well as having acquired many useful skills that he will need such as: basic first aid, survival skills, being able to distinguish and identify various types of plants including their uses and a bit about legislature, knowing the laws can allow me to avoid infringing them by mistake as well as to take advantage of them by getting around them. After all, if you wanna consistently win in a game, first you have to know its rules.

But my own studies were not the only way that I acquired skills in this period as I was taught many things by my family, especially my mother. I received several lessons into cooking which I picked up very quickly due to knowing a bit about it from my previous life, sewing, dancing and playing instruments. Despite those things looking seemingly less important than becoming stronger I accepted the lessons without any complaints.

I always made a point to not let myself be carried away by my desire to become stronger and let it turn into a obsession. So I've made sure to always have time with my family to give myself some breathing room between the constant researching and planning. And it's not like any of this skills I'm learning are truly complete useless, cooking will be useful if I ever have to camp or live alone, sewing will allow me to maintain my clothes in good condition even far away from civilization, dancing is improving my balance, flexibility and coordination and lastly I've found that playing instruments is a great way to de-stress and clear my mind for a little bit.

Though I fully expect that I will be a bit inferior to the original Jaune when it comes to doing housework since I will have many other things to do and won't have as much time to dedicate into becoming the perfect househusband, but I'm still confident in becoming a damn good one at the end of it.

I was also able to identify a few changes inside my family ever since I started my physical training in earnest. The most obvious of those being the relationship between my father and grandfather. Unless I was blind, it was impossible to miss the tension between the two. whenever mother was present father would put a courteous smile but it was clear that their relationship wasn't the warmest despite there being no malice or hatred directed at each other.

But now their relationship is improving at a noticeable pace, they no longer avoid each other whenever they're in the same room and now actively seek each other to talk, sometimes the two are able to be seen in the living room recounting good memories of the past and laughing merrily together. Father even sometimes helps me out in training when grandpa is away and gives me some tips to help out and clears any doubt I have in this aspect.

And this change is one I welcome with open arms as the new found warmth whenever grandpa visits and the fact that the family is now more united than ever before has been a constant source of joy, father's change of attitude, despite being minor is very welcome since, if was given the option I would rather depart from this place in good terms with my family than run away like the original.

Another less than positive change was in the relationship between my parents. In the day i started my training with grandfather, shouts could be heard from my parents room and since then my father has been trying to reconcile with mother while sleeping on the sofa.

At the start I wasn't aware of the reason for the fight nor was I very concerned since they had already been in countless fights and reconciled themselves. But when mom came to me one day and started to interrogate me about my afternoon training it became clear that I was the cause of the fight.

And I was a bit nervous as I truthfully explained the reasons for my desire to train, it is no surprise that my mother is the one that holds the biggest authority in the house and could call off my training if she wanted to since my father despite his new found acceptance is completely powerless against her and that has been the case ever since he started chasing after her in his younger years while my grandfather greatly cherishes his daughter-in-law and will do whatever she says. But to my relief she accepted it and has been supportive of my choices while still being very protective and constantly checking if I didn't hurt myself during the exercises.

In regards to my hacking skills, it has advanced much quicker than I could have imagined thanks to me meeting both of the requirements that I have previously set in order to continue my growth, all thanks to being lucky enough to be presented an opportunity and resourceful enough to grasp the opportunity and turn it into a boon.

The first thing that he required was a computer in order to more quickly and efficiently create programs and ones that were more complex compared to his previous ones and he managed to get one thanks to partly requesting it from his parents for his 2nd birthday and obtaining a few parts for free from the general store owner Brook, all he asked me in exchange for it is to help him set up a Bazar with some old things he wanted to do away with in order to clear some space.

Truly, despite his villainous face and unscrupulous merchant appearance. Brook is not a crook!

Then I just had to assemble the parts and done! This alone has skyrocketed the progress of his hacking skills and allowed him to create much more intricate and more efficient programs that weren't as primitive as the ones he was using so far. He is very confident in being able to hack something more complex than a Scroll.

In regards to the second condition, it was much more difficult to fulfill since he would need to visit one of the CCTS stations personally to get a better understanding of how it works and somehow get access to it in order to do so. But he got an opportunity thanks to Terra.

She still not married to my sister Saprhon as this will only happen in the future, currently they are just classmates and platonic friends that some times hang-out together, they are also unaware of each other's romantic preferences so their relationship is now on a stalemate with both of them wanting to go further but fearing the other's reaction.

But what worked in my favor is that Terra is currently studying to become a CCT technician in the future and I got to know through Saprhon that Terra would be participating in a visit along with her class to one of the CCT towers in mistral and as soon as I heard that I knew that I couldn't let this opportunity slip past me.

