Tracking down Torill was simplicity itself. My connection to her had become so strong that following it to her location was like following a rope that tied us together. It didn't take long to find her lying by the pond in the back of the adventurers guild compound.

Her eyes were closed, and her tail was curled around her body to cover her forelegs. She seemed to be at peace. I almost decided to fly away so I didn't bother her, but her eyes opened and locked onto me as I glided on the air currents above her.

“Hey, are you checking on me? I'm okay now, I'm sorry I told you to go away. It was a lot to handle, in addition to the System momentarily removing this world's languages, I think the transformation rewired my brain. I didn't expect to change this much.”

I dived down, and in a feat of aerial agility that surprised even me, landed lightly on the ground in front of her in a version of my true form that was only slightly larger than she was.

“I'm sorry,” I sent, “I don't know why this happened, I know you were meant to keep a low profile.”

She chuffed at me, her eyes sparkled with humor.

“The other demihumans will call this a miracle. I think that might just be exactly what it is too. Belua is overjoyed, she sent me a message offering to update my Contract. More perks if I take on a new role as Guardian of Brightwood. I didn't know it was possible for a beast to become a Guardian for any race other than demihumans, but apparently the System has settings for it. ”

I cocked my head to the side.

“You can change your contract? For some reason I thought it was set for that life.”

Torill snorted.

“Of course they can be changed, they kind of have to be able to change. Gods are usually pretty good at predicting what they'll need, but sometimes things do not go exactly as foretold. There are no perfect prophetic powers, at least as far as I know. So contracts can be changed, entirely if need be. The only limitation is agreement.”

That was interesting, but my mind circled back to the other thing she said.

“So, you think Belua had a hand in what happened? I didn't feel her presence. Are you okay with it?”

Torill stood up and shook out her fur. I watched as she stretched like a cat.

“No offense, I'm not sure I would have taken the job if I knew I'd end up in a body like this. But now that it's happened, I'm looking at it as a new experience. It seems like it will make the job I originally had a whole lot easier. There are so many spirits gathered around us right now, it's incredible.”

I looked around, trying to sense anything. I saw the flickering of what little mana remained in the air, the mana situation was truly getting dire, but I didn't sense the spirits she was talking about.

I cocked my head to the side, I had sensed spirits before on several occasions, but I didn't see or feel a single trace of them around us.

“They aren't manifested in our realm, I doubt you'll have the right skills to sense them. It's a good thing, spirits can be strange and mercurial when they aren't bound by a contract. They are also creatures made entirely of Concept and mana, and if you can see them, they gain some ability to interact with you. Trust me when I say that you don't want that to happen if you don't have skills to defend yourself from their whims.”

She sounded so deadly serious that I immediately ceased all attempts to get a look at our apparent crowd of observers. I must have looked as disturbed as I felt, because she walked next to me and pressed her shoulder against mine. She pressed her head against me, I put my head on her back.

“Don't worry, I won't say they can't hurt you if you can't see them, that would be a lie. It really limits them though. They also really seem to like spirit beasts in general, and they like Guardians even more. They seem to perceive you as a sort of cousin. I don't know if that applies to me as well now, I haven't asked, but I think it might.”

I opened up Sense Concept, trying to feel what was going on with her body. What I saw seemed to be built almost exactly the same as my own, granted with different Concepts in many places.

“I think it's because we're made of the same things. They... Samuel's here.”

I lifted my head off Torill's back, and moved my body between her and our approaching guild leader. I barely noticed that I had grown myself up to my true size until the comparatively small man stood before me. Torill was completely hidden behind my tail.

“Brother! I am glad you have returned! Do you have time to meet with your newly bonded? We have questions, many questions.”

“Of course”

He sounded so anxious that I didn't have a choice. Not only was it the kind thing to do, but I felt like I owed them my protection, at least for as long as I was around them.

Torill pushed my tail aside, and ran to stand next to me. I looked down at her, and felt some tense part of my mind unwind. If she didn't want to hide her new form, I had no place to argue. I realized that I needed to warn her about the tamer as I shifted my size down to something more reasonable for interacting with human-sized company.

I hadn't realized it when I was so large, but Samuel had grown. He looked like my demihuman form's older brother. If it wasn't for the easy explanation that his form was based on me, I would have thought it was strange how much he looked like me.

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He was gaping openly at Torill, it made me want to block his view of her again. I settled for letting out a low growl, for which I received a headbutt from my mate, but I got my message across.

Samuel immediately turned his eyes to the side, and focused on the ground. The way he twisted his neck as he did so made my instincts settle down.

“Calm down, you need to get your Concept under control. I don't need you to protect me from everything. Samuel is our friend, remember? He isn't going to hurt me.”

I really didn't want to admit that my response was driven more by jealousy than by fear for her safety. Her altered form had certainly driven my instincts a little wild, but she wasn't wrong about controlling my Concepts. I could feel Proud and Protective pushing themselves to the forefront, enhancing my emotions.

I did what I always seemed to do, and grabbed hold of Kind with both claws. I didn't know if other people had a better way of controlling themselves. I supposed that flooding my mind with kindness probably wasn't the very best solution for maintaining whatever there was of my true self under the Concepts.

I licked Torill's head to apologize, though I didn't extend any apologies to Samuel. Honest wouldn't let me tell him I was sorry, the way he was staring at her had made me angry. My Concepts had only enhanced what was already there.

“May I ask a question?” Samuel asked, his voice as timid as I'd ever heard it, hearing it made me want to growl at him again for a very different reason. After that I had no problem apologizing.

