Mom always said it wasn’t the tower or the monsters that killed the world. It was the people. Said that’s why I had to be not only strong, but smart too. Today was the day I proved that strength.
My bow groaned as I compressed it with my body weight, notching the string before allowing it to spring back up. I slid my hand down the curved length of mana infused ash-wood with mammoth horn core. Recurves are a pain in the ass to make, but they’re worth it.
“You ready yet, little sun? Daylight is burning,” said a hushed voice beside me.
I straightened till I towered over my harrasser. She’d always been like a mountain to me even if I’d surpassed her in over a year ago. “Aren’t I big enough now for you to stop calling me ‘little sun’, Mom?”
Her eyes sparkled with laughter but she stayed quiet in her response. “You may have shot up like a bean sprout, but if you want to tell your mother what she can and cannot call her only son in this broken world, you’re going to have to get strong enough to beat me in a fight.”
Like that would ever happen. She was a monster.
I just shook my head and picked up my bow, adjusting the straps of my dark leather armor to make sure it was snug. “I’m ready.”
She nodded and we both crouched, splitting up to flank the target. Snow crunched underfoot, so I channeled my mana and formed a stealth aura to mask the sounds of my passage and sped up. Trees rushed by until they started to thin.
I restrained my pace, flitting between foliage for cover, looking just long enough to make out the creature in the clearing. The wet crunching of bone and raw flesh under teeth made pinpointing its location easy, despite the special traits of the beast before me.
Mirage lizard. Based on mom’s notes they had a powerful sixth sense which was part of why you couldn’t let your eyes rest on one too long if you wanted to maintain the element of surprise.
My eyes followed the sound to the remains of the dead deer we’d left as bait. Crimson splattered and splashed on the white snow around the corpse and the air above it rippled. Seemed the lizard was about the size of a horse, maybe a bit bigger.
I pulled my aura into myself, stilling my breathing, emptying my mind, becoming nothing but an observer. It had taken me until my thirteenth birthday before I could emulate this technique reliably. I still remember how excited I was that day, the way I ran to mom to show it off. She didn’t say much, but that proud smile was all I needed.
After over four years of regular use, it was now about as difficult as breathing.
Once I’d seen enough, I tore my eyes free and moved my attention to myself, pushing my stealth aura back out. As long as I kept my attention completely off the beast I should be able to prevent triggering its danger sense.
This was my hunt. Mom was just here for backup. I pulled up the system interface.
Status: Healthy
Soul Essence Total: 1537 (537 unused)
Physique Upgrades:
Mana Core II
Mana Channels I
Abilities:
Mana Manipulation III — Project and manipulate mana outside the body.
Aura Manipulation II — Contain and Perfuse Mana throughout the body.
Mana Meditation I — Through focus and resonance, draw ambient mana into the body to grow the Mana Core.
Monster Eater I — Safely discharge harmful mana while digesting monster flesh.
Reinforcing Aura I — Perfuse body with mana to increase physical strength, speed and durability. (activated: +25%)
Stealth Aura II — Project a hazy aura decreasing visual presence and muffling sounds. (-25% visual presence(mundane sight), -50% sound)
Empty Vessel— Become dead to the world. No longer set off danger sense. Must be completely still and not use any other abilities or spells.
Mana Infusion (Weapon) — Project Mana into weapons with which you are familiar and skilled.
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Mana Infusion (Blood) — Manipulate and shape your own blood with magic.
Spells:
Ignition — Project a small flame.
Condensation — Pull water from the air.
Purification — Cleanse pathogens from consumables and open wounds.
Blood Knife — Shape your blood into a sharp knife with magical properties. Able to damage ethereal entities.
Blood Bullet — Launch projectile of your blood with magical properties. Able to damage ethereal entities.
Blood Hex — Maintain link with infused blood on a weapon or object and manipulate any blood it comes in contact with.
Open Soul Shop? y / n
I opened the shop and willed it to display the thing I wanted the most right now.
Mana Mine (cost: 120 SE) — Charge mana into physical matter with explosive intent. Set detonation conditions, remote trigger or proximity.
The worst part was that I could easily afford it and it would make this fight so much easier, but mom had forbade me from purchasing anything more from the shop until she deemed me ready and had vetted the purchase. She could be so infuriating.
It had taken a decade of grueling hunts and relentless training but it was worth it, probably. Mom claimed that other humans who purchased all their skills ended up being weaker in the long run since they didn’t really understand them and couldn’t push the limits. Given that I’d never met another human, I had to take her word for it.
