Chapter 40

Experimenting With My Staff

When I arrived at the arena I spent some time looking through the huge variety of pre-made setups. The one I selected was divided into eight distinct sections, each one mimicking an environment where an element would be dominant. There would be bleed-over from the neighboring sectors, it seemed like it was going to be larger than should fit in the arena area, but at this point I'd gotten used to the idea that spatial magic seemed pretty common around the guild.

It seemed like a good place to test what I wanted, so I selected it and walked inside. The entrance looked like it was set between life and light dominated areas. To my left was foliage so dense I would have a hard time moving through it, to my right, a sunny meadow with a few lone trees dotting it.

When I looked ahead I could see what looked like the corner of an active volcano coming out of the side of the arena. A trickle of lava flowed from the point where the arena wall met the sloped stone, the light trickle of molten stone formed a small pool at the foot of the incline. Thankfully the pool didn't seem to be growing, and I couldn't smell sulfur, or feel the heat from where I was standing. I assumed that meant that something in the arena settings kept the biomes from overly affecting each other. I couldn't make out any of the other sections from my position.

I set the arena to private, and set a timer for one hour. I told it to inform me if there were any entrance requests.

I looked at my staff, it seemed to actually be feeling pretty eager. "You first buddy, you can use whatever you need to test on me."

I could feel its hesitancy, it knew I thought testing was important though. It sent me the feelings I associated with life mana, and poked me a few times.

"Hmm, okay, I can switch to my life core if you want, should I aim for a specific Concept?" I asked.

It seemed to be able to send Concepts really well, as it sent Survive, Adapt, and Regenerative.

I knew I didn't need the mana's help to be imbued with the Concept of the Survivor. After Belua pointed it out I could sense it in myself, the Concept was an always active part of my very soul.

When I switched my core I decided to experiment a little. I focused on the healing of regenerative, and the ability to change to be comfortable in new situations from Adapt. I didn't focus on those exact Concepts, just their inherent ideas, I was hoping to find new ones. I also focused on an ability to work with others. For now it was just my staff and I, but eventually I needed to be able to function with Ivo and Pierce.

I definitely managed to find new Concepts. The first thing I noticed was that my link with my companion had grown stronger. I could feel how it was delighted by both the strengthening of the bond and its ability to change its form rather dramatically.

I could feel how it had way more of an insight into how it could use the Aspect I was channeling than I did. It rooted itself, feedback from our bond told me that the changes it had planned would take a lot of mana, but it could save a great deal by drawing... something from the soil.

I could feel it guiding its own changes, since being a stick wasn't well adapted to much of anything, it had a lot of changes open to it.

I inspected the Concepts I had ended up with, I felt very comfortable where I was, so I wasn't worried about whatever this was causing my form to change right away.

Bonding, Evolving, Regenerating, Growing, Protecting.

I was starting to feel hungry as the mana moved through me. Growing seemed to be at fault for the extra need. Evolving and Regenerating wouldn't require funding until they needed to act.

I almost cut off the core there, Growing seemed like a bad choice, it meant I constantly needed to be fed. Whether with mana or more physical varieties of food. But growing didn't just refer to size, it would make me stronger the longer I channeled it.

I had been looking for a fighting form of life, thinking about it more, this seemed to be a good one. Evolving stood a good chance of giving my Assume form some new things to work with too. Since I saw that it actually would work by adding features that the life mana already knew to me to help me along.

I sniffed the air, my instincts were frustrated that there was nothing to hunt. I knew that already, I knew the arena didn't have any animals, but I checked anyway. There was an easy solution though, I had three forms I never used that could eat what was around me.

The oak, I discarded without thought, trees were badly adapted to the active life I wanted.

The squirrel I discarded because I wanted to grow, and it was the opposite of that.

I changed into my ram form, with a minimum of alterations. For some reason I felt compelled to keep my white fur color and stripes. My ears were larger, and my tail longer, my brain was bigger. But otherwise I was a Spirit Beast Stormhorn Ram. I was a whole lot larger in this form than the wild ones I had seen, I felt it consume a lot of mana from my pure core to make the shift.

I tore the leaves from a nearby tree off, they tasted lovely. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt a hand touch my side, it was my companion, no longer a staff. It looked like me in demihuman form, but with green fur, and darker green stripes.

I nosed it, was it appropriate to call it that anymore? Had it ever been? It had become more of a person than a thing in my mind, seeing it in that shape only solidified the concept. When I questioned them, my companion wasn't sure, they didn't have any preference, and were a little confused why it mattered. They did seem appreciative of being thought of as a person though.

I snorted at them, their fur smelled like food.

I watched them try to speak, they knew how from watching me. But it seemed like they were solid wood on the inside, it's hard to talk when it only looks like you have a mouth.

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I felt them tug at something I hadn't noticed. My clothing had changed with me, in this case it seemed to have become a saddle and harness. It was supposed to change to be appropriate for my form, now that I thought about it. I came to the conclusion that in a world like this one it wouldn't be odd to have some places where they tamed stormhorn sheep and rode them. The wild ones I saw certainly were large enough.

I felt a request that amused me, they were a little annoyed by the form they had taken. It was too big for them to fly with easily, so they wanted to get on my conveniently saddled back.

I snorted again, and lowered myself to the ground to allow them to climb on. They did, and I stood up, the saddle seemed to be the kind that had an extremely high back and front piece to hold the rider in place.

I felt my companion alter their form slightly to be better for riding. I began to graze again, the hunger from growing was not terrible, I wouldn't starve if I didn't eat constantly. But it would simply slowly become more uncomfortable for me if I ignored it. I was already supplementing it by eating any mana that got close.

I felt my companion cast a spell. My body felt warm, I felt it settle into my muscles, and further fuel my growth. Then they kicked my sides, something they knew how to do from the idea of horseback riding that had flitted through my mind when I thought of people riding sheep.

