Acacia didn't have bruises. That required having skin. She did, however, had a multitude of cracks all over her bark.

"You are too self-absooooooorbed." Bluoro admonished her as she hit the ground fof what felt like a thousandth time. Considering how long they were at it, it might very well have been.

"No offense, but you are my magic tutor, not my therapist." She quipped.

"The state of your mind is immmmmmmmperative to your magical abilities." The mage explained. "Your focus on the sellllllf aids you in directing your own mana, but makes it harrrder to detect the energies outside of you. Sit down for a moment."

Acacia sat down cross legged on the floor. The slime mage's body also slumped down, going from vaguely conical to more of a sphere.

"Magic is part art, part phhhhhhilosophy. You muster develop your own system of meaninnnnnnnnngs and symbols, but as your teacher, I will share my insights to helllllllp you shape your own path.

"You are alive. In the traditionallllll sense; you breathe, you eat, you drink. Your air, your foooooood, your water, where do they come from?"

"The first one from the atmosphere, the latter two from the restaurant." Acacia answered, though she knew that wasn't the answer they were looking for.

"More to the point, they come frrrrrrrrom outside. Your body is built from pieces that weren't you. The distinction of 'you' annnnnnd 'not you' is simply something we tell ourselves to simplify our day-to-day life. Iiiiiiii believe the distinction is mostly for conveniencccccccce."

Acacia thought about Bluoro's perspective. The thought wasn't foreign to her, she vaguely remembered buddhism from Earth, but it didn't feel right. Not here, where should and mind were tangible concepts.

But she supposed she did draw too much of a hard line between herself and her environment.

She closed her eyes. She breathed in deeply, filling her wooden lungs with air, feeling how the world around her flowed into her. Breathing out, she focused how a part of her now returned to the world.

"I am a part of the world. I affect it, and it affects me. I'm not separate. But I am, I still exist independently. I'm in the world, but I'm not just another set of particles in the universe. My body belongs to me. And it will until I die. Then, I will stop being me and become a different part of the world." She eventually said.

Bluoro "nodded" approvingly.

"Now, let's try again."

Moments later, Acacia stood ready once again. She felt the air against her bark shift ever so slightly. A sensation like sparkling soda reached her from her left, and she turned her mana-imbued arm to intercept the invisible strike. She was too slow, however, and stumbled back from the force.

Bluoro didn't comment. Nor did they stop the assault.

Finally, Acacia was making progress. She felt the air around her fizz with ever more clarity, and slowly, she learned to react faster and faster.

Of course, this meant Bluoro threw their attacks more frequently to push her further.

Suddenly, the waves of force stopped abruptly.

"This is the mosssst I can do without injuring you. We are done for todaaaaaaaaay. Tomorrow, I will teach you your first non-System spellllllllll."

Acacia's exhaustion faded slightly as she heard that. "What sort of spell?"

"You have until our lessssssson to decide. Know that I specialize in frost, but mmmmmmmmost elemental disciplines are on the table. It will be a combat spell. Unlessssssss, you changed your mind on becoming a scavenger?"

Acacia shook her head. "Even if I did, I'd still want to learn something to fight back. You never know when someone decides to get handsy or try to rob me or whatever else."

"Then I will se you tomorrowwwwww." Bluoro said as they slid out of the door.

Once she was alone, Acacia fell head first onto her bed. She stayed conscious just long enough to heal all of the damage the day's training caused to her body.

---

When she woke up, Acacia ate breakfast at the restaurant and proceeded to wander around the neighborhood. There were no sights to see, of course, but walking helped her think. She had to choose what magic she would learn, after all.

At first, she considered controlling earth, or maybe something regarding nature. But that felt like leaning into her new body too much. She had always sought to be more than just her body. Similarly, water was out too. She wanted some sort of destructive force.

And as she thought that, the choice became obvious.

Not a minute after she returned home, Bluoro arrived.

"Have you decided?" They asked.

Acacia nodded. "Teach me how to throw balls of fire."

