Chapter 12

Bad Doggy

I blinked, and found myself finally standing in the world that would be my new home.

I gazed at my immediate surroundings, I was in a forest that looked identical to the one in the test. I had a moment of internal crisis remembering how during the test I had been certain that I was in the real world. I quickly pushed that line of thought aside.

Even if this was some new test, the System clearly wanted me to treat it as real. Plus, I reasoned that it would be weird if it did it twice, and with its ability to mess with my memories, it probably wouldn't let me remember the test and have doubts.

I shuddered and wrapped my arms around myself. I found myself suddenly acutely aware of all the times I had found my thoughts and emotions suddenly shifting during the last few days. I had put it down to the experience of being put in a whole new body, but looking back. There were so many times that the emotional shifts stopped me from becoming agitated.

My tail started sweeping back and forth, I had gotten so used to the damn thing, but now it annoyed me a whole lot. So many things were not alright. I was not alright. I swayed back and forth rocking myself for a moment, tears fell. I felt violated. Then, after a little while, realization dawned on me, and I smiled. I didn't perk up my ears, though my tail did slow its movement. I smiled, a big toothy grin. I still wasn't alright, but nothing swept in to suddenly comfort me. What happened had sucked, I did not like the way I had been messed with at all.

But it seemed like that was over now. The very fact that I wasn't suddenly feeling all warm and fuzzy, comforted me. Now all I had to deal with was the mind altering effects of touching the mana. I wanted to say I would avoid that. But realistically, now that I was away from the System's direct influence I found myself craving the joy of air, the wholeness of life, and I even yearned to experience the manic intensity of water again.

I gave into my desire almost immediately as I reached out to the life mana surrounding me, reasoning that I could pull out fast enough to prevent it from physically changing me, I just wanted to get an idea of the area and the web of life was amazing for that. A small, quiet part of my consciousness yelled at me that I was being an idiot, but it was ignored.

The life mana greeted me like family, and I eagerly sank into the feeling of wholeness. I embraced the serenity of being connected with every living thing. My awareness flitted between all the different kinds of life that surrounded me and expanded outward. All of a sudden my mind was struck with a discordant note. Not the natural feeling of a life coming to an end, but a life that was wrong , and it was headed straight towards my body. It would arrive in roughly a minute.

I quickly withdrew myself from the web of life, releasing my intimate contact with the mana, with a parting request to protect me from the corrupted being that was heading straight for me.

I grabbed my staff and it reacted just as it was supposed to. Thorns slid out of its surface everywhere my hands weren't. I reached out to make a light connection with the air mana I could sense flitting around me. I simply requested it be ready if I needed it. I knew that the air mana could be a potent weapon. The air that had been mostly still started churning as it seemed to feel my fear. Air mana came flowing in from all over. It began winding through the trees, and whirling around me it built and built without any further input from me.

The mana, normally sweet and playful, shifted in both taste and attitude. Sugar shifted to caramel, and playfulness shifted to fury. It would defend me, I felt it touch me instead of the other way around, the connection was made. I was almost completely overcome with the desire to flatten the thing that was coming. To rage against anything that came into my path.

I ran toward the oncoming beast. The wind moved with me. Life mana flocked to me as well, I hadn't called for it, it seemed to be reacting to me all on its own. I was soon covered in a coat of warm glowing green motes, from head to toe.

I wound through the trees, the wind I carried with me crushed the undergrowth as I ran. The force of the wind increased more and more as the mana flocked to me.

Then I saw it, it was a black wolf the size of a horse. It would have been a creature worthy of praise, heavily muscled, with a thick coat of coal black fur. Its teeth, on full display as it snarled at me, were white and sharp. But something was very wrong with it, the thick black coat was oily, and coated with detritus, its eyes, that were locked onto me, were filmed with white, and its mouth was trailing streams of thick foamy saliva. The worst part was the mana that was gathered around it. It felt horrifying, sick and wrong in a way that was in opposition to my very being. The color of it shifted and warped, it was a dark purple, black, sickly yellow, and a disgusting shade of green all at once.

The horrible mana reached for me as the wolf lunged at me, I sprang to the side, snapping out with my staff trying to club it in the head as it passed. The wolf managed to shift enough that the sharp thorns on the end of my staff only scored its shoulder. The sharp thorns cut a path along the wolf's side as it passed. The wound did not bleed, and it did not seem to phase the wolf in any way. The life mana coating me kept most of the horrible mana from touching me. But I got a small taste of it anyway. It was bitter and sour, it tasted rotten, and it made me want to gag. I stumbled.

I constantly consumed small pieces of the mana around me, it was like breathing. I regretted not thinking about the process as soon as the taste hit me. The wrongness burned its way through my system, it did me no actual harm, but it made me want to expel it. I stopped consuming any mana at all, just because of how distractingly bad it tasted.

The wolf circled back as I regained my composure. It snarled menacingly as it evaluated me. I didn't get any special sense of a mind near me, I didn't know what Sense Mind would feel like when I encountered one, but I figured I'd know it when I felt it. There was no true mind housed in the creature, however there was still a malicious intelligence in its cloudy eyes.

