As usual, meditation brought Janet into a world of color and beauty. She was wowed yet another time by how perfectly everything fit together, flows and streams of mana complimenting each other even when they were antagonistic and of opposing nature.

It was a tapestry, and any way you looked at it it was living, and perfect. A paradisiacal realm underpinning physical reality in the absolute perfection of its chaotic flows.

Sluggish brown flows ran through the ground, even as the vegetation that grew out of them was represented in a brilliant assortment of colors. Clashing, lashing, calming, flowing. Just mana being mana.

Not for the first time, Janet wished she could see herself as she appeared in the shades of mana, how she fit into the tapestry. But rather than lament at the thought that there existed no mirrors in the realm of mana, she quietly admired the world around her.

After she was done with the admiring, her ‘sight’ met the fabric that made up the being that was the [Thunder Owl].

She swallowed her tongue, her mind wavering as she witnessed for the second time ever, true magic.

The owl was creating electricity and lightning out of nothing! And that wasn’t even the awesome part. All its wind mana, its true affinity, was locked within the owl’s body, every ounce of it empowering its cells and strengthening its physical and magical form to bounds unknown.

The lightning was generated by an effect of its structure. Somehow, opposing streams of wind mana in two adjacent feathers generated an effect in the ambient mana that attracted lightning affinity mana towards them. it was this lighting mana, attracted to the feathers as mana to a core, that created the arcs Janet had witnessed in the waking world.

Janet was so awed because she believed with all her might despite the constraints of normal logic, that magic was an act of creation. The spontaneous generation of matter, of life, of energy, out of nothingness.

This owl was a true, living embodiment of that belief, her faith made manifest.

If she ever had need for a spirit animal, Janet would forever aspire to embody this magical creature.

Look, it was perfect, utterly and completely.

No matter how she looked at it, energy gathering and dispersal, the two aspects everyone agreed were prerequisites for any viable mana exchange, were absolutely absent in the owl. Its constituent wind mana was its own, tied irrevocably to the owl's being.

All it did was flow and ebb. Not even its breath wasted an ounce of it.

Here was the wild part: if indeed the owl did not possess capabilities to expel its mana, then it should have died off eons ago. Predators and monsters aplenty roamed the Spheres, and they all were hungry for beast flesh.

Yet, Thunder Owls were one of the most feared creatures of the wild. Nobody, not even the dullest among the oft intellectually-challenged Adventurers dared mess with them. They were beings that could bring down cataclysm with but a thought.

In a moment, torrents of lightning would be released from their wings, flowing forth unabated until their attacker was a piece of smoldering coal.

It was said that the creatures never tired, and their power never wavered. Now, as Janet could clearly see, the owl needed only cycle its mana – an act as simple as breathing, and just as untaxing to the body’s reserves – and it could summon apocalyptic capacity out of thin air.

Imagine that, possessing unrivalled martial might that did not demand the exhaustion of a core to summon!

Janet wanted this power. She wanted it yesterday.

And yet, rather than try her hand at copying the motions of the owl’s mana, she sat there, mesmerized and frozen in awe. Gaia had really outdone herself in creating this masterpiece of a living being.

Unbidden, a tear rolled down her cheek. The sight was just that beautiful.

Once, Gaia had made the dagger that was now Janet's transform into a halberd. True transmutation, true magic. Here, an owl did a lesser version of that feat, and yet Janet felt this was far more impressive.

Gaia was a god. A being whose power was so vast beyond reckoning, it was a wonder the fabric of reality had not ripped and torn at her mere presence. The beast in front of Janet was just a bird. It wasn’t even that powerful, based on what Janet could deduce from the depth of mana powering its every motion.

At most, this owl was thrice as powerful as Janet, compared to the million billion magnitudes of gulf between Gaia’s might and her own. And yet, this mortal bird could perform true, real magic.

Thus, in respect of the marvel of nature, and reveling in the vindication of her belief, Janet sat and stared. It was like a fresh breath of air after a year of suffocation. A flash of soft, welcoming light after a lifetime in darkness.

In the owl, Janet saw her path. Her true calling. She would master this magic if it killed her. And even then, she’d revive herself to try again.

