I wake up to the sound of a crackling fire. I seem to be back in the park. Was everything that happened just a dream? It was night now. Something was wrong with the sky. Although plenty of the sky was blocked by the canopy the trees weren't too close to entirely block vision. There were strange lights in the sky, thousands of tiny dots.

"W-w-what are those?! Aliens?! Are we being invaded by aliens?! Why are there lights in the sky?!"

"Ru- Lilly? What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?" Mr. Onyx groggily asked.

"Those lights! Why are there lights in the sky?!"

"The... stars? What's wrong with the stars?" Onyx asked, confused.

"Stars? We shouldn't be able to see stars"

"Why not?"

"Because there has never been any!"

"Your world doesn't have any stars?"

"Well, stars exist you just shouldn't be able to see stars from the earth"

"Why is that? The air is transparent is it not?"

Well, yes but the light pollution... but there isn't any... if there isn't any then the amount of atmosphere shouldn't be able to block out a star's light.

I look back up to the sky. Now that I have calmed down the sky doesn't look so lonely. The Stars give the night sky a vastness I've never felt before. The purples, the browns, the reds and the green cloudy colors of the galaxy and nebulae that could be seen with the naked eye.

I zoomed in with my bionic eye on one particular nebula, it was not one I've ever seen or heard of before. I look at a bright greenish star, my magnified vision showing a sphere blanketed by a thick green atmosphere. The lines and swirls of gasses identified it as a gas giant, not one seen in the solar system.

"I really am in another universe," I thought out loud.

I've never known what awe was until now. It was just like a fantasy, this sense of vastness and awestruck wrapped around me invitingly. A sense of belonging and oneness overcame me. We are all born from stardust, the stars that died to create the elements that could make life possible.

Staring up at the night sky felt like staring at an ancient and vast being, I knew this could not be yet the feeling would not go away. I've never felt so small before. Terra had been so small when I stood atop the arcology, but this world seems so large right now. It's easy to lose perspective when you can get news or talk to people from the other side of the world in real-time.

"She loved the stars too..." Onyx mumbled, lost in thought. His sword glowed warmly, as if in nostalgia.

The government should see this too, maybe we can bring this view back to Terra.

Yet when that thought entered my mind I felt sick, a sensation of foreboding accompanied that thought. Why? The government is good, it cares for its citizens and wishes the best for Meta-Humanity, why does it give such bad vibes?

This feeling must be wrong, there's no way a benevolent government could do wrong. The more I rationalized the government the sicker I felt so I had just stopped thinking and stared up at the night sky while laying on my back, my arms acting as a headrest.

But as I looked at my right arm I noticed it had what looked blueish lines in the form of swirls and weaving lines like a tattoo. The marks continue all the way up to shoulders and to my chest, all pointing to an invisible point.

"I'm no mage but I have seen something like that before. Powerful archmages would engrave their mana paths to allow for mana to travel efficiently throughout their bodies, I didn't know how they did it until now." Onyx said

"Mana paths?" I asked

"The mana in your body goes through paths like currents or rivers, block a path and it'll be less efficient, but engrave it and it's like paving a road; your mana could travel without resistance. You had used so much mana it permanently carved its way into your body"

Now that I think of it, I have a better sense of my arms. I could feel something entering my arms, and filling me with something. Was it mana? It was traveling through my mana paths and into... a core? This core of sorts was inside my chest, drawing mana from my MCBs.

I looked at my right leg. It had drawn mana from my batteries too, engraving its path yet my left leg was completely unmarked; no mana had traveled through it so it had remained the same. Strangest was that even my bionic's mana paths were engraved. But unlike my flesh, the mana paths were straight, following the superconductors.

I opened the access to take a look at how the superconductors were changed. They had taken a very slight bluish tint to them from their natural gold color.

Mana seemed to be an energy of sorts, but exactly what was it? A particle like an electron? Perhaps a quantum particle? Or is it a tachyon particle like the psyons? Psyons are the only known tachyon particle to react to consciousness, maybe the mana particle was something similar?

