Gaping was all it seemed Kaltyr was capable of after witnessing the mana form within her soul. However, it wasn’t merely the sight of the aquamarine, crystalline, silky threads produced from magical essence that blew her away. No, rather than it being the beauty of the threads that rendered her incapable of thinking about anything else, it was…the sheer power she instinctively understood she now possessed.
Packed within every strand of mana she refined from magical essence was a potent sensation of fantastical intensity and force, such that Kaltyr’s confidence immediately soared to levels she didn’t believe possible. She felt on top of the world.
Her eyes snapped open, a fierce glint shining within them. Without wasting a second, Kaltyr cut off her absorption of magical essence and rushed to her feet. She quickly located and picked up a random rock from the ground with her good hand, secured the pocketknife in her injured one, and turned toward where she remembered the pair of eyes to be.
Just as she thought, the eyes were not fixed on her and the creature could not be seen through the shadows provided by the forest canopy. Kaltyr saw through her Magic Sense that the blob of mana somewhere farther ahead was situated beneath another whirlpool of magical essence, indicating that the creature had taken the time to meditate after seeing her do the same.
“I have one chance…”
The hunter winced as she tightened her grip on the knife and cocked the arm with the rock backwards. Suddenly, the monster’s mana flickered as it realized that something was wrong. Kaltyr had to act fast.
“This better work!”
She had only just refined mana for the first time a few seconds earlier, but, somehow, Kaltyr knew she could pull this off. The girl urged her mana out of her soul to flow through her unimaginably complex web of meridians to arrive at her throwing arm, which it then filled.
The impression of power intensified, and with it came a vicious smile.
To Kaltyr, the moment had arrived. She was about to prove to herself that the world she awoke within would not be nearly as scary as she had thought, and instead, it would be the stepping stone to her journey with the goal of getting answers from The System.
The tension in her arm built up to its limit and the dangerous entity in the bushes had become aware of her scheme. She began to throw the rock.
Yet…
“S***, what was that?!”
An incredible sense of danger washed over Kaltyr, prompting her to stop releasing the tension in her arm and to bring it back to its throwing position. Somehow, and for some reason, she understood that throwing the rock while her arm was powered by mana would be disastrous.
“But I can still salvage the situation!”
The mere moments her indecision cost her allowed the creature enough time to exit its meditation in full, and the blob of mana began to rise. However, Kaltyr would not let it escape her range. Without completely knowing what she was doing, Kaltyr redirected the mana from her arm straight into the rock she held.
“Nothing says that I can’t just pump the rock full of mana, instead!”
The beast in the bushes, which Kaltyr only recognized with her Magic Sense as a blob of mana, was already beginning to run away from the clearing when she threw her arm forward and let the stone fly.
Shrubbery shook as their branches were destroyed in the rock’s path of destruction, until a thud and a hiss resounded. Adrenaline coursing through her, Kaltyr immediately followed, her knife now in her good hand. She did not hesitate even a second before crossing the invisible barrier that protected the clearing, instead smiling wickedly at the thought of obtaining her first beast kill on the first night after awakening in Manic.
“Ah, damn it!” The girl cursed after arriving at the site her rock landed. “It was just a glancing blow! I know that if I had hit it square in the body, it would not have been able to get away so quickly. Not with the force of that empowered rock.”
She sighed before returning to the clearing, which was only a few meters away, and sitting behind the pile of embers left by the once great campfire. Then, with what little moonlight she had available to her, Kaltyr inspected the rock she had used to attack the mysterious creature. When she first picked it up she had noticed that one of its sides was wet with something she doubted was water, and under the moonlight…
“This is clearly not water, but it neither smells nor looks like blood. It’s not even red, I think.”
She tossed the stone aside, then focused her attention on a more important matter than of the prey that escaped her.
“I learned a lot from this little experience, didn’t I?”
Kaltyr laughed into the night sky as she compared her previous mental state to when she first spotted the pair of strangely starry eyes.
“Yeah, I’m definitely bipol-“
Kaltyr froze in place, still staring up at the sky. With her attention pulled away from self-reflection, the ambient forest noises became more evident again, only making the mood eerier.
“Uhhh…what?”