Bluoro quietly regarded her with whatever senses the slime possessed. "Curious. May I knoooooow your reasoning? Understanding your personal belief system would help me teeeeeach you."

"I wanted a destructive element. It feels like the best course of action if I'm to go scavenging alien rift detritus. So, what feels the most destructive to me, a person made out of wood and leaves? Sure, plants are susceptible to disease, too, but conceptually it feels like they are the ones containing toxins. So, I want to control the force that is my greatest vulnerability. If I control fire, it cannot burn me."

"Very good. You are grasping the naturrrrrre of magic very quickly. Then, let's beginnnnnnnn. We will go to a nearby trainnnnnnnning facility."

The "training facility" turned out to be nothing more than a regular duststone building, except two houses large, with pillars of stone raised here and there as targets. There was a humanoid composed entirely of obsidian sitting at a desk to the side, whose job was to rebuild the pillars with a wave of their hand whenever one got destroyed entirely.

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There was one other person using the facility besides Acacia and her teacher.

"Oh, hello there! What a nice coincidence seeing you here!" Scalpel waved a hand as he saw the two enter.

"He's been waiting here for three hours now." The obsidian person commented, their voice like rocks rubbed against one another.

Scalpel groaned. "Helen, do you have to embarrass me in front of my new mate?"

Helen shrugged. "Someone's gotta keep you humble."

"Are you using 'mate' as 'friend', or as 'sexual partner' here?" Acacia interrupted their banter.

"Hopefully both, if you'll have me." The insectoid man replied with a click of mandibles, his equivalent of a roguish grin.

"Let us proceeeeeeeeeeeed with our lesson." Bluoro cut in.

"Right, yes, the fireball. Where do we start?"

"From the wayyyyyyyy you've been directing your mana, I believe you shoullllllllld use the weaving method. It relies on forminnnnnnnnng mana into strands, imbibing the strrrrrrrands with concepts, and weaving them togetherrrrrrrr into a string, or a rope."

Acacia nodded. "And depending on the concepts, you get different effects. Alright."

She gathered mana from what she now knew to be her soul and pulled it into her body. She imagined the half fluid, half particles come together to form a thin string. With her training, it took her a few minutes to keep the form stable.

"I'm assuming the first concept would be fire?"

"Yes. The concept in the center of the weave, or, as it's knowwwwwn officially, the main symbol, is the first one made, and the one the weaved ssssssspell is focused on."

She spent the next fifteen minutes pouring menaing into the string of mana. In her mind's eye, it slowly filled with the yellow-red of a campfire.

"Very wellllllll. Time to add more symbols into the weave. For the version I know, it would be... actually, youuuuuuuuuu should guess, first. Call it a test."

"Ummmm..." It was difficult for her to think while keeping concentration on the strand of mana. Ot was mostly stable, but it still required some focus to keep it that way.

"Speed, to launch the projectile, and explosion to make it, well, explode. That's what a fireball is to me. A ball of fire that explodes on impact."

"I would have used the words forrrrrce and expansion, but I see you havvvvvve a particular vision already. Proccccccccceed, then."

Because she now knew what to do, she made the strands faster, to the point where it took about as mcuh time to make the two as it took to make the first one.

"Now, form the rope."

She weaved the strings of speed and explosion around the main string of fire. She tried to wrap them as tightly as possible. She felt it would make the spell harmonise better.

"All that's lefffffffffft to do is to push the spell put of yourrrrrrrrr body and release your holllllld on it."

Scalpel, who had been watching her work all this time, was about to day something, but Bluoro shot him an eyeless glare, and so the man stayed silent.

Acacia would raise an eyebrow if she wasn't so distracted by keeping the spell together.

She pushed the spell out of herself through an extended palm, and stopped clamping down on it with her will.

Her arm promptly exploded into splinters.

"Ow! What the fuck?!" Acacia screamed as she looked at the burning stump that was left of her limb. "Why did it explode immediately?! Why didn't you warn me?!!!!"

Bluoro summoned a floating blob of water that extinguished the flames.

