It wasn’t hard to get down. All it took was some shadow sculpting and jumping down from one perch to another and I was in the valley. After a quick rest, I got my mana pool back to full.
The forest was teeming with life. The trees were lush with shiny green leaves that were practically screaming healthy. It gave a strange feeling as the forest above was in the middle of autumn and this one was in late spring. I’ll just blame the forever green trees on mana and move on.
Another difference between the forests was the sound. The forest above was almost silent when compared with this one. While not loud, sound was practically constant here as opposed to the occasional bird song above.
After a few moments, I decided that it was safe enough to just move into the forest and I finally found an upside to my small size. The shrubbery that was fighting for the little light that fell from between the trees was impossible to pass to anything fox-sized and it was probably hard to pass to even something one size bigger. My kitten self could easily fit under the bushes and avoid the little thorns that they had.
It took me 15 minutes to finally get to a clearing. Unfortunately for me, on the other side of the clearing was a boar that was digging at the roots of a tree with its huge tusks. I would love to take a better look at it, but it just turned towards me and charged. It wasn’t like I was going to stay in place like a dumb kitten so I made way for the needlessly muscular pig. It wasn’t that fast, but I was panicked enough to forget that shadow craving was actually used for attacking and not making bad sculptures. It was a good thing that the boar now got a bush stuck around its tusks as it bought me some time to think. While it tried to get that off, I got myself together and moved further away to wait for the next charge.
This time when it got close enough with the charge I went for one of the front legs. And I cut straight through. My next shadow attack went for the neck and yet again I got a perfect cut. I moved away as I didn’t want to know what other aggressive animals would come out of the woodwork at the smell of boar blood.
‘Winter, why am I so powerful? That cut through bone like it was butter.’
‘The main reason is that your ability wasn’t meant for carving so the instincts that come with it aren’t helping you there. Also, your shadow attacks ignore most physical defenses so all you have to deal with is the mana contained within what you are cutting and your thin slices make the amount of mana resistance you have to deal with is abysmally low.’
‘So you are saying that I’m extremely overpowered for such a low-level zone?’
‘I’m saying that you are extremely powerful for someone that is in such a low-density mana zone. Also a fire elemental with a divine affinity would have burned this forest down within a day.’
‘I bet it would get hunted and killed for causing such a disaster.’
‘No, it would get hunted and killed for its elemental core.’
‘So nobody would care if suddenly all the monsters in the forest would disappear.’
‘Someone would investigate and nobody would care after.’
Good to know that nobody cares about forests and monsters in this place. I should ask about elves or druids later.
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It didn’t take me long to realize that all the monsters in the forest were extremely territorial and that they attacked on sight. The easiest fight by far was against a bird. It may be flying but its shadow is still on the ground. After a few too many annoying encounters and leaving a path of carnage in my wake, I decided that it was time to put together a better ritual of concealment. I clearly need one that also hides me from sight.
‘You could add a perception-altering part to your ritual, like making you seem unimportant or that there is nothing there. If you could satisfy my curiosity, why are you so desensitized to blood and killing?’
‘My grandparents used to raise livestock and the butchering was pretty much done in the backyard. You’d think that feeding a child chicken soup after showing them where the meat comes from would be traumatizing, but apparently, I like soup more than chickens and it’s dead anyway, so… Yeah. And in this particular situation, I like my body whole more than any monster in the forest. Plus I pretty much kill everything instantly, skipping over all the nightmare-leaving parts.’
While conversing with the Winter I was setting up the ritual circle. I just added the perception-altering part to the concealment ring. Besides that, the ritual looked the same as the first time I’d done it. The meaning of each ring was a little more complicated, but the end effect was just a more powerful concealment spell. The ritual taking effect still felt like putting on comfortable clothes.
With the short intermission done, I continue my journey in this unexpectedly hostile forest. I decided to just wander around the part of the forest where animals still ignored me. All it took to move faster was just flooding my body with mana and now I was zooming around the forest with no worries besides tripping.
The first interesting thing I found was wolves. Not one or two but about a hundred. I moved on quickly only to find another pack. And then another. And Another. And… I think I made my point. That part of the forest was practically infested with wolves.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
What came next was bears. Car-sized bears but still bears. Although they were fewer than the wolves, you really couldn’t miss them even if you tried. When they ran the ground shook. At least they moved solo and even fought for territory.
After the bears, I got a surprise. I didn’t think I was going to witness an or… I mean a stag and it’s harem having fun. I didn’t want to learn more about how young bucks come into the world so I moved quickly away. After a few more such deer gatherings it was pretty easy to see that the females joined the stag’s herd for protection.
The last part of the forest was dominated by flowers and not any flowers, but pretty flowers. They also came with an assortment of beautiful butterflies.
‘Winter please tell me that the flower field is silent due to sound magic shenanigans and not because everything out there is dead.’
‘Those are moon flowers. As the name implies, they have a moon affinity. Without any magic the whole plant━ including pollen━ induces sleep. The affinity just strengthens the effect. Those butterflies that you see there also have effects like illusion, confusion, and more sleeping. So anything without poison resistance, enhanced perception, and a little magic resistance would either stay here forever or leave.’
‘Don’t ecosystems balance themselves? Where are the predators of those flowers?’
‘All of those either slept to death or stopped tempting fate by eating moon flowers. Also, the plants here are all infertile. Luckily for them, they also reproduce asexually through runners. So all you see here is practically one plant copied over and over again. This also means that all of those plants could gain one soul, getting you a hivemind plant sentient, and about 100 years after that it would probably get to sapience.’
