Part of me was glad that I wouldn’t be able to get any closer to what was left of the valley. It is likely I would not have had the strength to walk through the ashes of my home.
Instead, I fled in the opposite direction.
I didn’t have any real destination in mind. I could have made the excuse that I needed to get away from the rising mana levels. While true, it certainly wasn’t the thought that kept my legs moving.
I didn’t stop until the light filtering through the canopy had started to dim for the evening. I didn’t have the luxury of a readily made burrow this time, but I did have more time to prepare.
Finding a small hollow at the base of a great tree, I set to work preparing my shelter for the evening. I angled some fallen branches over the hollow to support a screen of broad leaves harvested from the surrounding plants.
Obviously, such a flimsy shelter would hardly deter a hungry predator or anything worse. Opening one of my jars of clay, I pulled a portion of the mana from my mana pool. Carefully mixing the mana into the clay, I got a good amount of the earthy paste onto my fingers.
I slowly traced out a warding sigil on the side of my shelter. Holding the idea of remaining hidden firmly in my mind, I impressed my will into the symbol as it took shape.
By the time night had fully arrived, I had managed to paint three sigils of concealment on the leaves of my shelter. I was surprised to find that my mana pool still held plenty of mana.
Even without the aid of a spell, I could kind of make out the flows of magic around me. If mana sense was like reading in broad daylight, trying to manually feel out the flows of mana was more akin to trying to make out words in the dark. Even without my mana sense spell active, I was somehow able to feel exactly how much mana was left in my pool.
If the system could create such a useful tool for me, I wondered what else it could do. At that thought, I decided to check my interface to see if I could figure out how to use my codex.
Name: Kyo —-----
Class: System Initiate (3/10, 98%)
Boons:
System interface
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Mana Pool
System Codex
I tried focusing on the System codex boon to see if I could activate it somehow.
System Codex (99% progress to integration):
An internal mana construct capable of storing large quantities of information.
Alright, so that didn’t do it. Perhaps I needed to let it finish integrating? I had made use of my mana pool prior to its completion, but I got the impression I wasn’t using it quite the way the system intended. Nowhere in the description did it mention using the mana for sigil painting or spell casting.
I was about to cast mana sense to see if I could examine the codex directly when the world suddenly grew much colder. I immediately released the half formed spell and held very still.
A low moan echoed through the night. I felt the sound more than I heard it, like icy fingers gripping my heart. Plants rustled nearby as something brushed through the area. The moaning grew and faded, as though the source were roving the area at random. I scarcely breathed, for fear that the thing might hear.
DING!
The unexpected sound made me jump, knocking part of my shelter just slightly askew. The moaning immediately drew closer, as though summoned by the sudden motion.
Through the narrow gap between the leaves of my shelter, I could barely see anything. Very little moonlight reached the rainforest floor, leaving me almost blind. I held my breath as the wraith came into view.
The creature was almost invisible, with only a dim violet light outlining its form. It was vaguely humanoid, with several long, writhing arms flowing along its amorphous body. The number and thickness of these limbs seemed to change without rhyme or reason.
Moment by moment, the unearthly being gilded closer. Just as I was preparing myself for the journey to the realm of shades, the being stopped. It veered left and right, feeling through the underbrush with its unnatural limbs.
I sent a silent thanks to Hyon for teaching me wardcraft. My concealment sigils were the only thing protecting me.
When facing a beast of flesh and blood, it was always possible to try and fight back or flee. Even monsters who could conjure searing light or control the very earth and stone could be felled with a well placed spear.
Against a wraith, there was no such chance. The only thing you could do was hide and pray to the shades of your ancestors that the sun would rise before it could find you.
This wraith seemed to be growing more and more irritated. Its limbs were moving more and more erratically. The air seemed to freeze as one of its ethereal arms passed within a hand-span of my shelter.
The thing drew closer and closer, seeming to slowly be feeling its way past my wards. At the last moment, a twig snapped in the distance. Moving in a way not quite grounded in reality, the wraith vanished.
I could feel the snarled twists of mana left in the wraith’s wake as pained screeches flooded the night. The poor animal’s screeching was swiftly cut short as its life came to a violent end. My heart pounded as I dwelled on how close I had come to sharing the same gruesome fate.