His clothing felt sticky on his body. While he had remained focused, the day had grown hotter, the humidity in the air greater. Sweat coated his body, and he retrieved a shirt, cutting a strip off to form a bandana. With the sweat finally not running into his eyes, he started moving again, making his way back to the barrow,

Arriving, he noted scuff marks near the entrance. He frowned, wondering if something had wandered in. He pushed his spear ahead of him, running mana through it, causing flames to spout and light the passage before him. He moved down, arriving at the entrance to the cavern, and saw a small creature crouched there. It was a greenish brown in color, with a crown of small horns ringing its head, its small mouth opened in a hiss showing tiny sharp teeth. Considering it was only the size of his hand and looking the worse for wear with a bleeding gash down its side, Mosh felt no threat. Instead, he felt sorry for it. He recognized it, what was basically a harmless creature known as a tigermouse. He had a different idea for it, they were often tamed and were good at sniffing out mana enhanced plants and other small creatures.

Mosh reduced the mana to his spear, reducing the heat and leaving the light. He reached back into his pack, struggling with the awkward angle. And withdrew a long piece of dried meat. He broke a piece off and threw it to the tigermouse. It hissed, then twitched as the smell of the meat wafted across. It sidled over to it, keeping its eyes on him, hissing as it did so, until it was able to reach out with a paw and pull the meat towards him. It chomped down, its small teeth shredding the meat. It finished, then looked towards him, not hissing, but shivering in anticipation.

Mileu net studio

“Well folks, we are back with the new entry into the Game from the lottery world of Earth, Mosh Barmenash. Not a fight this time, but it seems he has come across something we all love to see, a tigermouse, and he seems to have recognized it and is attempting to tame it!”

“Ma, Pa, Mosh is on the Screen again,” Mindi had been watching at seventeen she would be the next of the siblings to enter into her Coming of Age, and she was doing her homework and taking her turn to watch in case Mosh was shown, the new chore, “Mosh Watch”, though they never let their parents hear them calling it that!

A crash came from the kitchen as her mother rushed through, her father responding on the communicator that he was in the fields but was coming as quickly as he could. Other children around the house came rushing in to watch, including some friends that had come from school, and a few of the field hands came in and moved to the back.

Mindi gave an exaggerated sigh, “Relax, not a fight this time. He’s trying to tame a tigermouse.”

A loud, ‘Oh that’s cute” came from Simo, who once again had snuck in from the back. He realized his mistake immediately and wilted as his mother looked at him. He shrunk back, but stayed, and since it wasn’t a battle and there was not going to be blood, they saw no reason to chase him out. It brought a lot of grins out when Clumsy wriggled out of his arms, barking at the screen as it showed a close up of the tigermouse.

They all watched as Mosh slowly fed bits of meat to the tigermouse, slowly drawing it closer. It nibbled on the meat, enjoying it, and only shirked back a bit as Mosh drop his hand to stroke it and scratch behind its ears. It froze, then relaxed into it, grabbing another piece of the meat to chew on. Mosh kept on feeding it, until it seemed to be sated, leaned into his hand, and fell asleep.

A few “oohs” and “Aahs” came from those watching, and the mood in the house was lifted for a while, though while the young children could concentrate on what appeared to be Mosh’s cute new pet, the adults could only think on what was still to come. Sarah had not missed the fact that Mosh’s fingertips seemed to be unnaturally long, and his veins and arteries too prominent beneath his skin. Clearly, he had started to change, and she feared what would become of her sweet and handsome boy. She rebuked herself, he was her son, would always be her son, regardless of how he looked in the future.

Myrrdin

The screen focused onto the boy, showing him again, this time taming a harmless creature. Myrddin frowned, using his encyclopedic knowledge of evolutions to plot the creature’s possible trajectory. The system designation for it was Ikbar Haras, far from the tiger mouse it was commonly called, but more like “Destruction Mouse”. It looked harmless, but for it to have a starting name like that, it must have quite the deadly evolution path. A pity it was off screen, already, his analysis skill was powerful enough to work from just a picture, as long as it was live. He would have a better idea if he had been able to see its mana foundation and the type of body energy it used. His initial thoughts were that it would gain some powerful evolutions, but probably only four or five evolution tiers down the line. Hopefully the boy realized this was more than just a cute pet and nurtured it to the deadly companion it could grow to be if his suspicions were correct. It seemed a good start for one freshly into the Crucible, though the negative he was taking away from what he viewed was that the boy looked like he did not care about purity, he already bore the stigma of evolution. No matter, they would use what and whom they had available!

“Sinead”, he called out, summoning his assistant into his office. “How are our people placed?”

“Master, we have one from another species lined up, the boy will need to move forward and closer to the centre before they can meet up, but he is making preparations.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Another species?” Myrddin frowned, “Why are we using another species?”

“Master, they are our allies. Like us, they despise the Greater Mileu and the Mana records and seek freedom. It is not a singular species, but a group dispersed throughout the Greater Mileu. They are known and reviled as an outcast political organization, but beneath the public façade, there is a deeper and stronger group working to undermine the greater Mileu, to change its laws away from the blanket acceptance of all mutations and evolutions, and to drive an agenda of greater purity. They see that as a first step, get the public away from a blanket acceptance of all change, and then slowly move to tightening and ever stricter rules as to what evolutions are allowed.”

