Yes! Yes!!! I feel great. I’ve done it!
Adon still didn’t know quite what he’d done, but the feeling of accomplishment nevertheless filled him with boundless energy and enthusiasm.
He carefully shoved his sparks of Mana back whence they had come, into that orange orb inside. He pulled back the Mana he had been using to enhance himself too. Nothing would go to waste if he could help it. Today was going to be a day of many Mana experiments.
With those tasks done, he opened his Status.
User: Adon, Mystic Toxic Butterfly Larva
Age: 6 days
Sex: Male
Status
Health: 74/100
Mana: 335/355
Strength: 94
Agility: 97
Perception: 98
Dexterity: 95
Constitution: 101
Intelligence: 175
Will: 180
Charisma: 91
Skills: Identify, Impeccable Memory, Mana Manipulation II, Past Life Connection, Shed Skin, Spine Shot II, Spiritual Sight
Evolution Points: 1413
Biomass: 45/75
It was as Adon had quietly hoped. He had leveled up his Mana Manipulation Skill, from the first to the second level, by pure practice, with no purchases from the Evolution Store required.
He was sure greater feats would be possible for him now, though it was hard to be certain of exactly what, than had ever been conceivable before. Hopefully some form of spellcasting.
Now that I’ve made the breakthrough by practice, do I try it out? See how powerful Mana Manipulation II actually is? Or do I just skip to buying the next level up?
The idea of faster progress was intuitively appealing to Adon. He had to remind himself that he had plenty of time. Just like Goldie had said.
Alright. He closed his eyes and sought out the dark place inside himself where the orange orb of Mana floated. There were a few obvious differences in that space now that told him he had made some progress.
The orb felt more accessible. Like he could pull more Mana out of it more quickly and easily. Almost at will. And the darkness around it felt bigger, as if the space had expanded.
There was a difference of kind here, though mostly the change was only one of degree. Adon felt that he could do more with his Mana now.
I think I might be able to move it more. Like, further outside my body? He wasn’t certain, but that was what his intuition told him.
He opened his eyes. He would test this right away.
Adon turned his back to the web and faced outward. If his power actually worked the way he was imagining, he could tear right through the web if he aimed in the wrong direction. He pointed his head at the sky and pulled Mana from his core and into his mandibles. There was a steady, warm glow. Then he focused on extending the Mana further beyond the ends of his mandibles, and he saw it. His power manifesting in the form of an extra couple of millimeters of glowing orange blade that extended from the ends of his mandibles.
Although he was dangerously close to losing his cool from being so excited, Adon quickly pulled the Mana back as much as he could.
And he started focusing his energy for an attempt at the more ambitious version of what he’d just done. A Mana energy blast from his Mandibles. He felt rather than saw a ball of Mana forming just in front of his mouth. His eyes couldn’t see anything that close to his face, but the concentrated Mana gave off heat. As if he had lit a match between his mandibles.
Adon poured more Mana into it, excited to see what he might be capable of. He aimed at a plant around a foot away from the edge of the web, trying to account for gravity’s downward pull so that he wouldn’t strike anything on the ground.
When it felt like he would have trouble holding any more power between his mandibles, Adon allowed the ball to fire. It flew forward, straight toward where he’d aimed it, and time seemed to slow down as he stared, transfixed.
As soon as it was far enough away from him to see, it became obvious that this was something deadly. Perhaps an attack he could have used to kill the bluebird. It glowed with a brilliance that reminded him of fireworks.
Bug-sized fireworks, but still, it was probably more than enough to kill something much larger than Adon himself. Bullets killed things much larger than themselves, after all.
Then it struck the plant Adon had aimed at. And kept going. Adon had a harder time seeing it, but it struck small plant after small plant. As he looked on, the plants that had taken direct hits through their stems collapsed, chopped into pieces. Those that were struck on their leaves had neat little holes burned through their leaves.
Adon could not see exactly where his energy landed, but he knew from the trajectory that it would have hit the ground somewhere. Could it still be burning even through the ground? Probably not. He had the sense now of what the little ball’s power was. It would have dissipated all its energy after digging a short way through the ground.
A very satisfying experiment. Absolutely something I could have used to defend myself against the bird. And what sort of monster would Adon have become if he had eaten a whole bird? Perhaps it was a question he would answer at some point.
Adon turned back to the web and saw Goldie looking down at him from a little bit higher up. She had apparently been in the middle of killing a fly that found itself caught in her threads and came upon Adon while he was in the middle of exploring his new power. Now she stared at him, mouth parts gaping wide open, her prey forgotten as it wriggled beneath her feet.
He opened his telepathic channel to Goldie.
What in world was that? she thought as soon as she realized he was looking at him.
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I leveled up my magic Skill! Adon sent excitedly.
Yes. Yes, you did. Her body language looked as if she wanted to laugh and also possibly to run away. Thank you for pointing away from web.
I have to be respectful of my host, Adon replied, trying to play cool. He tried to make a little bow, as if he had done a magic trick.
Goldie asked him if his injuries were troubling him, though, so it must not have given the impression he intended. Adon reassured her that he was fine, and they returned to the subject of his magic.
How exactly do you do that? Goldie asked.
A Skill I bought, Adon explained. I have Magic Perception and Mana Manipulation. I can pull energy from the Mana core inside me, and I can move it around.
Yes, I remember you told me about that before, Goldie thought. But it seemed less impressive. I could not see anything when you were doing it. Practice turned it into that?
Adon nodded eagerly. I leveled the Skill up through repeated use!
Goldie looked pensive. Never happened with any of my Skills, she thought finally. Always purchased new levels. Must be difficult.
Perhaps I was just cheap, Adon thought semi-jokingly. You were ready to invest so many points in silk-related Skills and Adaptations and so many into venom, and I just bought the basic level and spent time grinding.
