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One Week Later
After Lao Chen’s departure, my weekends were suddenly empty.
The bruising faded, the cuts healed, and the intense, life or death pressure of the Advanced Mage’s Killing Intent vanished from my daily routine.
But I refused to let that hard earned momentum stagnate.
I had over a year left before my tenth birthday before I could get my hands on a proper, magically powered laptop to begin my financial conquest.
Until then, I was technically just an eight year old boy with a lot of free time.
I couldn’t physically push my body much further without risking permanent developmental damage, and my [Martial Arts], [Evasion], and [Stealth] were already lightyears ahead of any mortal child.
I needed to expand my arsenal in ways that didn’t require swinging a combat knife.
I needed utility.
Since I lacked a computer, I resorted to borrowing my mother’s phone.
It wasn’t a sleek smartphone from my past life those didn’t exist in this era of the magical world but rather a bulky, brick like device powered by a low grade elemental battery that had basic internet browsing capabilities.
The connection was painfully slow, rendering text in blocky pixels, but it was enough.
I spent hours locked in my room, sitting cross legged on my bed, scrolling through rudimentary encyclopedias, survival forums, and anatomy articles.
I was looking for mundane skills.
The System didn’t grant me magical abilities, but it had a flawless way of recognizing conceptual knowledge and converting it into tangible, progressive skills through repetition.
After a week of research, I selected three specific non combat skills that would drastically increase my survivability: Ambidexterity, Tracking, and Vocal Mimicry.
I changed my routine to increase these new skill levels and started practicing them.
I started with Ambidexterity.
In my past life, and for the first nine years of this one, I was strictly right handed.
Lao Chen had taught me that in a real fight with a magical beast, losing the use of an arm was a highly probable scenario.
If a Dark Beast Monster shattered my right shoulder, and my left hand was too clumsy to hold a knife, I was dead.
I began by forcing myself to do every single daily task with my left hand.
I brushed my teeth left handed, which resulted in a lot of bruised gums and foam spilling out of my mouth for the first week.
I opened doors, poured water, and tied my shoes using only my non dominant side.
The real challenge was writing.
I bought a stack of cheap notebooks and began copying books with my left hand.
At first, my handwriting looked like the frantic scribbling of a toddler.
My wrist cramped agonizingly, and my brain felt a bizarre, frustrating disconnect, as if I were trying to speak a language I hadn’t learned.
I spent three hours a day just writing the alphabet over and over again.
It took nearly three weeks for the System to recognize it.
> [Skill Unlocked: Ambidexterity Lv.
1]
Once the System recognized the concept, the progression smoothed out.
By the end of the second month, the jerky, uncoordinated movements of my left hand disappeared.
I could write perfectly mirrored sentences simultaneously with both hands.
During dinner one evening, I accidentally knocked a pair of chopsticks off the table with my right elbow.
Without even looking, my left hand shot out, catching the wooden sticks mid air with surgical precision before they hit the floor.
My father paused mid bite, staring at my left hand with a raised eyebrow, but he didn’t say a word.
Next was Tracking.
I couldn’t exactly march outside the safe zone of Bo City to track OneEyed Magic Wolves, so I had to make do with the urban environment.
Tracking in a city is entirely different from tracking in the wilderness.
There is no soft mud or unbroken foliage; there is only concrete, asphalt, and garbage.
I started by reading everything I could on a phone screen about footprint impressions, weight distribution, and environmental displacement.
Then, I took it to the streets of the Southern District.
I started with stray cats.
I would find a cat near the dumpsters and close my eyes, counting to one hundred to give it a head start.
Then, I would heighten my focus and begin the hunt.
I looked for the microscopic disturbances in the dust on the pavement.
I looked for tiny scratches on the brick walls where claws had scrambled over a fence.
I observed how the local birds reacted; a sudden silence in the canopy of a tree often indicated a predator moving directly beneath it.
> [Skill Unlocked: Tracking Lv.
1]
The Tracking skill was unlocked the fastest in my arsenal.
It only took one day, likely because the time I had spent researching the knowledge helped accelerate the process.
By the fourth month, tracking animals became too easy.
I upgraded to humans.
I would intentionally let Mo Fan wander off in the crowded marketplace and then try to find him without calling his name.
Humans are incredibly loud and predictable creatures.