‘It’s great that I found the plant with the greatest chance to achieve sapience and all that, but is it safe for me to enter the field or not?’
‘Try to sense the mental energy in the surroundings. If you feel something like dreams or nightmares it’s best to not try your luck.’
Sensing mental energy in the air is like trying to distinguish tastes. Sure you can tell water from wine, but when you have to say in what type of wood barrel the wine was made in, it becomes a lot harder. Now ignoring anything that feels like nature, air, and earth was easy, but telling apart sleeping from dreaming was a lot harder.
After 15 minutes I decided that there probably wasn’t any dream mana in the field and that if there was, it was probably too little to do anything to me. The system didn’t start giving me a crash course on surviving in the dream realm so I won’t get to visit another realm today… Probably.
I started looking for a new home in the flower field. I have to say the illusion butterflies were both good and bad. The illusion looked on point, but the problem was that I had night vision and shadow affinity, which meant that all the shadows that they made looked completely different from how I was used to seeing them. They also could only do a single perspective. So I could see from my shadow the illusions being flat. If I was still human they may have tricked me, but now the disjointed landscape just looked funny.
‘You should move more towards the center of the forest. The mana pool expansion exercise needs you to find the place with the most shadow mana that you can find. It’s better to find the place today and make your home around there.’
With that, I started searching for my new home.
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It took me a week to find a suitable home. My first choice was under some tree roots, too bad it rained the very same day and it got so flooded it became a swimming pool. My next home was in a tree, but some owl-looking bird decided that I looked like a good meal so now I live in a tree hollow. I hope I don’t move home again too soon.
On another note, I hate the mana pool expansion exercise with all my being. I apparently hold my mana in the realm channel subconsciously and now I have to just hold more mana consciously. It would be easy if the damn channel wasn’t pushing back against my will. I also remember from time to time that I’m actually the one holding the mana and I have to do it manually until it goes back to a subconscious instinct.
While I was doing my neutral mana manipulation lessons━ this time I just had to move unrefined shadow mana from the Shadow Realm to paint my soul purple and then get as much of the neutral mana back as I could━ I saw that I had a red spot on my soul. It was different from the ever-changing color that it normally had, being closer to the deep purple I get after coating my soul in shadow concepts.
‘Winter, did I get a soul disease or something?’
‘You finally saw it. Now I can finally give you the full lesson on killing intent. When you kill a sentient being, a part of their soul power will get attached to yours like a curse. The power of the soul curse varies on the emotions the deceased had towards you and their mastery of the soul. So the red part you see is the concept that their emotions embody towards you━ it's mostly killing, hate, and death.’
‘Isn’t it bad to have someone else’s soul power attached to my soul?’
‘That is a matter of perspective. For you, it’s mostly bad. The part of the soul that attaches to you is stable so you grow your soul with minimal effort, but it still is a curse in the end, and having a curse make up a part of your soul isn’t great for you. It may lead to irascibility, hating random people, sadistic tendencies, and wanting to kill at random. Alternatively, you could erase the soul curse and just keep the killing intent.’
‘How easy is this killing intent to use and control?’
‘If you take the second path it will be easy.’
‘Then let me take a guess at how you get rid of the soul curse. Is it by any chance flooding that part of the soul with mana?’
‘If you add the intent to keep the killing intent and only eliminate the foreign soul power you got the complete answer. If you were a soul master it would have been even easier but we all have our limitations.’
‘Guessing that soul masters are people that can control soul power. What is this soul power anyway?’
‘The soul has 4 parts: the unstable part, the outer soul, the inner soul, and the soul core. The unstable art is just free soul power that naturally accumulates around souls. The outer soul is the stable soul power that is blank. The inner soul is the stable soul power that contains your memories, soul channels, and a lot of other information about you. The soul core is an artificial creation that all souls have when they form. It stabilizes the soul but it isn’t vital for it to function correctly. It has other functions that I can’t talk about but it isn’t detrimental to you in any way.’
‘So like my body is made of mana, my soul is made of soul power. Got it.’
I pull on my mana and start giving my soul a good scrubbing. My soul was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. My mana went around the outside of my soul attacking any red spots, but my soul went on and on so I’m still not sure if I got all of them, but most of them should be no more. The red spots quickly diffused into the purple outer layer making it a little reddish now.
‘Winter, what would happen if I killed something with a huge soul?’
‘Insanity, soul damage, or death depending on how big huge is. With this lesson done, it’s time for your ritual practice.’
‘Before that, I have some questions. What is the difference between normal animals and monsters.’
‘At first, monsters were animals that could use mana consciously. Now everything not sapient that can use their mana is a monster.’
‘How are you defining sapience and sentience.’
‘In the material realm anything with a soul is sentient and anything with a mind is sapient, In the soul realm things are still unclear.’
‘Last question then. Why are we in such a hurry to learn everything? Don’t I have all the time in the world, literally?’
‘The system assistants that are attached to the young come with a time limit. You being technically immortal means that you get the maximum allowed time: a little more than 10 years.’
‘So I got a friend with a time limit. You specified that only the ones attached to the young. Then if let’s say I’m eligible for another type of system assistant can I request you?’
’You could but it would cost you more than getting a normal one.’
‘Cost me more in what?’
‘System Points. You will find more after your soul finishes its transformation. I can't tell you more just yet so let’s get back to finding the right materials for the ritual.’