Chapter 34

Accepting Death

The half goblin man rolled his eyes at me. "Well, I suppose I should thank you for adding a win to my record on the guild arena board. You can, however, reset the arena by simply saying reset arena."

Resetting

"Like that, you see?" Nefen let out a sigh. "Now, I am willing to try to aid you in learning control. I did some research on Wild Mages in the Mage Guild library. Though what I saw makes me believe that the System felt you needed to branch away from the known evolutions of your Class. If you desire my help, I would need to know what has changed. Do remember that I am still under the oath of secrecy, I will consider anything you share with me about your class to be said in confidence."

Nefen then said in a loud voice, "Arena Initiate Private Training," taking pains to pronounce each word with a maximum of clarity. He didn't have to tell me that I should remember that particular command.

I watched as the arena field became surrounded by a large opaque bubble.

"The level 50 evolutions are tailored to your specific nature, as viewed by the System, and as such are considered a semi private matter in human society. A lot are open about most of their abilities, but hold some facts of their classes to themselves. Some will proudly tell you the name of their class. Others will only tell you the name of the base class it spawned from. I personally do not see much point, there are many who have the ability to see your full class name, and some who can detect much more. I personally can get the general flow of your class, but lack the ability to sense the finer details. Currently, I have seen your potential to be a walking disaster zone. Your lack of control makes you a danger, so I would advise not holding back from me." Nefen looked at me expectantly.

I looked at the little green man, he was right about one thing, I was dangerous now. Particularly if Dux couldn't take me out of the mana. Air was one of my biggest cores, there had to be some way to be able to use it safely.

I read Nefen my full character sheet, well, the parts I didn't get gagged trying to read anyway. I found I couldn't mention several of my boons, I could call Mind Control Assistance by its name though. I didn't bother to try to read the contract section.

I also recited from memory the things the System had said about my class during the evolution, leaving nothing out. Not even the System's claim of detecting a lack of skill using external mana, which felt kind of cruel. How was I supposed to develop anything resembling skill at the pace it was setting?

I explained what I'd figured out so far about how it all worked, which admittedly wasn't too much yet.

I also explained how Mind Control Assistance could break me out of it when I sank too far into the mana. But the ability would only switch me back to default, and only if it was safe enough to do so.

He nodded along, listening intently, and waiting for me to finish, before he commented.

"That is a very interesting class, it seems to revolve around the one thing Wild Mages are meant to avoid except in dire circumstances. The System must have judged you mentally resilient enough to tolerate repeatedly being influenced by the Concepts associated with mana." He chuckled ruefully. "Either that or it judged your sanity to be optional."

I rolled my eyes. I thought the second definitely felt more likely. It probably thought if I went a little crazy, it could just whammy me into being functional enough for my contract. Maybe I was being dramatic, but it sure did feel like it took some sort of pleasure in messing with my head.

I suppose someone as insignificant as me couldn't really understand why it did what it did though, it has a perspective I couldn't even imagine. It existed purely for the greater good, and I had to trust it.

My head started hurting a little for some reason, but it quickly disappeared, as my core had been set back to life on the reset. When I felt the mana at work, I was reminded to switch back to normal, and I did. That particular version of life mana was strange, I didn't feel any mental influence from it at all.

Then I remembered my reaction to Torill, and resolved not to walk around with that core active for no reason ever again. I didn't think I did anything too horrible. Most of the disgusting things were constrained to my head, thank goodness. I suppose it made sense for that to be part of life mana, but ick, I felt dirty having thought some of that. That sort of toxic thinking didn't belong anywhere near me. Also, I would have to figure out how to, nicely, tell the poor girl that I had been under the influence of magic. While a walk seemed lovely, I was definitely not looking for anything beyond friendship in this life.

Nefen continued speaking, unaware of my thoughts. "Much of what I had expected to help you with is probably inaccessible to you now. As for riding the mana as they seem to like to put it. Only experience seems to be adequate, though there are some sets of advice on how to talk someone through gaining conscious control of themselves. Even then, you will need to expect hiccups." He frowned, and seemed to be momentarily deep in thought. "I will volunteer my services to you until you can at least reliably pull out of disaster mode. I believe, given the limits you stated about your ability, that you will need to master stopping yourself while running wild as air, fire, and death. All three of those elements have the potential to render the environment unsafe for life, and thus unsafe for your pure form."

I grimaced, air mana was amazing, the hardest part of riding air was coming down from it, not only did it influence my thoughts, but I loved the feeling. Fire and Death still scared me, I would rather not ever have to use either of them.