Neither afraid nor uneasy, the lass was very simply…confused. Far above her, slowly spinning in a circle, were six differently colored objects she just didn’t expect to see—moons. The sight of them allowed Kaltyr to immediately understand what a “moon” was, but just like with the colors of the sky, they didn’t feel real, as though they weren’t supposed to be there.
“Speaking of which, why do their colors match the phases of the sky? Red, orange, yellow, green…”
Kaltyr stared up at the moons for a little longer before slowly turning her attention back to herself and what she had recently learned, since she couldn’t think of any reasons why the moons and their colors would affect her.
“Anyway…yeah, I can make and use mana now.”
Kaltyr loudly cheered and pumped her fists into the air, contentedly lied down on the grass, then began reciting that night’s important events.
“Okay… Firstly, I figured out that to absorb and refine magical essence I need to extend my will onto the essence rather than do something with my meridians. That system just doesn’t feel right to me, but, whatever. Secondly, that my soul is what does the refining and is where mana is stored. Thirdly, besides while meditating to refine it, I don’t seem to be capable of retaining magical essence within myself. Fourthly…”
Kaltyr subconsciously gulped as she recalled the dreadful warning of danger her instincts had relayed to her when she tried throwing the rock while her arm was powered by mana.
“Despite definitely feeling like I could reinforce my body with mana, actually doing so was…dangerous? I don’t get it, and I’ll experiment with that later. Fifthly…”
A large grin plastered on her face, Kaltyr directed her attention to the notification flashing in the corner of her vision.
|
You have obtained the skill: Body Mana Reinforcement |
|
You have obtained the skill: Item Mana Infusion |
After being met with an additional alert alongside the one she expected, Kaltyr’s smile further brightened.
“Holy s***! I figured that putting my mana into the rock would grant a skill, but also strengthening myself? Maybe I almost injured myself because I tried to do something that the skill level doesn’t allow yet. This requires more experimentation!”
The girl hooted in elation a few more times before leaning forward to pick up a small stick that hadn’t burned together with its brethren for the sake of cooking her fish. Then, with the last of her available magic power, Kaltyr began magically infusing the stick.
Just as she had done a few minutes before, blue crystalline threads, sparkling like diamonds beneath the bright sun, flowed from the spirit residing within her brain down through the many magical channels and into her arm. From there, Kaltyr only needed to perform another mental flex before the silky threads slid from her fingertips to the piece of wood.
Despite seeing what happened when she infused the rock with mana, Kaltyr was still somewhat surprised that there was no visual effect produced when the stick was pumped full of energy. It didn’t glow blue, or anything. However, that wasn’t to say that nothing changed, because through her Magic Sense, the lass could clearly “see” a bright blue light that wasn’t there before.
Then, intent on figuring out just how useful her mana was when infused into an item, Kaltyr secured her hands around both ends of the stick and applied pressure by twisting her wrists.
SNAP
She jumped at the sharp sound and blinked a few times out of surprise, dropped the two pieces of wood, and sighed.
“I way overestimated the power of my mana.”
The girl had imagined that the stick, after being magically strengthened, would at least provide enough resistance to prevent her from breaking it at all…which it wasn’t even close to achieving. At most, Kaltyr could confidently claim that she felt something, just not enough. Frankly, she wondered if she made a difference at all during her attack on the mysterious beast when she infused the rock. Had it changed anything? Or did she only waste a bit of mana?
“Well, I guess I can’t really call it a waste if I had nothing better to do with it…which is something else I have to look into!” Kaltyr thought aloud. “What else can mana do? I can empower both myself and items I hold, but I don’t know to what extent it’s beneficial. And then there’s the rock…”
She fished around in her cargo pockets, eventually taking out the fat, stone disc covered in mystical-looking markings.
“Now that I can use mana I can probably power this thing…”
She stared at the shiny stone for a moment, mesmerized by the complexity of the etches that seemed to come alive when she stared long enough. They swirled, twisted, shrunk, and grew at random, as though conforming to a single design would be their end…or like they didn’t want to be memorized.