According to the research, only tachyons could react to consciousness but this was a different universe, the laws may work slightly differently. The MCBs didn't have any mana before, is mana a new particle? How did the MCBs gain those particles? Are they an already discovered particle? Which one and in what way was it changed?

Without tools to measure what kinds of tachyons there are it's hard to say what's going on. My arm has a tachyon detector but that only looks to see if there are tachyons, not what type.

"What is mana?" I finally ask after the long silence. I returned my focus back to marveling at the stars.

"I'm not the correct person to answer that; I doubt even archmages really know that answer" Onyx answered.

"Archmage?" There are so many new things to learn and so many things to get used to.

"It's a title given to a mage who is very accomplished in either adventuring, warfare, study, or other things" Onyx replied, laying next to me to gaze at the stars.

"So it's like getting a master's degree in a field of science?" Scanning stars I find a blue planet that looked almost covered in liquid water, how close is it to this planet?

"Uhh- Well, It's something very hard to get. There are master mages then grand mages then there are archmages. Archmages usually have to earn the title with a great achievement, like discovering a new form of magic technology.

The archmage Faroun rediscovered the secrets to golemancy almost a hundred years ago, a magic technology once lost. Now that form of magic technology has made its way into noble society all over the world." Onyx explained.

"So it's like a title given to someone who would discover general relativity but for magic stuff instead"

"Uhh, I think so?" I get the feeling Onyx has no idea what I'm talking about. This is a different world; as much as magic theory is new to me theories of physics are new to him.

Stem would always tell me not to bother explaining these things to others. "It's your job to know this, not theirs" she would say. Unless it was one of my friends, then she would encourage "passing my knowledge on" when I asked why she always told me not to worry about it.

"Where's Usagi?" I asked, just now noticing he was missing.

"He's at the edge of camp keeping watch for enemies. We are close to a dangerous part of the forest" Onyx replied.

As if to comfort me Usagi hopped into my lap and rested his head on my bosom. Onyx gave him a strange look.

"What happened? There was an explosion and pressure wave but after I did something I can't remember anything else. Did I really use magic?" I ask. After the shock of seeing the stars I had calmed down enough to think clearly about my situation.

"You've never cast magic before?" Onyx asked.

"This world is different, although at first glance it works the same way there must be some added force or law that governs this world, perhaps an entirely new field of science" I answered. Without proper measuring equipment, all I can do is guess.

"You had a severe case of mana exhaustion, we had to go back to town to heal you. Then we came to this forest, you have been asleep for three days." I have a feeling something else happened but I just leave it at that.

"That explains why I am a little hungry," I said with a small smile.

"Just a little? you should be famished by now" Onyx gave me some dried meat. It was unsalted and without any spices.

"How does magic work?" I asked after finishing a piece.

"Again, I'm not the correct person to ask, but the first thing you need to know about magic is that if you use too much it'll affect your body, and not just engraving mana paths. Your body needs to adjust to the levels of mana in your body otherwise you'll start to suffer mana exhaustion." Onyx said.

"The first sign is a headache and crystalized mana will start forming on your skin in patches. Go further and you'll start to feel disorientated, then dizzy with the crystalized mana forming patterns. without treatment you have some chance of dying. Go even further and your body will start to lock up with the crystalized mana forming full unbroken or large patches of those patterns. At that point, if you don't get treatment you'll die" Onyx explained further.

"Can't you just infuse more mana?" I ask.

"No. It doesn't work that way."

"So the use of magic is stressing the body in some way..." I muttered, placing a hand on my chin in thought.

Tachyon fields do affect normal matter, take gravity for example. It affects all matter and even space-time itself. Normally Tachyons don't cause damage like high energy particles but mana might be doing something of the sort.

I take a look at my mana engraved arm. I have certainly gained a new sense, mana sense. I can feel mana moving through my mana paths. Mana is slowly being absorbed into me from the topmost layer of my skin. It then travels through my body and into a sort of point, a core that is located in the center of my chest.