"I believe we should start with death, while air and fire are potentially devastating, death mana run wild is potentially catastrophic. I would advise never using it, but I know how such things work. It is always better to gain control, than to deny the System when it grants an ability. It has a way of forcing you down the path it has paved for you, screaming the whole way if that's what you choose."

I nodded, he sure seemed to have that right. If I didn't do what it wanted it seemed to be fully willing and able to force the issue.

Nefen advised that we re-tune the arena to resemble a death mana infected area. He mentioned off hand that there was one in the mountains that needed clearing from time to time. It was due in a month or so. If I ended up with a good way to cope with its existence, and I was high enough level by then, the job would probably fall to me.

I felt my staff shudder mentally, it remembered the death wolf as clearly as I did. It also didn't love the idea of turning into whatever it became when I ran my death mana core. It had briefly experienced it before, when I first filled that core.

It had loved the air mana form nearly as much as I did, though it hadn't experienced the shift from innocent play to the more destructive aspect when I lost control earlier. I could tell my actions at that point had frightened it. I felt pretty bad about that.

We left the arena, and Nefen handled the settings. I noted how I still couldn't see a thing in the arena through the bubble covering it.

Nefen cast some spells on himself before we re-entered. I watched in fascination, the way he used mana was so different, he formed the description of what he wanted, with a deft use of his mana manipulation, in a condensed script that I both somehow magically understood, and had trouble following.

Everything he cast on himself this time looked to be protective. There were a couple that dealt specifically with death concepts. One seemed like it would make it less likely to detect him. The rest just dealt with protecting him from a wide range of nasty effects.

When he was ready, a full ten minutes later, we walked inside.

Nefen spoke a command to the arena as soon as we entered. "Arena, seal area until reset."

Sealing Area

The privacy barrier had already cut off the outside world to my senses, but the barrier gained a more solid quality that I could feel from where I stood.

"In the future, when you experiment you should always seal the arena to prevent accidental uninvited guests, and set a timer for reset. You can set it to schedule a reset for up to a day away, though I believe that would be rather excessive." Nefen instructed me.

The stench of decay flooded my nose, I almost gagged. The ground was coated with a slimy goop that squished under my toes. Everything was dead, except whatever we were standing on. It smelled wrong, I wanted to leave. I was very relieved that the death mana was ignoring me for the moment.

When the air mana came to greet me, it brought an even more intense stench with it. The water mana felt slightly corrupted as well, it gave me a somewhat slimy sensation when it touched me.

I sighed, knowing what was coming. I regretted it instantly since the stench of the area filled my mouth, the air was so thick with decay that I could taste it.

I reluctantly dismissed my jewelry. The moment it was gone, death mana came flooding to me. I held still, letting it rush at me, I wanted to know if I could tolerate it with the changes.

When the mana reached me, it tried to sink into my skin immediately, but my mana was already filling every fiber of my being. It clung to me like it was waiting for my mana to falter. I felt my staff shudder at the touch of the death mana. But it seemed that it also had a means of protecting itself now. When I questioned it, I got the feeling of its storage, which was currently full of life energy.

I warned my companion that it may need to empty its storage quickly if the life and death mana touched each other, it could cause a bad reaction. I felt confidence that it would be fine through the link.

I let my livewood companion make its own choice, it probably had a better understanding of the abilities the System gave it than I did.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I suddenly began to feel a tingling pain invade the outer layer of my skin. I saw that the death mana hadn't been idle in its attempt to get at me. My pure mana was beginning to become corrupted, turning to death mana from the outside influence. As I breathed it was beginning to get into my lungs as well.

I watched my fur start to grow brittle, and shed away in clumps. I was going to become infected with death mana the hard way if I didn't activate my core.

I informed Nefen of what was happening, he just nodded, and said that it was the biggest danger in death mana zones. People who managed to get trapped in them would slowly die, and join the ranks of the undead. He said that it actually seemed to be getting at me faster than usual.

I shuddered, I could tell why, pure mana was inherently corruptible with Concepts, that was where all the elemental mana came from. Usually the corruption happened slowly enough that I'd lose the mana to the environment before it converted. Death mana seemed to be very fast at spreading its concepts. I suppose that was how a whole zone of death mana existed in the first place. I thought that surrounding life mana was likely the only thing that would keep such a thing from spreading.

I thought about what was going on, and considered the idea that it would be good to see what would happen to me if I reached 50% saturation without activating my core. But just thinking about it caused my heart rate to spike, which caused pure mana to flood me, and push the death mana out.

Everywhere the death mana had been, hurt like it had been burned. I supposed that I wasn't going to get that test.

