Artus woke up the next morning groggy. His mind is drawing a blank. He barely remembered anything before it hit him.

Absolutely nothing had happened. Nothing at all.

The whole night was spent cold and alone on the second floor of the barn that smelled animal dung. The animal probably had long died off but its legacy was still stifling the air.

What was even better, he expected that many more nights would be spent this way. The kid inside him missed his someone-slash-lover, but of course, he wasn’t that clingy. It was only one night goddammit.

Artus sighed.

But he had to admit after almost a week spending the nights in the wilds within Nusia's embrace, it was enough to make him feel lonely. The adult half of him even suspected that something kinky was going on between them and the other man, but of course, that was only loneliness who was speaking as she would never do that to him.

Wouldn’t she?

Because of the doubt that gnawed his being, he spent most of the night tweaking his shell spell until he was too tired to think. He was glad that he had dabbled in many programming languages as he could deduce what was in the spell matrix.

Learning without a teacher meant you had to ‘steal’ other’s way of coding things and make it your own. It was never straightforward, but he had been stealing tricks others had used for so long, he became good at it.

The best thing about math and programming was, there was no single way to get the answer or the result that you want. Different people approach problems differently and that was where he shined the best. Adapting others’ different approaches for his own benefit.

The Aether or Mana, it seems, needed rules to be laid down before they could perform the miracle he wanted, and that alone was significant. He had no clue why there were two names for the same thing, but he could tell that one of them was easier to use than the other. The spell Arcane Shell told him this as the spell was coded for the easier, the mana.

Another problem was there were simply too few instructions inside the spell. He had tried in the old world, and he had personally suffered how hard it was even to recreate something as simple as ‘collisions’ in virtual reality.

And what shield if it didn’t include a collision detection?

Artus was able to deflect the spear thrust with the generated shield by introducing a basic infinite rotating loop in the matrix. He spun the shield as fast as he thought possible, but maybe it wasn’t fast enough. He should crank the numbers up on the next test.

He was able to block the cold temperature because of simple additional layers of shell, and the girl had really appreciated it. He had the idea right after the shield first test, but he had a hard time trying to figure out how to block the smell.

Blocking the air entirely would have worked but it would be suicide even if it was remotely possible. The breathable air inside would run out and he would suffocate in his sleep.

Regardless of the struggle, he had fallen asleep while trying to figure it out. Artus can't believe himself had fallen asleep. He was barely able to breathe the putrid air.

'Breathing? Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out, or breathable in and unbreathable out, of course!' he smacked himself on the head right after waking up. He could have worked on that.

Artus groaned. He had tried to make the sound that the famous butcher of Rivia had done, but of course, he only made himself sound stupid.

After a short act of contemplation, he decided to spend the early morning walk around the farm on its half-wet, half-frozen soil. He wanted to find some idea to impress the ladies but he had no idea about farming and wondered why they still weren’t sowing the land.

Shouldn't they have started earlier?

All his life was filled with the modern marvel of the 21'th century, the computer and all its galore. He knew jack shit about farming. The rough neighborhood also had never taught him how to fight but only to endure.

He wasn't going to lie to himself in believing that he was some kind of secret genius in martial arts or whatever. The [Arcane Shell] was all he got.

None of the games he played, or the books he had read, had helped other than scared the shit out of him thinking what kind of monsters could be out there. He hadn't even been able to figure out how this world worked yet despite Nusia’s random burst of explanation and info he picked from what he overheard.

Only last night he had heard that people, on their death, could pass down their skills and class using their [Core]. Of course, Nusia would never tell him as she must have assumed that he already knows it. She must have thought that the boy had absorbed some random old guy's Core to become him.

A perverted old guy's Core as she had really appreciated the 'lips service' since day one. All modern men should have that 'knowledge'. Even a rookie could surprise a girl here.

Artus chuckled.

And he just realized, now was the only time he could stop and think about things. Well, other things than trying to survive. Other times his mind was occupied with monsters in the Wilds, or if Bashker’s bounty hunters would suddenly pop out.

Now, no one should know who he was, well, except Nusia.