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I close my eyes to focus on my core more. What exactly is it? I furrowed my brow in concentration, trying to focus closely on the core itself instead of the mana. The core is a tiny sphere, a perfect sphere, and perfectly smooth. Root-like attachments that formed my mana paths brag onto my mana core and even a little bit into it, almost like it was occupying the same space. My core seems to be immaterial. Is it a soul? or is it something else?

Something didn't seem right though. Most of my mana is held not in my core but in my MCBs, what if I take all that mana and put it into my core? What'll happen in that case? Well, it was worth a try. Remembering the mana exhaustion lesson I proceed carefully and slowly.

I start drawing mana from my MCBs into my core. It was effortless and I felt nothing so I started to draw more. I drew more and more mana until I felt something. Not any kind of stress but instead I felt my core become denser. It hadn't grown but one thing I noticed was that mana was pooling in the roots while trying to enter the core.

The roots of my core are just too small, it bottlenecked the mana. Could I enlarge them? If mana engravement works by sending a lot of mana through a part of the body then maybe it'll work? With all this pooled up mana it'll be hard, though. Maybe if I make it denser? I focused on cramming all the mana pooling up in one of the roots to gather at one tiny spot.

It felt wrong somehow, dangerous even like I won't be able to undo any damage it'll cause. I tried to rationalize it but last time I did so I almost died in a gravity increase loop, and the time before that the resulting explosion damaged my eye, arm, and leg so much that they needed to be amputated. I decided to heed that feeling this time.

Unlike my limbs I doubt I can regrow or heal any damage done.

{Congratulations! For meditating on your mana and exploring your newfound mana sensing ability you gain the Mana Sense skill.

Congratulations! For the manipulation of your mana you gain the Mana Manipulation skill.}

"Oh! I gained some more skills" I said in surprise.

"Really? Which ones?" Onyx asked, curiously.

"Mana Sense and Mana Manipulation" I replied.

"Well, that saves us some time. You see, when you last cast your spell, instead of controlling how much mana you used you just poured out all of it. Yes your spell was powerful but you need to learn how to control your mana usage. I recommend that before you cast any more spells you need to level that skill several more times. Most mages don't use spells until they reach level three in mana manipulation" Onyx Informed.

"Okay!" I said. For now, I'll just focus on moving mana to my core, at least that feels natural.

{Congratulations! For training your Mana Sense and Mana Manipulation skill for the better part of the night you gain 1 level in them.}

The sun had arisen, greeting us with rays of red and orange light through the forest canopy. As I opened my eyes I saw an elegant and exotic woman looking at me through the brush. She wore what looked like an old-world kimono and had fox-like ears. She was too far in the brush to get a proper look. At my notice she turned around and walked deeper into the forest.

Something about her made me uneasy, but I don't feel that she is too dangerous, maybe a little. Onyx and Usagi are asleep; I had agreed to alert them if I noticed anything dangerous. How long are they going to sleep anyway?! They must have been asleep for six hours!

"Get up sleepy heads! The sun 's already up!" I said, shaking Onyx awake. "You really sleep a lot, it's not healthy for you!"

"Lilly, we're not like you, we have to sleep this long" Onyx calmly said. "We aren't human... Meta-human. There are no meta-humans naturally from this world"

Oh, right. But if Onyx is not meta-human then what is he? Just human? If they have gene modding capabilities then why not make them meta-human?

"Why not become meta-human? You've modded yourself to have horns right?" I asked.

"I was born with them. So were my parents. I am an Oni, not human, nor meta-human" Onyx replied as in his usual calm tone.

"Oni? What's the difference? Humans can have horns if they mod themselves" I asked, tilting my head in confusion.

Onyx thought for a few minutes before answering. "Oni, Elves, Dwarves, Beastmen, and many more. Are all different races of people we all have differences, behave differently, have different tendencies, different strengths, and weaknesses, different lifespans."

"But you're all taxonomically similar right? Two legs, two arms. What are the physical differences between elves and humans? Between Oni and Humans? Horns? Pointy ears instead of rounded? That's not enough to be a different species" This was obvious.

"If only more people thought that way, Maybe Ruby wouldn't have ..." Onyx trailed off and looked away with a pained expression. "We should pack up and get moving," Onyx said, as if to change the subject.

