CHAPTER 38 - New…
Monsters or mutated beasts? Which one is each? - Second part; beasts.
When approaching the topic of how beasts are born, we need to forget everything we know about monsters. We are not searching for species that changed in appearance or size, nor are we looking for those monsters that somehow got a new body part due to the presence of mana.
No, we are not looking for extra heads, new organs, new limbs, or even changes to its diet. What we are looking for is the same appearance, with no changes at first sight. Those who are stronger even without those changes are what we call beasts.
Lots of people love to disregard this opinion saying that what we refer to as no changes is not true, yet that's far from the truth. These beasts get their strength from mana too, yet in a different way.
Instead of getting their body upgraded with the sheer volume of mana and developing bigger muscles, bones or flesh like the monsters, these beasts get only a small one. However, they make up for it with an even bigger increase in the volume of mana that they can control.
This is but a mere downside of their greatest strength, magic! The less mutated body yet powered by mana helps them get the best of the mana in the air. This, in turn, helps them all to get better with magic. Easing the process of reinforcing their body with it or actively using it to attack in the shape of their most seen things and easier to picture, nature’s elements.
Tsunamis, typhoons, earthquakes, and so on are just a mere fraction of what these beasts get to control as they get used to mana. Some are just capable of throwing small rocks, or a few liters of water at their enemies so they decided to go for speed, making their small projectiles deadly.
Others can change the landscape of a whole area just by choosing to do so in one move. Using mana to create a natural catastrophe or create something else more specific to attack their enemies more straightforwardly.
It doesn’t matter which approach they choose to use, you should always be careful when fighting one of the beasts or magical beasts as some like to call them. Their attacks are not that easy to read thanks to their magic flexible nature and a fight against them can take a dark turn at any moment.
The changes that force a normal beast or animal to become a magical one is the speed at which mana takes over its habitat. While on other planets this phenomenon was scarce and far in between, on Earth that is the other way round.
Earth is described by our sources of information as the planet with the fastest record of manna inclusion ever to be seen.
That’s part of the reason why so many are interested in Earth. These conditions are the best ones for the strongest beasts and monsters to be born to this date, changing the tables of some conflicts that are so old that are nearly forgotten.
Official Records of the Capital
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Leo
The link that connects us seems to work as a peaceful pond, where the fox calms while meeting my absence of strong emotions as of now.
I feel the fox diving into my feelings for a second and then her feeling at ease.
I finally get back my bearings after a couple of seconds of fighting against those strong emotions conveyed through the link. Just in time to see the fox relaxing a bit, probably noticing that I bear no danger to her.
Now that my intentions seem to have been conveyed right, I try again to give her some more food.
The beast does stay on guard the whole time, but that doesn’t stop it from reaching for the new food I pour into the bowl as it starts mounching on it again. I can't help but think it's cute as it swallows everything in a matter of seconds.
The furball sure knows how to get what it wants, she hasn’t even emptied the bowl when a pleading smile is thrown at me, asking for more.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Just how much food can that little belly of yours store?” I say it out loud, not expecting an answer, yet something similar to a thank you comes through the link.
‘Huh, just how many things can be exchanged through this thing… I am pretty sure it can pass both ways, the emotions that each one of the parties is experiencing, and even some memories.’
The fox starts eating again and finally tears off the thread of energy connecting us.
After filling its belly, it goes back to sleep and leaves me alone in the RV to think about what to do moving forward.
It is still too early to go to sleep, so I take the furball with me. I go to the car which keys I managed to find, and I lay it on the passenger seat on top of a blanket.
After stuffing the trunk of the car with water, food, and some other things from the RV just in case, I start the car and get going. My goal is to arrive before nightfall at the place where I hid the van with the supplies to take it all with me as I leave the city.
I will be coming back to get my revenge on all those people and vampires, or whatever they are.
I saw just how strong that little kid was, and I am pretty sure it is just a glimpse of what is to come. If I want to find my sister, I will need more than strength to take on the so-called “family” of the vampire and whoever comes my way. There is no way I can take all of them head-on though, I don't even know how many of them are in their base, so I will need a plan.
After my efforts to find my sister, I am pretty sure that not only her, but a lot of people must be prisoners of the vampires. There is no way that only a couple hundred people survived from all over the city.
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I get to the hidden van on time and swap vehicles once more before carrying on with the trip.
‘Where to?’ I can’t make up my mind on where to settle.
I have a few options that seem feasible, yet none of them give me any reassurance over one another. In the end, I chose one of the places because it is close to another city too, opening up new possibilities for the future.
I drive through the night, and even though I am sure there are monsters and beasts roaming around the forest, I get lucky, and nothing gets in my way.
I get to the place in question and take a look around. A dead end of the road that meets a lake in the middle of nowhere. There is a small cabin made of wood and a well that combined give the perfect rural vibe to the place.
I already know that there are fish on the lake from a previous holiday trip here and that it is safe to drink the water from the well.
Not seeing any threats around, I leave the car and inspect the interior of the cabin, finding everything where I expected it to be. There are two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen and a small cozy living room equipped with a wooden stove.
I feel relieved that the stove is still here, it will help me out a lot while I stay here.
I bring the fox inside and leave it next to the door of my bedroom wrapped around some blankets. I will improve the security of this place tomorrow morning, but for now, I try to sleep after blocking the door with a chair to hear if anyone enters.
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The next morning, I check on my new companion, and after making sure it’s okay I leave the cabin.
The sun is still rising when I step outside and I can hear the frogs croaking from where I stand. I don't know if there are any dangerous animals in the lake now with all these mutations going on, so I will have to keep an eye out for that.
I scout all around a 3km radius or so of the lake in all directions. I do not spot a single thing out of the ordinary so I go back inside to eat something and make sure the fox doesn’t leave after noticing my absence.
I enter the bedroom where I slept, and to my surprise, the fox is on top of the bed. It doesn’t seem nervous or hungry so I look at her while reflecting on what to do with her while it can’t move.
For now, I observe it to see if I can feel the energy that it is able to control. Maybe it is possible for me to do so too, so I can’t pass on the chance to take a good look.
Hours pass and I can’t do anything else than follow the trail the energy leaves as it courses its body, healing and invigorating it in the process.
After feeling like it has been enough for the day, I try to poke inside its wounds with my qi to try and help with the healing too. It jumps in fright at first, but after seeing that my actions are harmless it stops resisting while I try to inject my qi inside the broken tissues of the wounds.
I focus on the task for a while and finally get to inject some qi inside one of the scratches on its fur. The qi sinks into the wound and goes through the first layer of the skin.
Sadly, by the time I try to take hold of the injected qi to control it and move it onto the wound to help it heal, I am unable to do so. The moment the qi enters the fox’s body, I am unable to reach out to it again, it’s as if it was already part of the target’s body and not mine.
‘If qi works that way, if I were to give my qi to the fox in this manner, would it help?’ I ponder over giving away some of my qi to the furball and see if it helps it get better or not.
In the end, I choose not to do it. My qi may be harmful or corrupt its body somehow and right now I can’t expel it on my own. I will need to practice and experiment some more on it before doing anything else with it.
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