Come morning, I woke up earlier than I normally would. So early in fact that my mother wasn't in the kitchen when I got out of the storage shed, the living room was empty and the doors were still locked.

  Flotol is sleeping right now but me? I'm feeling restless, like a bomb about to go off.

  Wand in hand, I made my way out of our house and ran towards the swamp. For a while, I walked, draped in a large coat that fought against the biting cold. A wind blew past and I got reminded that winter is coming soon, the swamp will freeze, and the annual cull will begin.

  Rain is starting to become frequent as well. Every afternoon, when the sun is low and the world starts to turn cold, the sky starts to cry. It's not so bad that the water level increases but it does occasionally cause a bit of swaying so the rain is definitely problematic in its own right.

  My boots pushed against the mud, I felt the soles sinking into the earth with every passing step. Soon, the younger aberrants would turn this side of the forest into their hunting grounds, with how wet the area has become, they won't have any issues being active here.

  Will they be a threat to me? Yes. Their numbers alone will force me away.

  Complaining about it is pointless though because I now have the ability to use magic so instead of treating the aberrants as some kind of threat, I should probably consider them as a way for me to easily get exp.

  Then again, areas like these are the perfect places for juvenile aberrants to hibernate in so there's a good chance I'll be randomly ambushed by one. It's what makes thoroughly culling them so hard, because who in their right mind would spend months searching the entirety of this forest just to kill every single aberrant alive?

  On the other hand, older aberrants will stay in the lifeless pool with their "noses" sticking out of the ice so that they can keep breathing, much like a crocodile. They are still exposed so killing them is pretty easy.

  By the end of winter, the adults will be gone and the lifeless pool will start to grow life again, eventually the surplus of food will start attracting young aberrants and then the cycle repeats.

  This happens every year.

  "Wait, this is the perfect spot." I stopped.

  Looking around, I see that the trees here are healthy. I'm far from the swamp and have gotten closer to the forest neighbouring it. Good. No one would suspect a young kid to practice magic here.

  "Good enough." I muttered while kicking a rock away. I waved my wand to get used to the weight, despite being mostly made of iron, I'm able to carry it with relative ease thanks to my stats.

  Magic surged through my veins as I gathered it through my will, I could feel it coursing underneath my skin in such vivid detail that I'm shocked. I'm guessing this is one of the many effects of magical awakening?

  Thanks to how sensitive I am to the energy, I'm able to sense just how much magic has gathered inside my throat and when I felt that I had enough, I said the incantation for [Water Ball] and waved my wand sideways.

  The spell that I cast didn't manifest into a blob of water but instead formed 5 sharp icicles in front of me. They all looked exactly like the ones hanging from my window sill whenever winter comes around.

  However, these icicles are tougher and can pierce through skin, completely unlike the naturally forming ones which are so brittle they shatter when making contact with the head of a five year old kid.

  Which yeah, happened to me once. I think it was a few years ago? During one of the winters I excitedly opened the door to our house so hard it slammed against the wall, the icicle hanging directly above the door fell and hit me on the head, it broke first and I didn't even get a minor cut from it.

  These things? If I aim them at someone's head they'll do more than lacerate, they'll stab through the skull and come out the other end fully intact.

  I waved my hand and fired them off, just as I thought, they broke through the first few layers of tree bark effortlessly.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Sure the icicles broke first but that's normal, I shot them at a tree so of course they'll break, if it was a human the only possible outcome would be my target dying.

  Of course, I am aware that this only works on regular humans, adventurers can possibly dodge or hell, survive my icicles if they're strong enough. But that's why I have my two other spells.

  [Freeze] is a debuff, one that will encase someone in ice. No one's dodging my attacks with this spell in my possession.

  When I tested it, the base of some poor tree got completely enveloped in a thick layer of frost. If it was a human, they'd find it hard to break free from such a cold prison, low level adventurers aren't an exception to this. Hypothermia isn't a joke.

