Veraxia and I stared at each other for a while, until I finally found the strength to lift myself. My mana was still low, so not only was my body feeling sluggish, but my head was buzzing, too. Massaging my temples, I looked around. The soldier was dead, so were the drones, and all that remained were me and Veraxia.

“Are you alright?” She asked as she lowered her head to my level. I settled for a simple nod. I was feeling like shit, but there was no risk of me dying right now.

All the pain and nausea aside, I felt strange. As if something was amiss, but no matter how tried, I could not recall what it was. During that, I also remembered that I was reading through some new system messages, yet I could not recall what I read.

As such, I opened my status, but the notifications were gone already, leaving me with only my status, which was not what I remembered.

Name: None

Sex: Female

Species: Unregistered (Level: 21)

Class: Novice Witch (Level: 25)

Titles: [Original], [Specimen]

Pools:

Stamina: 5/5

Mana: 27/1,000

General Skills:

[Identify (Common)], [Iron Will (Epic)], [Pain Tolerance (Epic)]

Species Skills:

[Regeneration (Rare)], [Mana Affinity (Unique)], [Original Aura (Unique)], [Draining Bite - Mana (Rare)]

Class Skills:

[Telekinesis (Uncommon)], [Aggravating Touch (Common)], [Shadow Cloak (Uncommon)], [Meditation—Mana (Common)], [Bind (Uncommon)]

Stats:

Vitality: 22

Strength: 17

Agility: 40

Dexterity: 17

Intelligence: 81

Willpower: 82

Perception: 57

Faith: 0

Free Stat Points: 8

Probably the most expected change to it all were my stats which had grown quite a lot after all the levels I got from killing the soldiers and drones, although as far as I remembered I should have six and not eight free stat points, but that was just a minor detail.

More importantly, while I did vaguely recall reading about a new Class skill, there was also an entirely new Species skill, one I had never heard of before. Also, I could not ignore how absurdly similar this scenario was to when I gained my regeneration skill. It was also a Rare skill, which made it even more unbelievable that I wouldn’t remember its acquisition. But if whatever happened with Regeneration, happened now with Draining Bite, then even if I wanted to know how it happened, I would most likely not find any kind of answer to the How.

Ignoring the mystery for a second, there was still a new Rare skill in my status, so I was bound to check it out. The skill itself was nothing too exciting, and I would to figure it out some more, but I felt like it would be a good addition to my skill set.

“What hap- ugh!” I tried to ask what had happened to me but bit my tongue in the process. Something that never happened before, but more importantly, I was feeling something unusual inside my mouth. Running my tongue across my teeth, I discovered that my canines had grown significantly in length and had become quite sharp. The rest of my teeth, too, felt slightly different, although I could not exactly tell how, since shape-wise, they remained the same.

“Are you alright?” Veraxia asked with something akin to worry in her voice. Receiving words of genuine concern was a rare occurrence for me, but it was not something that felt bad.

I nodded, swallowing the blood in my mouth. The wound was small, but even then it still hurt and I did not have enough mana to heal it. As I was trying to figure out how to speak without hurting myself, Veraxia seemed to take an interest in my teeth, too.

“Your teeth changed,” she said as a matter of fact.

“You noticed?” I asked. That she noticed the change was unexpected, after all, I didn’t think she had paid particularly much attention to my teeth.

“Call it an educated guess,” she spoke casually as she drew closer to me. Gesturing me to keep my mouth open she stared inside. I didn’t think having the inside of my mouth stared at could feel so… invasive. “Interesting. Very interesting,” she finally said after having her fill of observing my teeth.

“Why?”

“Physical changes by themselves are not that rare. Scars, evolution, or simple growth can all cause some sort of physical alteration, however, this change of yours was different. The only thing that comes to mind when I think about a trigger for this, would be a trait awakening.”

“A trait awakening?” As I repeated the words, I felt a slight tug at my memories, the words resounded with a sense of familiarity that I could not explain properly.

To my question, Veraxia nodded her head, “Sometimes, when beings are born or created, it can happen that their body or soul cannot completely handle the entirety of the being itself. I will spare you the lesson on souls, but souls, to protect themselves from harm, may seal certain traits. Leveling gradually increases the capacity of your being, body, and soul, and at some point, the dormant traits will awaken and manifest.”