I evaluated it right back.

Level 26

The System informed me. Fifteen whole levels higher than me. I cursed in my head as I wondered why the System would place me near this beast. But why didn't matter, if I wanted to keep this new life I would have to defeat it. Running was not an option, even with the wind to help me.

I asked the air to hurt it, not entirely certain what form that would take, I tried to picture a compressed cutting blade of wind. I gave the air element some of my own mana to work with, it took the offering.

The wolf was stalking toward me snarling, getting ready for another lunge. I repeatedly stepped backwards trying to keep some distance as I worked with the mana. I could feel pressure building up in the air between us.

The wolf seemed to feel it too, as it suddenly leapt backwards, but it was too slow. The air blasted out from the compressed spot, cutting across its face. I was able to see a large slice in its skull before It tumbled as huge gusts of wind hit it a moment later.

It staggered to its feet. A small amount of damage to the brain was apparently not enough to kill the thing. It lacked coordination though, it was obvious by how it stumbled slightly as it moved. The damage to its head hadn't been enough, but it wasn't nothing.

It was hurt, I noticed that one side of its face seemed paralyzed, its right eye was drooping, and only its left lip was lifted to fully expose its fangs. It was still moving though, still a danger, and I had no idea what it was really capable of.

The disgusting mana the creature exuded shot out of it at me in a torrent. It overwhelmed my defensive life mana barrier as it covered me in its stead. It wormed its way into my body, I was built to consume mana, not reject it. I had no idea how to stop what it was doing. I tried to eat it in a desperate attempt to get rid of it, but found out at that very moment that I couldn't consume mana that was under the control of another.

I quickly lost all sense of touch. My foot caught on the ground as I tried to step backwards, and I fell to the ground. The invading mana wanted to change me, to make me like that wolf. My vision became cloudy, I saw the blurry form of the wolf coming towards me. My connection to the air mana failed. The wolf was standing on top of me, its head down, I could barely see, I couldn't even feel what it was doing. Everything was numb and cold, it was beginning to feel peaceful. I desperately reached out to the life mana around me. It didn't respond. I couldn't feel anything, but I had still kept my grip on my staff. I brought my arm up and managed to slam the blurred black blob with my staff. I repeated the action until the blur fell to the side and lay still.

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I closed my eyes and entered meditation. The invading mana that I was by this point absolutely certain was death mana was sending me sensations of peace. But it still felt so, so wrong. I mentally touched my core. The mana there was pristine. I took control of it all, and tried to channel the emotions of life. It was hard, so very hard, with death mana flooding me. But my mana sparked, and turned green, I pulled nearly everything out of my core to make a path through the death mana just a bridge to outside myself. To call for help. There was some strain in its answer, like it was struggling to do so but the mana responded, able to connect with me once again, I fed the life attuned mana everything but the tiniest wisp of my mana, asking it to save me.

I lost consciousness.

I dreamed of peace. I dreamed of laying down the burdens of life. I dreamed of how I could join a different web of connection. I could live forever with no worries about the System, or my contracts. I dreamed of a life without pain, without wanting. A life where I would never again have to worry about disease. It tempted me, oh did it ever make it sound good. It wanted me to not just let it in and channel it, but allow it to become a part of me forever. With an effort of will I pushed it away.

I rejected its offers.

I didn't want the oneness it offered. I could enter the web of life If I wanted that feeling. The web of life wasn't perfect, it held dangers of its own, but it was breathtaking.

I rejected its offer of an eternal existence. Maybe this life wouldn't last forever, but I would have more tries.

The System was a flawed machine that did things I truly disliked, but losing my connection to it felt wrong, Dux had made it clear that it existed for a reason. Taking my contract was a choice that I had made willingly, I wasn't about to back out on it.

Pain, and want were important parts of living, if you have no wants, what are you? Sickness was a terrible thing, I never wanted to be sick again, and with life mana I would never have to be.

With a final shove I broke free. My body was wracked with pain, I was mostly blind. I felt so very cold. My reserves of mana were just enough to sustain my circulation. I could feel life mana in my body, it was doing its very best to keep me alive. But there wasn't enough of it, it did not seem to be able to come to me while I was laying next to the wolf's corpse. I could barely move, but I crawled away, clawing at the ground with one arm, a death grip on my staff in the other as I used its thorns to grip the ground and pull me along. My legs and tail dragged behind me, limp and lifeless.

The crawl lasted an eternity, at one point my shirt caught on a root, I tried to dislodge it but I couldn't see what I was doing, and my hands only felt pain and cold. I tried to rip at it, but I lacked the strength, and when I tried to use my claws they bit into my own flesh. I despaired, my body was weakened to the point of being held in place by a bit of already partly torn cloth, and a root.

My fuzzy mind finally remembered that I could make the shirt go away, so I did, the pants went with it. I didn't care, I resumed my crawl, dimly aware that a sharp bit of the root was tearing my skin. I kept crawling. It went on forever, I clung to life desperately. I thought of the fact that if I failed this miserably on my first contract, I probably wouldn't get another.