Her mind followed the movement of the flows, hypnotized into a sense of tranquility by their absolute beauty. Even cognizant of the danger of doing so, Janet let herself just be. She let the beauty wash through her, for a moment feeling as though she was just another mote of mana drifting along the chaotic flows.

She did not know how long that state lasted, but all she knew was she had been completely at peace.

Then, something disturbed the absolute perfection of the mana realms. A perturbation flowed from somewhere to the east, churning the flows and turning contained chaos into cacophony.

The ripple awoke the owl when it touched the perfect weave of mana in its extremities, spooking it and chasing it off. The owl did not spare Janet a moment’s notice as it took to wing. Its flight was a thing of beauty, barely disturbing the ambient flows.

Janet's spirit animal truly was a wonder.

With an annoyed huff, Janet released her meditative state. What kind of douchebag messed up the absolute beauty of ambient mana? If she were stronger…

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Janet heard a stick snap some distance to her left.

‘Shit!’ She crossed her fingers as she dropped to a crouch. ‘Please be a weak beast. Please be a weak beast.’

Her momentary distraction might just have jeopardized her safety. But she was not the hapless novice from weeks ago. She kept her cool and calmed down her rampaging heart.

Next, she perked her ears to pick up any sound. She heard another crunch as a dry twig snapped under something heavy. Something big was walking past.

Janet did not panic. She held her breath and unsheathed her dagger.

First, she would determine the beast’s position and walking cadence, which would tell her how much time she had until her position was compromised. Then, she’d track its course and decide the best route of escape.

Another snap was followed by muted footfalls. Janet could tell that there were four feet.

Another listen... the footsteps had two different rhythms. Two beings, then. Two two-legged beings.

Then, strangely, silence. Both sets of footsteps came to a stop, at almost the exact same moment.

Had she been spotted? Janet’s heart thundered in her ears. Her sense of danger screamed at her to run, to pump her feet and beat a hasty escape.

Janet forced down her fear. She had run one too many times hoping to escape, only to end up in a losing battle with a beast that could navigate better and more skillfully through the jungle. A particularly feisty buck had carved the hard lesson of patience across her broken ribs with one ruthless gore.

Janet heard something. She tilted forward, her ear almost kissing the ground. She really wanted to gauge the danger.

“Did you hear something?” The words, loud and clear as could be, tore through the bush and drilled directly into Janet’s core of fear.

“It’s the jungle, Lira,” a deep voice replied. “There are sounds everywhere.”

The woman did not talk for a while, which roused all sorts of horrific images in Janet’s mind. But just as her panic was reaching a boil, she heard the footsteps resume, the lighter ones before the heavier set.

“I don’t like it. There was that strange mana phenomenon a week or so ago, then the beasts started acting weird…”

“There’s nothing in this section of jungle that should be capable of harming us either way,” the man reassured. “Let’s just get our herbs and move on. We need to save our energy for the gorge.”

“You’re right…” the woman’s voice trailed off. The pair of Gatherers had moved past Janet’s hearing range.

Rather than stand up and scream her terror to the heavens, Janet forced herself to remain calm. As added insurance, she encircled her mouth with a loop of shadow, to remind herself to remain quiet and smother the sound in case she forgot.

The sensation of incorporeal element solidified into tangible matter forced Janet’s thoughts out of their jumbled chaos, and brought her back to her conception of magic. could the case be that like the owl and her patron goddess, Janet also performed some true magic by summoning her constructs?

Though the distraction was welcome, the drumbeat of apprehension lingering below pierced through the veil. That had been too close!

Gatherers – a specialized caste of Adventurers that combed the jungle for rare ingredients and beast parts, were among the most skilled members of their profession. It was rumored that one had to undergo a rigorous training course before one was even accepted as a trainee into their corps, a training that involved actual casualties.

Janet could never hope to escape from such people, let alone defeat one in battle. And Gatherers always travelled in pairs.

Like a wet chicken, Janet huddled under her bush for a full 30 minutes until she was certain that the pair was far enough and unlikely to catch the faintest whiff of her scent or the slightest whisper of her step.

