The Reverse Mana System

Alex and the hunting party returned back to the village at noon with the few mana beasts that they had hunted in the valley and some other beasts that they had hunted while returning.

Also they had brought along the dead Six horned bison as it was completely intact except for the core.

" Alex, I didn't expect you to be this proficient at hunting. I have to say that those flashy and stylish moves of yours truly are good." Marcen said, patting Alex's shoulder.

After seeing Alex's combat proficiency, the members of the hunting party had gradually accepted him as one of their own.

"It's nothing that good. I just used the techniques that I learned before coming here."

Alex said. He definitely couldn't tell them that his techniques were normal, it was just that their techniques were way too crude to even be called so..

"Oh, I forgot to ask, how exactly did you end up here?" Sheri asked.

All the others also stopped and looked at Alex. All of them were naturally very curious about how someone like Alex who wasn't very powerful could survive in the forest and find their village.

" A friend of mine came here to visit one of their acquaintances and I tagged along. Later, we got separated in the forest and I ended up finding the village." Alex said.

' That should be counted as truth right? I didn't lie in any way. Verenia came to visit someone and helped me along the way.' Alex thought to himself.

" Your friend must be quite powerful for them to be able to protect you in this forest." Bradly said.

" Very..." Alex replied and ended the conversation.

After returning back to the village, they had nothing to do, so the hunting party dispersed.

Alex also went back to take a rest, because he had to be in optimal condition when he entered the system dungeon once again at night.

But for some reason, Sheri had followed him back to Lucas's house.

"What do you want?" Alex asked her.

" I want you to pay back my money." Sheri said after some thinking.

"Sigh! Tell me what you truly want?" Alex turned back to her and stared into her eyes.

" Since you don't have any money on you, how about you pay me back by teaching me those techniques of yours."

Alex knew what was going on. Sheri knew that her fighting style was crude and wanted to learn the proper techniques, but she was too ashamed to ask him directly, so she disguised her request as a repayment.

Alex stared into her eyes for a good two minutes which made Sheri a bit nervous, then he made an expression as if he was contemplating whether to teach her or not.

He then opened his mouth and said after a few seconds pause.

" Humm! you know that the cost of me teaching you one of those skills is much higher than that of the sword that you bought for me. And also, it will take you quite some time to learn them. You'll owe me quite some money if I teach you those skills."

Sheri seemed a bit surprised, but she immediately nodded, "I will pay you. You can take as much money as you want from me, but please teach me. "

Alex was having a hard time trying to hold back a smile from appearing on his face.

She was so naive and gullible. It was quite refreshing to see someone like her, especially to Alex who had been living his daily life either being schemed against or scheming against someone else for the past six years.

"Let's go to my secret practice area." Sheri said, dragging Alex along with her.

" We are going there now?" Alex asked her.

" Yes, it's not like we have anything else to do." Sheri said and continued to drag Alex with her.

Before Alex could even voice out his opinion, Sheri had already taken him out of the village and they were halfway between the village and a nearby mountain.

Alex sighed to himself.

"You don't have to drag me along, I'll walk there myself." Alex said.

Sheri immediately let go of his hand and they continued their journey. She took Alex to the one side of the mountain. The scenery there was quite nice as green trees marked the landscape and a stream of water was flowing through it.

After walking some more distance, they had finally arrived at Sheri's training grounds. There was a faint silhouette of someone standing there. Alex and Sheri continued their advance without any consideration.

Finally, Alex could see who this person was.

A man around mid twenties was standing there with a spear that was identical to Sheri's spear in his hands and training his spear skills. The man had some of Sheri's facial features and a handsome build.

'So this is her brother whom all the people were talking about.' Alex thought to himself.

Sheri continued to move, so Alex had no reason to wait and monitor that man from a distance.

He continued along with Sheri.

When Alex and Sheri arrived at the location, the man finally looked up at them.

" What are you doing here and who is this person beside you?" The man asked Sheri without even batting an eye on Alex.

" Why should I tell you?" Sheri replied bluntly.

This was not what Alex had expected. According to the members of the hunting party, Sheri and her brother shared a very good relation and were always very close to each other, but their relationship didn't seem all that good to Alex.