“But I don’t have any mana to test it out!” She groaned, then followed it up with a yawn. “And I’m tired…”
Kaltyr allowed herself to fall onto her back, and she closed her eyes. All the excitement of that day, the adrenaline from both fear and joy, took its toll on her stamina. She was dead tired, and convinced herself that it was best for herself to be rested in order to make the best decisions on how to move forward from there.
Her senses began fading as the earthy smell of the forest and the soft caress of the wind eased her mind into a state of serene comfort. Lying atop the lush grass was not nearly as uncomfortable as Kaltyr expected, and in fact, contributed to the ease at which she relaxed.
Mere moments passed before silence reigned, and Kaltyr entered a blissful sleep…
Until a guttural shriek pierced the night.
Kaltyr’s eyes snapped open and her body shot up. She was on her feet and looking around for danger before she had even fully awakened, but saw nothing. The bestial cry had come from far away.
“Y’know what? I’m going to fill up on mana in case the protective warding really ends tonight…”
Chapter Eleven: First Real Encounter
For whatever reason, Kaltyr knew that she was most definitely not an early riser—her subconscious told her so. Yet, after the first rays of dawn illuminated the deep woods surrounding her, it was only a few seconds before she was up, fully invigorated, and ready to take on all of life’s challenges!
Then a growl sounded from behind.
“Eeek!”
With a pathetic squeak, Kaltyr jumped 180 degrees around to see that a familiar creature waited for her at the edge of her clearing. Standing under a meter tall on four, furry legs, staring at her with small, beady eyes, was what Kaltyr assumed was a dog.
Immediately upon viewing the beast, which didn’t even bother hiding among the surrounding bushes, information poured into her mind in the same way that she remembered details about her environment.
“It’s a dog, rather than a wolf?” She asked herself. “I think that wolves are much larger with sharper features, but that looks like a do…domes…domesticated animal?”
Concepts and ideas swam about in the girl’s head, but none of it felt important, so she dismissed them.
“Anyway, I get the feeling that this particular creature should be friendly, or at least open to kindness. And it’s clearly not the same beast as the thing I attacked last night; its eyes aren’t starry.”
Kaltyr gulped at the sight of the creature’s claws and fangs, but reminded herself that she was not only within a protected space, but that she was now full of mana. The girl looked over at her guidebook, which still acted as a plate for her fish. She had eaten half of one while the other one sat untouched. Kaltyr considered reaching for the untouched morsel, but changed her mind in the case that the dog would take her free food and still act hostile.
“Here doggy doggy, here boy…” She said at just above a whisper, unsure of why her voice changed pitch so drastically or why she used those specific words.
Kaltyr crept forward at a half-crouch with her left hand extended, the half-eaten fish in her grip. The dog immediately took a step back when she approached, but upon noticing the meal she carried, it stiffened in hesitation.
“If you’re friendly to me, I’ll—”
The beast began growling, but didn’t move back any farther. Kaltyr took it as a good sign.
“I’ll give ya a little treat. Here boy, I’m friendly so long as you are…”
A mere meter separated the two before the girl slowed her walk to a stop. She waited there, inside the border of her clearing, letting the hopefully-not-gross smell of the fish waft around. The dog continued growling, but softer, so she waited longer.
Eventually, the beast quit growling altogether and merely kept its back arched and fur standing. Kaltyr took that as the go signal.
“Here I go…”
Kaltyr slowly closed the distance, leaving her hand within the border but the fish on the outside…presuming that the border of the safe zone lied directly where the lush grass of the clearing ended.
Then, the dog bit her—or at least, tried to. It opened its mouth and engulfed the fish, but also tried to take Kaltyr’s entire hand, only to be stopped by the invisible barrier. It stood there, pushing against the safe zone, gnashing and slobbering.
“Well, f*** you too!”
Her confidence swelling alongside her anger, Kaltyr’s right hand flashed to her waist and back, the folding knife in its grip, while her left one wrapped around the dog’s throat. The beast released a confused gargle while its eyes opened wide, seemingly unbelieving of what just happened. It tried shaking its head and backpedaling, but Kaltyr’s grip held while her right arm swung forward with all its might, making an arc as it slashed across the animal.