“I'm sorry I growled, I just didn't like the way you were staring at Torill. I don't want you to submit to me, we're brothers, right?”

Samuel perked up immediately, though I couldn't help but notice that his eyes were steadfastly avoiding my mate.

“Brother, did I understand you correctly? Did you say that the lovely creature beside you is Torill? She is a Lord as well, I can feel it. We were all amazed by how thoroughly you granted our requests, but this… You truly are blessed by the Great Mother.”

Samuel stared at me like he couldn't quite believe what he had heard, even though the evidence was right there. His eyes flicked to Torill, but he looked away from her immediately. I got the idea that she was talking to him.

“Yes, you are right, I did say we had questions. There have been some… peculiarities.” Samuel sighed, and scratched at his mane before he continued, apparently answering a question from Torill. “Well, for one thing, I ate my lamp when I woke up.” There was another pause, I wished I could hear both sides of the conversation. “I was hungry, and it looked delicious. Well, I had seen Angel eat a crystal before, so I thought it might be a part of what he is.”

“It is, if you haven't figured it out yet, I eat mana. I actually like most crystals better than I like meat,” I interjected.

“Yes, I think you mentioned that once? Nefen had to show you how to partially open the wards on your room because there wasn't enough mana. Anya said that she can see the mana in the world around us now, and we're all pulling it into ourselves. It explained the odd sensations of strange flavors we were experiencing.”

I chuffed, the idea of other people experiencing the sensation of tasting something with body parts that weren't meant to feel that type of thing was hilarious to me. I wondered if the different types of mana tasted the same to them as they did to me. But something occurred to me.

“Do we want to meet up with the others? I don't think that I've ever been in the building they are in.”

“It's the old mess hall, we were…experimenting with food. So far everything tastes good. We have yet to find an end to our appetites yet though, it has caused us some worry.”

I sighed. “Let's meet them, I don't want to explain things twice.”

He nodded. “You are correct my brother, let us continue this in the mess hall.”

I started walking, Torill was a step behind me on my right side. We took turns bumping into each other softly as we walked. I wasn't entirely sure why we were doing it, but it felt nice, so we kept doing it until we reached the mess hall door. I barely fit through the door by myself, much less with Torill by my side.

The scent of food filled my nostrils and woke hungry from the slumber I had forced on it. My stomach let out a growl so loud that it could be heard through the ages. I was fairly certain that the first adventurers to ever eat in the Brightwood mess hall heard it.

All eyes turned to me, and despite my embarrassment, I looked them over with great curiosity. They all looked like they were connected to very different beasts.

Peter was the closest to looking like my demihuman form, but with Samuel there to compare to, it was apparent that he was a very different animal.

He was still white with black stripes, still had the horns that had become a part of my identity. He still had an enormous mane, but where the rest of my fur had slowly changed to be several inches long, his was short. I could see the definition of every muscle on his hulking body. His feline features leaned heavily towards those of a lion. It made me wonder if his previous bond to a lion had influenced how he looked.

Anya, his wife couldn't look more different from him. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought she bonded to my squirrel form. She even held her tail like a squirrel. She was slender, her fur was long, but sleek. Her hands, with their long dexterous fingers, made me a little jealous. Her horns were short, and almost looked like a dark grey crown between her two enormous ears. Her large eyes were wide as she stared at me.

Gregor seemed to have taken liberally from all my forms. His face was reptilian, complete with scales, it was surrounded by a thick mane that had feathers mixed in with the fur. His head was topped with large feline ears, one of which was aimed at me, while the other moved, as though scanning the area for sounds. His hands were interesting, the backs were covered in fur, but his palms had thick scales. The talons at the ends of his were curved and sharply pointed. I saw the feathered fan at the end of his long reptilian tail flexing in and out.

Leona was the real odd one out. Everyone else looked like what the demihumans called a “spirit's chosen” with their animal features strong and prominent. Leona's were subtle, it was likely just enough to make her look exotic, intriguing to a human male.

There were a smattering of scales around her eyes, they shone brightly, and seemed as though they had been placed there by a makeup artist. Her long, lustrous hair was platinum blond with intermittent streaks of black. She had two small nubs instead of proper horns. That was the end of her animal features. The rest of her looked like a very attractive human woman.

After I'd had my chance to look them over, they all started to talk at once. I tried to answer their questions as best I could, though I did make them swear to keep the things I revealed about my nature secret.

I found out that every one of their classes except Samuel's had changed to have some connection with mana. Anya was over the moon to receive something called a Mana Weaver. Peter was almost as happy with Elemental Smith. Gregor was an Elemental Archer, capable of infusing the elements of the mana he ate into his arrows.

Leona was a Mana Singer, it took a long explanation of that one before I realized that it meant that she could tap into the Concepts in the mana she consumed, and inject the feelings they held into her voice. Torill was the one who caught her trying to use life mana on me, the poor girl swore she hadn't meant to do it, after Torill pounced on her. I didn't get in her way, though I did send her a message telling her not to kill the girl.

In contrast, Samuel had seemed to inherit the other half of my class. He was a Bestial shifter, and he had access to all my forms. The System even assisted him in things like partial transformations. He asked if I could keep an eye out for a bear form, because he wasn't capable of gathering them for himself. He would have to rely on me to add to his repertoire.

It was a long night, thankfully they kept supplying me with food as we spoke.

It was near sunny when I received the blaring indicator that I had to leave immediately.

The mana beast had manifested itself.