The predator was eating its last prey, a long snake-like monster with poisonous sharp fangs. Liz’s teeth moved up and down as she chewed the gum like meat.

“Even if it is only level 15, it’s still a good source of meat.” Liz said.

Once she was done with her meal, she began to crawl and jump between the thick branches of the towering trees.

It had been a week since she began wandering the forest. She was now quite confident in her ability to detect other’s mana. Even if some high level monsters could mask it when they were far from her, their overwhelming mana became quite obvious when she got close enough.

She finally arrived at the entrance of her cave, she hadn't returned since she left. She slowly crawled inside, carefully scanning her surroundings, in search for any hint of another monster’s presence.

Eventually, she reached the giant slate chunk that served as a door to the portal room. She opened it carefully, making sure that there weren’t any monsters hiding inside, waiting for her return.

“You are too paranoid Liz” A voice told her, but she ignored it and inspected the inside of the chamber.

The chamber was dark, only the blue glow of her claws lighted the place. She saw the remains of the wolf she ate a week ago, mostly fur and bone. She saw some broken stones of obsidian, pure black mirrors with edges sharp as her claws.

“Shape swap” As she invoked her skill, her body began to change. Her body became much shorter and gained meat. Her limbs rapidly changed in colour, length and thickness. What used to be a long grey slender arm decorated by a complex mana system became a short white child-like arm, and the complex mana circuit became nothing more than a single thin line from her armpit to the palm of her hand. The three holes she had in her forearms were now replaced with a single one.

Her long ashen hair became shorter and cleaner, almost like threads of pure white silver. Her eyes changed colour and her face appeared healthier. The mana that was covering her hand transformed into a floating orb that illuminated the chamber.

Liz stared at her reflection in one of the obsidian chunks, trying to process her new appearance. “You have to be kidding me…” She said with a high voice.

She looked like a child that hasn't even hit puberty, her skin was a pale white, her long hair that reached past her shoulders was pure white silver, she had a small, almost flat chest. “It seems that the prey doesn't need to pee…” She said after making sure her body was still genderless in her nether regions.

“And what's with these eyes, I look like loki…” She said, looking at her heterochromatic blue and purple eyes. “Well, I think hers was red and not purple, but I still don’t like it.”

Notice: The skill shape swap has a 24 hour cooldown.

“So at least a day of being a little girl, lovely” She muttered.

She kept staring at her body for some time, trying to understand why her prey would form would be this… horrible. “I guess it could allow me to interact with humans, and it certainly would help me lower their guard…”

“Needle.” Some of the mana from the orb separated and transformed into a needle of solid condensed mana. “What can I do to make you stronger?”

Liz was quite unhappy with her current spell arsenal. Her threads were good at setting up traps and immobilising targets, as well as cutting high defence monsters with vibrate.

Her needles on the other hand, were quite unreliable, she could only launch them in a straight line that had her body as the starting point. This made it quite difficult for her to aim, since she had to place the needle between her and the target.

Her only remaining spell was liberate that allowed the to break the bonds that held the needle’s condensed mana together, which resulted in a strong explosion but consumed the needle.

“For now I’ll try to practise a way to launch the needles without using my body as a part of the line” She launched the needle against one of the chamber’s walls, leaving a mark near its centre.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She attracted the needle back to her, and then made it float away. She was able to see both the needle and the target, but she wasn't part of the line the two of them formed. “Focus on the space around you, feel the threads that build reality, define the coordinates of your target.”

Her world changed as she tried to use her spatial knowledge to launch the needle, but she quickly fell to her knees. Her head hurts as if it was pierced by a thousand nails.

“I guess it was a stupid plan…” Her voice echoed in the cavern. She used to be a supreme mage in regards to space and time. Able to see through anything, decipher any spell, and bend reality to her will. “But I guess this world works under different rules...”

This wasn’t the first time she tried to use spatial vision. But she always got the same result, different objects, realities, existed in the same coordinates, superpositioning to one another. She thought about defining the coordinates of her target without it, but she quickly dismissed the idea. It was extremely hard to establish a coordinate system that doesn’t rely on spatial magic.