That was a lot of information. Too much, almost. I barely knew what a trait was and now there was something about souls creating those traits, or rather turning them into a dormant state. At the same time, Veraxia’s words held an interesting implication.

There might still be more of those traits in me. Although, all of this still didn’t answer one of the most important questions.

“What even are these traits?”

“That is entirely dependent on each individual, their heritage, and other factors. Most common are skills, and titles, while mutations and physical changes are on the rare side.”

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

“Why are they rarer?” I mean, I got both of them, a skill and a physical change, and it did not seem like such a big deal. Well, that was probably something only someone as ignorant as me would say.

“Physical traits are much more… fundamental. That you missed one of those traits for a hundred years actually makes some of the things happening to you make sense,” she said, mumbling the last part to herself, although I still picked it up.

Physical traits being more fundamental was logical, since our appearance, from skin, eye, and hair color down to the shape of one’s ears and face, are already set upon birth. Of course, there could be changes to either, but in this case, it was like being born without a second leg, only to regrow said leg a few years later. Or at least that was how I understood it.

What I did not understand, was how this explained things for Veraxia, or what kind of things it explained.

“What makes sense?”

“Your body is part of your being, and your soul carries information about your body. But if your body is incomplete, the information inside the soul is too. So the system, which reads our souls to create what we call ‘status’ has no access to all of your information, hence creating the Specimen title.”

My eyes widened as her words registered in my mind. My body was incomplete? It was an absurd thing to hear, but after seeing what happened to my teeth, I couldn’t say that it was not a possibility.

If my body really was not entirely complete before, was it now? Or were there still traits for me to awaken? If this entire situation of mine was linked to the Specimen title, then there was a good chance this was just the beginning, after all, according to Specimen, I had just reached ten percent of progress, which was the second milestone.

And that was not all, reaching the second milestone should have changed my species description and of course, I immediately went to check it out. And when I opened it, I was more than pleasantly surprised.

The changes in the text itself were not that grand, nor necessarily life-changing, but the same could not be said about my stat bonuses, which apparently also had increased after reaching the second milestone. I now received two points in each stat except Faith, which would double my speed of getting stronger, not only that, but from here on out, I would also get three assignable stat points per level. It was just two points more than before, but in the great scheme of things, it was a huge improvement. This also explained why I had eight, instead of six stat points.

However, not all was perfect, since a particular passage in my species description bothered me quite a lot. It was the part where my growth was negatively impacted due to my inability to age. And since this also included my pools, I was not very happy to read that.

I shared my thoughts with Veraxia, who after waiting for me to read through my species description, looked quite curious herself.

“It sounds bad,” I told her. Despite my obvious concern, Veraxia took the information in with a knowing calm and did not look the least bit surprised.

“That much is to be expected. Long-living species have to balance their longevity somehow, naturally, that means their bodies have a reduced drive to change. There are even those without a stamina or mana pool. Although it is the first time I hear of someone who can grow neither of the pools.”

“So what, I am stuck with my pools as they are? No improvement whatsoever? Fucking great,” I grumbled, annoyed that my own body was once again standing in my way.

“No. Just because they cannot grow by themselves, does not mean that they cannot expand at all. It just means we have to use… unconventional, and maybe a bit violent means,” she said and walked over to the dead soldier.

I arched an eyebrow, observing her actions intently. She extended one of her claws, deftly slicing open the corpse—the plates not offering the slightest resistance—meticulously sifting through its innards until she extracted a purplish, gleaming object. It looked like a sharp, thin rock, yet it was definitely anything but that. After that, she grabbed it with her mouth and walked over to me.

She placed the object carefully in my lap. “What is that?” I asked, picking it up and holding it in front of my face.

“That is a mana crystal. It forms from the residue of mana upon the death of a certain type of creature. The Exapoda happen to fall into the category of those who form crystals.”

As I inspected it, I noticed that rather than being purple, the crystal was actually colorless—like glass—and contained mana in its pure form inside. This was the first time I saw mana that was not my own so clearly. When I focused, I could even feel the mana inside through the tips of my fingers.

“How is this crystal supposed to help me?” I shook the crystal, observing how the mana reacted—It did not.

“Mana Crystals, in this form, are rather unstable and tend to dissolve if inserted into another mana circuit. And that is what we are going to do.”

