Pygan was going for a walk. Even though he had already explored every inch of this damn forest, he liked to walk around and pretend he never stepped a single paw in this place before.

The red fox walked for days, west to east, north to south and pretty much all around the forest, without rest and only stopping when something got its attention.

But it didn't take too long for him to get bored again.

It's not like the forest wasn't incredible. This was the most unique patch of land on this plane after all! Filled with giant trees with unusual colors, odd fruits, animals, everything! And the most important of all, everything here emits some sort of light due to the amount of mana in the air that they absorb.

And yet, even after three hundred years or so stuck here, he never got used to the shining flora around.

As he climbed a rock that's right beside a small creek, he thought about making the life of a random critter hell with a small prank, but quickly discarded the idea, it wasn't that fun to do that with creatures with little to no sentience.

As he reached the top, he lay on it and stared at the currently dark skies and its stars, looking for something as his red eyes started to shine. And just like last time, no signs of him.

Even though he could sense everything that entered this forest's domain, he still held onto the hopes that maybe, that bird got some trick he wanted to show to him.

Still staring at the stars with his bright eyes, he starts to consider one last desperate thing to do… Praying.

He wasn't a religious spirit. He was not praying for a god. They wouldn't answer anyway, divinites don't like sprites, after all, they can't control their will. No, the target of his prayers was something very different.

I'm… I'm not that desperate. He thinks to himself, refusing to acknowledge what he's about to do.

After a few long minutes thinking about other things that he could possibly do, he lets out a long sigh and after making sure that there isn't a single person for miles through his senses, he closes his eyes, and prays.

Oh, Will of the world. Today, I've settled down my pride and I humbly prostrate myself to you. Please, heed my cries for something, anything! Just make something happen to ease this monotony.

After finally finishing his prayers, he slowly opens his eyes, expecting something. But of course, the forest was the same as always.

He did it, he admitted that the Will exists. He could hear the laugh of that old man in the back of his mind after a few more seconds of silence. Even if the Will of the World really exists, it will probably be sleeping or something, interpretations of time can be very weird sometimes.

Letting out a long sigh, he gets up and jumps off the rock. He would probably avoid this place for the remaining time he has in this forest to not have this cringy moment appear in his mind ever again.

But as he started to walk off, he felt something. He felt his fur stand on end and his pupils dilated. On instinct, his body went up in flames while growing three times its original size.

He jumped in the air and suddenly, he was a mile away from that.

Now, on a safer distance, he focused on his senses and tried to get a better understanding of what the hell was that.

What he felt at first seemed like a large-scale attack, but now that he started to inspect the flow of mana in the area, something was off. The mana wasn't being converted to another element for the release of an attack, but instead, it was converging to a single point.

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After observing all of this for some minutes, he finally realized what was happening. Something that he had only seen once.

He dashed through the trees and in a few seconds, he was at the rock again. He couldn't get closer than that, or he might interfere with the mana in the air. So he sat there for a while, just observing.

After one hour, the flow stopped. In a single point in the middle of the forest, was a new being, and he could sense it. Pygan dashed through the trees again until he found himself in front of a small clearing. In the middle of it, was some sort of gas that was condensing into a weird spherical shape which caused a slight distortion around itself.

He approached it and stood face to face with one of its kind, a spirit.

Pygan tried to reach the young spirit's mind and even though he's a bit rusty on telepathy, he managed to do it. But just as he reached it, his mind got overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings as soon as their minds made a simple connection, mainly fear and confusion.

The first one was quick to solve, as he recalled from his own youth, the spirit had his vision based on mana, so he could see how much of it the air and pretty much everything around it had, including himself, which for the young spirit probably looked terrifying in the current form he was in.

So he focused for a few seconds, recalling his previous form. Slowly his body started to shrink and the fire in his body extinguished. Soon enough, that simple and normal fox was back.

He reached for the young spirit's mind again and said. I'm sorry little guy, is it better like this?

