Chapter 37: Chapter 37-[Volume 2 Chapter 9] Jungle Training

One week later.

“Ugh…” Mika groaned as her eyes gradually opened. 

“Did I fall asleep? How long was I… out……. Eh?” She froze, looking down at her body, which was now much bigger than before. 

“What the hell?! How did I grow so much?! Is this real?!” She yelled and began inspecting her body. However, after numerous once-overs, she concluded that she wasn’t dreaming.

“How is this possible? I only remember drinking a ton of nutritional serums and then passing out. How did things end up like this?” Although Mika couldn’t be 100% sure of her current height and weight, she was confident she was around a meter tall, plus or minus a few centimeters, and weighed around 25 kilograms.

Suddenly gaining such a massive increase in height and weight didn’t make sense! She was just a little toddler before she went to sleep!

“System, please explain what’s going on.”

[It’s because you broke through and obtained the Early-Stage-Absolute Sword Body. There’s a limit to how much you can strengthen a toddler's body. Therefore, to accommodate this newfound strength, your body had to adapt and grow, which is why you drank so many nutritional serums.]

“I won’t face any problems in the future because of this, right?”

[That’s correct, Host. Everything happened naturally and was a result of your sudden strength gain. Remember that your physique and Body Cultivation Technique isn’t normal.]

“....Right. I understand.”

She muttered with a wry smile, but she was no longer worried about any future problems. 

After confirming that, she sat down and inspected her body. She felt so full of power right now that she could hardly believe this was real. 

After a few minutes, a large smile appeared on her face.

“Damn! Breaking through is really amazing. My entire body is denser and stronger than before, probably by about 50% in raw power. However, my actual combat effectiveness is much higher! My range of motion has drastically improved with longer arms and legs!” 

She stood up, took out Chigatana, and noticed that it had adjusted to her current size! Now, instead of resembling a large knife, it looked like a real katana! With a blade length of 40 centimeters, it could still only be called a short sword, but Mika was satisfied with this. 

“Now, I won’t have to get so close to my opponents!” 

There were two more significant benefits of breaking through: Her Mana Core and Pathways had enlarged slightly, and her brain developed and matured somewhat. 

Mika wasn’t shocked about her Mana Core and Pathways enlarging as she knew they would. Since they are ingrained in her DNA and are similar to blood vessels, they will grow as her body grows. 

Though, this isn’t unique to only Mika and is the case for every person who goes down the Mana Cultivation Path.  

However, what she was most excited about, other than the significant increase in strength and body size, was her brain’s development, something she had almost overlooked until now. 

Although she kept her memories and consciousness from her past life, her brain didn’t come with her. 

While her first task in this new world was to integrate her consciousness into her new body, there was still a bit of a disconnect. This wasn’t anything she could control and was just a side-effect of reincarnating.

Before she transferred into her new body, she was initially a 45-year-old woman. Of course, her brain and, consequently, her personality would be slightly different. A child’s mind and body work differently from an adult’s, and even if she still has 45 years' worth of memories, that fact doesn’t change. 

The change after the breakthrough wasn’t substantial, but Mika felt less kid-like. She didn’t suddenly become more intelligent or mature, but she did feel less dependent, rash, and slightly more logical. 

“I can’t wait to break through again!” She clenched her fist, wanting her body to fully mature already! She was tired of having a child's body!

After analyzing every part of her body, she reviewed her fight with the monkeys. 

“System, what were those monkeys?”

[Those were Feculent Shrieker Monkeys. Their specialties are imbuing their howls, roars, claps, and shrieks with mana, increasing their volume, and can invoke disorientation in an unsuspecting target. Their fecal matter, when smelled, can slightly muddle your head and impair your thoughts. Their nickname is Trash Monkeys because they are incredibly annoying to kill, and there are no benefits to killing them other than their mana core.]

“Trash monkeys, huh? That name suits them quite well. I endured so much pain only to kill one of them.”

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Mika, and she looked at her kimono, “Now that I think about it-Blergh!” Only now did Mika realize she was still covered in monkey shit!

Not only that, but the Stage 3 Black Core Realm monkey she killed had already begun rotting! 

“Ugh! I need to go wash up!” Mika dug out the mana core within the monkey and went to go wash up and dispose of its corpse. 

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After cleaning herself off, Mika returned to her shelter and entered her [Mind Space Lv. 1] and began reviewing her battle with the Trash Monkeys. She created replicas of them and then began fighting. 

At first, Mika still had a hard time killing the big one without using any mana, but after spending the rest of the day doing that, she could kill it without getting so injured. Of course, that was without several other monkeys around her, throwing poop and stones.

