When we entered the guildhall I felt my spirits instantly lift. A wave of happiness inundated my mind. I could feel it emanating from Ivo, as the man, and everyone else there stood to greet me with a cheer.

I grinned, unable to fight the joy running through me even if I wanted to. It felt every bit as intense as when I channeled air mana. I would have probably just stood in the doorway grinning like a fool, if Torill hadn't ushered me forwards.

Pierce ran up to me, and pressed a drink into my hand, he was smiling so wide I thought his normally stony face was going to crack wide open. "Angel! Here! Have a drink! Thank you, I owe you. Let's feast!"

I looked down at what he had given me, I could smell the strong alcohol inside. I thought about setting it aside, but it seemed wrong, this was obviously how adventurers celebrated.

I took a drink, it burned on the way down, but I didn't hate the sensation. I was surprised to find that it tasted sweet under the alcohol. I could feel this was no normal beverage, there was magic involved, I could sense active Concepts in it.

"S'good, right! We broke open the celebration brandy!" Ivo said. I heard Martin and Janus cheer at that statement.

I was glad to see that Martin was in good spirits, the last time I saw him. He seemed to have been hearing something that distressed him from Randy.

I made my way to my seat, taking another swig of the brandy. There was an absolute feast prepared on the table, it seemed to be of a significantly higher quality than what we usually had.

As I looked over the food on offer, I heard Pierce announce loudly. "We hired some chefs to make us food to suit the occasion while you were gone."

"I got Zeke to agree to play for us!" Ivo shouted, the man had clearly already had a cup or two of the celebration brandy.

I looked over at Zeke, who seemed just as affected by Ivo's happy aura as the rest of us. He smiled, and lifted a guitar. "I'll play after we eat."

"Let's eat then!" I heard Janus say loudly.

No one had to tell me twice, I grabbed a plateful.

We ate mostly silently, the food was amazing, everyone simply enjoyed the astonishingly high quality food.

I finished my brandy, and was about to switch to water. I was already feeling it affect me, but Ivo filled my cup before I could state that intention.

Torill, next to me, had barely touched hers. She had a grin on her face though, and laughed at whatever expression I made on the refill. "Drink up, guest of honor!" She took a big swig of her own.

I allowed myself to be convinced, it was a party, and though I'd stayed away from alcohol in my short new life up till then. I felt like it had been Angela's fear that made me abstain, and I suddenly realized just how much I didn't want to be like her.

Alexander headed off to bed just after eating, claiming he was too tired to stay up.

Janus told us all how they'd spent the entire time after Alexander had found out he needed to level practicing in the arena together. Janus said he was excited to hit level 50 as well, apparently when he called out before Torill and I had left, he actually managed to get Randy's attention.

He told us how his own fear of his fire going wild had been holding him back, and Randy had promised him more control if he leveled.

Martin grumbled something about being the only one who wasn't ecstatic about the changes he was getting, but he didn't seem too put off.

As the night went on, the brandy flowed, we all drank and ate merrily.

Zeke eventually pulled out a guitar, and started playing. I was surprised to hear how good of a voice he had, as he started to sing a rather naughty drinking song.

Ivo joined in, his voice was fantastic, despite him being absolutely smashed by the time the song started.

Eventually everyone was singing along, even me once I learned the lines. We had a fantastic night.

When it came time to head to our rooms, Torill came with me. We had to lean on each other to stay steady.

I won't go into any details on what happened once we got inside my room. Beyond the fact that even as drunk as I was, I did remember to ask Torill about protection. She said she'd take care of it, and I didn't question her further.

Much later, I had shifted to my mana beast form, Torill was cuddled against me, and we were both ready to sleep.

The System didn't seem to care that I was still pretty intoxicated, it started pinging me right as we settled down.

She seemed to get the same thing, because she and I groaned at the same time.

"Well, I obviously trust you. You got it too didn't you? Let's level together then." She cuddled closer to me before I felt the System mana engulf her and every muscle in her body went slack.

I laid my head down, and answered the System as well, I knew there wasn't much choice.

Congratulations

For taking novel actions in accordance with your class, you have been rewarded by:

Level up × 10

Strength + 40

Constitution + 50

Agility + 40

Dexterity + 30

Intelligence + 20

Wisdom + 10

Perception + 10

Free stats + 50

I let out a groan as my strength hit a new milestone in addition to all the other changes I normally felt on my level up. Every muscle in my body was torn apart and remade, they didn't seem to shrink like the last milestone, but they became even more dense. I swore I could hear the bed creak slightly under me, I had obviously gained quite a bit of weight.

When the System asked me what I wanted, I let it choose, I was too drunk to remember that I had a couple of possible milestones available.

My mind turned to mush. I wasn't fully aware of what the System was doing, but when I came to I was sober. I could also feel the mana flowing around me in far more detail. It had always responded to me, but now it seemed to move towards me with every breath I took, even though I wasn't consciously consuming it. Mana had always been attracted to me, it was part of both being a mana beast, and having the boon Mana's Friend. But it had been fairly subtle at any distance before unless I called it on purpose. After the milestone though, the density of mana around me seemed to be increasing by the moment.

I brought up my stats.