It’s a great fresh start, thanks to her. He checked his status by simply willing it to appear.

[Name: Artus]
[Age: 17]
[Essence: 3]
[Status: Awakened (+28 Spirit)]

[Attributes]
[Body: 12]
[Mind: 8]
[Spirit: 31]
[Health Pool: 10/10]
[Mana Pool: 19/19]

[Affinity: Aether 20%]
[Core: Level 1]
[Skill Slot 1 - Arcane Shell]

He was trying to make sense of his Status when a pair of hands wrapped around him. She cooed as their warmth exchanged.

“How’s your leg?” he asked the girl.

No one else in the world but she would have not hesitated to hug him. He still couldn’t believe she was willing to hurt herself when he had refused to do so. All in the name of giving him a place to start.

No one had ever done anything like this for him. It made him feel that she would do anything for him. No, deep inside, he knows that she will.

“I heal fast,” she said. “Cannot sleep?”

He shook his head and her embrace became a little tighter.

Artus chuckled. “I’ll live,” he added.

“I’ll need to go hunting us something,” she said as her hands relented. “You’ll need the meat to cultivate your Body.”

“Not because of returning their trust and favor?” he asked her.

“These people’s minds are still trapped in their small little farm, they could join if they have no shame,” she scoffed.

“Are you still mad?” he chuckled in disbelief.

“My little boy is the kindest boy ever lived, of course, I’m mad.”

“I understand, but we who had lied to them, Nusia.”

The girl harrumphed, “I knew that, but still-” she groaned. “You are doing it again, how do you do that, the change didn’t affect you?”

“Oh, it does, but what they had done might be more than just what you thought they did. I feel like an old man trapped in a younger body, even if I know the old awakened spirit is not really me.”

Nusia turned him around and kissed him. He didn’t push her away as he had really missed her hot sweet lips. He might be kind of addicted to them now.

“You are a young handsome man,” she said as she did what she could to fix his ruffled hair, and he nodded to her. “Now go flirt with girls like all young men will do while I go to kill and drag some poor dead animal back.”

Artus laughed. “Aside from flirting, what should I do on a farm?”

“Chopping wood would be a good start, it will help to build your body too.”

“I’ll do that ma’am,” he answered.

“Good, you should remember who’s in charge between us more.”

“I’ll do that too,” he smiled. “Ma’am.”

Nusia chuckled before she walked away from him. He noticed that the girl had new clothes on her as she turned and waved at him. A one-piece brown dress with a skirt down to her knees and leather boots up her thighs. The clothes weren’t particularly new but it was new to them.

After that battery boost, it was time for him to work. Artus headed towards the stack of woods he had noticed earlier and grabbed the simple axe. The edge wasn’t very sharp but he guessed it would do the job. He was going to split wood, not chop down a tree or something.

His first few swings ended up creating splinters instead of dividing the wood, but he continued the job regardless. The fire would burn it all the same. He tuned everything else out and focused only on the swing and the target. His aim was a fine imaginary line right in the middle of the wood.

The thought exercise had helped a lot as he continued to chop one block of wood after another. His swings were smoother and his aim hit the target more than it missed. He took his shirt off when it became hot and itchy again.

He began to feel something odd when his breath was already raggy, and his body began to ache all over. There was something that was creeping onto his instinct. Something good.

He tried to feel it while continuing to work but the feeling became more distant instead.

‘What went wrong?’ he thought to himself. He just couldn’t figure it out.

His already girl-like swings became even more pathetic as his stamina began to run out. His stomach had joined the protest too. Determined to finish the last of the cut wood, he focused again, isolating the environment from the job he had to finish.

Only his body, the grip on the axe, and the call to cut their mortal enemy, a block piece of wood existed in his perception. He felt the odd sensation again on the first swing but he ignored it.

The feeling was like a wild animal that would escape him if he focussed on it. On the fourth swing, he felt the said ‘wild animal’ almost right in front of him. But still, he couldn’t tell what the hell was creeping on him.

The fifth and last swing told him what kind of animal it was.

And it was awesome.