As Rosslyn watched Goldie and Samson practice moving Mana around their bodies, Adon was still thinking about the Telekinesis ability.
He realized that he did not know if it was an Adaptation or a Skill. Rosslyn had not distinguished between those at all in any conversation with Adon that he remembered off the top of his head, and he was not certain humans had the same System interface as monsters in this world.
Which might mean I could have obtained Telekinesis without realizing it during my Evolution, he thought excitedly. Just like I got some kind of shapeshifting Adaptation and didn’t realize until I wanted my limbs to do something they couldn’t naturally do. That would be pretty cool. If I don’t have it, I’ll just check the Evolution Store. But it would be awesome if I suddenly found out I had the ability to move objects—and Mana!—with my mind.
Adon focused his mind and tried to reach out to move the pillow at the head of the bed with his mind.
Use the Telekinesis, Adon, he told himself. It surrounds and it binds…
He tried this for a few minutes, before he recognized that it was not going to work.
All he succeeded in doing by staring at the pillow was causing his forelimbs to extend like small tentacles to try and grasp the pillow, which was not at all what he had intended. He ordered them back to their normal size and shape, and he gave up.
All right. I don’t have Telekinesis. Why am I surprised?
He shook his head and opened the Evolution Store.
Evolution Store
Adaptations
Evolutions
Skills
Interesting that “Evolutions” is grayed out but still appears as a thing I could click on, if I had enough Evolution Points…
It was possible that there was a step further beyond where Adon already was, and he found that very interesting. He was not accustomed to his current body yet, though. He would wait a while.
He opened up Adaptations and scrolled down.
There are a lot of options that there weren’t before, he noticed immediately.
New options included Beguiling Pheromone Production, Extrasensory Perception Organs, Primitive Vocal Cords, Regeneration I, and most interestingly, Transformation II.
Implying that I already have Transformation I?
That must be the Adaptation that allowed him to change his shape.
It was a bit frustrating that Adon could not read the descriptions for any of the Adaptations he was looking at, however. They were outside his price range, so their text was grayed out.
How expensive are these? Did I not get Evolution Points from all those beverages I got drunk on at lunch?
Adon opened his Status up to check.
User: Adon, Mystic Crystal Butterfly
Age: 1 month
Sex: Male
Status
Health: 200/200
Mana: 9000/9000
Strength: 250
Agility: 2000
Perception: 500
Dexterity: 1000
Constitution: 500
Intelligence: 3000
Will: 6000
Charisma: 1000
Skills: Identify, Impeccable Memory, Mana Manipulation V, Past Life Connection, Shed Skin IV, Spine Shot V, Spiritual Sight
Evolution Points: 158
Biomass: 65/50
So I did get some Evolution Points from lunch. Just fifty.
Adon remembered when that had seemed like a lot. Now he had more expensive tastes.
Finally, he opened the Evolution Store back up, returned to Adaptations, scrolled down, and confirmed that Telekinesis I was available.
Like all of the other options, it was grayed out, so Adon could not read any details about it.
The only Adaptations that he seemed to be able to afford were Extended Antenna I, Poison Generation I, and Stench Defense I.
Those cost a hundred Evolution Points each.
Wait, weren’t those available back when I was a newborn?
He searched his memories and found that was accurate. Back then, they had cost two Evolution Points apiece.
I suffered some severe inflation with Evolution. I’m glad Evolution used up most of the Evolution Points I had saved before, since they apparently decreased drastically in value. I wonder if that happened to Goldie, too.
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He turned and glanced over at the spider, thinking about asking her how her experiences of Evolution had been. But Goldie was clearly extremely focused on her Mana training. Her whole body was stiff with tension, and he could see how she was struggling to get Mana to shift from one region to another.
As he turned away again, he realized Rosslyn was staring down at him.
Oh, hey, Princess, he transmitted awkwardly.
“Hi Adon,” she replied. “What are you up to?”
I was just looking into getting Telekinesis I, he sent. It sounds useful.
“Oh, did you get it?”
No, afraid not. I need to earn more Evolution Points.
“I see. Do you want help? We could arrange to get you something more nutritious to eat, if that would make a difference. I must admit, we humans have only a flimsy understanding of how Evolution Points and your growth as a mystic beast works.”
I appreciate the thought, he replied. Let me think about it, if you don’t mind?
Rosslyn simply nodded.
Adon was relieved that she did not follow up with further questions. The truth was, though he did not want to be rude by saying so directly, he did not think there was anything the Princess could do to help with this. He could feel the food he had consumed at lunch was nutritious and exactly what his body wanted.
But being a pet fed by hand did not seem to be what the Goddess’s System rewarded.
Adon was already considering the possibility of a solo journey. A hunting trip to test out the strength and versatility of his new body.
If I went out into nature and managed to gather that much nutritious food, I’m sure I would have gotten more points, he thought. When I was a caterpillar, I became very accustomed to interpreting what would be rewarded. Fighting and effort are more heavily rewarded than just consuming high quality food.
Even if the Royal Family acquired a lion and tied it down for Adon to kill, he felt certain he would only get a fraction of the Evolution Points he would acquire otherwise.
Because they were making it too easy.