So I threw away all my dignity and tearfully begged Saprhon to get Terra to bring me along in this visit. Which prove to be very effective as Saprhon was unable to deny my puppy eyes and agreed to relay my wishes to her friend. Terra in turn accepted rather quickly as she saw this as a way to have Saprhon owe her one.

Then we had to inform our parents that became very worried as this was the first time that I would be leaving the village but Saprhon managed to convince them that I would be in good hands and that the experience would be good for me.

Then when the day came, I was sent off after receiving many warnings to not talk to strangers and to listen to whatever Terra says. Since this village was so remote and located in a mountainous region, the only reliable method of transport is via air so a bullhead was called in order to transport me and Saprhon.

During the flight I was once again reminded of one of this body's weaknesses, motion sickness. But I had already made preparations as I searched numerous methods to alleviate the symptoms during the flight and made sure to bring medicine with me that made the travel much better.

After a few unpleasant hours we finally reached our destination, Argus. This city that is located in the coast is one of the biggest in Anima and where Saprhon and Terra are studying. After the bullhead landed I released a sigh in relief before my sister and I made our way towards the school in question.

After reaching there, we quickly made our way towards where Terra's class was gathered and after finding her amidst the crowd she then gave me a hug and left me with her before departing to her own class.

Terra and I engaged in some small talk while we waited to be picked up, mostly consisting of her asking a lot of questions about Saprhon and her behavior while at home. But finally the transport arrived and we all boarded it before setting towards the CCT station. Something curious is that no one seamed to mind my presence among the students, in fact everyone was being very welcoming to me.

But after enduring various girls fawning over me and pinching my cheeks along the way, I had finally arrived at my objective and was ready to put my plan to work.

The first thing I did was to ditch the class as soon as I got an opportunity, which came when the group stopped to listen to an presentation about the origin of the CCT network that was a lengthy and boring speech that praised Atlas for their gift to remnant, I managed to slip away while everyone was distracted listening to this shameless Atlesian propaganda.

While roaming around the place trying to find a way to get closer to the tower itself, I ended up stumbling on one of the place's employees that started inquiring about my presence there and why I was alone and without any responsible guardian in sight.

I replied by saying that I was lost due to admiring how grand and cool the place was, than I said that working here one day was my dream and I look up to all the workers here as my idols and then begging her to give me a tour of the place. And my sweet talking seemed to work as the female employee puffed her chest with pride and started giving me a tour of the place while I acted as a child that was on his dreamland. After once again effortlessly entering a place I'm not supposed to be in just by saying a few nice words, I had come to a realization.

It seemed that I processed a unique charm that worked on women(except family) that made them have a better initial opinion of me, I should be careful to not get stabbed by a jealous girl in the future.

On the end of our tour she brought me right near the tower where she started to explain to me it's functions. I listened to her showing attention while I fiddled with the device in my pocket in order to start gaining access to the CCTS.

This device was the same that I once used to unlock my family's Scrolls, it has received some tune-ups and upgrades over the years making it smaller and more portable, its decryption method became much more sophisticated, it no longer needed direct connection to work and the time it took was reduced greatly and I named it 'skeleton key'.

What made me confident in hacking the CCT Network using the skeleton key is the fact that it is partly uses technology based on earth rather than just this world's, meaning that this world's systems are not prepared to deal with it.

A good comparison would be our immune system, if it encounters a foreign organism that it has encountered before than it will quickly dispose of it without any issues but if you expose it to a completely new organism than your body will have a much harder time identifying and destroying it.

So all I had to do was keep the female employee talking while I gained access to the tower's systems.

After accomplishing my mission, the female employee then escorted me to a waiting room before going off to look for my guardian. Which entered the room a few minutes later with a haggard apparence and a very worried expression, after seeing me she quickly ran up to me to see if everything was alright showing that she must have been desperately searching for me ever since I vanished.

After Terra was done worrying about me, she moved on to harshly scolding me for putting myself in danger and making her go through all that worry while searching for me.

I felt quite guilty at the time for worrying her like that after being granted the opportunity to be there in the first place by Terra herself and she agreed to bring me along, which would not be an easy thing to do considering that she had to get permission from her teachers, so to repay her for everything she's done I told her that Saprhon was interested in her, promised to put a good word of her to my family and especially my oldest sister and parents also act as a wingman between she and my sister whenever she needed.

At the end of the day we both ended the visit to the CCT with having achieved our objectives with me gaining access to their network and Terra gaining a favor from his sister and a ally willing to help her get together with her crush.

And that visit proved to be invaluable to Jaune as it would show itself essential to realizing one of his plans just a few years later.