There wasn't much to pack anyway. We walked for several hours. The forest this far in was thick and hard to traverse. I don't know how Onyx was able to move so fast without a road or pathway!

"What's that?" I ask, pointing to a floating light. I feel like I should follow it.

"Don't follow it, this forest can easily lead you astray" Onyx replied. "Plus it's further in the forest and we don't want that."

We walked for another hour before the next thing I saw. A flickering light in front of us, it was like a blue ball of flame. It had an impression of a face, two circles with a line beneath them. It turned toward us and floated further in the forest. I was going to follow it but Onyx stopped me. Why? I feel like I should follow it.

"Will o' Wisps, they will often lead you into danger and feed on your residual mana when you die," Onyx explained.

After another hour we saw a person. She was dressed in traveling clothes.

"Don't go that way! It's dangerous!" The woman approached but with a swift movement and to my horror Onyx cut the woman, who burst into particles of light

"An illusion" Onyx Informed "Now I'm starting to get curious as to why someone or something doesn't want us to go that way.

"How could you tell it was an illusion?" It looked completely real to me except that she had no thermal signature, even I doubted the illusion.

"There were conflicting appearances in the illusion. the caster must have based on you making her look ethnically similar to you, someone not from this world and the fact this forest plays tricks on you it had to be an illusion"

Soon enough we entered a particularly dark place and suddenly Usagi started to purr while in my arms and started to squirm.

"What's wrong Usagi?" I said, trying to calm him by stroking his head. Maybe he thought I was scared of the dark? Then I noticed that this place had so much mana in it. It was as if I suddenly entered a sauna but with mana instead. I had a terrible feeling about this place and took a step back. Somehow I knew this place was incredibly dangerous.

Congratulations! For entering the domain of an ancient one and sensing it's danger through your psi abilities. You have gained the Danger Sense Skill!

Just then the world shifted and webs appeared as if fading into existence so much that it covered everything in white, it was as if we were in a colossal white cave that extended further. Enormous egg sacks littered the area and the webs were spun in a way that would allow for something of gargantuan size to move freely.

Onyx drew his sword which was glowing intensely and threatenly.

"We need to leave. Now!" We turned back to leave but are blocked by a thick wall of webs.

"Leave?" A hissing voice said through our minds. "Just when you arrive for dinner? That's rude you know, my children are hungry"

"Stay close, Lilly, Do not leave my side," Onyx said, gesturing to me to move closer and looking around cautiously.

The whatever that was speaking to us hissed with laughter.

"This is my world! This realm I've made mine within the mana realm. None can leave without my permission, you can either wait there and let us come to you or you can come to us and surrender yourselves to us"

I don't know why but my legs and arms are violently shaking. Somehow I know that whatever is out there is incredibly powerful and bloodthirsty.

Congratulations! For understanding just how outmatched you are you gain the Foe Sense skill!

"Lilly, stay close!" Onyx instructed me. I simply shook my head and took more steps back. Usagi was purring more intensely, trying to soothe me.

"Schahaha! That girl is weak! But you, little horned one. You're strong! Not strong enough, however. And that little Jackalope. He's very dangerous, I'll have to deal with him first!" Let's take a closer look at you and see what you're capable of!"

"Ruby! You need to stay calm!" Onyx embraced me. I've never felt such fear before. my mind is clouded and it's hard to think. All I want to do is run away and hide. I felt my face wet with tears and sweat.

"I-I want to go home"

"I kno- Gah!" Onyx grabbed his head in pain. "It's reading my mind. Digging out everything it can!" he grunted.

"Dangerous! Dangerous indeed! That one shot killing strike would be bad indeed! But now I know how to counter it, horned one, it's useless!" The thing taunted."Next let's see what that jackalope can do"

Usagi Squirmed and squeaked out in pain.

"Hmm, dangerous, very dangerous. He's a tricky one and close to what that little fox is too! I don't want more of them wondering around; Yess, we'll have to kill that one away fast. Normally I wouldn't bother with the weak girl but she has something about her that I've never encountered before. What is it I wonder?"

"Don't you dare!" Onyx shouted.

