The morning passed quickly as I began my trek towards the Three Sisters. I had finished off the last of the meat from the cat as I walked so I kept my eyes peeled for any edible plants.
A large bush covered in small, bright blue objects caught my attention. I wasn't familiar with any berries that were quite that color, but it was worth investigating. Intrigued, I cautiously stepped closer.
As I drew closer, I noticed two odd things about the berry bush. The first was that the leaves of the plant were somehow covered in a thin layer of ice. The second oddity was the fact that the berries were slowly moving.
I immediately started backing away slowly as I realized that those berries were actually a swarm of cyan colored beetles. I had often been told that brightly colored creatures typically fell into one of two categories. Either they were very poisonous or capable of using mana offensively. Considering the frozen bush, I was reasonably sure these bugs fell into the second category.
As I slowly backed away from the swarm, I dearly hoped that they would be just harmless herbivores. The sound of wings starting to buzz ominously alerted me that I probably wasn’t going to be that lucky.
I had no intention of waiting for the bugs to come to me so I didn’t hesitate to start running. As I started to move, the droning of countless wings erupted behind me. Nope, I was definitely not lucky.
I ran as hard as I could through the jungle undergrowth. Unlike when I was fleeing from the drake, I didn’t make any attempt to weave through narrow spaces. To maintain speed, I tried to stick to the clearest path I could.
Unfortunately, clear is a relative term when running through the jungle. I had to leap over gnarled roots and duck under hanging vines. All the while I had to keep an eye out for any other hazardous creatures.
As I bolted along, I noticed a pack of animals to the side of my path. Besides the fact that they were large, brown, and hairy, I couldn’t make out much about their features before I had already passed them by.
Still hearing the swarm closing in behind me, I decided to take a risk. I started to gently loop around back towards the herd of animals.
I didn’t quite make it before the first of the insects reached me and I didn’t notice the little blue beetle on my shoulder at first. As a burning cold pierced through my shirt, I swatted unthinkingly at the offending bug. Crushing it proved to be a very unpleasant mistake.
For some unknown reason, the shade-cursed bug exploded into a tiny fireball when I squashed it.
I let out a string of curses as I fumbled for my water skin. There was absolutely no reason icy bugs should have been able to explode like that. Bemoaning the ridiculousness and inconsistency of magic, I poured water on my burned hand and shoulder.
Luckily, I managed to loop around close to the herd without any more of the bugs landing on me. Drawing nearer, I was able to identify the hairy monsters as a pack of grunes. Somewhere between an ape and a bovine, a grune was usually a peaceful forager. The shaggy beasts would clumsily pull down branches using their thick front legs like an arm so that they could reach the tasty leaves higher up.
I felt rather guilty bringing a swarm of magically ridiculous bugs down upon these almost peaceful creatures, but I didn't have any other good options. Darting between a pair of bulls, I raced for a knotwood tree on the other side of the herd.
I took a glance behind me as I started to climb. Just as I hoped, the swarming beetles were distracted by the grunes. I could see small patches of frost appearing on the beasts’ hides where the beetles landed. I hurried up the side of the tree as I saw a grune move to scrape the irritant off using a nearby tree.
There was a barely audible pop before the herd devolved into mayhem.
I managed to get out of reach before one of the beasts slammed its horned head into the base of my tree. I turned again to watch as the beetles scattered through the panicking herd. Tiny pops of flame erupted everywhere as more and more of the bugs were trampled under thrashing hooves. I did notice that bugs that had spread their frost longer exploded the most violently. Perhaps they were actually stealing heat, rather than simply spreading cold?
I didn’t particularly care about the specifics, so long as the bugs didn’t land on me again. To that end I continued climbing.
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I was once again glad for how easy knotwood trees were to climb. I was able to avoid using my left hand. The burns were fairly superficial, but it would have been agony if I needed to pull myself up with that hand.
After a quarter-mark of climbing, I felt safe enough to take a break. As I sat on a thick branch and reopened my waterskin, I heard a now familiar sound.
DING!
Grateful that it waited until after I was out of danger to sound this time, I opened my interface.
Name: Kyo —-----
Class: System Initiate (4/10, 100%)
New boon available
Boons:
System interface
Mana Pool
System Codex
Interface Status
Current status:
Mana Pool: 100/100 mana available
Codex: 99.99% available space
Environmental Conditions:
High Ambient Mana
Hostile Entities Recently Perceived
Limited Available Resources Perceived
Personal Status:
Mana resistance level: 237
Total Physical Enhancement Level: 0
I was about to look at what new boons I had available when I noticed the new information at the bottom of my interface. I could feel that my mana pool was full, so that number made sense. I wasn’t sure how much mana the system considered to be one unit, but evidently I had 100 of them to work with. It looked like a tiny portion of my codex had been used for something. Considering that the status’ description mentioned using the codex, I figured that was a likely explanation.
The environmental conditions were interesting, but how exactly did the system know about enemies or resources?
Environmental Conditions:
Mana level detected by System's mana accumulator. Boon integration speed increased by higher ambient mana levels.
User has recently perceived entities known to be hostile. Boon integration speed increased to increase odds of survival.
User has recently perceived a lack of necessary resources. Boon integration speed increased to increase odds of survival.
I kept forgetting that the system was literally in my head. Of course it would be watching the world through my eyes and listening with my ears. That wasn’t unnerving at all. At least it was rewarding me for almost dying all the time, though I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to feel happy about that or not.
The last section at the bottom of the interface was quite interesting as well. I guessed that the mana tolerance was how much mana I could be exposed to before suffering mana poisoning. What was this physical enhancement level?
Mana resistance level:
User’s Maximum safe mana threshold prior to system integration: 182
Mana resistance from System Integration: 45
Mana resistance from Mana Pool boon: 5
Mana resistance from System Codex boon: 5
Total: 237
Total Physical Enhancement Level: 0
There are no active Physical Enhancement boons
So the system was somehow making me more resistant to mana poisoning? That was both unexpected and entirely welcome. The implications of physical enhancement boons were also encouraging. Did that mean that the system could give me boons that would make me tougher or stronger? A pleasant image of me wrestling a certain mother drake into submission flashed through my mind. I could certainly live with being a little stronger.
Dismissing fanciful thoughts of what boons the system might give me, I called up my list of what boons I was actually being offered.