I took a deep breath of the stinking air, and switched my core.

The mana from the death core began to seep into me from the inside out. It felt like I was dying, I probably was. I had to remind myself that my class was designed to do this. There was plenty of death mana around to eat and refill my core, so I didn't worry about wasting it when I squeezed the mana out to speed the conversion process.

I was surprised that I stayed standing as the change happened. I swayed a little, and every muscle in my body went limp. But the death mana itself kept me standing.

My eyes, which I had closed during the change, snapped open. I wasn't experiencing the peace of death like I had before, this was different. I wanted to move, I still felt at peace, but I now had a goal running through my very being. I needed to share my peace.

My eyes weren't working very well, my vision was filled with dark squiggles and dots. My eyes did still function though. I could see Nefen standing before me, hale and healthy.

He looked troubled, horrified for some reason.

I went to ask him what was wrong, but all that came out was a gurgling growl. I was dimly aware of something dripping from my mouth. My lips wouldn't close, they were too shriveled. My face was stuck in a perpetual snarl. I could see through the mana again, my mana sense instinctively switched on to make up for my lack of keen senses.

I found Nefen disturbing, I couldn't detect him like I felt like I should. I could see him, but to a large part of my being, it was like he didn't exist. My mana sense registered him as a void in space, he should be glowing with all the wards he had on.

"Can you still understand me?" I heard the man-void say.

I nodded, my movements were jerky, my neck was too stiff to move well. It was also more like I was manipulating a puppet with death mana, than moving my body.

I tried to say yes, but it just came out as a hissing spit, sending some fluid flying at the man shaped entity.

As it landed on his shield, I saw the greenish yellow fluid cling to the magic shield. I knew on some level that it was disgusting, but the mana told me that it was a good thing, to try and bring the barrier between me and the creature in front of me down.

My mana saturation must have hit a tipping point by then, because I didn't recognize the man in front of me anymore. I didn't even see a man, I saw something wrong. I couldn't quite tell what was behind the shield, but I knew it couldn't be allowed to continue as it was.

I began growling, it was a horrible deep wet snarl. More fluid dripped from my mouth. Since I was moving air in and out to snarl, I caught a whiff of the fragrance of my environment. It smelled lovely to me, almost floral. But then everything in this place smelled pleasant.

Except for one scent, the void creature smelled rancid. He was an affront to this beautiful place. I had to fix it, give it to the mana. My growling grew more intense.

"Angel, control yourself, the mana does not have to rule you completely."

My mind flickered briefly, then sputtered out. I launched myself at the affront to all things good, rebounding off his shield.

My staff joined the attack as well. I saw it in all its death elemental glory. Its wood had turned gnarled, its thorns were larger than they had ever been before, but they were crooked and jagged. I had expected it to turn dry and dead, but it still looked like living wood. It was covered in a pale yellow viscous fluid that flew from it as it swung fruitlessly at the resisting creature, splattering over parts of the disgusting being's shield.

"Get ahold of yourself, you can do it."

My mind flickered again, I paused briefly recognizing Nefen, but it didn't last. Trying to retain full consciousness was like trying to fight the flow of a river.

I began to release the mana in my core into the area around me. My core didn't have much, so I had to consume the mana around me several times before my aura was fully engaged. I don't have words to describe the way it tasted, it was succulent, it was almost euphoric, consuming the death mana in this state.

The death aura's effect was much like joining the web of life. But there was one huge difference. I was in total control of the things I was linked with. It was no undead horde but I could move the dead things in the area in impossible ways. I caused a nearby tree to grab at the little void creature. It's bare branches and trunk bent like rubber to move for me.

The creature did something to blast it to tiny bits.

"Angel, you can be in control of your actions. You need to accept the different perspective on the world. Advice from past Wild Mages says that you can assert your sense of self above the mana, but you have to make yourself accept its Concepts. You can put limits on them, shift their aims to suit you better, but you cannot deny them."

Deep inside my subconscious, where my true self had been forced. I did hear him, when he spoke, the System allowed me a new surge of information, adding to what he had said. I knew that the mana was in full control purely because of the fact that I feared it. I wanted nothing to do with it, that fact got in the way of us working together. Because I rejected it, it rejected me, and it was stronger than me, so it pushed my mind down.

If I wanted to even be able to have so much as a subtle influence on my actions with my death core active, I would have to stop rejecting it. But I struggled to accept the idea of death, it was the entire reason I grabbed the chance to take this contract so easily.

