Leon was dragged from sleep in the early hours of the morning a fiery sensation of heat spreading throughout his body. He felt his muscles spasm involuntarily as the tingling fingers of intangible flame spread up throughout his limbs, before pushing back further into his body in waves. Slowly, it pulled itself tighter and tighter just behind his navel, and as it did the warmth rose in intensity until he was gasping in breaths that came in like ice against his lungs.

He was stuck there for what felt like hours before the flames died down, leaving him gasping, soaked in sweat, lying on his back. He stared up above him as a halo of light blinked into existence, eyes slowly focusing on the hazy silhouette.

Above him, the previously silvery glow of his Mana Affinity ring had been washed away by a piercingly bright light that, despite how dominatingly bright it seemed, was soft on his vision. In the middle, in the same neat cursive as his Status, was a single word. A word that had been on the tip of his tongue since he had first come to this place.

Life.

He stared at it a few moments more, slowly regaining his breath, before closing his eyes, mentally dismissing the halo. There was no change in the light filtering through his eyelids, but when he opened his eyes the halo was gone. He slowly lifted his body, silently acknowledging the lack of stiffness or pain in his arm and, indeed, the rest of him. Looking around, he saw the plants which he still hadn’t removed, and lying to his right, in a small divot that it had rolled into, was his egg.

He slowly came up onto his hands and knees, taking his time, and crawled over to the egg. After a brief moment of consideration, he climbed out of the hollow that was his home, pushing the makeshift door before him. After a couple of minutes, he returned, carrying a bundle of sticks and twisted twigs which he began to twist around the egg. He didn’t have a bird’s skill at the task, in any sense of the word, but within a relatively brief period he’d built himself a comfortable nest, which he padded with grass and leaves. On second consideration, he’d come up with a new project, but his stomach alerted him to a different issue.

After he’d taken the time to forage about, picking what he could reasonably expect to eat and grabbing a drink from a small trickling stream (a survivor after the rain protected from the encroaching plants by the surrounding gravelly brush), he had made his way back to home. Tucked in his shirt in a weird sort of traveller’s backpack was a sizable number of stones that might have been flint, and bundled in his arm was a hefty collection of flexible reeds and twigs he’d collected along the way. He noticed, rather alarmingly, that the trees were becoming more dense. Hopefully, without any significant rain in the near future, it wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but if things started to look like the situation around the lake, he’d be forced to find a new refuge.

He climbed back into his little hollow, surprised slightly by the change in temperature as he stepped in through the admittedly incredibly draughty entrance. Near the back, the egg sat in its makeshift home. Stooping forwards and placing his hand gingerly upon its smooth, white surface, he felt the warmth radiating off of the egg and smiled. It brought him a strange sense of contentment. A promise of a new beginning, perhaps. A new life.

The train of thought changed once more to the direction of his friends and family that he had left behind, before he forcefully shut the thought out of his mind. They would be fine. It was up to him to make sure that he didn’t make them worry any more, and that started with getting things done.

He briefly attempted his first project idea, before giving it up about twenty stones in. Likewise, his basket project required a bit more of a time investment than he currently wanted, so he simply laid out his materials to dry and turned towards something a little less physical.

Cross-legged in the center of his cave, he pulled up his Status.

Name: Leon

Race: Human

Type: Zoetic

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 8

Agility: 8

Constitution: 11

Vitality: 9

Resistance: 9

Intelligence: 9

Wisdom:13

Control: 8

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It was mostly unchanged, exempting the three points of light now orbiting between his central ring of Health, Mana and Stamina and the ring forming his statistics. They were identical aside from the fact that each glowed a different brightness. Frowning contemplatively, Leon pushed at one with his mind. A small spark of understanding passed invisibly between him and the point of light, and he understood its purpose. Directing his gaze at his stats, he saw now the realms of potential within each one. A brief assumption led him to realise that the magic within him was most likely a very important aspect to his survival, but he held off on selecting them just yet. He didn’t really know what was going to be most important in the future, so he’d have to consider carefully before making any real choice.

Instead, he closed his Status and his eyes, and began to breathe.

