After becoming a B rank Adventurer, Akari took on a multitude of C rank jobs, around 2-3 a day, for around a month. Though she could take A and B rank jobs, as Adventurers can take job requests one rank above their current rank, she didn't want to have a tough time completing them.
Although she didn't make too much money, she did gain lots of experience in how to use her blood magic.
By this point, she could create just about any weapon she could think of, even weapons that didn't exist in her past life, those being things like plasma rifles and other things. Though, this only changed the shape of the projectiles she shot, not the power.
After all, in the end, it's all made of the same thing, blood.
She also figured out how to manipulate blood in the area that she didn't create. Though, she can't control blood inside of other people's bodies.
Blood magic wasn't the only thing she worked on.
Her healing magic also evolved in the past month. Before she would need to focus on healing whatever was harmed, being unable to do much else until she was fully healed.
But now, she had something similar to a regenerative aura, constantly healing her. Though it was slower than focused healing, she could constantly heal now and cast blood magic at the same time.
Making the most use out of this, she decided to begin training her body. She couldn't feel pain or exhaustion, allowing her to push past her limits, though, to be fair, she didn't know her limits because of this.
Her body quickly developed because of this, being able to train till failure and fully heal herself right after.
The only downside to this training style was that she needed to eat and drink much more than the normal person, as her regenerative aura didn't replenish her body's nutrients fast enough.
Thankfully, Akari had accounted for this and took the necessary steps to make sure her body wouldn't begin failing without her knowledge.
She also learned that the more muscle she has, the more she can strengthen her body.
Muscle fibers can hold more mana than fat.
Since she had no teacher, she had to learn about mana through trial and error, which Akari didn't mind.
Magic was something Akari loved, so she also loved what makes magic possible in the first place, mana.
If Akari didn't use this training method, she'd have a little over 6000 Zoul saved up, but the cost of lodging and food drained her pockets, leaving her with around 200 consistently. Over the month, she also learned a bit more about how the money system worked, on this continent at least.
The money system was similar to The United State's money system, which is why Akari was glad she visited The US in her past life. It helped her get accustomed to it extremely well.
The dollar to Zoul ratio was literally 1:1.
Though she'd made so much progress, Akari began to feel restless.
She had been in the same place for too long.
The feelings of dread that she felt in her past life were overtaking her.
She absolutely hated staying in one place.
Being stuck in Japan after getting a job for most of her life was absolute hell for her.
She wanted to explore.
To experience the world. Something she wasn't able to fully accomplish in her previous life.
Spending so much time in one place, falling into a repetitive cycle like this, it was starting to scare her. She didn't want to repeat her last life.
With that, she decided,
"It's time to head to Sylvanna!"
***
After leaving The Cyan Kingdom, Akari was making her way through the same part of the forest she defeated the Superior Ogre in.
With no money and a backpack full of food on her back, Akari made her way through the forest without much difficulty.
Her sensory abilities aided in avoiding most monsters, and her enhanced physicality allowed great mobility even through the dense greenery.
She was wearing a black puffer jacket and black pants with a white shirt underneath. She was surprised by the clothes in this world, most being older but there was modern clothes mixed in.
But she didn't read too much into it though, not finding it important nor interesting.
*Brrrrrrrr…*
The sound that reached her ears prompted her to expand her sensing range, reaching 35 meters around her.
That's when she sensed it, 23 meters away. It was small, and there were many of them around.
"What the…"
Akari muttered as she looked around.
'They aren't Bicorns, they're much more hostile… and they don't float.'
She couldn't tell what it was, having never sensed such a being before.
Akari jumped into a tree, slightly strengthening her body with mana.
She then sat there, waiting for one of the things she's sensing to get closer.
20 meters…
19…
18…
It was moving too slowly, so Akari decided to get closer herself.
Silently hopping from tree to tree, she got around 12 meters away from it before she focused on sensing it.
It was a small orb… filled to the brim with some type of energy.
It was similar to mana, yet completely different.
Akari stared at it.
"Are you… a spirit? How come I'm only just now seeing them?"
Akari jumped down from the tree and got closer to the spirit.