I started moving forward like they wanted, still amused by having a rider. They seemed to be having fun on my back. They indicated that I should try using my horns on a tree that was standing by itself in the meadow. I trotted a little closer to the target, and tried to trigger the energy buildup I'd only ever used accidentally before. It took a minute to find the right mental twist, but eventually I felt it happen. Then there was a crackling bang, and a flash of light. The tree practically disintegrated, what was left was a smoldering ruin.

I walked up to it, and felt compelled to eat the charred remains. I avoided the bits that were directly on fire, but the heat didn't bother me much. The burnt wood and ash didn't taste like much, but for some reason I couldn't get enough of it. I would have wondered about it, but I could feel my horns growing heavier on my head as I ate. It seemed like a really strange adaptation.

I felt my companion's desire to move on and test something, I raised my head. They wanted to cast a spell on me, and have me use the ability again on a different, much larger tree.

They indicated that I should probably stand further back from this one. My partner requested mana from me, to fill their storage. I had to step up my consumption to refill the large portion that flowed out of my core to the storage through our link.

My companion cast a spell on me after warning me to be ready, I felt it take hold, everything about my form became supercharged. I didn't hesitate to test the lightning against the tree, I could feel the difference in the charge that built up. The tree didn't disintegrate, it exploded.

Whatever my wooden buddy cast on me caused a huge spike in adrenaline, and aggression. I felt my form changing, the alterations were completely out of my control.

My herbivorous teeth grew sharper, I grew a new set of large fangs that I could feel extending beyond my lips. My mouth changed to allow itself to be opened wider, my hooves grew sharp, and then morphed into claws at the end of my mana beast form's paws. My horns grew sharp spikes along them, my spine became longer, and more flexible, my tail grew to its normal length for my mana beast form.

I seemed to have melded the two forms together, as I was definitely not either one, I was closer to the catlike mana beast form after the alterations though. I looked around for something to destroy, I had so much aggression, and nowhere to point it.

I clawed at the ground in frustration.

My companion hopped off my back, I felt it cast another spell.

Vines blasted from the ground, they were like the ones I created with my aura, only made entirely of magic. They tried to hold me, I bit and tore at them, ripping them apart easily.

My friend cast another spell while I was distracted, this one aimed at me. I could feel how it bypassed my defenses completely because of our bond. We both realized that wasn't a good test, as I died from an extremely nasty spell meant to cause short lasting magical tumors that usually only appeared externally and acted to slow a target.

The arena reset, and so did our forms.

I really did not want to test that buff again outside of combat, I cringed at the thought of having that spell cast on me in a fire form.

My companion was able to let me know that they couldn't really do that, it was a life spell, if we were anything other than pure mana, or life, the spell simply wouldn't work. The staff couldn't access mana of any type but their current element when I was channeling a core. But their current element became much more powerful than it would be if it cast a spell while I was using my pure core.

"Hey, empty your storage, let's see what happens if we fill you up with pure mana." I said out loud.

It did so, the storage took my pure mana just fine.

After taking a long while to restore my badly drained core, I began to walk through the mini-biomes. I wanted one that would be interesting to test. Not fire or air, which seemed to be right next to each other. Air howled through a ravine below me, it was an impressive looking feature. I continued walking despite the air mana's call to join it.

I came to the other side of the piece of volcano that was stuck to the wall. The area was heavy with earth elemental mana. It didn't really matter to my cores if I was in the right place for them, but it seemed better to me somehow.

I wanted an earth form that could move, and fight beside others, I had the mentally pictured a war golem from fantasy.

I hit the nail on the head a little too much.

Before I realized what I had channeled, my staff turned to stone and landed on the ground with a thud, too heavy to fly. I felt their desire for a wielder, and immediately started moving my quickly hardening body to comply. By the time I had picked them up, my transition was complete.

I was able to move and act, but I had very little will to do so without reason. I was Subservient, Protective, Heavy, Strong, and Durable.

My staff was the same.

I remembered my plan though, I had wanted to test the form, and have my staff test if their storage would work for earth magic when filled with pure mana. I would follow my own directives.

I lifted the heavy staff. My companion cast a spell, a spike of stone shot out of the air in front of me, and flew into the distance. I nodded at them, pleased that it had worked.

I received and followed my staff's command to touch their end to the ground. Slamming them there with enough force to cause the stone below us to crack by accident. Another spell was cast, the earth shook under our feet, the crack expanded.

I stomped a foot, sending out an aura of stability, since it would serve nothing to break the ground so much.

I forced the ground back together with a twist of my aura.

I looked around for a place to test my form, I could see the air ravine, useless. A small lake, I supposed I could test how this form dealt with water resistance, I already knew I didn't need air, I wasn't breathing.

I saw a hill with a rather large hole in the side near the far wall, perhaps that led to darkness. It would be good to test my senses, I wasn't seeing normally, I obviously didn't have fleshy eyes. I had to wonder if darkness would affect me.

The last place was a dark forest composed of dead trees, with a large tree near the wall that had been broken in half.

I walked towards the water, as it was the nearest. My feet thudded as I walked. I was faster than a being made of stone should be, but still nowhere near as agile as usual. I had just started sinking into the mud on the lake shore when I got a message.

Guild Member Ivo requests entry

Speak confirm / deny (name)

Guild Member Pierce requests entry

Speak confirm / deny (name)

When I spoke it sounded like stones grinding together, there was no emotion in my voice, though I did still feel delighted. They could help me tremendously with my tests. I confirmed them both, and headed towards the entrance at a respectable rumbling pace. I didn't think to change back of course.

When I saw them, I came to an abrupt stop. They stared at my stoney form.

"We require testing." I said simply.