Myrddin frowned and accepted. He did not relish working with others that bore mana taint, but reality often forced compromise.

Kendrick

The man sat in his office, cursing at the screen. One of the latest victims of the lottery had just been shown. He remembered this child from his appearance when the showed him facing a prowl cat, and he had survived! Now, here he was taming the harmless tigermouse. A cute interlude, but belying the deadly environment the child was in, and how he was being warped for the sick entertainment of the aliens. The lengthening of his fingertips had been easily seen as the screen had focussed on his hands as he first fed, and then petted the tigermouse. Kendrick had also not missed the thicker vessels, their deeper colour, signs of another mutation, though one with less visible physical characteristics.

He checked the corridor outside his office, making sure that no one was loitering around, always a distinct possibility in the offices of the Earth Mileu. His colleagues were not friendly with the Greater Mileu, but they were likewise not friendly towards the Purists. He had felt his colleagues out, but none seemed safe to recruit. He closed his door, turning on the white noise generator to stop audio snooping, and then the mana generator to hopefully stop any magical spying. Pulling out his comms cube, he connected to his subordinates. “Have you found the interference yet?”

The voice on the other side was surly, sounding frustrated. “Nothing yet. Somebody is feeding us information, but while it is information we want and need, it looks like it is carefully curated to get us to follow their agenda. We have yet to find its source, or what their aim is.”

Kendrick cursed. They had enough issues avoiding both the Earth Mileu and the Greater Mileu. Knowing that someone else was using them as their pawn was another frustration, another warning note and complication. They needed to free humanity, not bind them to some other group who would use them. He examined the latest information that source had exposed, compared it to the other information leaked to them, and tried to see if it betrayed anything of their aim. Yet it seemed to show no commonalities, not beyond it being a spur to get them take action to try and stop further atrocities by the Greater Mileu! He swore, not wanting to be manipulated, but at the same time knowing he could not just ignore the information had been fed to them.

Mosh

Mosh looked down at the little creature asleep against his hand. The tigermouses were known to be easy to tame, quick to trust. It seemed to have been made easier by what seemed to be the youth, combined with the hunger, of the one before him. He stoked it and felt the vibrating of it purring against his hand even as it slept.

Ikbar Haras tamed. Candidate can create a mana connection and bind it as a pet. Does candidate wish to proceed with the binding?

Mosh knew that some people had mana bound pets, but he had never met one of known how to bind one. It seemed to be this easy! He gave his mental acquiescence and felt a thread of man exit his hand that was busy petting it and enter into it. A presence appeared in his mind. Small, warm and fuzzy. It carried overtones of satiety, of comfort, but also of pain as it yelped when it moved and the cut in its side was irritated. Mosh frowned, known that the presence must be the tigermouse. I can’t continue to call it that, it needs a name. How about Silky? I always loved Silky growing up, a great ratter until he met that monster one that ate him! So, let him be Silky two!

Ikbar Haras pet renamed to Silky Two.

The mana records resounded in his mind, making the new name official.

Mana pet Silky Two bonded. Current health compromised, utilise personal mana to heal pet?

That was unexpected, Mosh had not thought his personal mana could be used to heal. Even as he agreed, he felt the pull, saw his mana flowing into Silky. Wait, that helps with the whole soul cultivation! I now see where my mana source is, how it flows out. I just need to reverse that, find a way to bring it in from the outside!

Excited, he wanted to try the cultivation again, but stopped, thinking of how it could leave him vulnerable. He had already had one creature find its way in; he needed a way to secure the barrow before he tried again. Moving carefully to try and extract his hand trapped beneath Silky Two, he started crawling out, even as Silky half-opened his/her eyes? Something to check, then closed them again, a feeling of contentment filling his mind.

The sun was still high, and the area outside of the barrow showing his movements. He frowned. He was a farmer, not a woodsman, but he knew leaving obvious signs of his coming and going was not a good idea.

‘You got that right,’ Midkar’s words were clear, ‘but you can try to use that mana imbuement skill of yours to rejuvenate the ground outside. Push your mana in, think of it healing and repairing the ground and bushes, if you get it right, it should cover up the mess you made.’

Ah well, nothing to lose by trying, Mosh knelt, pushing his hand into the mulch, feeling around for the roots beneath. He pushed with his mana, thinking of the center he had found when his mana had been withdrawn to heal Silky. It took some time, but eventually he found it, connected to it, and felt it start flowing.

Candidate has learned the skill MANA FLOW, Tier zero, level 1.

Mosh grinned, he finally had his first skill, though it was not the one he had been trying for. He was able to watch as the mana flowed through him, entered the roots below. He had to concentrate to keep it flowing. He directed some into the mulch, trying to rearrange it to hide his movement. He felt his mana draining, tiredness descending as it drained, as his mana left him, eventually being forced to stop. The bushes around had grown, covering up the barrow entrance, the mulch outside looking undisturbed. He looked on, satisfied. It would do for now; it should at least stop any casual observation. He needed a more permanent solution, but that would need to wait.

Candidate has advanced the skill MANA FLOW to Tier zero, level 3.

Mosh grinned, increasing skills felt good.