Next I considered the new abilities and new spell mom was trying to teach me. First was Danger Sense. It was boring, but I understood why it was important. Regeneration was more interesting though—an aura ability that allowed mom to heal from practically any wound given time and mana. It was pretty awesome to watch cuts and scrapes on her body close and mend right before my eyes. It was like a character in one of my favorite comics from our book collection. She was invincible.
For this hunt, however, what I would have killed for was arcane arrow. Right now I could infuse my bow with mana to make it shoot farther, faster, and more quietly, but the arrows themselves were limited by the material, and the only way around that was my least favorite thing in the world. Blood magic. More specifically in this case, the Blood Hex spell.
I restrained a groan, noting that I’d already eaten through an eighth of my mana reserve. No more time to delay.
Reaching back, I pulled a knife free from its sheath on my back. It only stung a little when I sliced my finger open and returned the knife to its home. My focus split, and I grit my teeth, maintaining the stealth aura while I focused my intent and channeled another stream of mana into my blood as I painted the arrow head red. Blood magic was the worst because no matter how small the cut it always hurt like it was a gaping wound for as long as you used it. I split my focus again and ignored the headache that bloomed in response. After preparing one more blood arrow, I notched the first one and dropped my aura while drawing a bead on the rippling mass of empty space above the corpse.
The wind shifted. My scent drifted toward the beast. But it was too late to make a difference, the lizard had already stopped eating and a faint pair of glints told me it had looked at me. I loosed the arrow, letting the wind carry it. Before it struck I was already prepping my next shot.
Through the bond to my blood I felt the arrow make contact and pierce the thick hide. But the arrowhead barely made it past the outer layer and failed to connect with any blood vessels.
Curses.
I was just pulling back the bowstring for another shot when the blur shot sideways, out of the clearing. Through the blood, I felt it slow and circle towards me as soon as it hit the cover of the trees.
Now I was well and truly screwed. I’d been prepared for it to charge straight at me, not for this.
I kept the arrow strung and split my focus again, this time into my enhancing aura. And I ran.
Without straining my ears too hard, I could make out the crashing charge of the beast as it took off in pursuit. It drew closer and closer, to the point where a splinter cut my cheek when it bowled through a stump just behind me. I leapt and pushed off a tree at an angle to change my trajectory and the air of it’s passage where I’d just been grazed the back of my calf. I landed with a roll at the same time as it crashed headlong into the tree i’d just kicked off of. Spinning, I rose to my feet and drew back on my bow. The beast’s camouflaged flickered in and out and I loosed when our eyed met.
Blood met blood, and I pushed my will on the beast. It screamed loud enough to rattle my bones, crimson trailing from eyes and mouth. But with so little blood on a beast so big, there was only so much my hex could accomplish.
Like any sane hunter, I ran. A root nearly tripped me, distracted as I was with maintaining my blood hex, but I recovered in time to slide under a fallen log.
The beast crashed through behind me in a shower of splinters, but I’d already cut my palm open and had a tiny spear of blood ready to fire. All I saw was a gleaming mass of green and yellow scales splattered crimson and a gaping maw, and so so many razor sharp teeth as I fired into the open abyss and dived to the side. A massive tail barely grazed me as it flew past, but it was enough to send me slamming into a think pine.
I tried to rise, to draw breath, but I couldn’t do either. Still, I kept my focus on the blood, slamming my intent and the weight of my spirit into it, drawing the spike towards the hex blood, carving a channel through its brain. The Mirage Lizard thrashed and roared, but before too long it went still
I released my magic, gasping and finding I was finally able to draw air in again.
Congratulations. You have harvested 63 Soul Essence. Visit the Soul Shop to power up and become a Champion of your world.
I tried to catch my breath.
“That was sloppy.”
I nearly leapt from my skin and fell into a coughing fit. When I turned my mom stood over me, arms crossed, raven hair blowing in the wind.
She cracked a rare grin. “But I’m proud of you Rowan. How much essence?”
“Sixty-three,” I wheezed. According to Mom, it was estimated that the system harvested about ninety percent of the Soul Essence from every death and granted the remainder to the killers. So the beast probably had about six-thousand three hundred essence. The biggest thing I’d ever killed on my own.
She offered me a calloused hand and pulled me to my feet. “No time for dawdling. Let’s get to work.” My mom walked ahead of me but froze a few steps from my kill.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. But as I drew near, I saw the problem.
It was wearing a harness. Crude straps and metal spikes woven through its ribcage.