Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

Rain wanted to say that he didn\'t want to babysit anyone, but he was the youngest of the group, so that wouldn\'t make sense. In any case, Rain liked his freedom, and since he wouldn\'t be the leader of the ground, he had even fewer reasons to join them permanently; there was no point in joining them to help if he was only going to lose.

"I can understand your concerns, but your presence truly will make them work harder," Branden said. "Also, you are much of a solo guy, so that would benefit you as well."

"No, it won\'t," Rain said.

"Well, maybe not that much… however, soon enough, we will launch an offensive to take back the rest of our territory, and everyone will have to work on teams to make sure that the enemies won\'t be able to escape," Branden said. "We need to deal a heavy blow on them that will mark their history forever."

"I think that by this point, I have already shown that I can work well on my own," Rain shrugged.

"You aren\'t going to make this easy for me, are you?" Branden asked and then sighed. "Look, once we recover our lands, I am planning on opening some branches of the organization and let you lead the one in the East. However, few people will work with you if you are this stubborn. You need friends as well."

Rain didn\'t ask for that, but Branden had a point… still, becoming a leader of a branch of the organization seemed like it would be too time-consuming and would be too much of a pain, even if he had the chance to protect the area where his family lives. It was a really tough decision…

"Everyone needs people that they can trust, Rain," Branden added. "I am not going to force you, but you need to realize that sooner or later."

That was really troublesome… Still, instead of letting that bother him for Long, Rain decided to visit his home. During that time, he talked with his parents and grandparents about the neighbors on that side. They said that things were fine for now, the beast people didn\'t try anything, and the farms were several kilometers away from the mountains.

They looked like they realized that Rain was troubled, so perhaps they were being considerate. It was hard to say… Rain had planned to relax during that time, even more so when he decreased the traveling time to twenty hours. It was such a pity…

The next month, Rain was called to escort Lorene again to her marriage ceremony, and then he left her in the port city where she was going to live with Orcis. The smart thing for them would be to live in the capital, but she wasn\'t afraid of other attacks.

During the party, Lorene and Orcis introduced Rain to a bunch of girls slightly older than him. He acted politely, but he wasn\'t interested in kids, so that party had been quite tiresome.

"Come to think of it, with my mental age and with my mindset, adding to the age of my current body, it will be hard to find a partner in this world…" Rain thought during the party.

Women at max ten years younger than Rain in terms of mental age were all married already, and they wouldn\'t be looking for someone at Rain\'s age unless they were criminals. It was rare to find girls older than twenty and single as well… and since Rain didn\'t want to feel like he was doing anything troublesome, he didn\'t want to get involved with minors, not even becoming friends with them.

That was another reason why he didn\'t want to join Jori\'s party.

"Life in another world as a reincarnated person sure is troublesome when you are as serious as me about most things," Rain thought.

In the end, Rain tried to ignore Branden\'s request as much as he could, so he avoided the matter and also tried not to work with Jori, Reca, Liss, Asche, and Terra as much as possible. It looked like they also felt his hesitation, or perhaps they wanted to show that they could get some results without his help, so they avoided inviting him to missions as well.

While Rain was avoiding such an issue, six months passed in no time, and soon he became ten years old. At the same time, he felt happy about his physical growth and his progress when it comes to his strength. He was already 160 cm tall, or 5.2 feet tall, and he believed that he was pretty tall for his age.

As for his strength, while he didn\'t fight that much, Rain managed to make some progress. He didn\'t unlock a new path, and he wasn\'t that close either, but at least he could see his parameters increasing.

Level 15: Iron Resilience - Strengthen your resolve, gaining temporary resistance to crowd control effects.

Level 20: Counterstrike - Prepare for an enemy attack and retaliate with a powerful counter, dealing bonus damage.

Level 25: Mighty Swing - Swing your weapon in an arc, hitting all enemies around you with increased damage.

Level 30: Charging Charge - Charge forward, knocking down enemies in your path and dealing high damage.

Level 30: Mind Ward - Shield your mind from mental attacks, gaining resistance to mind-altering effects.

Level 35: Mana Arrow - Conjure a powerful arrow made of pure mana and shoot it at a distant foe.

"I guess I should just focus on the Sage and Brawler\'s Path since they increase more parameters, I can see myself getting stronger faster," Rain thought when he checked his new skills, but soon he forgot about that when he saw Jori\'s party entering the building for the first time in a while.