On the surface I was exploring my connection to the carpet of fungus and bacteria that we were standing on. It mimicked life, but all of it was so infused with death mana that it was technically undead. I could control it, so I forced it to gather, sending it at the horrible creature. It didn't move particularly quickly, but it still moved faster than a man walked.

Nefen set it on fire.

I backed away from the flames. I knew fire could damage my body to the point of becoming non-functional if I allowed myself to burn. It would definitely take a lot of flame before that happened, but it was best to avoid it.

"Angel, remember this state is not permanent, you are not accepting death. You are accepting death attuned mana, there is a huge difference."

Nefen dismissed the flames once the fungal mass was mostly turned to ash. I felt my body moving to attack him again without my input. My conscious mind was thoroughly under the mana's control. My true self was aware of what was happening, but unable to do more than shout from the background. I turned my mind to what the mage guild leader had said.

It was the right thing for him to say, I wondered for a moment if he could read my mind.

Either way, I could accept the idea of death, as long as I kept in mind that it wasn't permanent, that was even easy enough to fathom. I'd already died for real once and it didn't quite take. I could even look at it as a temporary reprieve from the cares of the world.

There was another glaring problem, the whole condition was disgusting. I had problems accepting that shriveled mass of decay as my body, the stenches around me smelling like beautiful fragrances was also causing some dissonance.

My eyes must have flickered a little bit, I think my disgust must have been evident. He said the perfect thing again, it was uncanny.

"Remember who you are. You are Angel, Mana Beast, Bestial Mana Shifter. The form you are in is a suit you wear to protect yourself from your environment. This form here is no different than looking like a demihuman among humans. Your body is your tool for interacting with the world, you can use an ugly tool, can't you?"

That helped, it resonated with the instincts I had been unknowingly fighting. But true acceptance wasn't instant, it was a process, I inched closer every time Nefen spoke.

We were like that for hours. My mana-addled conscious mind was learning to wield its death aura as a corruptive force, pressing it against Nefen's shielding.

I was also able to explore how my body was both weaker, and stronger than normal. I broke my hand punching his shield, but it caused no pain, and didn't impact the use of my limbs one bit.

He remained calm and talked to me all about how death mana was a perfectly fine, and useful element in the world when it didn't exist in excess. How it was used in normal magic for both a weapon of war, and to numb pain, both physical and emotional. He talked about many things, he even gave me a lecture on the basics of Concepts. I had questions, but no way to ask them.

He had to recast his shield a few times.

Eventually my true self was able to reconcile itself with the mana's influence. It took a change in perspective, it certainly wasn't instant, but gradually I reached the point where I was in control of myself. I was able to recognize Nefen as a person, and a friendly presence again. I still felt the desire to spread the influence of my form. But I knew it was wrong, I would save the spreading for enemies. My staff, taking its cues as always from its link with my mind, calmly floated behind me. It slowly dripped the substance that coated it.

I gurgled some attempts at words at Nefen. I had somehow forgotten how bad this form was at speech, it was worse than my Mana Beast form.

That thought gave me an idea. I tried the Spirit Beast's communication method. I sent feelings of peace, and the idea that I accepted him.

He smiled wide, he had obviously noticed my ceasing my attack, but the message made things clear. I was in control of myself, finally.

"Great, that's great Angel, I was just about to call it done for the day anyway. It is about time for dinner. Now for the real test, can you shift back, or do we have to reset the arena?" Nefen raised a bushy eyebrow at me.

I was feeling very peaceful, I had accepted this form, thankfully a big part of my acceptance was a lack of permanence. I shifted back without issue.

The moment I shifted back, I was inundated with the stench of the area. Whatever it was I had been drooling all over myself didn't disappear, and it was rancid. It was also sinking into my skin, I felt nauseous. I didn't just gag, I lost the contents of my stomach.

"Ah yes, that's probably poisonous to the living, I was afraid of that. You may wish to shift to something other than flesh from death next time. I doubt life would be a good choice right now. I believe that's enough of a learning experience for now. We should leave once I say, 'reset arena'."

Resetting

We got out of there with no hesitation. I wanted a long hot shower, even if the arena removed all the things I had been oozing over myself. I felt unclean. My mind felt raw, if the mental gymnastics I just went through was required for control, I had no doubt about how Wild Mages went insane. The only reason I was able to do it at all was because I was able to mentally put my death mana form in a box. I didn't view it as connected to my normal body at all.

I still held a rather extreme dislike for the mana type, but I had gained the ability to repress that in my own mind. I had a feeling I knew why Nefen had walked me through death mana first. The concepts associated with fire seemed like they would be downright easy to find a way to come to terms with by comparison.