“Okay, but you skipped the part where you explained why you need to stuff a crystal into my body.”

“Simple, when the crystal dissolves inside you, the mana inside will be released. Since we would do this procedure while your mana pool is full, this process will overload your pool and force an expansion of your mana pool.”

“Nothing about that sounds healthy,” I complained and I meant it. First of all, the crystal was about as long and thick as my forearm, so to get that thing inside my body, Veraxia would need to make an appropriate cut. And yeah, no.

There must be another way to get the mana from the crystal inside of me… Wait.

Would that actually work? It does say ‘anything’… Huh, fuck it.

I put the tip of the crystal into my mouth, activated my skill, and bit into it with all my might. The crystal shattered, and I felt an influx of mana flowing into my teeth and from there down my throat and into my chest.

“What are you doing?” Veraxia asked exasperated at my actions, but I ignored her and drank every single drop of mana from the crystal, before discarding the empty remains. The foreign mana mixing and integrating into my mana felt very strange, and turbulent, but it was painless. When the mana inside me settled, I checked my status.

Mana: 279/1,000

Aw, shit. I forgot to meditate. That was dumb.

“What did you do?” Veraxia asked, looking at the empty crystal on the floor, then at me.

“I drank the mana.”

“You did what?!”

“I drank the-“

“Yes, I heard that. But that explains nothing.”

“My new skill, my teeth. They can absorb mana from anything I bite. Seems it works on the crystals, too.”

“And saying, like, anything before doing that did not even cross your mind once?”

I just shook my head, since it was true that my curiosity got the better of me. In retrospect, I should have thought about it more because my mana pool was still just as big as before.

Veraxia sighed deeply, shaking her head.

I cleared my throat, “There is still the other soldier. The one I killed,” I said.

The other soldier should also have a crystal if it did not come into contact with the liquid. Did mana lose against acid? I should test that at some point. Might become useful.

Veraxia grumbled to herself as she walked to the other soldier's corpse. While she fetched the second crystal, I decided to finally meditate and fill up my mana pool. Since Veraxia was around, I judged that it would be safe to do so.

Inhaling deeply, I slowly let Meditation settle in, placing my life in Veraxia’s claws. We still did not know each other well, and I wouldn’t say that I completely trusted her, but since we were in this whole shitshow of a situation together, I had to take the chance to depend on her when necessary.

After a few seconds of trying, all the complicated thoughts vanished and I slowly felt myself being pulled into Meditation’s embrace.

It felt like only seconds passed before I opened my eyes again. Veraxia lay before me, another mana crystal lying by her side. Noticing my awakening, Veraxia turned my way.

“Are you ready?” She asked calmly.

Mana: 1,000/1,000

I confirmed that my mana was full and nodded. Veraxia threw the crystal over to me, and I caught it with Telekinesis and drew it into my hand. And then I tried the whole absorption thing again. Drinking up, I expected the same thing as last time to happen, but I was surprised by an unexpected pain, as the mana inside my chest started raging. It felt as if it was trying to escape, even if it had to shatter my body in the process. My mana mingled and merged with it, trying to convert the mana into my own, but there was a lot of foreign mana.

I hunched over, holding onto my chest. I was sweating and my breath was out of control, while pain assaulted my entire body.

I suffered like that for a few moments longer, before all of the foreign mana ceased to throw a tantrum, and the pressure on my body receded. When I opened my status, a victorious smile sneaked onto my lips.

Mana: 1,250/1,250

“It worked,” I exclaimed joyfully. Not only was I going to get more stats from now on, but with this method proven successful, I could also grow my available resources. Finally.

“It did. And you did not explode. Color me impressed,” Veraxia commented casually.

Disturbed by what I just heard, I looked at her with a frown, “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, while you can force your mana pool to expand, even that has its limitations. There is a maximum to which you can ‘stretch’ it.”

“And you decided to tell me this after almost killing myself?”

We looked at each other, both silent. I didn’t even know what to say, and before we got a chance to talk about it any further, the tunnel started rumbling once again. A distant screech confirmed that more enemies were coming.

I quickly went to pick up the mandibles that were still stuck in the dead soldier, before grouping up with Veraxia again.

“I guess it’s time for battle,” I sighed, trying to locate the approaching enemy.

“You guess right, girl.”