"You're nothing like Ataki… You're actually… kind of cute."
It was a bright orange orb, floating. Though it was purely made of that strange energy, it constantly made a vibrating noise. It seemed to be heading towards The Cyan Kingdom.
Akari's curiosity took over, causing her to attempt holding the orb.
At first, nothing happened and her finger passed through it, then it slowly faded away. Its energy was filling Akari's body.
Akari, startled, quickly pulled her hand away from it.
Her body felt strange, similar to how her eyes felt whenever she watched Ataki use magic.
*Vrrrrrrrrrrrrr!*
Akari heard something vibrating quietly, though, it felt like it was coming from inside of her, just as you can hear your own voice.
Silently, she began using her sensory abilities on herself. This was strangely the first time she ever did this. She could see two things that stood out to her. First, she found out where her mana comes from.
Mana was constantly pouring from her heart, going through veins that traveled right next to her veins and blood vessels.
This meant that humans from this world had double the veins and vessels than humans from her world. This is likely how they could survive in this world.
Akari never really mentioned it, but the gravity of this world is actually much stronger than her original worlds.
At first, she never noticed because her body didn't feel any strain, but after fighting the Superior Ogre and living in The Cyan Kingdom for a month, everything fell to the ground a bit quicker than she remembered from her past life.
The other thing she noticed was a spear like ball of energy revolving around her heart. It was made of whatever that spirit was made of and she felt like she could use that energy, but didn't know what to use it for.
Sighing, she decided to continue her journey to Sylvanna. This trip would take her around 2 weeks of walking and running. Akari was fast, extremely so, but as she thought before, this continent was massive.
The distance she ran was similar to the distance between Northern Africa and Spain, around 2.5 thousand miles.
She made good time though, travelling much faster than the average civilian for a much longer time thanks to her lack of exhaustion.
Along the way, she ran into and absorbed a bunch more spirits while avoiding monsters such as Bicorns and Dire Wolves.
One thing they had in common though, was that they all were heading towards The Cyan Kingdom, as if they were running from someone… or something.
Her theory was confirmed on her 9th day of travelling.
While sitting on a cliff, admiring the scenery, she witnessed a monster horde.
Hundreds of monsters, different races and ranks, had been travelling east.
They didn't seem hostile, but afraid.
It was fascinating.
Akari spent hours watching them til they had left, noting little things like how well Bicorns and Orcs get along.
After they'd gone, Akari continued on her journey, being set back a few hours but she didn't care.
It wasn't like she was on a specific time frame.
Realizing this, she decided to take more breaks throughout the rest of the journey, enjoying her time in nature.
Two weeks after witnessing the horde, the sphere of strange energy near her heart had split into two.
Why?
After absorbing the first spirit, Akari didn't stop. At first, the sphere near her heart was so small she couldn't do anything with it, so she wanted more.
Sitting near the city of Sylvanna, she decided it was time to test this energy.
"This is pretty cool…"
Her mana manipulation was smooth for the most part, yet she couldn't manipulate the strange energy nearly as efficiently.
Akari sighed as she stared at the water, looking at a fish, seemingly a swordfish, swimming not too deep under.
"...Wait, why the hell is a swordfish in a river!?"
As she said this, it leaped out the water, trying to stab her.
"Ah!"
Akari panicked and stuck out her arm, catching the swordfish's blade with her hand.
Of course, she couldn't feel anything, which made her throw the swordfish away from the river.
The spheres around her heart began rotating faster as Akari healed herself, the healing speeding up as the energy inside the spheres slowly depleted.
'They're… rotating?'
Although she was using her full regenerative aura, the healing speed was as fast, if not quicker, as her focused healing.
"So it's like a magic amplifier."
Akari walked to the flopping sword fish as she created a blood sickle, slowly letting the energy of the spheres flow into it.
Normally, her sickle would be small, just as she intended for it, but with the addition of the strange energy,it grew to a full scythe. The structure changed as well, becoming more sturdy. The foundation of it was in the shapes of honeycombs, which changed the look of the scythe as well.
In this way, she could fill it with much more mana than she could originally.