Immediately, hot, crimson blood poured forth, splattering across the forest floor and dripping down the girl’s blade. She prepared to strike again, and aimed for the eyes this time, but the dog’s injury sent it into a panic, giving it a burst of newfound strength and allowing it to struggle out of her hold. Kaltyr was nearly pulled to ground by the sudden jerk, but caught herself, and dashed forward out of the safe zone to finish the creature off.
Assuming the guidebook hadn’t lied to her—which she doubted was a possibility by this point—Kaltyr needed to kill many creatures to raise her level and become stronger. She hoped the dog would be what started her kill streak, while also providing a satisfactory meal.
Then, the dog released a high-pitched howl into the scarlet sky, which wouldn’t normally be a problem if not for the six identical replies from not too far away in several directions.
“Well, s***.”
Moving so quickly that she nearly tripped over herself, Kaltyr retreated to the clearing, watching as the wounded dog howled and fled into the thickets. The lass expected to see several more of the same dog chase after their friend’s attacker, that the surrounding bushes would shake as a small army came after her.
A minute passed after the first dog escaped, yet nothing happened. The forest remained eerily silent around the safe space—not even birds chirped.
“Are they…not looking for revenge?”
Kaltyr’s eyebrows creased, and she tentatively stalked back to the border. She inspected the surrounding greenery, blade still in hand, and stepped out into the forest. Still nothing, and it was creeping her out.
“This will not do. Enemies out of sight are worse than ones in your face… Huh, that’s cool.”
The girl chuckled at the wise words that popped into her mind and took in a deep breath.
“Here I go!”
A sense of tension permeated the area as Kaltyr loosened her shoulders and straightened her back, even choosing to smile as she casually walked into the forest at a steady pace.
Before dashing back and diving into the clearing as soon as her nerves gave out, followed by the stomps of twenty-four paws on hard packed dirt. Whines and growls resounded as six new dogs appeared, perturbed at having missed their prey.
Meanwhile, Kaltyr panted heavily, both fearful and excited as she looked at the range of new enemies furiously trying to bypass the invisible wall keeping them from her. From left to right, the dogs colors’ and patterns were spotted brown, fully white, yellow with red stripes, fully brown, black and white, and orange. The sight slightly befuddled Kaltyr in the same way the sky’s colors did, but she ignored the feeling that told her something was wrong, and got to her feet. She brushed the dirt off her cargo pants with a huff, then tightened her grip on her knife.
Without wasting much time, the girl jumped forward, swinging her weapon with accuracy she didn’t know she was capable of at the leftmost beast. The next second, the foldable knife’s blade dripped with fresh blood again, and an animal cried in pain—the sound of which caused Kaltyr to wince. She didn’t like hearing the dog’s whimpers, but ignored the sense of guilt building within her gut. The dogs were out for her blood. She couldn’t be sentimental if she wanted to survive.
Kaltyr managed to land a second stab into the brown creature, this time into its neck, before it pulled itself too far away for her to finish the job. So, she moved on to the next one, landing only a single stab before her victim escaped her reach. She wanted to continue, fueled by a vague sense of barbarism that motivated her to kill, but the other four dogs backed away, having given up on chasing her onto the strange patch of grass they couldn’t manage to place their paws on.
The two parties stared at each other for what felt like an eternity before one of the wounded dogs loudly whined and turned away, seemingly prompting the others to follow. The cute beasts retreated into the forest, following the path the first one to be injured took, and disappeared behind the dense trees.
Kaltyr waited a few minutes longer after they left in case they decided to stick around, but no sign of their presences remained.
“PHEEEEEW!”
The lass emptied her lungs through her nose as she allowed gravity to take her to the ground.
“Wow! That was exciting!” A large smile formed on her face. “So many things happened in just a few moments.”
She dropped her weapon and raised her hand to the sky, inspecting it.
“The injury is completely healed. All that’s left from that rabbit’s nasty bite is a small scar.” She lowered her hand and shook it, letting droplets of dog blood drip off. “But more importantly, those animals didn’t have any mana, unlike the thing that stalked me last night. They were completely empty, which leaves me with some ideas: they either used it all not long before they were called by their buddy to help it, or they can’t use mana, whether permanently or…yet.”
Kaltyr folded and stored away her knife in one of her many cargo pockets before lying on her back, staring up at the deep red of the sky.