Then, she took off at her fastest speed. There was no hesitation this time. Loud sounds such as running could attract hunters. But did she care about a beast in that moment when a full two people were in the vicinity?

She made sure to take off in the direction opposite from the Gatherers’ destination. Those sorts of Adventurers were a solitary bunch. The jungle was rich, but the resources they gathered were scattered all over the place. There was zero chance of her encountering another Gatherer pair in the direction they had left.

An hour or so later and right as the sun was dipping below the horizon, Janet spotted a stream. She decided that she was far enough away from the Gatherer pair to catch a breath.

By then she was panting like a hound on a hot day. She was tired and sweaty, and her emotions were still all over the place.

Those were the excuses she came up with for why she did not see the gigantic deer drinking silently a few meters from her stopping point.

Before she could blink, she heard the keening whistle of a fast-moving projectile. Instinct kicked in. She dropped to the ground and rolled into the stream.

There was a loud splash before the cold and wetness of the clear water hit her.

In the distance, a moderately thick tree groaned loudly then fell with a loud thud. When Janet gathered enough courage to look, there was a 30-centimeter-wide hole piercing clean through what was left of its trunk

Janet felt a chill slither up her spine, and not from the cold water. That could have easily been her fate.

Her heart beginning to race again, Janet unsheathed her dagger. She needed to be armed if she was to face… a Blue Lancing Deer bull. An adult bull.

There were four varieties of the Lancing Deer, each color representing their element. Blue water affinity species were the most common, followed closely by the brown earth-type. The other two were rare enough to be collector items. Barely any remained in the wild.

All Lancing Deer, especially the male of their species, were incredibly territorial creatures. And Janet had just encroached into a water-type’s territory, in the worst place possible.

Lancing Deer fought by shooting high-speed projectiles forged from their natural element, held together and propelled to blinding velocities by their innate magic.

As Janet watched, water rose in a steady, unbroken stream from the flowing water beneath the huffing beast. She watched as the water was shaped with a deft hand into a cone, before it began to rotate.

The bull did not have to look. The cone of water shot out with a loud whistle from between its antlers, shooting unerringly towards Janet’s position.

Janet rushed to duck once more, wincing in pain as the cone impacted a spot beside her, taking with it an entire section of bank and peppering her with stinging granules of dark loam.

She was well and truly screwed. The bull had unlimited ammunition in the stream’s flowing water. As for Janet… she only had her mana and dagger. Neither would work here. She was utterly and totally fucked.

Janet could keep dodging – she had grown adept at that from all her fights. She also could pepper the bull with [Shadow Bolts] and gradually rip away at the weave of mana that kept it alive. But she was winded from all the running, and her [Shadow Bolt] strategy required time for a sustained barrage to have any noticeable effect. Time she clearly did not possess.

Another bolt was fast coalescing. The bull was still drinking. That was how little a threat Janet posed to this master of the territory in so suitable an environment.

What Janet needed to do was even out the odds a bit.

Again, she dodged the whistling cone. This time too, the bull did not look up. Good, it was underestimating her.

The underestimation was great news, as a beast of the bull’s caliber putting in even a modicum of seriousness would see Janet pulverized in an instant. However, that was still little comfort when even the half-hearted cones of swiftly rotating water threatened to take off her head.

Thus, as the fourth cone was charging, Janet stepped out of the stream on the opposite bank from the one she’d fallen into. The ensuing hunt could result in a long chase, and although the Lancing Deer was a present and perilous danger, it could not compare with the danger the Gatherers posed.

She could feel the bull’s eyes tracking her as she emerged soaked and muddy from the riverbed. Just then, another whistle pierced through the momentary pause and Janet threw herself to the side.

That… that cone had not been anywhere close. The bull had intended it to miss, right from the get-go.

Was the bull toying with her?

Janet felt her ire rise at the naked provocation. She was the weaker party, yes, but she was still owed some respect! She had survived insane cultists and countless encounters with looming death since. And while her strength was still gathering, she had magical abilities that could easily decimate the arrogant, pompous son of a cow!

Janet turned around to face the bull and demand…

She stopped herself before she completed her turn. Something was deeply wrong.