Repeating the same process he had when he’d first discovered his mana, he shut off his focus one by one. It was almost easier, now that there was a pulsing ball of warmth to focus on. He drew his awareness within himself, feeling the pulsing glow of his mana like a lamp in the darkness. He began to focus his will on his mana, attempting to pull at the warmth and drag it out. He managed to drag it away a little, like kneading heavy dough between his hands, before he gave up, not able to push any further. After a little while more of this futility, he gave in and attempted a different approach. Staring at the mana as he pulled it, he began to sense something. A sort of aimlessness as it was pulled, as if it was resisting the path simply because it didn’t have a place to go. After a brief moment of contemplation, Leon tentatively pushed his awareness back out into his right arm. This was more difficult than simply having no bodily awareness at all, in a way, as the weight of his arm and shoulder threatened to drag the connecting parts into focus. He steadied his breathing, once again turning his mind to both the palm of his hand and the pool of magic at his center. Slowly, he traced a line between the two points, and began dragging the mana from one to the other.

At first it was slow, the mana objecting to the rough pathway it was given. By the time it was at his wrist, he was straining, a gossamer-thin strand of mana moving at a snail’s pace up his arm, and from the outside his face was scrunched and tense, his breath hissing steadily between his teeth.

Finally, it clicked against the point of his hand, and his concentration was shook as his mana began pushing out of him in a rushing flow. It was even making the flow up his arm more efficient as it went, correcting the crooked errors in the line he had traced from Point A to Point B. Opening his eyes for a brief moment, he looked down at his hand, only to see the light of his mana pushing out of his hand like a plume of white dust. Possibilities flickered through his mind as to the problem, before he latched onto one. It had followed the path, but had nothing to collect it on the other side. Thinking quickly as his core slowly dwindled like a deflating balloon (Leon felt a tinge of anxiety at what might happen if it fully emptied), he closed the access point, shutting off the flow, only to feel himself straining against the flow of mana once more, this time holding it back instead of dragging it forward. As he clenched his jaw against the flow of mana, he pulled up the only image that came to the forefront of his mind and overlaid it on his palm.

His mental grip on the stopper released, and he felt his mana gush outwards.

Where it stopped.

Opening his eyes, Leon lifted his arm in front of him, staring down at the thin, silvery ring that sat above his palm. Unlike his Mana Affinity wheel, this one was solid in colour, revealing no trace of the stark, white mana that he knew coursed within it. Calling up his status, he saw that, as expected, the level of the navy-blue transparent liquid that represented his mana had dropped significantly, the percentage display now showing a neatly written 38%.

Also of note was a new, smaller ring, which sat angled to the left of his Status like a complementary mirror. Etched into its top was a single word. Skills. Inside, there was only a single entry, which struck Leon as rather petty. Rather than waste what was left of his tired psyche complaining about it, he just read it.

Arcanography

That was the second uncommon word which had popped up in his Status, the first being his new Mana Type. ‘Arcanography’ was foreign to him, but the other word, zoetic, was more immediately recognisable. It was rather obscure, but from memory he was fairly sure it meant ‘of or relating to life’, which in this instance very much described the magic that permeated this forest. He had never heard the latter word before, but he remembered enough from high school English to work out the prefix and suffix. It was basically just a compounded form of the phrase ‘arcane writing’.

With those facts in mind, he dismissed his Status and focused once more on the ring that floated above his palm. He could feel the mana inside, coursing lazily within. Recalling the vague memories of old fantasy novels that he’d read as a kid, he drew a small symbol in the middle, using his finger as a stylus. The symbol was simple, two vertical, parallel lines, with the one on the right bending over to join with the left, like a taller, simplified ‘n’.

As he lifted his finger away, he became aware of a strange tugging sensation, somewhat akin to standing close to a high drop and having that feeling of falling, even when you were perfectly safe. The potential of the symbol called out to him, and he gave the first description that came to mind.

Grow.

Immediately the mana in the ring pulsed out into the shape, and as Leon watched in surprise as it warped the symbol, solidifying it into a bold, white shape. The spell was ready.

He looked around for a viable target, and saw a loose stick sitting on the earth. For lack of a better option, he pointed his palm towards it, and the symbol flew across the hollow.

As it contacted the errant twig, it shook for a brief moment.

Then it exploded into motion.

The stick rapidly elongated, and Leon flinched back as it stretched from one side of the hollow to the other. It cracked against the wooden walls, holding firm, and he turned his head to see it had impacted inches from his face.

Well, he thought, that was something.

He took hold of the stick with both hands and, after a moment of exertion, he managed to break the surprisingly firm wood in two, pulling it free of its holdings. Thankfully, it had not merged with the tree, and it was clear that after the mana had been spent it had returned to the same dry twig it was before.

On a hunch, Leon called up his Status once more, turning his attention towards his skills. As expected, there was another. Sitting beneath Arcanography, a new entry had appeared, labeled Rapid Growth.

Despite his mental weariness, he couldn’t help the grin that stretched across his face.

Now we’re talking.