Eventually I exited the area that had been corrupted by the wolf's death mana. Life mana flooded to me, it helped restore strength to my weakly beating heart. I kept crawling, I still felt nothing from the lower half of my body. I struggled to get distance from the horror behind me.

Eventually I could crawl no more. I did my best to stab the end of my staff in the dirt. It was at an angle, but its roots could access the soil and restore itself. Somehow I knew it had been in nearly as much danger as I was.

With that taken care of I finally allowed the Life mana to take me away from the pain. I saw myself through the eyes of a nearby bird. It was worse than I imagined, the remaining life mana that I had called to help me had kept me alive through only by the slimmest margin. The wolf had been eating me when it was standing over me. I couldn't see the extent of my wounds, they were covered in dirt and leaves from being dragged across the ground. But I could see a gaping hole where my intestines should be. I was amazed that I was still breathing.

I moved my consciousness away from the bird. I had to trust the mana to save me. I sent it my gratitude through our connection. The mana responded by deepening the connection further. I felt its love. It filled me with its energy, I felt assurances that I would be whole. That it would help me to resist the wrongness that was death mana. My consciousness flowed out, touching all the life around me, my mind freed from the feelings of my mangled body.

I felt myself drawn to a squirrel that was chasing a female of its kind around a tree. Their play was a joy to witness after what I had just been through. Then they reached a branch high in the canopy and the lady squirrel jumped. To my surprise she didn't fall but hovered out of reach of her pursuer, chattering in a way that sounded like laughter. The fellow I was following twitched his bushy tail in frustration. The little guy couldn't fly like the girl squirrel could. He was filled to the brim with life mana just like I was, there was no sense of air about him. The girl flew back and forth just out of his reach. He ran back and forth on the branch, his fluffy tail being used to maintain his balance as he kept pace with her.

The female squirrel flew by, slapping him with her long tail before disappearing into another nearby tree. The poor little guy almost fell, his long fluffy tail swept around maintaining his balance as he clung to the branch with his dexterous hands and looked towards the tree the girl had retreated to. I stayed attached to that squirrel as he lived his life. I watched for so long the sun rose and fell multiple times. I almost completely forgot about my real body.

Suddenly I was wrenched from the squirrel, my connection to the life mana was severed completely. I was disoriented and desperately reached back out to it.

My questing mind met a wall. I heard Dux say "I didn't think you'd miss me that much Angel, if you go back under, that doesn't mean I get twenty minutes."

"Dux?" I said dumbly, my mind was reeling from the sudden involuntary disconnection."How long…?"

"Three days, you should be dead. You should be dead and walking. You had another unforeseen interaction. Two really, do not accept the System prompt. I don't think your mind is ready for the levels."

I nodded, and rubbed my head. My fingers encountered what felt like a thick layer of hair. I ran my fingers through it, and judged it to be a few inches long.

"Your mane came in, your horns grew a bit, your hands look a lot more like human hands, your tail is longer. All of your fur looks thicker. You were in a healing trance for three days straight, that those are the only changes I can see is a damn miracle." Dux clicked his tongue.

I looked at my hands, and was actually really happy to see them. They were proportioned almost exactly like human hands. I flexed my fingers, and extended my still retractable claws. They had come a long way from the paws with delusions of grandeur I started with a few days ago.

I lifted a hand to where my little horn nubs were, and touched a small horn instead, it felt like it was maybe three inches long, at most. But it was still definitely going to be noticeable.

Then I thought about what I had been healed from, and looked down. I saw thick white fur where the terrible wound once was. I touched the spot. My fur was much, much thicker there now. So thick it could almost be considered a layer of armor.

I realized I was sitting naked in the middle of the forest, and summoned my outfit. It appeared, fully clean, in good repair, and miraculously still fit me perfectly.

"So Dux, you get to give me actual advice now, right? How do I deal with Death mana? When it hit me, it was like I just lost instantly. I don't think I can live through another try at learning this one from experience."

"You need to work on pushing your mana out of your system. Remember how I taught you to use it for healing without life mana? It can be used to push intruding mana away." My System Assistant responded helpfully.

It was a pretty simple solution that I hadn't considered at all.

"Of course, you could have also chosen to fight while channeling a life aspect instead of air. Really Angel, if you are going to lose yourself to the mana, you could at least choose the right element. Life and Death mana stand in opposition to each other. I'm not sure you'd have been able to use it offensively against the wolf, not with the level difference, but it would have found it very hard if not impossible to push its mana into you."

I heard a flutter of wings, and saw an almost ghostly manifestation of Dux land on my staff that was standing upright, with its roots buried in the ground. I could have sworn I had left it at an angle.

"You need to consider your weapon too. It almost died. If it weren't for you sharing a little life mana with it instinctively, you'd be equipped with a soul bound stick made of dead wood."

I reached over and ran my hand down its shaft, I did need to take better care of the thing.

A System Message popped up without waiting for me to accept it.

Living Wood Thorn Staff has been rewarded with level × 11

Living Wood Thorn Staff needs you to pick a trait.

1. Autonomous Movement

2. Size Shifting

3. Controlled Flexibility

4. Envenomed Thorns

5. Elemental Storage

6. Autonomous Spellcasting

Choices will reappear every ten levels.