Although it was just a simulation and couldn’t compare to the real thing, the next time she runs into a Trash Monkey, she won’t have such a hard time! 

“Honestly, it’s just their evasiveness and use of the terrain that makes them a problem to fight. Other than that, they aren’t that strong. As the System said, they are just a pain in the ass to kill.” 

Once Mika finished simulating her fight with the Trash Monkey, she fell asleep.

The next day, Mika went back to her routine of:

Wake up at around dawn. 
Inhale Centaremors Mushroom spores for about an hour.
Train with her sword for 3 hours. 
Inhale Centaremors Mushroom spores for about an hour.
Hunt and explore the jungle for about 2-3 hours.
Work on her mana control for 3 hours. 
Inhale Centaremors Mushroom spores, taking about an hour.
Meditate on developing her mana cultivation technique for 3 hours.
Inhale Centaremors Mushroom spores, taking about an hour.
Train in her Mind Space for 2 hours. She’d battle against beasts she encountered in the jungle and her past life.
Then, finally, sleep for around 6 hours.
Just like that, an entire year went by where she did nothing but train! After her run-in with the Trash Monkeys, Mika knew she had to stop acting so recklessly. She was no longer the apex predator and had to adapt to being at the bottom of the food chain. 

She only had 29 mana stones left after killing that monkey, and she couldn’t waste them every time she got a bit careless.

Each mana stone was worth two weeks to a month’s worth of food. Thus, Mika couldn’t justify wasting five of them on healing serums whenever she got severely injured. 

Naturally, this decreased Mika’s progress in leaving the jungle, but she couldn’t help that. After all, she’d like to leave this jungle alive rather than end up in some beast’s stomach.

Every day was filled with four hours of intense torture from inhaling Centaremors Mushroom spores! The pain never stopped because whenever Mika made even a little bit of progress, she’d decrease the distance between herself and the mushroom. 

But after doing that every day for several hours per day, her hard work naturally paid off! 

After six months of inhaling spores, Mika could hold the Centaremors Mushrooms in her hands without any problems. After a year, she could eat them!

Of course, that didn’t mean she would eat them. They tasted horrible, gave her diarrhea, and were way too spicy. 

However, after accomplishing this, the amount of security she felt was absurd. No creature she’d met so far in this jungle messed with the Centaremors Mushrooms, so all Mika had to do was carry one around, and she’d theoretically never be in danger. 

Her second biggest boon would be her mana control! It took her almost the entire year before she could control all the mana within the panther’s mana core with hardly any effort, which was enough for her to launch two more [Volcanic Bursts]! 

Lastly, Mika has come up with a theoretical Mana Cultivation Technique, but she was hesitant to start. She wanted her cultivation technique to be perfect, but her knowledge of the topic was severely lacking. 

How would she know if her technique is perfect or not? She barely knew if what she had theorized was considered a technique! 

The System had already hinted that she needed a strong foundation, but what if her Mana Cultivation Technique wasn’t the best or the strongest?

Wouldn’t she be doing herself and the System a disservice by wasting her potential like that?!

Therefore, Mika couldn’t take the jump and start cultivating her mana. But before doing that, she wanted to return to human society to understand Mana Cultivation and its intricacies better. 

***

After a year of training, Mika started her daily routine as usual until around noon, when she began scouting the area, looking for prey and/or signs that she was approaching the jungle's edge. 

Unfortunately, despite living in the jungle for a year, she still hasn’t seen any signs of reaching the edge. On the contrary, it seemed like in whatever direction she went; the beasts only got stronger. 

She wasn’t sure if this was good or bad, but it was undoubtedly helpful for training. However, most of the weaker animals and magical beasts run away when they see her now.

After spending a year inside the jungle alone, constantly training and killing, her aura had become more murderous, distant, and beastlike. She had regained the sharpness and killing intent she had from her previous life, now that she was in danger every minute of every day. 

The only one she had to talk with during this time was the System, which was probably the only reason she could stay sane, despite it only answering whenever she asked genuine questions.

Although she wasn’t even 3 yet, Mika now had the appearance of a 5 to 6-year-old girl. 

As she was scouting out the surrounding area, Mika wandered out slightly farther than she’d gone yesterday and began scouting.

She didn’t have any expectations for today’s exploration as they’d all turned up fruitless in the past, but when she heard noises in the distance, noises she hadn’t heard in a long time, a smile unconsciously appeared on her face. 

‘Have I finally found my ticket out of this place?!’

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