On his walk home, Matthew had sensed that Kirk and James had been following him. He had wanted to avoid the confrontation with them if he could help it, but it seemed that this time it would be impossible. Thankfully for him, his stats had improved to the point that he didn't believe they would be able to beat him this time. He had purposely lead them down a dead end alley so that they could have the privacy to hash this out. "It seems that you have no where else to hide from us cripple." Kirk said Matthew frowned at that, considering that he had no intention to stay a cripple. He planned to make Kirk regret making that statement. So instead of arguing about it, he took a fighting stance. Kirk and James both immediately made their move seeing that Matthew was ready to fight. The first to reach him was Kirk since his larger size and better stats made him faster than James. Kirk threw a punch that only connected with Matthew's out stretched hand. Matthew then p

After his father had left, Matthew got back to his usual routine by getting a bite to eat then heading up to his room to get started on his training. Per the usual, starting with the perception training. After a round of pushing his senses he had hit the twenty foot wall in his perception and was able to push his passive distance of perception to the fifteen foot mark. Now came the hard part. Reading through the section in the book about refining his bones was harrowing to say the least. The whole technique dealt with the inside of the body the most as it basically viewed external refining like the skin as an afterthought. Refining the skeleton was no different than breaking every single bone and remodeling them into a shape that could handle mana better. The process didn't exactly happen that way, but there was a warning that did say that small bones could potentially break. Let it be know that the vast majority of bones in the body are in fact small. With a deep

Since the school week was finished, Matthew dedicated himself to completing as much training as possible. The next skill that he needed to work on was enhanced reading. Like the other techniques, it was basically refining his eyes this time. The technique required him to gather mana into his eyes and refine them to basically become jewels. They would be come more durable and would be resistant to damage. This was just an added bonus to what the technique really did. In simple terms, his eyes would become like a camera, recording everything he sees and transmitting it to his mind where it would be stored. Now that he understood how the technique works, he got started. It would be fairly simple to complete this technique as the area that he had to refine was small. Gathering mana to his eyes and gradually increasing the concentration, he started out like he had with his brain since the technique suited him. The same needle point sized mana sphere took shape and

With his reading finished, Matthew wanted to get back to his training. Starting with the perception training again, he now had to push and solidify his range to the fifty foot mark. This was a tall task as currently he was still sitting at the twenty-three foot mark. Getting to work, he began to push outwards with his mana sense. Little by little he was making progress and would eventually complete the greater grade and be able to elevate his perception to a true mana sense. Upgrading his skill to mana sense would be as far as he would be able to reach since he didn't have mana in his core to continue to refine it, but that was fine. The book left by his granddad only stated that he had to reach that level. After that, there was another skill that he needed to learn, but he hadn't reached that point yet so there wasn't much point in worrying about it yet. He was able to reach the thirty foot mark without much hinderance, but once he reached that point he couldn't

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