For the first two weeks of its life, it had mostly operated on instinct. It had fled when it felt threats near it. It consistently tried to take in nourishment from the surrounding areas, and even when this was not possible, it attempted to anyway. It looked for a safe space to hunker down in. It observed other things that used mana around it, as a newborn trying to emulate what was already there. And while watching, it was learning. What is consciousness but a far more complicated expansion on instinct? At what point does a plant become conscious? Or an animal?

It might not yet be at the point where it can consciously ask itself these complicated philosophical questions, but it has expanded its thinking. Slowly it changes from reaction to planning. Now that there is no direct threat to it anymore in the immediate vicinity, and it has an area where it can participate in its version of feeding, it has time to think, and it starts realizing that there is a self. The self that wants. The self that needs. The self that makes it different from anything else. The self you would refer to as I.

I want to be safe. I want to grow stronger. I want to eat this. But while that was happening, an important question arose. What is I. I am mana. But mana is everywhere but not everywhere is me?

How am I different?

I can think. I can plan. Mana itself has not anchored anywhere but affects every living being around, but I am mana, and I also use mana.

I see three different types of mana. First and most important is the mana that is me. Second is the mana I can control around me, but that isn’t me. And last is the mana outside of my control.

Looking inwards I notice that the mana that is me is by far the densest. I feel like I am like a self-aware cloud.

To test myself, I take a small part of myself and reduce the mana density, and indeed, It turns from me to not me. It isn’t painful, but extremely uncomfortable to lose a part of yourself like that. That drainage is why I ran right when I was born, and pieces of me were becoming not me.

Instinctively I know I want to be more. I want more mana to be me. I want more mana to be under my control.

I again feel outwards towards the region with high mana densities but where I can’t gain control. But why? What makes this mana so different from the mana I can control? I can go to other areas, so I know that I am not stuck here. Being tied to one area would be strange anyway, as zones are defined based on mana levels which constantly change anyway.

Conversely, I try to condense myself and take in as much mana as I can. This both makes me smaller and creates a mana vacuum around me through which I can’t feel anything. Immediately I lose connection to the grasses I had slowly been feeding. I feel stronger and bigger than ever, but now I have no idea of what is happening outside of me. Right now, I am nothing but a ball of mana that can’t do anything. But I feel great.

I always felt that I needed to increase the mana in my region. But now I know why.

I always felt that I couldn’t take all the mana close to me. But now I know that I can.

My goal should, therefore, be to become stronger and bigger myself, but also to keep lower density mana around me, so I know what is going and I can have some semblance of control. To do this, I both need the mana density in my area to increase as well as get the mana of surrounding areas under my control, expanding my sphere of influence.

My next test is to try to siphon off some mana from the mana dense region next to me.

I know that mana flows between the areas, and I can take over the mana that enters my sphere of control, whereas I can’t control the mana anymore that has left my zone. I can tell by looking at myself that high mana density attracts mana. This attraction is most likely what has caused the area next to mine to increase in mana density in the first place, which leaves me with two ideas on how to take mana. Either I can move the mana that is me close to the border and see if the fact that I am dense attracts mana into my area, or I can see if I can use the mana that is here to pull mana into me or at least stop my mana from leaving so I keep a net positive.

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First, I move my main body next to the other region. I can feel that the increased density is increasing the amount of mana attracted to my zone. Happily, I move even closer to the border until I notice that almost all of the mana I am gaining here, is being lost again on the other side where the mana density has become less further away from my presence. So I move back to the center of my zone again.

Next test is to see if I can make the mana stay in my area and if I can make the mana at the border regions pull in the mana from around. The first part barely takes a toll on my faculties. With a tiny bit of effort, I can stop the outward flow and keep the mana inside of me. It feels like I am creating a dome around me. A circular mana shield through which mana can enter but can’t leave. I also think that I can slightly increase the mana I am pulling in by expanding the border areas of mana and thereby attracting more mana into this shield, which can then be disbursed in my zone again.

While increasing the density, I notice that I am getting decreasing returns on my attraction rates. It turns out that have twice the mana does not mean a doubling of attraction. It seems that something in the other area is trying to keep the mana there.

Maybe there is an area where the mana density in the neighboring zone is so high it attracts as a rate that can compete with me? Perhaps there is a being like me which is controlling the mana there? Or another type of animal so powerful that it can control the mana and keep it away from me. Or maybe it is an extremely chaotic movement that is blocking me. Whichever it is, as I can’t control the mana there, I can’t feel what is going on in that area, and there is no way for me to find out.

With this new mana shield in place, I have stopped the bleeding that would have drained me eventually. With the mana stabilized within this dome, I am home. I am in complete control, and I can grow.

I always knew that I could change things, to control the mana that they so selfishly absorb. And now I know for what I can use this.

Then I realize something. It is weird how mana that is taken by a plant or an animal still feels like it is in my control as long as it stays in the area I am, but when something from outside of my area enters me, I don’t feel like I can control that mana. I see this most often with the insects. The insects from my area that have been feeding on the mana that I control feel like they are still mine. I lose this connection when they go to neighboring areas, but when they come back, the link is also back.

On the other hand, when an insect from the neighboring area flies in. I can feel that it has entered my territory. I can feel what it is and how much mana it has. I can even feel where the mana has gone and what has been enhanced and by how much. But it doesn’t feel like I can control the mana. The little bits of mana taken while inside my control, however, remain mine. And when the insect leaves, I again lose the connection.

I think that there is a direct relationship between how much mana it has taken from me to how much it feels like mine.

Thinking back, I wasn't aware of this at the time, but when I came to this area, I could easily take in the unclaimed mana. And by feeding my mana to everything around, I quickly felt like everything here was mine, but the mana absorbed before I arrived only became mine once the being that took it died inside of my control.

I can do a little test here. I look for a blade of grass ready to pop up out of the ground and start absorbing mana.

The moment it does I create a mana vacuum around it so it can’t absorb anything.

What I notice in the following days is that the blade of grass doesn’t grow as fast as the grass around it. Its color becomes brown from lack of sunlight, and it starts dying as the roots can’t dig as deep as its neighbors, so it doesn’t get any water.

The second day the blade of grass is overshadowed so much that it won’t be able to survive without any outside help.

So I change the test. I increase the mana around this blade of grass to at least double what it usually would be. And the grass as expected starts absorbing the mana at a higher rate than its surrounding grass.

Without me controlling it, the mana flows to the blade which within a day has caught up to the grass around it. But the color remains brown, as now the roots are not getting enough mana to catch up. I wonder why?