I took some time to clear a space on the forest floor, and curled up, trying to relax so I could focus on the mass of Concepts I had waiting in my belly. I tried to tell myself I hadn't been stalling, but Honest flared briefly at the attempt at self-deception.

I sighed dramatically, my head still ached. Without a threat to my life around, it seemed Survivor was no longer feeding energy to Enduring to help me ignore it. When I mentally poked at the pain, it didn't take me long to come to the conclusion that it was a backlash from Curious forcing my brain to process things faster than the Concepts it was built out of should be capable of.

My brain had fractures in it, lines where the Concepts had lost cohesion and come slightly unraveled. That I could still think, albeit painfully, seemed like a small miracle. I couldn't help but spend some time trying to figure out how that was possible.

Life mana seemed, at first, to be the reason that I was still functional. The mana filled the gaps in my brain. I could tell that it was doing its best to both heal the injuries, and do the job of the missing pieces. Something told me that wasn't the whole story though. I focused more intensely, headless of the fact that doing so was causing the damage to worsen slightly. I had to understand how my body worked, I couldn't believe I'd never taken the time to learn.

I had a nagging suspicion that my fleshy brain couldn't be responsible for my ability to think. Not only was it currently full of holes, but I routinely shifted into elemental forms that had no brains, or ones that had brains the size of walnuts. The only time a form change had made thinking difficult was when the System had taken over my botched change, and turned me into what I can only suspect was a more normal existence. I wondered if it was something I could replicate, but quickly decided that it sounded like a very dangerous thing to experiment with.

After much inspection, I was able to determine that my brain was functionally a processor that my thoughts flowed through. I wouldn't be able to make my body move without it, and damage to it without life mana filling the gaps would certainly cause major coordination issues. But that was it.

My soul was the origin of my thoughts, and the true vessel for my memories and personality, and it wasn't connected directly to my brain. My soul's connection to my body was my active mana core. That revelation gave me a good clue as to how I could manually change my mana core. It also explained why mana seemed to react to my emotions.

I could see how the life mana in my core vibrated with my thoughts. The more I observed, the more I could feel how my thoughts influenced the mana, and the Concepts in the mana reverberated through me, influencing me right back.

The information truly illuminated how my abilities worked. I thought that with a little experimentation, I could use my cores without the System's help. I still had no idea how I would accomplish shifting on my own, which was a shame because I was too large to move freely through the forest in my current state.

My focus switched to that problem. It took some time, but with the aid of the life mana running through me, I found out several more new things about myself. I didn’t have to worry too much about functional working systems inside my body. I was not a functional living creature. I had the bits and pieces that made me appear to work like every other living thing, but none of it actually did the job it was supposed to do. Even in my true form, I was more like a mana elemental than a creature.

My heart pumped a substance that could pass inspection for being blood, but it didn't carry oxygen, or do much of anything except flow through me. My lungs took in air, but they absorbed the Concepts and mana the air carried, none of the chemicals.

My stomach, full of churning Concepts as it currently was, seemed to be my only truly functional organ. It was far from normal. I could barely comprehend the powerful Concepts at work in my digestive system. Suffice to say, I didn't digest food, so much as sunder it down to the atoms, and consume the energy and Concepts they contained. I very carefully pulled back from thinking about that too much.

Watching the roiling Concepts in my stomach I realized that I needed to get to them within the next hour. I could tell that what passed for my digestive system would kick in without any input from me. If I didn't step up to control the process, I could end up absorbing parts of the mana beast into myself.

I was just having trouble working myself up to forcing my mind to touch the Concepts behind the toxin spewing pustules, among other things. The revulsion I felt at the poor creature's death corrupted form was disconcerting, and I was just about ready to find the secret to shifting myself without System influence. It was so very interesting, my natural digestion seemed somewhat slow when it came to Concepts, I convinced myself that I had time.

Nearly an hour later. I had just managed to work out how to compress my body into a smaller form, shifting mass into an inlet into an ethereal storage container housed in my soul when Curious lost the power to influence me any longer. I broke out of the trance state I had been in, and shook my aching head violently. I should have realized the Concept had been active.

I noted with dismay that my stomach felt less full than it had before. I hurried to check what had happened, using what I'd learned about controlling life, I quickly learned that my fears weren't unfounded. Some of the stag's Concepts had been incorporated into my body without my conscious intent.

My horns had growths on them, short, sharp tines that seemed to be pulling mana and Concepts into them. I had gained the ability to “eat” using them like my opponent had. I would have to experiment, but I felt like something about the way they had reshaped my horns would enhance their ability to channel lightning.

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I was relieved to find that there was only one other change. My muzzle had elongated, thankfully I didn't have the crocodile mouth that the stag had, but it was still dramatic. I had half again as many teeth, it was like someone had taken my face, and stretched it out, but in a way that I didn't think looked too terribly unnatural.