After a minute or two of silence from it, the only thing he got back was confusion, not words.

He "face pawled" for a second before letting out a long sigh. Why did I think this would work?

After contemplating his stupidity for a second, he turned his attention back to the young spirit in front of him and closed his eyes and carefully, tried to send a feeling of reassurance, trying to convince it that he wasn't trying to hurt it.

Unfortunately, his message didn't get across since suddenly, the young spirit started to shake violently. His senses screamed some sort of instability inside it, and after taking a good look at him, it was obvious the little thing was starting to collapse.

His eyes widened as he took a step back from it. The poor thing was definitely going to explode at this rate but Pygan was still considering his options. He could run and leave a giant hole in the forest which he would have to explain later or he could try to save the spirit and risk getting completely obliterated by the explosion. He would probably survive that but the forest would be vulnerable to potential invaders. And as he was about to choose, in the back of his mind, for the second time this day, he heard that old man again.

Letting a long sigh, the fox touched the spirit with his right paw and closed his eyes. Slowly as he gained focus, lights appeared on his vision, even though his eyes were closed. He sensed it, every part of the young spirit being and its unstable structure. When he was finally able to see everything, he started working. Even though he wasn't sure where to start, he just started to transfer his own mana to it, fixing what appeared to be cracks through its small soul. And he stood there, for hours and hours, carefully fixing and… To a certain degree, sculpting its soul, like a potter making a new pot with a handful of clay.

Of course, he wasn't sure if what he was doing was right. He was just following the faint memories of what his parents did to conceive him as a new being.

Finally, after long hours, he finished it. In front of him was a perfect dark sphere that emitted some sort of dark smoke from itself. He reached for its mind and sensed it. Again, all he got back were a bunch of unrelated thoughts mixed with confusion and fear from it, so he started working. Carefully, sending emotions and intent.

It took a while to calm the thing down, but he managed to pull it off. Now, with things more calm, he takes his paw off the youngling and stares at it for a few seconds, thinking about his next steps. He could adopt it, become its caretaker, but he wasn't delusional, he knew he wasn't the best person for the job. Still, he wasn't really able to leave this forest to give it to someone else… Unless… Maybe he could ask his good old friend a favor… But still, he would have to wait a month or two for him to come back… Until then, he would have to take care of it.

He gently grabbed the spirit with his mouth and walked over to a tree, lying between its roots and curling up, putting the youngling next to him. If he was going to stay with it for a while, he thought that maybe he should get some work done as he established a connection again.

Carefully, he sent mental images alongside words connected to them, presenting them to it and correlating the two. After each image and word, he would show the image and ask it the name of it, repeating it over and over again. Hours went by, until the light of day rose up from the horizon. He took a break to deal with the mental exhaustion but as soon as he recovered he jumped right back at the job.

Days went by through names, verbs, feelings and images, taking several breaks and even trying to chat casually with the youngling. Although the first attempts didn't go that well, eventually they started to have functional chats, but still, extremely simple.

Fox. The spirit said while sending an image of him. Even though it already knew a lot of words, it still preferred to send short answers whenever it was possible for some reason.

Yes. He replied, but after staying silent for a few seconds he sent an image of himself and said. Pygan.

The spirit stayed silent for a few seconds before sending back another image he had shown it before of himself. Fox?

I am a fox, but my name is Pygan. He explained. It seemed like it had understood the concept after that, but that apparently raised another question inside it.

My name? It bluntly asks.

He bluntly says as he notices a dirty patch of his fur and starts to groom it. You don't have one.

It stays silent for a few seconds before sending the equivalent of a sigh to Pygan's mind. Why?

He scoffs internally at the little spirit frustration for having to use more than three words in a sentence, purposefully weakening the connection before saying. I… Will teach you later. But us, spirits, name ourselves. You can name yourself whatever you want, but traditionally, we just use a boring and old dead language for it.

It stayed silent for a few seconds and he already could see why. How can a language be dead?

He let out a long sigh and thought to himself. This will be a looong month…