Novice Reincarnator

I easily fell into a routine for my new life. Each morning, I woke up and practiced using my [Ki] skill. Then, I had breakfast with Cecilia or Byleth if they were around. Otherwise, I grabbed something quick to eat and left with the rest of the servants.

During school, I chatted with a few friends that I made and soaked in the wealth of new information the teachers lectured on. Their topics ranged anything from wilderness survival to basic exploring 101.

After school, I either dove into dungeons to practice ki manipulation. The Novice club met twice a week and Carl was rather happy with my progress when we met again. I wasn’t nearly as happy as he was. He didn’t know that I was an Adept after all.

When I knew absolutely nothing, I quickly made leaps and strives in my abilities thanks to the Adept class. My rapid progress immediately plateaued once I had a good grasp on my capabilities.

The good times where all of my efforts resulted in clearly visible rewards were gone and all that was left was a long, desperate struggle to improve. Everyone with a Novice or Adept class eventually reached this phase and very few of them ever managed to get out of it.

A small movement of ki accompanied my punch, instantly ending the life of a horned rabbit. I couldn’t help but sigh to myself.

“Status.”

Name: Fang

Class: Adept

Level: 16/20

Personal Skills (4/5): [Ash Demon Princess], [Ki II], [Breathing II], [Meditation II]

Racial Skills: [Instinct II]

Class Skills: [Adept], [Growth II]

Thanks to [Growth], I managed to reach level 16 without putting in much effort to level up. Additionally, my Adept class made it much easier for me to reach a rank II mastery in all of my skills.

Even so, I wasn’t satisfied with my progress. The fact that I hadn’t earned a skill related to attacking with Ki despite being an Adept was telling me that I was doing something wrong.

“My progress is too slow. How am I supposed to carefully observe something that I can’t see?”

The few people watching the broadcast of my dungeon dive responded, but they didn’t have anything helpful to say. It was taking me forever to learn how to mimic a horned rabbit’s ki flow and this was one of the weakest beast type monsters.

Each day, the people I set as my targets got further and further away. Leah Maxwell, Cecilia Snowlight, and Byleth Evernight were all extremely talented explorers that worked incredibly hard on top of that.

There was no way I would be able to keep up with their progress like this and simply working harder wasn’t going to achieve anything. I needed to exploit my special situation as much as possible in order to maximize my growth.

After returning home to Cecilia’s mansion, I pondered what I could change to make my progress smoother.

“Carl recommended [Ki], [Breathing], and [Meditation]. Of those 3 skills, 2 of them are dedicated to acquiring ki.”

It made a lot of sense. Higher and deeper ki reserves meant that one could fight longer and recover quicker. I surveyed my own situation. My body held an overwhelming amount of heat even when I had not done any exercises to gather ki.

While more was certainly better, I wanted to acquire multiple combat skills that used ki. Additionally, the amount of ki in my body was rather unusual and normally only found in Beastmen with more tails.

There was only one possible explanation. My large ki reserves, or should I say, my body full of [Health] had to be a result of my skill, [Ash Demon Princess]. In the same vein, the small increase in ki I felt when I ate must have been due to [Ash Demon Princess]’s [Gluttony].

I hadn’t lost my abilities when I reincarnated. I simply became unable to use them because my new race couldn’t use mana. The weight that had been hanging over my shoulders since I reincarnated as Fang finally lifted.

“Since I don’t need to use up my skill slots to gather ki, I should find something that will help me with my current task.”

After looking through Carl and the Novice Club’s notes as well as combing the internet, I finally settled on my new direction. The next day, I beheld a new world.

Every living thing had ki, but only humans and Beastman were able to freely manipulate it. With the [Ki sense] skill, it was like every living thing I saw had gained an entirely new dimension to it. Their life force was a living, breathing organism of its own.

Cecilia’s life force was like a deceptively calm ocean that hid furious currents underneath it. Byleth felt like a gracefully flowing river. The new world that [Ki sense] had opened up to my eyes entranced my heart. There was beauty in everything that I saw.

“Man, Carl wanted me to learn about this world through my instincts?”

If it wasn’t for the incredibly meager amount of ki I felt from Carl and the rest of the Novice club Beastman, I would have been a little upset. Our starting points were night and day despite being the same tailless Beastman. That afternoon, I entered Beast Den with drastically different results this time.

“Haha, I see it!”

I laughed in joy. My senses accurately captured the movement of the horned rabbit’s ki as it explosively leapt at me. Additionally, my ki sense accurately told me how sluggishly my own ki responded as I avoided its charge.

That wasn’t all. Observing the horned rabbit’s flow of ki allowed me to know what action it was going to take before it moved.

“Catch me if you can, little guy.”

I taunted the rabbit. Ki gathered in its hind legs, signaling its intention to leap at me. I gathered ki in my own legs and tried to replicate its movements. We both acted at the same time. The rabbit pounced. I kicked off the ground and rocketed towards it. We passed each other in midair and changed positions.

It was just by a hair, but I seemed to have increased my leaping speed and distance. That was more progress than I had made in all my efforts since I first learned to manipulate my ki.

The puny horned rabbit suddenly looked much cuter in my eyes. This little guy was going to teach me the basics of ki manipulation. I spent the rest of the day dancing with horned rabbits.