To my disappointment there wasn’t anything new in my list of available boons this time. I took a glance at my interface to see if it would give me any ideas for what to pick next.

Name: Kyo —-----

Class: Novice Mage

(6/100%)

Mana Pool: 150/150

Codex: 72.45%

MR:245

TPEL:33

Boons:

System Initiate: 10

Novice Mage: 6

Emergency augmentations: 2

Environmental Conditions:

Mana level: Very High

Danger present

Limited resources

System Messages:

Updates Available

I was quite confused when I saw my full mana pool. I had used quite a bit of mana when cooking and using my new spells. There was no way I should have been able to refill my mana pool in the time it had taken me to reach the ground.

Either my new minor boon was ridiculously effective, or something unusual was going on.

It didn’t take me long to notice another oddity on the interface. In the Environmental conditions, it said that the mana was higher than normal. While the plants around me were certainly full of mana, there wasn’t any more mana in the air than there had been on the top of the mountain.

Feeling around, I realized what the interface was talking about. It was responding to the fact that I had far more mana in my body than I normally would. Some of it didn’t quite feel right too. It didn’t seem dangerous, but it felt alien and uncontrolled.

With a bit of effort, I found that I could somewhat manipulate this foreign mana. I could tell that using it in any delicate spell craft wouldn’t be possible, but it still could be useful.

Curious, I wove together an invisible force spell using my regular mana. Upon finishing the mana forms, I forced the unruly mana into the spell as fuel. It felt like herding angry grunes, but I was able to make the spell work.

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The source of the foreign mana wasn’t hard to figure out. Considering the power that still writhed about inside the corpse I was sitting on, it wasn’t surprising that the meat had filled me with power.

After taking a moment to select the expanded mana pool from my list of minor boons, I decided to experiment with the snake meat some more. If the few pieces I had for breakfast gave me this much mana, I wondered if it would be possible to use more meat to fuel even stronger spells.

Eager to try, I started gathering some kindling. Just as I was about to cast my simple fire starting spell, I paused. This was a perfect opportunity to test my new spell.

Before, I had cast my spell over a wide area and I got an unexplained sound as a result. This time, I tried using an area only the size of my fist. If that wasn’t enough to show results, I planned on increasing the size and trying again.

As my spell once more snapped into place, I was a little surprised to find frost forming on some of the wood, but no loud sound. I was about to try again when I noticed the tiny ember in the middle of the frozen area. The ember didn’t last long enough to ignite the frozen wood, much to my disappointment.

For my next test, I tried not only making the area twice as large, but also increasing the area I was forcing the heat into.

Once again, I ended up with some frozen wood and a not quite so small ember. Rather than letting the ember burn itself out, I used it to ignite some unfrozen wood.

With a pleasant fire going, I carved out several more chunks of snake meat. I was looking forward to both the meal and the knowledge I could gain from it.

As the meat cooked, I decided to see what else I could gain from the giant snake. The fangs were obviously something I could use, though they took some time to extract. As I removed one of the hollow teeth, a blueish gray liquid seeped out from the socket. Taking a half empty jar of sigil paint, I collected the venom. Based on the mana laced clouds the snake had attacked me with, I figured that the liquid would likely be an excellent additive to the paint.

Trying it out, I drew a couple of sigils of concealment to prevent unpleasant interruptions while I worked. It felt like the mana held together better than normal, but I wasn’t sure. I did like the color more though.

After refilling my sigil paints with the venom, I set to work harvesting from the serpent’s beautiful wings. The feathers themselves were too large to carry around in one piece, but the fibers were perfect for making thread and string.

After stripping down a few feathers, it smelled like my lunch was done. After making sure that I didn’t have any venom on my hands, I sat down to eat.

I continued to be delighted by the meat’s unusual effects, but paid more careful attention to the mana this time. There was quite a bit of it, and I could feel it settling into place in my belly.

Poking and prodding at the new mana with my mana control, I found it almost totally unresponsive. I could push it around with the other mana in my body, but that didn’t do me very much good. Evidently, it would take some time for this mana to be of much use to me.

Content to wait before practicing more magic, I continued eating. I got through most of my steak before I noticed something was wrong. An unpleasant feeling was building up in my stomach.

As the feeling slowly turned to pain, I realized that there was probably another reason why only a few people had been permitted to eat such mana rich food back in Sanctuary Valley beyond simple greed. The hardy hunters were probably the only people who didn’t risk mana poisoning from just a few bites.

I felt extremely foolish for not realizing the danger sooner. As the pain in my belly grew, I focused on the dense mana within. I still couldn’t affect it directly, but I could push it around. I just hoped that I would be able to spread it thin enough to prevent any further poisoning.

While simple in concept, it proved very difficult to accomplish. The pain tearing at my insides made it difficult to muster the necessary focus to move the mana. I slowly managed to spread the mana out, only to find the meat releasing more of its deadly power into my body.

With a great deal of effort, I was able to keep the concentration of mana low enough to prevent further damage. I couldn’t afford to let my focus slip even for a moment with the mana still building.

As I settled in for a long, unpleasant fight, I couldn’t help but let out a pained laugh. This snake really had it in for me. Even in death, it was still trying to kill me.