By the end of my caterpillar life, I accrued more points for killing the Wasp Queen than I did for killing a snake. It wasn’t because the Wasp Queen was more nutritious than the snake. At least I don’t think she was. It was because she put up much more of a fight than the snake did. I have to find something that puts up the biggest fight that I can handle. That’s the only way I’ll grow the way I need to.
He looked back at Rosslyn.
That’s the only way I can help her and her family out. Although saving a kingdom was a task larger than Adon could really wrap his head around, there was apparently precedent for butterflies having a big impact. That was why they were treating him like he was literal royalty now.
He turned and looked over at Goldie and Samson. He knew he owed them a great deal. Goldie was his first friend. He felt an obligation to protect her, Samson, and the other hatchlings, even if it was complicated by Samson being Adon’s envied brother in a previous life.
As Adon looked, he saw that the other spiders were practicing making webs in the corner of the bed, using the bedpost as a base. Meanwhile, Adon’s friend and his brother were still trying to make Mana circulate around their bodies with visible difficulty.
There was a little part of Adon that was satisfied by seeing that. At least there was one area where he remained ahead.
But mostly he wondered if he could help them get past this initial hurdle.
If he was going to go and seek out danger to get stronger, he wanted to at least do a little something for Goldie and Samson before he took off.
That way, they’ll be as advanced at magic as me by the time I come back. He was uncertain whether he believed that or not—and equally unsure how he felt about it. The idea of Samson catching up to him gave him an instinctive queasy feeling, but he felt nothing like that at the thought of Goldie learning magic.
Before he could overthink things, Adon flapped his wings once, twice, and quickly flitted over to where Goldie and Samson stood.
I don’t know if this will help, he transmitted, but I think I can show you guys how Mana moves around my body. If an example is useful, great. If not, then I’m just showing off!
Adon sent the last sentence with a touch of humor in his tone, but he knew it was also true. The thirst that he felt to prove himself would be sated for a little while after this.
He first reached within himself until he found the core of his power. It was easier than it had ever been before.
What had once been a tiny light inside himself, somewhere between a candle and a torch from the beginning of his existence to the time he entered the chrysalis, was now more akin to a great bonfire.
It was more effort for Adon to pull only a tiny amount of light away from it than it would have been to light the whole room with his reserves of Mana. Still, it was only a trivial effort now. Something had changed in Evolution. Not just his body’s qualitative features, but the quality of his control over his body—and by extension, his control over magic.
Now that I think about it, I never saw any magic-related stuff in there, did I? He tried to remember whether he had skimmed past anything in the Adaptations section of the Evolution Store that would have made his magical abilities stronger, but when nothing immediately jumped out at him, he pulled his attention back to the present.
He had a little ball of Mana in his focus now, and he could move it freely. More freely and easily than he ever could have before.
He shifted it from one area to another easily, smoothly, holding his body as still as possible so that the spiders could see exactly how everything was moving.
Then he circulated the ball of Mana around his body—much greater in surface area now than it had been when he first started doing this exercise as a caterpillar.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
He moved the ball in new patterns. Circles and loop-de-loops. He moved it with such ease that he almost put himself to sleep. His body and mind were on autopilot. He lost track of how long he had been doing it.
Adon did not know if it would make any difference for them, but it did him no harm.
Finally, he heard a sound that pulled him out of his almost trance-like state.
“Are you going to keep doing that forever?” Rosslyn was asking.
Adon pulled the little ball of Mana back into his core.
How long did I go for? he asked.
“You do not know?” she replied. “How do you manage that? For young humans, it requires great focus.”
I think it helps that I was practicing magic before Evolution, Adon replied modestly.
He turned his head and saw that Goldie and Samson were still moving Mana around their bodies. It still was not nearly as smooth as Adon’s movements, but he could see the progress. They were on track.
Perhaps after a few days of that, they would be ready to attempt more focused applications of Mana. Then Rosslyn’s fire magic.
I hope I helped with that, he thought.
“That was kind of you,” Rosslyn said. “You have not even tried using fire magic yet, after I explained the method. Instead, you focused on helping your friends.”
Well, they are my friends, Adon replied. He felt that it was an inadequate explanation of just how deep his connections with Goldie and Samson went, but Rosslyn would pick up on what he was saying between the lines.
“Would you like to try using fire magic now? I was going to go train. We have a room with very thick walls, so that the damage you can unintentionally do with magic is limited.”
I would like that, Adon sent. Fire magic would be an excellent ability to have under his belt in the wilds outside the palace.
This training room would also be a good place to tell Rosslyn that he wanted to go and train alone for a little while. There was a pit in his stomach at the thought of leaving Goldie, Samson, and Rosslyn.
A little part of him wondered if they would be upset with him.
If the Royal Family might think he was ungrateful. If Goldie and Samson might feel that he was abandoning them.
That was the furthest thing from the truth, of course.
Adon knew he would be back.
But telling Rosslyn would help him get his choice of words right for when he mentioned the idea to Goldie.
“You can hop on my shoulder if you want a ride,” Rosslyn suggested, smiling and tapping her upper arm.
Adon flapped his wings once, twice, and almost floated down until he was perched on the Princess’s shoulder like a parrot.
Then Rosslyn took him away.