“I’m betting that it’s because they, just like me when I first awoke, can’t process magical essence. Though…I’m not sure of how this information could be important. Maybe it isn’t.”
The girl did her best to shrug before turning her attention to something of slightly more importance. A flashing light at the edge of her vision had bugged her since she first stabbed the first dog.
|
You have obtained the skill: Small Blade Arts |
|
The skill Magic Sense leveled up. |
Chapter Twelve: Snacks
A squeal escaped Kaltyr’s lips.
“Yeeesss!”
|
-General Skills- |
-Class Specific Skills- |
??? |
|
Magic Sense Lvl: 2 |
||
|
Small Projectile Throwing Arts Lvl: 2 |
||
|
Fishing Lvl: 1 |
||
|
Body Mana Reinforcement |
||
|
Item Mana Infusion Lvl: 0 |
||
|
Small Blade Arts Lvl: 2 |
“First of all, Small Blade Arts is obviously from fighting with, uh, small blades. Second of all, keeping my Magic Sense active—although I can’t really turn it off—paid off! Seems that focusing on the magical layer of the world will quickly level that skill up. Second of all…”
Kaltyr eyed her new skill’s level.
“Level 2 with the blades one? Are these levels randomized? I got Fishing at 1 and Magic Sense at 0…” She shook her head. “Nevermind. Doesn’t matter. If The System wants to give me more levels, why would I complain?”
She raised her torso with her elbows and glanced around the clearing, noticing the piles of rocks stacked at four separate parts of the area.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right…I should check on those.”
Feeling the results of her adrenaline fading combined with her body’s apparent opposition to mornings, Kaltyr yawned until tears threatened to form, then slowly got to her feet. She lumbered towards the first of the four different plant types she set atop leaves and weighed down with rocks. On the way, her mind couldn’t help but follow and continue the string of pessimistic thoughts which she began when she set up the oh-so-advanced toxin detection system.
What if none of the things were eaten? Wait another day in case the local animals just didn’t find them before? What if the local animals just don’t like those plants, but none of them are harmful? What if they’re harmful to the animals, but not me? What if a poisonous plant looks similar to a safe one and I eat the wrong one? God, I hope none of these are harmful…
Doubts ran amok in Kaltyr’s head, but she did her best to push them aside. She knew she’d never get anything done if she allowed the unknown to distract her from progress. And there was a lot of unknown.
Arriving at the plump, juicy berries whose reflective surfaces almost glowed orange, Kaltyr counted six—nothing had changed. None of them were eaten over the course of the night.
“Well, damn. And they look so tasty, too…” Kaltyr sighed, then moved on. Although the fact that all the berries remained wasn’t a good sign, she had only existed in that world a single day. Waiting a few more for the sake of differentiating good food from bad wouldn’t hurt.
The girl made her way “east”, where she had laid a small pile of seeds she’d found growing in bright blue flowers. The seeds gave her the same something’s-wrong-I-can-feel-it feeling that almost everything in Manic seemed to confer upon her. The little, fingernail-sized gray pods were almost cubic in their shape and had what looked like four itty-bitty legs that, when placed atop a hard surface, wiggled around. The sight of the flower seeds moving on their own scared the living s*** out of Kaltyr when she first noticed the strange behavior, prompting her to squish one in order to investigate whether it was really a plant.
It was—which only further shook the girl. Somehow, despite apparently not having memories of her life before the previous day, she knew for certain…that plants were not supposed to have that kind of mobility.
“I hate it! Even if it’s only a mechanism for the seeds to crawl across the ground in order to spread themselves out—which is likely. It’s just so f****** creepy…” She shivered. “Anyway, all but one were eaten.” Kaltyr’s jaw clenched, and she grumbled through her teeth, “Wonderful. Of all the plants to potentially be toxic, these little s**** that were designed by the devil when he was high off his mind have to have the chance of being edible.”
She put one hand on her hip and the other on the bridge of her nose as she faced the sky—using the mental conflict that the sight of the scarlet sky produced to wipe her mind of the images she just made herself imagine.
“Next one.” She grumbled, making her way to the next stop. “Oh, thank God!”