  [Ice Wall] on the other hand won't... Hold people off like other wall types since it's, you know, made up of ice? But it can be effective sometimes and the spell is good enough for its intended purpose of creating an obstacle so it's good enough in my opinion.

  Utility wise though, making a wall– even if it's just ice. – is way too good to pass up so I added it into my repertoire.

  And that's it, everything I'll need to level up at this stage of the game is in this wand. I still need to do a lot of things, like studying runes, earning money, and increasing my adventurer level so this wand is a god send when it comes to saving time.

  Since I no longer have to go out of my way to learn spells, I felt tempted to head deep into the forest and start attacking the monsters that the local dungeon spits out but I held back.

  Preparing is essential and I won't be caught off guard so I'll just leave for now.

  What do I need again? Armor? Boots? And several other things. Thanks to my small size everything should be cheap so I won't have any problems with them financially speaking. Saving up also sounds like a good idea and that's what I'm going to do once my gear is finished.

  For now, I went back home.

  Mom and Laself were already in our kitchen when I got back, they're wide awake. Expectedly, the two older women turned to me when I walked through the front door. Laself was wearing a shocked expression while mom just raised an eyebrow.

  "I practiced my magic." Lying wouldn't help me here being honest and ripping off the band aid is the proper solution to this situation. "I have three spells, I wanna use them in the forest later today."

  And possibly even find another one of the cottages that the mender owns. When that happens I'm afraid Laself will have to settle with going to Ghorise all by herself because I'm going to be staying there for the foreseeable future.

  I'll still come back here on occasion to sell monster parts but mostly? I'll stay in that forest, grinding exp and leveling up. I wanna get as many levels as quickly as possible and killing monsters is the best way to do that.

  "Really? Three?" Laself tilted her head. "Didn't you say that you only got your magical sub class a week ago?"

  "I've been reading up on spells since then. Don't worry, I'm not that good yet." Okay, I admit I'm humble bragging. I know my progress is still prodigious given that three spells in a week is a lot even if I like to read but what was I supposed to say?

  "Right." Laself nodded and left the topic be, thank god for that. "Are we leaving after breakfast?"

  "Yep." I walked to my seat and made myself comfortable. "Maybe you'll be the one managing the stall soon enough." Laself didn't react in the way I thought she would. Instead of joy, she looked horrified. I chuckled, pretending it's a joke. "Don't worry, I'm kidding. Mostly."

  "Mostly?"

  "It'll be a while before it happens." I waved Laself off.

  "Why do you wanna stop selling stuff?" My mother suddenly asked. "You know, earning a lot of money at your age is pretty important." She met my eyes. "I understand that you'd want to practice your magic and focus on that but don't you have years to do that?"

  Years? Yeah. Years. Sure. I technically have a lot of time before I become a monster and massacre everyone but that's exactly why I need to work on it every single day: because I have time. The more I work on this the higher the chances of me escaping my fate.

  I can't just dawdle and play around.

  "No? I wanna be a prodigious mage so that I can enter the Royal Academy of Illumia." Which is the capital, a place close to the light house. "I can't just sit down and not work, I need to get accepted!"

  "Well, I'm not one for magic and that friend of yours clearly filled your head with the glory of such a dangerous profession but if that's what you want to do then you are free to do so." My mother, as always, just let me do whatever. I wonder how dad will react to this kind of news? What about Howaph?

  "Thank you." As for me, I'm just glad that my mother lets me do whatever. I can't ask for anything more as someone who has more mental capability than their physical age suggests. "I'll make you all proud."

  "Just be careful." My mother said one last time before turning away to focus on what she's cooking. Stew? I guess? Does it need that much stirring? And she's moving that ladle rather harshly no?

  With breakfast slightly awkward, I ate alongside Laself and my family before going through my usual routine of selling food the next town over.

  Once that's done I went to the leather worker, asked him if I can get a set of leather armor, pants, boots, and gloves. After paying him half my intended commission, I left.

  Now the only thing I need to do is buy a set of chainmail from the blacksmith tomorrow and my gear will be in progress.