"I thought you werrrrrrre better than that. What happened is that you faillllllled to translate your vision into weave properrrrrrrly, and I didn't stop you so you learned a lessssssssson."

"What do you mean?" Acacia tilted her head, while at the same time pouring mana into her charred arm to mend it. "I did all you said to do."

"Explainnnnn again what a fireball is to you." Bluoro demanded.

Acacia sighed, but obliged her teacher. "It's a fire projectile that flies out and explodes on impact."

"So. Whatttttttt did you miss?"

Acacia took a second, and then struck her forehead with her healthy hand. "I didn't put the 'on impact' bit in, so the explosion symbol acted instantly."

"Prrrrrrecisely. Now, again, this timmmmmme properly."

Another twenty minutes to fix her arm - she didn't want to waste mana on [Growth Spurt] - and she started weaving the spell again.

Fire strand, then a strand of speed concept, which she immediately wrapped around fire. The next two strands were explosion, and impact, and she first wrapped the impact symbol around the explosion, before securing the resulting string around the main weave.

"Excelllllent. Shoot it out."

She aimed her hand on one of the many stone targets, and released the spell. A small orb of fire appeared before her palm, and started accelerating forward. Once it struck, flames exploded around the point of impact, causing cracks in the stone.

You have learned a spell without the aid of the system. Level up!

+5 Attribute points.

Skill: [Spell Weaving 1-A] acquired.

"Cool, I'm level four now!" She exclaimed. She immediately put the Attribute points into Spirit. She took a look at her Status and the new Skill she had formed.

Species: Dryad lvl 4 (clade: Awakened Plants)

Class: -

Health: 200/200

Mana: 27/180

Attributes:

Strength: 13

Toughness: 20

Constitution: 12

Mind: 11

Spirit: 18

Presence: 12

Traits: [Sapient Plant 1-A], [Tree Heritage 1-C]

Skills: [Growth Spurt 2-B] [Spell Weaving 1-A]

[Spell Weaving]

Level: 1 Tier: A

Improves your control over mana when weaving it into threads to form spells.

Right, it's only A tier for now, nothing special. She thought.

"Since you havvvvvvvve accomplished today's goal, I consider the lessons over. Goooooooooooodbye." Bluoro said, and turned to leave the building.

"Okay, see you tomorrow!" Acacia replied.

The slime stopped oozing away.

"You miiiiiiiisunderstand. I have fulfilled my obligatiooooooooons to the Acclimation Department. I willllllllll no longer be teaching you."

"What?! But I only know one spell! Barely!" Acacia protested.

"Yessss, you know have alllllll the tools necessary to pursue spellcassssssssting on your own. If you want more tuuuuuuuuutelage, you can find me in my home dissssssstrict and pay me for my services. Now, goooooooooooooodbye."

"This is bullshit. You're just going to leave me to blow myself up again when I fuck up?"

Bluoro didn't respond. They were already out of the training facility.

"What an asshat." Acacia grumbled.

"Don't take it personally." Scalpel put his chitinous arm on her shoulder. "This is standard for the Acclimation folks. Most tutors aren't even teachers by trade; they get skilled convicts hired in exchange for reduced sentence."

"Huh, that's nice. Instead of keeping them locked up, they help new people settle in. Though the 'help' here seems very limited."

"Oh, we have almost no prisons." He corrected her. "If you break the law, you usually get fined. Of you can't pay them off, all of your new earnings get redirected to pay off the debt. If you're being too violent to be allowed in polite society, they usually just kill you. "

"Wait, all of your earnings? How can- oh, right, food and housing is free. I'm guessing convicts grey out a lot more, though. No credits, no entertainment."

Scalpel froze for a moment, before nodding. "It's rough."

Acacia surmised he had some personal, unpleasant experience, so she decided to change the subject.

"I'm gonna keep training the fireball spell, but I'm low on mana right now. Maybe you could show me some of your tricks you've been doing why you waited here?"

He clicked his mandibles twice. "Sure, I'm always glad to show off my impeccable skills!"