I felt something trying to enter my mind. I tried to resist it.

"Oh?! She can resist mental attacks? But she's not strong enough to stop me!" I felt the thing break through and attack my mind. So much pain assaulted my mind. I dropped Usagi and grabbed my head trying to soothe the pain.

[Alien Thinking]

"Wha- Just, what are you?!" The creature screamed, not projecting its voice anymore; the sound came from above us.

"It's up there!" Onyx shouted and pointed toward the monster. A spell circle appeared in front of his finger. A red circle that drew wisps of something from the monster into onyx.

The monstrous spider is as large as a manor and just as pearly white as it's webbing. It had thousands of eyes upon its head each black as the void. Hair as tall as Onyx coated its body

The creature tried to pull it'self out of my mind. As much as I wanted it out too, something told me to trap it in my mind.

"Let me out! Let me out! I cAn'T take it aNymOrE!" I could feel the mind of the thing start to become unstable. It thrashed against my mental prison. "Go! Go AwaY, I RejEct yOu" the webs started to fade becoming transparent but the creature could not remove me from its realm as I still had it trapped in my mind.

"Whatever you are doing Lilly, Keep doing it!" Onyx shouted as he stabbed the creature in its abdomen, shooting up at it with a jump [First Dance: Dusk Seed] a mark appeared on the abdomen of the monster. Onyx stabbed again [Second Dance: New Moon Germination] the mark placed grew.

At the same time, Usagi gave a short howl and materialized several magical circles. Shooting lightning at the monster. Thunder rumbled as the lightning arced through the air. One of the monster's legs burned from the lightning. The smell of burnt hair filled the area as the leg shriveled and smoldered.

The Massive spider shook it's manor sized body. "nOOoooO, lET mEe GoOo!" the mind of the creature is now incredibly destabilized. Onyx grabbed its hair to stay on and continued stabbing it.

[Third Dance: Midnight Budding][Fourth Dance: Moon flower][Fifth Dance: Waxing growth] With three consecutive strikes Onyx stabbed the mark which continued to grow with each stab. The monster finally shook Onyx off as it shot out its hair that stabbed into the ground. Now a bald spot around the mark.

Usagi also shot more spells killing another leg. At the same time, the monster's mind broke out of my mental entrapment and I was fully launched out of the sub realm.

"Ara~? You somehow managed to leave that nest? But what about your companions? Did you leave them behind?" I turned to look at who spoke. It was the fox eared, Kimono wearing a woman I saw earlier. She was very beautiful but the strangest thing about her was that she had nine fluffy tails behind her. Her Kimono barely contain her voluptuous figure and exposed a lot of cleavage. Her raven black hair draped to her waist and matched her black embroidered clothes, which depicted colorful butterflies.

"I tried warning you that you were going toward danger but that Oni was way too cautious! At least you had the sense to heed it my dear" The fox woman walked closer and knelt in front of me holding up my chin.

"You're still trembling, you poor thing. Was it that scary?" The strange woman embraced me. The bad feeling I felt from her was replaced with a good one. Somehow I knew she was a friend.

"P-Please help them! Save Usagi and Onyx please!" I begged. That monster was way too strong I fear that they will die.

"I'm sorry, but that thing is way more ancient and stronger than even me. Even if I could force my way into its realm I could not be able to kill it." The woman apologizes. Tears started to flow from my eyes, not with fear this time but with sadness. Usagi was my first pet and like a terrible owner, I led him into danger. Onyx was the first person to treat me well and try to help me in this world. I want to help him in return. I don't want to let them die.

"T-then how do I get back in? They should still have time! Maybe if I can mind trap it again we can beat it!" I steeled my nerves and gave this woman a determined look.

"Mind trap? Ahh, that's why it kicked you out. You're a kind girl, but it won't let you back in. You'll just have to hope your friends can take advantage of the opportunity you've given to beat the monster up enough for it to kick them out too"

Fear gripped me at the thought of entering the place again but I want to help them, I want them to live! That's when I just realized that I might have a way back in, to force my way in. I had another magic, not gravity magic, but portal magic.