She imagined a line connecting her needle to the mark of the wall. She imagined the needle slowly turning towards its target, preparing itself to strike the wall. Then, the needle rapidly launched towards the wall.

“It missed.” She said, then, the needle flew back to its starting position. Her mind started the process all over again.

“It missed…”

“It missed…”

“It missed…”

“It missed…”

She had tried for hours now, the wall was filled with holes, proof of her many failures. “Wow you have truly lost your touch.” A voice sarcastically said.

She kept trying, launching her needles again and again, even if she kept missing, again and again.

A day passed and the wall was now a shadow of what it once was. The holes were filled with her needles, she didn’t even try to take them back, she just kept trying, like a broken robot.

Black mana residue had accumulated under her as she kept spending more of her internal reserves to create needles. “Look at yourself, you are such a mess.” The voice said.

“Return.” Hundreds of needles flew back towards her, breaking anything in their path before stopping centimetres away from her skin. “...”

A storm of feelings flooded her mind, she had finally created a new spell, but it still used her as a beacon, as a point of the line between the needle and its target. But even if the spell was simple, it was still quite useful.

The needles melted and formed a mana orb, then, a single needle was formed.

She began experimenting with the new spell, the needle flew forward and backwards, striking the wall and coming back to her, just to strike it again. She then summoned another needle, trying to control two of them at the same time, changing their target after every shot.

Finally satisfied with her improvements, she collapsed on the floor. Her mind was tired due to all the time she spent practising. Her massive mana reservoirs were quite drained, and the black mana residue flowed steadily from her forearms.

----------------------------------------

When she woke up she felt much better. Her mind and body got the rest they deserved and her mana had time to replenish. When she got up to keep training, she became aware of a terrible truth.

“I’m still naked…” This should be something anyone would notice almost instantly, but of course, she was too focused on her magic to become aware of this detail.

In her defence, she had been naked since the day she appeared in this world. So nudity became something natural to her. “Still, this body is too vulnerable to remain naked forever…”

She walked towards the remains of the wolf, luckily for her, the skill hadn’t rotten or come to waste yet, so she could use it to make herself some clothes.

She prepared some pieces of fur and cutted them so they had the shape of a sleeveless jacket and some pants. “At least this small body doesn't need that much clothes, if not I would be in trouble.”

But of course she knew these clothes weren’t going to last much like this, especially considering she hadn't treated the fun in any way. “If I could use my threads to reinforce the fur, it would probably last much longer…”

The problem with that strategy was that she didn’t have any way of maintaining her threads. If she were to lose focus even once, the mana that formed them would instantly lose cohesion and vanish.

But if she could detach herself from the thread, make it become a physical entity instead of a mana construct, she could use it to create long lasting gear.

She sat down in the middle of the cave, and a string of mana formed in the point of her finger. Her mind was completely focused on it, on the structure that built this thread. How did the mana particles attach together? What would happen if she stopped focusing on keeping its shape? Could she change that shape at will?

The point of the thread stopped glowing as the rest of it did. Liz’s eyes were closed as she focused on her task, the same words repeated over and over in her mind. Maintain your form, FOREVER.

The thread kept growing in length, but most of it looked dead, mana wasn't flowing inside it after all. She created a needle and opened her eyes, preparing herself to sew the jacket.

Her eyes opened wide as she felt a strange mana behind her and quickly leaped away, managing to dodge a snake’s atack just in time. How could she be so stupid to forget where she was. She was in this dark forest, nowhere was safe.

Her back touched one of the chamber’s walls as she was walking away from the snake, she crouched and became smaller and smaller as the snake approached, confident of having its prey cornered.

The snake jumped towards her with its maws open, ready to sink her teeth deep inside her neck. “Return.” The snake’s neck was pierced by the needle Liz had created for sewing.

It let out a cry of pain, but still tried to bite Liz. She changed the shape of the needle to make it resemble a collar, and then launched it far from her. Once the collar, and the snake that wore it, were far from her, her lips curved in a grin.

“Thank you for the food delivery, I was getting hungry…” She said, as she snapped her fingers. “Liberate.”