I found that I could live with both of the changes to my base form. It occurred to me that it was almost as if Curious had distracted me just long enough for the changes to take place. Almost as if Survivor was working to make me change in ways my conscious mind had decided to forego because Holy, and the life mana I was channeling weren't about to let me look at what I considered to be death tainted. I honestly hoped I was ascribing too much processing power to my core Concept.

I didn't dwell further on things I could not change. After a moment or two mentally steeling myself to touch things that I was half afraid might burn me, I pointed my consciousness inward.

My mind got to work tearing apart the Concepts that had built a body for the mana beast that would have brought devastation to the world. The creature had carried so many plagues and diseases that anything living that made contact with it would be a true hazard. Of course that was assuming the young beast had left the corpse behind after they died from the toxic gas the beast had been emitting.

None of the plagues could have ever hurt me, they all relied on biological functions that my body didn't bother with. I was, however, apparently covered in them, inside and out. Thinking about it made my skin crawl, and my fur stand on end. I felt the urge to throw up, but suppressed it, and continued to break down the filth I had eaten.

The energy the beast’s body contained was worth the effort, my own body was thrumming with energy by the time I was halfway done. My headache was gone, my brain was healed. I even found most of the Concepts it had taken from me. Replacing them didn't take very long, though I was still left with a small furless scar on my side, the deer had apparently had enough time to digest some of what it had consumed.

At the very end, when I had purged everything that was the mana beast, there was something unexpected. I found a tattered, blindingly bright, fragment of a powerful Concept. It wasn't identifiable, but it was nothing like the Concepts that the stag was made of, it wasn't even a full Concept. It was more like the edge of the idea of a Concept from a being of immense power.

Breaking it down, even in its fractured state, was like biting down on a jawbreaker. The sun was high in the sky by the time I was finished, and the conceptual energy I harvested caused a qualitative change in every part of my body and soul.

I no longer wondered why the beast had been so large, I also no longer wondered how the Voice had died. I wondered instead, why the beast hadn't been larger. I had to shrink myself down again while I processed the tiny remnant of the Voice's power, twice.

When it was over, my senses were sharper, my muscles were denser, my fur shone brighter, I felt more present in the world. The Concepts attached to my soul weighed heavier as well. The experience was so overwhelming that I almost missed the fact that I had begun to slowly leak mana.

I wasn't in danger of leaking myself to death, yet, I could pull what I lost back into myself quite readily. But I hadn't evolved my class with the System, and I still had a mother crystal to consume. I was sure doing either one would force me to run for a higher tier zone.

At that moment reality sank in that I would never be able to return to Brightwood.

Tears dripped from my eyes as I trudged towards the mother crystal's territory. I knew I would be leaving after the mana beast was dealt with, but I had managed to push that fact out of my thoughts. I had only worried about leveling after the fight. I had planned on putting off sleep, and the levels it would bring. I had planned to give myself a chance to properly say goodbye.

I reached out with my mind through my ever present connection with my companion.

“Thorn.” The thought was laden with the sadness and loss I was feeling.

He replied instantly, concern radiated from him.

“Creator, how may I help you?”

“Tell everyone I'm not coming back. Ask Torill if she can come meet me at… fuck I don't know where. I need to head for a higher tier zone in a few hours, probably quickly. I'll try to point myself towards Vidare. Damnit, I studied the map, but I'll probably have to ask Belua for help.”

My head hung low to the ground, and my tail was dragging through the decayed mess that the mana beast's death and darkness Concepts had made of the once healthy forest floor. I barely noticed the stench. The air in the mana beast's former territory stank of decay. I tried to stop breathing, I now knew for a fact that I didn't need to do so. My lungs still cried out for air, but I endured, and despite the discomfort of my screaming lungs, was none the worse for wear.

“Don't forget about your promise to Snow, I doubt that ancient spirit beast will.”

I blinked, I had somehow forgotten. I sent a prayer to Belua, asking if she could arrange a meeting with the old cat the next time I slept. I received positive feelings in return.

“Thanks for reminding me. Do you think you could put together some books for me? I suppose he and I could both learn about this world's human society together.”

I was pretty sure that was our current deal, I certainly wasn't going to be taking the beast on a tour of Brightwood. Not unless he taught me how he was able to exist in a lower tier area. I was fairly sure that the old spirit beast didn't actually care about what I had agreed to do for him. I suspected that he was lonely, or bored.

Thorn's mental voice interrupted my thoughts about Snow. “Already done, I also secured a small library of magical tomes for you to peruse. Master Nefen was quite helpful, he said that he needed to find new homes for them before the Brightwood guild's collapse. He told me that the dying town was unlikely to see an influx of new mages. His only request was that we never sell them.”

“Thank you Thorn, and thank Nefen for me. I- I'll get back to you.”

I recoiled in horror as the gloomy toxic mist that filled the area parted to reveal a grisly sight.