We leave massive thermal signatures, we drag our feet, we drop wrappers, and we displace the air around us.
I began to categorize footprints.
I could tell if a person was carrying something heavy based on the depth of the heel strike in a patch of dirt.
I could tell if someone was limping, if they were running, or if they were trying to be stealthy.
Finally, I dedicated myself to Vocal Mimicry.
This was perhaps the most painful of the three.
It required a deep anatomical understanding of the vocal cords, the larynx, and the diaphragm.
I spent hours in my room, pressing two fingers against my throat to feel the vibrations of my vocal cords, manually forcing them to contract and expand in unnatural ways.
I started by mimicking the sounds of nature.
I learned to whistle exactly like the local sparrows, a sound so perfect that real birds would occasionally land on my windowsill looking for a mate.
Then, I moved on to the aggressive, guttural barks of the neighborhood guard dogs.
I practiced dropping my larynx to produce sounds that shouldn’t mathematically come from an eight year old child’s throat.
> [Skill Unlocked: Vocal Mimicry Lv.
1]
It took me three weeks for the System to register this skill.
The true test of this skill was human voices.
A successful mimicry isn’t just about pitch; it’s about cadence, accent, and vocabulary.
One afternoon, while my mother was in the kitchen, I stood just out of sight in the hallway.
I cleared my throat, adjusted my posture to match my father’s confident stance which naturally altered my diaphragm compression and spoke perfectly in Zhang Min’s deep, slightly raspy voice.
“Honey, did you see where I put my car keys?”
My mother didn’t even turn around from the cutting board.
“They’re on the shoe rack by the door, Min!
You always leave them in the pocket of your jacket!” Then she paused, suddenly remembering that her husband had gone out in the car that morning.
When she came out of the kitchen and saw me, I covered my mouth to muffle a laugh and quietly retreated to my room.
By the end of the six months, my skills had improved excellently.
> [Ambidexterity: Lv.
14]
> [Tracking: Lv.
12]
> [Vocal Mimicry: Lv.
15]
I was completely ambidextrous.
I could track a target through a concrete jungle.
I could perfectly imitate the voice of anyone I listened to for more than five minutes.
But as the seventh month of the year rolled around, a heavy, suffocating wave of boredom crashed over me.
The mundane world was no longer challenging my physical or mental limits.
I had memorized the streets of Bo City.
I had mastered theoretical combat.
I had squeezed every drop of utility out of my environment.
But I was still living in the shadow of magic, constantly thinking about when I would reach Fifteen to awaken my magic, and what element I would awaken.
One evening, the family was gathered in the small living room.
The TV was humming quietly in the background, broadcasting a news report about a minor monster skirmish near the northern military borders.
My mother was folding laundry, and my dad, true to his usual routine, was sitting in his armchair, reading the evening paper.
I sat on the floor, perfectly balancing a spinning pencil on the index finger of my left hand, then seamlessly tossing it to balance on my right, entirely out of boredom.
“Dad,” I said, catching the pencil and turning toward him.
Zhang Min lowered his newspaper, looking at me over the rim of the page.
“What is it, Xiaohou?”
I stood up and brushed off my pants.
“I want you to take me to the Bo City Mage Association,” I replied.
My mother stopped folding a shirt, her eyes widening in surprise.
Even my dad blinked, putting his newspaper down completely.
“The Mage Association?” Zhang Min echoed, his brow furrowing.
“That’s not a playground, Xiaohou.
It’s the administrative and military heart of the city’s magical defense.
Civilians don’t just wander in there for fun.
It’s full of Hunters and guild officials.”
“I know,” I said, keeping my expression perfectly calm and reasonable.
“But I’m bored, Dad.
You work in logistics at the Mage Association, right?
Just take me to see how you work in there.”
Using my [Acting] skill, I put on my best cute expression and said, “Please, pretty please.”
Zhang Min stared at me, a slow, exasperated smile spreading across his face.
He rubbed his temples.
“Okay, don’t act like that.
Don’t I know my own son?
Whenever you want something, you use those eyes to act cute.”
“Then will you take me?” I continued.
He looked at my mother, who just offered a helpless shrug.
“Fine.
I will take you this Sunday, but you stay by my side, you don’t touch anything, and you absolutely do not stare at the Hunters.