The man left without saying a word to Sheri after giving a deep stare to Alex who replied in kind by staring back in his eyes without a care in the world.

Alex could tell that Sheri wasn't someone who would be bothered by political power so the tension between these siblings confused him.

But he wasn't one to interfere in other's personal matters.

" So what do you want to learn?" Alex asked Sheri.

" To use a spear just like my brother....I mean that person." Sheri replied.

" You do know that you aren't a good match with spears and that you are more suited to be a mage than an augmenter, right?" Alex asked, looking at her.

" I know.." Sheri replied with her head lowered,

" But this spear is a gift from God that has been passed in my family for generations and also there are no staff or grimoires in the village which can help in casting magic attacks. And I really like using spears. " Sheri replied.

Alex thought that it was worth a shot. He wasn't feeling very compatible when using wind blades, and he thought that it was because he wasn't holding a real sword, but after trying a real sword today, he got the same feeling.

While using the sword made by Old man Dreron in hunting the mana beasts today, he finally realized that his spells and fighting style weren't that compatible with a sword. True that he had learned how to wield a sword for years, but that was before he used spells, now he had to change it in order to reach his optimal combat prowess.

He wanted a weapon with a longer range, so trying a spear while teaching Sheri wasn't that bad of a plan. He would be able to judge if he wanted to continue using the spear or if he had to find a new weapon for himself.

Alex quickly opened the skills store and spent one skill point to learn basic spear mastery.

A large amount of data was transmitted to his brain and he felt a severe headache, but what was more torturous was that he had to keep smiling in front of Sheri so that she didn't find anything out of place.

After some time, the pain in his head finally subsided.

" Why were you looking at me with such a weird expression? Are you not feeling well?" Sheri asked.

"Weird expression...." Alex mumbled.

Sheri thought that Alex was asking her a question and immediately replied," Yes, your face was showing signs of pain and although you were smiling, it kept on twitching from time to time."

Alex knew that he wasn't one of those poker faced people, but to think that it was so obvious...

" Anyway, let's begin our training and remember that you owe me quite a lot of money." Alex said to prevent things from getting awkward.

"Yes." Sheri replied as she went to a nearby tree and climbed it.

Sheri came back with two wooden canes in her hand, they were perfect to be used as handles of spears.

Alex took one of them and tried using it. To his surprise, he was able to quickly master it to the level of basic mastery.

Alex looked at Sheri who was also trying to imitate his movements and had a flash of idea.

" In order to teach you, I'll first have to know how good you are at using a spear, so let's have a spar. No use of mana will be allowed and also we can both limit our strength to mid level tier 1 so that you don't have an unfair advantage in physical capabilities. " Alex said.

"Okay!" Sheri said enthusiastically, completely unaware that she had just fallen for Alex's scheme.

After about half an hour of one-sidedly bullying Sheri, Alex realized that he wasn't too comfortable with the spear either, so he decided to stop their little so called duel.

Sheri was on the verge of crying. When the duel started, she could still block Alex's attacks based on her instincts, but just after 5 minutes, she was completely pulled into his tempo. After that, she was only able to randomly swing the cane in her hand while nearly each of Alex's strikes hit her on the forehead.

It wasn't that the strikes were painful, but her uselessness against someone in combat who had been using the same weapon as her that bore down on her.

Alex had been planning to defeat her and then tell her that she should practice more so that he could design a proper moveset for her, and then go back, but when he looked at her face and her eyes which were about to burst into tears, he felt that he had indeed gotten carried away a bit.

Letting out a sigh, he went to her, " Why are you crying, do you want me to continue teaching you, or are you too scared to learn it now?" Alex said.

Something about his tone felt a bit sarcastic to Sheri and she immediately blinked her eyes a few times to dry out the tears and stared back at Alex.

After teaching some basic moves and the correct way to use them to Sheri, Alex finally returned back to the village with her.

It was already evening, so there wasn't much use resting. That being the case, Alex just randomly strolled around the village while occasionally looking at the festive preparations made by the villagers.

At night time, Alex was back to the front door of Old man Dreron's house as he prepared to enter the dungeon to gather the material for basic mana swords again while also farming exp.

Alex pressed on the dungeon option and immediately his entire vision was filled with bright light.

When he opened his eyes, he was a bit surprised.