The strength of it was on a whole different level.
It sliced through swordfish with ease.
"It even changes the structure? This is getting cooler and cooler!"
Akari observed the decapitated fish's body, her mind racing with more and more ideas on this energy's uses.
"Whatever, if I find more spirits, might as well absorb them."
With that, she continued approaching the city.
It looked strangely modern.
Past the transparent barrier protecting the city, Akari could see skyscrapers, highrises, and pretty lights. It reminded her of a combination of New York and Japan.
"How can a place like this even exist?"
Squinting her eyes, she could see something flickering further in.
Unbeknownst to Akari, she was currently using her soul weapon. Thanks to it, she could see that even deeper into the city, it was even more advanced, futuristic even.
"Please state your name and reasons for visiting."
A voice broke Akari's train of thought.
Akari looked to see who it was and it was just a guard.
"My name is Akari.. Uhh Ignius."
She answered relatively calmly, stuttering thanks to her simply forgetting her last name for a second.
"Ah, you're the duke of Algoa's daughter, where's your father?"
The guard asked as he looked around.
"We're currently separated, I wanted to come here to… wait for him."
As Akari spoke, she slowly became more and more nervous. She was beginning to lie and she wasn't that good at improv.
"Hm, well alright, once we confirm your identity, you'll be allowed entry. Could I see your finger?"
"For what?"
"Well, seeing as you're not an adult, you don't have an ID correct?"
"Mhm"
Akari was slowly beginning to see what he was trying to do. It must be magic.
"Well, using a little bit of your blood, we can confirm your lineage."
"Alright, sounds good to me."
As Akari responded, she lent the Guard her finger.
The guard watched her for a moment. Noticing this, Akari raised an eyebrow, prompting the guard to continue on.
The guard pricked her finger and stepped back for a second. His armplate began to glow as a hologram appeared in front of him
'This can't be magic… This is technology!'
Akari, using her soul weapon, didn't see an ounce of mana emitting from the blade or hologram. Although she knew it couldn't be magic, she was still extremely curious as to how technology could mimic magic so well.
"Alright, you're all good to go in. Welcome to Sylvanna, young master."
Akari nodded as she walked in, going straight through the barrier. From outside, she couldn't hear anything, and likely wasn't supposed to be able to see anything. Though, thanks to her soul weapon, Akari could peer through the barrier with ease.
It was a bustling city, and as Akari thought, it was definitely based on New York and Japan.
'Is the founder someone like me? Someone from another world?'
As Akari thought, she walked deeper into the city. The people here looked either happy or calm. It made Akari think that they were living nice lives.
The deeper in she got, the less people she saw. Although there were less people, the buildings became more extravagant.
'Looks like the deeper I go, the more expensive everything gets.'
"Move it!"
Akari blinked as she saw a man running down from the alleyway.
Instinctively, Akari's mana fluctuated. The strange energy from her cores pulsated as well as she accidentally emitted a small amount of mana and spirit energy, which is what Akari decided to call that strange energy.
Because of this, right when the man got close enough to her, he immediately was crushed into nothing, only leaving the clothes on his body and the object he was running with.
"..."
Akari was shocked. Although she didn't let out nearly enough mana to kill someone in the same way she did with the Cyan Kingdoms Guard, the strange energy from the Orbs amplified it enough to be even stronger than when she first did this.
She sighed and picked up the object he was running with.
She felt bad, but she was also curious as to why the man was running.
'Wait… I just killed someone… again… yet… I don't feel anything for him…'
She hesitated, running her fingers along the thing the man was carrying.
It was a sphere with a bunch of holes, slowly siphoning both her mana and spirit energy. It reminded her of generic energy cores from sci fi shows.
'Something's not right… but…'
"All I can do is hope this was worth dying for…"
She put the sphere in her pocket, glancing one more time at the clothes of the deceased thief before walking away.
She was looking for an adventurers guild, wanting to rack up a bit more money before going to the next city.
Suddenly, she found herself alone.
Akari didn't think much of this, until the ground got closer to her face.
"Hu-"
*Crash!*
Her head was crushed into the ground, her consciousness immediately fading.