Some of those men and women come back from the wild with very short tempers.
Understand?” my dad replied.
“Understood,” I nodded respectfully, masking the surge of absolute thrill coursing through my veins.
Sunday morning arrived with crisp, clear skies.
My father and I took a taxi out of the quiet, residential Southern District, heading straight toward the very center of Bo City.
My dad’s car had broken down a few days ago , so we had to take a taxi.
As we drove, the architecture of the city began to shift dramatically.
The rundown apartment complexes and small merchant stalls gave way to towering, pristine skyscrapers, broad avenues paved with spotless white stone, and beautifully manicured magical gardens.
This was the true Bo City.
The sanctuary of the elite.
The playground of the Mu Family and the military brass.
As the taxi rounded a wide corner, the destination finally came into view, dominating the skyline.
The Bo City Mage Association was a breathtaking architectural marvel that perfectly blended cutting edge modern engineering with ancient, arcane majesty.
It didn’t look like a standard office building.
It looked like a towering, modern citadel.
The structure was shaped like a massive, multi tiered pagoda, built entirely out of sleek, dark blue magical glass and reinforced steel.
“Don’t drool, kid, we haven’t even gone inside yet,” my dad chuckled, paying the taxi driver as we stepped out onto the pristine plaza in front of the building.
“Stay close,” Zhang Min warned, adjusting the collar of his work jacket as he grabbed his briefcase.
We walked through the grand doors, and the ambient noise of the city street instantly vanished, replaced by the low, echoing hum of the Association’s lobby.
If the outside was a fortress, the inside was a chaotic, high stakes stock market of magic.
The lobby was easily the size of three football fields, with a vaulted ceiling supported by massive pillars of polished white marble.
The air was literally vibrating with energy.
To my left, near a row of luxurious velvet couches, sat the aristocratic mages members of wealthy clans like the Mu Family.
They wore pristine, tailored suits and elegant silk robes, sipping expensive magical teas and discussing lucrative business contracts.
Their auras were bright but incredibly relaxed.
They were the politicians of the magical world.
“Come on, the logistics quartermaster is on the third floor,” my dad said, guiding me toward a set of elevators that seemed to be powered by wind runes rather than cables.
We rode the crystal elevator up, giving me a breathtaking, bird’s eye view of the bustling lobby below.
When the doors opened on the third floor, the atmosphere changed completely.
This floor was lined with reinforced glass windows, overlooking massive, enclosed arenas that looked like heavily armored indoor stadiums.
“I need to drop these manifests off at office 304,” Zhang Min said, checking his watch.
“Stand right here by the glass, Xiaohou.
Do not wander off.
I will be back in exactly five minutes.”
“I’ll stay right here,” I promised, pressing my hands against the thick, magically reinforced glass.
My dad walked down the sterile hallway, leaving me alone to observe the arena below.
After a few minutes, he returned and took me to some casual areas in the Association that he could access without much trouble.
There were training rooms in this building that people could book for practicing.
I guessed not everyone was like Mo Fan, who practiced his magic in the wild against monsters.
A lot of people practiced their magic safely in these training halls.
The training halls were divided into two categories: public and private.
The only difference was the money spent on the room.
When I asked my dad how much it would cost to rent a room, he replied with a figure that a normal person without magic could live on for a year without doing any work, even spending lavishly.
I wasn’t discouraged.
I wasn’t terrified.
I was in awe of how much a magician could earn fighting monsters, even if most of it went toward buying their resources.
Magical knowledge was strictly controlled.
It would only become available once we awakened our magic, so I didn’t know much about it yet.
I would have to learn at the same time as everyone else.
After touring around the cafeteria and meeting a few of my father’s colleagues, we finally returned home.
The trip to the Mage Association wasn’t just a cure for my boredom.
It opened my eyes to the wider magical world that I would be a part of in the future.
I couldn’t wait for the day I would awaken my magic and do the same things I had watched through the glass in the public training room.
Thinking about the future, I slept soundly for the first time in a long while, skipping my daily meditation, which was still firmly stuck at Lv.
20.
To be continued…
Next Chapter Titles:
Childhood XIV(Final); Adolescence I; Adolescence II; Adolescence III(Final); Awakening; Burning Cash to Keep the Moths Warm.
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