To Kaltyr’s immense relief, the somewhat normal-looking roots she’d placed at the “south” end were mostly gone, merely scraps of the plants left over. The roots were deep red and spindly in shape with dull, thorn-like protrusions covering their every surface. Since the entire edible portions were buried underground, Kaltyr only chanced upon them when her intuition told her that the half-meter tall leaf stalks sticking out of the ground looked suspicious. Her first instinct was to fear them, as she still knew nothing of the beasts that might have inhabited Manic and thought that plant monsters might be listed among them, but soon overcame her initial frightful reaction when she realized that pretty much any of the many thousands of different plants around her could potentially be enemies.
“Lastly…” She made her over to the “west” end. “Damn it.”
The dozens of nuts she’d picked from a specific ground-dwelling vine that grew everywhere sat undisturbed.
“That’s disappointing. They resemble peanuts, and I could use a PB&J… I think they taste pretty good.” Kaltyr crouched beside the pile and picked a nut up, holding it between her fingers as she slowly applied pressure. “The shells aren’t even strong, so I doubt that whatever critters found these couldn’t break them to get to the seeds within. Just in case…”
In an attempt to lower the total number of variables to her little experiment, Kaltyr very carefully crushed and threw away the shells of half the nuts, leaving the bare seeds to lie alongside the shelled ones.
“Now, if the shells were really a problem, I’ll see it in the number of seeds left over tomorrow.”
Kaltyr returned to her feet with a satisfied grunt.
“It’s really too bad about those berries, but at least I have two more nutrition sources. There’s still the chance that I’ll get poisoned, but I’ll only eat a little bit of the plants at some point and wait for side effects. Not much else I can do.”
She shrugged, figuring that she shouldn’t worry about the variables she had little control over.
“Enough about these snacks! I need to focus on the main food supply I discovered and stab some more fish. Who knows? Maybe killing them contributes to my level?”
Kaltyr walked to the center of the clearing, where she left behind the black, shiny disk whose surfaces were riddled with carvings of symbols she wondered if she’d ever comprehend. Through her Magic Sense, she could clearly see that within the stone she’d left on the grass was a small pool of mana.
To think that it’d be so useful. Kaltyr thought as she bent over to pick up the tool. Last night I assumed this thing would be some kind of magical weapon to help me slay some beasts, but it’s actually way better!
The girl made her way to the edge of the clearing, where a distinct line was cast by shadows due to how no branches of any surrounding trees seemed to dare grow above the protected zone. Then, with a mental flex of her will, she sent a strand of mana down from her brain into the arm she held the stone with, and with another flex, into the stone.
The next instant, as though lit by a giant lamp from all directions—whatever that was—the shadows of the forest within twenty meters of Kaltyr disappeared. The change, however, was subtle, because the forest’s shadows weren’t all that deep due to the brightness of the morning sun.
“Which, incidentally, I haven’t actually seen yet. Maybe it’s hidden behind all these damn trees? Because, I don’t see very many clouds…”
Forgetting about the lack of a sun in the sky, Kaltyr turned her attention back to the magical tool within her grip.
Although everything’s a bit weird and disorienting without shadows, this tool might very well be key to my survival here. If I’m forced to fight at night, whether because my safe zone disappeared or I didn’t watch the time, I won’t be hindered by darkness. Plus, if I ever need an emergency supply of mana, this rock has its own reserve that I can fill up and take from, like a…battery? Not only can I charge it before I have to use it, but I can also use it as I charge it! It may only last a few minutes with its reserve full, but I can just send it a steady supply of mana during emergencies, since I can’t find any other uses for ‘magic power’—as it was also called in the guidebook.
Kaltyr’s belly filled with butterflies as she held the disk to her chest and smiled, thankful to The System for gifting her such a tool, even if only temporarily.
“Well, it was probably The System who put me here in the first place…” She grumbled, her mood ruined. “Whatever. I need to go slaughter some defenseless fishies.”
After testing the magical tool the night before, she’d eaten some more of the fish she first nibbled on. Although she didn’t finish it, and had left the other untouched—which she’d fed to an ungrateful bastard of a dog—Kaltyr did come to terms with the fact that those bland, tasteless, unappetizing, and unseasoned fish would likely be what kept her functioning, for the most part.
She turned off the magical tool and stepped into the forest.