The spider nodded as if what he had said might be some secret knowledge. Maybe it really was.
Adon was aware that most of the insects and even non-insects like Goldie were hyper-specialized in one area. Since that seemed to be a species-determining decision, Adon imagined that ants were all hyper specialized in the same traits as the colony as a whole.
If that was the case, what did it mean to be a generalist butterfly? A jack of all trades caterpillar? Adon had been treating it as if that meant he had the opportunity to grow in all directions, and so far, that approach had paid off. What if it meant his final form as a butterfly would be less optimized for any particular survival strategy? Would Evolution allow him to keep all the Skills and Adaptations he was steadily building up? Or would his scattered, noncommittal approach be a negative in the end?
Brooding again? Goldie thought, interrupting Adon’s self-doubts.
They shared a telepathic laugh.
You’re starting to know me really well, he sent.
It is a pleasure to know you, she replied. What are you feeling uneasy about?
He explained his concern about possibly being a jack of all trades butterfly, and how that might mean he was limited to a low level of proficiency in each of the many areas he was investing in, by contrast with Goldie’s more specialized approach.
I have not been alive long enough to know all different forms a butterfly or a spider may take, Goldie thought back carefully. But if that Mana ball thing was you as a jack of all trades, then I would not worry about being a master of any. Your magic is already better than anything other than a human I have seen.
I probably need to be even better, though, Adon could not help instantly answering.
Goldie stared at him for a long moment before she asked a strained sounding, Why?
Why indeed?
Adon immediately knew his answer, though. Because I want this to be my best life. My most impactful life. My strongest life. Ideally my longest life, although I know I can’t control that completely. Being an insect and all. He stopped himself before he sent the next words that came to his mind. They burrowed themselves into his subconscious. A thought he would try never to vocalize.
Why would I be content just to be a normal bug?
He recognized that those words would be a slap in the face to Goldie. An insult to everything she had achieved as a spider. Because she was content as a normal bug. No. Content was selling it short. Goldie was happy. The only thing she had lacked was companionship, and now she had it. She had a mate, a prosperous web, and she had seemingly made a sort of peace with her mortality, at least until Adon presented the possibility of longer life to her.
Probably her way of coping with the world was healthier than his. Adon’s drive to try and be the best bug he could be was a desperate reaction to his experience of his past lives.
He had not recited his mantra in a couple of days now, but it was still engraved in his mind.
Do everything, and you’ll win. Do everything, and you’ll get what you want. Don’t fall back into old habits. Don’t live another shameful sham of a life.
There was pain and bitterness in those words, but wasn’t there truth in them as well?
Goldie and I have opposite ways of living in the world, he realized dimly.
Then the spider was beside him, and he was pulled out of his existential angst by the realization of her proximity.
Hey, she thought quietly at him. You know you are enough the way you are, right?
Adon didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know if he was enough or she was enough or if he could ever be enough. He knew his past self had not been enough. He knew that with the fiery passionate hateful certainty that only self-loathing could give.
But he did not want to reply, No, I am not.
What would that say about Goldie?
Then the spider pulled him into a hug.
You are my only friend, she continued. You are strongest caterpillar I have ever seen, and you have protected me and my mate from danger even though we are supposedly superior species to little caterpillar. You are braver than I am. Almost suicidally brave. You are stronger than I am. Probably much smarter. Nearly guaranteed to live longer. You have had more impact in your short life than I have through all my months. If you are not enough, despite all you have done in your life, who is?
Her long legs caressed the back of Adon’s exoskeleton tenderly, affectionately. The words and the physical sensations made Adon want to cry, though it was something he as a caterpillar could never do.
In his last life, no one had ever held him that way besides his mother.
Goldie, you are my best friend, he transmitted. Like the big sister I needed but didn’t have.
He feebly returned her hug with his shorter, stubbier legs. Even with as much as he had grown over the last few days, he still wasn’t nearly as graceful with his limbs as Goldie was.
But? Goldie asked.
I disagree with you about me. I don’t think I’m enough. I’m deficient in so many ways. His chest was heaving now with long, heavy sobs, even though he had no ability to cry. I wanted to learn magic and get better at it because I almost got both of us killed in that fight with the Klepto-Spiders. It should’ve been easy for me! I know we’re not the same, but I’ve been kind of a fighter since I was born here, and—
Adon, you—
Please let me finish, Goldie. I know you want to make me feel better. But I’m not ready to achieve the kind of inner peace you seem to have all the time. I need this life to be amazing. I need to achieve great things. I’ve got a big chip on my shoulder. You see, we’re different, because I can remember all of my past lives. Not completely, but the highlights. The important bits. And I was a failure in every single one! I have to do something amazing with this life, because I think it’s the last one I get. Then my soul gets recycled or something. I don’t know what happens when you end the cycle of death and rebirth. I just know I didn’t achieve, in any of those lives, what I was meant to. This is my last chance.
Goldie pulled back from him. Her body language looked painful. As if someone had stepped on her or something.
Do your best, then, little caterpillar. I will support you the best that I can. Her inner voice sounded tight, stressed. Choked up, maybe.
She pulled his head close to her abdomen and stroked it with the little hairs on her feet. And even though she was as cold as ever, Adon almost felt a warmth coming from her. Though he knew it had to be from within himself. Maybe his Mana core. Maybe just his own emotions playing with his physical senses.
Then Goldie went to go eat her fly, and Adon returned to trying to master magic. The brain download that had given him most of his practice ideas so far told him what he should do next, but he was nearly certain that he couldn’t do the next step without Mana Manipulation up to an even higher level. The inner world where he found his Mana core and the surrounding darkness should look and feel a bit different than it did.
It was time to forget his inner turmoil and go shopping in the Evolution Store.