Name Angel

Race : Spirit Beast

Level : 90

Class : Adventurer (Bestial Mana Shifter)

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Str 250 Con 300

Agi 220 Dex 161

Int 360 Wis 250

Per 200 Cha 53

The wisdom milestone, when I thought about it, I knew that I had received a perk with the milestone that increased the local mana density. It made me wonder if I got something for my Strength and Constitution milestones, my Intelligence milestone perk told me that my perks from both Strength and Constitution had combined to increase the density of my entire body. As a side effect, I now weighed at least twice what something my size should.

When I moved, the bed under me that had been constructed with a half giant in mind, creaked worryingly.

Torill snuggled into me when I moved, and mumbled "I don't know how what I did today was worth ten levels."

I nuzzled her gently.

"Go to sleep." She grumbled.

Before going to sleep, I crushed an earth crystal, and sent the mana into my bed frame, asking it to make sure it stayed stable. I'd used earth mana that way a couple times before, and I trusted that it would work.

After making sure the bed didn't collapse under us, I laid my head down, and drifted off to sleep.

When I opened my eyes in Belua's realm, I heard someone gasp. I turned to look and saw Torill standing there, looking across the meadow. She was wearing sandalss and a lovely light green dress covered in little white flowers. I had to look up to see that she had a crown of white flowers on her head, since she was still her adult self.

She didn't seem to notice me, as she took a step towards the meadow, seemingly entranced. I knew what that was like, I had felt the call the very first time I entered Belua's realm as well.

I could see Belua in the distance, waiting patiently on her rock, watching Torill and I with a smile.

I followed Torill silently as she began to walk, then jog towards Belua. I got to watch her age regress progressively as she moved. When her shrinking stopped, she appeared to be somewhere around five years old.

She paused, blinked, and looked down at herself, she looked a little confused, then I heard her giggle.

I rubbed against her to greet her. She only jumped a little bit, as her eyes darted to me. I was big for a cub, I thought perhaps I was larger than I usually was during my visits to the goddess' realm, my shoulders came up to her waist.

"Angel? Is that you?" She asked, her youthful voice filled with wonder.

I pushed the top of my head forcefully into her hand. "Yes, it's me, welcome to Belua's realm. She lets me come here every night to play."

She started scratching the top of my head, between the little nubs I had for horns, I hadn't given her much choice.

"This place is wonderful, I assume you can feel the Concepts in the air. It makes me want to run and play." I heard her laugh, and she started to ruffle my fur roughly.

I took that as an invitation, the realm's influence was fully effective on me as always. So I tackled her, causing her to let out a childish shriek.

She began to try to wrestle me off, laughing as she found me immovable, apparently my weight increasing perks were still active. I licked the side of her face, as I stood on top of her, causing her to sputter, but laugh even harder.

After getting my licks in, I toppled off of her, pretending like her pushing arms had suddenly won.

She rolled on top of me, and began to tickle me. I instinctively grabbed for her hands with my mouth, but when I caught them, I licked them. She wiped her hands off on my fur, and went for my throat, I was powerless under her assault. My head lolled back, and I started purring loud enough to wake the dead.

"It's a very good thing those venom glands aren't active until adulthood. I checked, otherwise I'd have had to use some power on you every time you came in here." Belua said, from nearby.

I hadn't even thought about the venom, I'd completely lost myself to the Concepts of the realm the moment Torill had given me the invitation to play.

Then I stiffened as I realized who had spoken. I wanted to be angry with her. I really was angry with her, but in her presence, my anger faded to nothing. Her Concepts at work on me, I'm sure.

Torill immediately removed herself from on top of me, and I watched her curtsy in front of the goddess.

I scrambled to my feet, with a running start, rammed my head into Belua's legs energetically. I'm not sure what possessed me to do that, but it just made the goddess laugh.

She picked me up, I knew then, for a fact that I had grown since the last time she held me. The goddess who could usually cradle me in one arm easily, had to use both to hold me comfortably.

"You have definitely recovered well since the last time I saw you. Randis does good work, I'll give him that. He won't tell me what he did, he said that such things are yours to tell. So, tell me, little one, how is it that you have not only gotten better, but seem to have picked up two new Concepts of your very own?" The way she asked almost made me feel like I was in trouble.

I spilled out the whole story in mind speech, from the attack, and the choice, to when Randy had to share part of himself to stabilize my existence.

Belua looked taken aback, and somewhat guilty as I told her the story.

"I'm so sorry little one, that was all my fault wasn't it? I hope you know I didn't mean to cause you pain." Her eyes grew watery and I felt her comforting Concepts ramp up, I pressed my head into her arm. "But where is your other half then? I haven't sensed anything like that."

"I have her." I heard Randy say, he was suddenly in front of Belua. She jumped a little at his intrusion, I felt her whole body stiffen with fear. When I looked at the System admin, I saw a child version of my other half sleeping soundly in his arms. "She asked to sleep until their ascent, the only way I could assure that was to take her. So I will safeguard her until it is time for her to wake. She may also help me with something in the future, time will tell. We need to talk later about what happened, now that Angel has told you and I won't be violating his trust."

Belua nodded, the fear in her eyes when she looked upon Randy threw me for a moment. I had told her how good he was, but she still seemed to look at him like he was some sort of monster.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to borrow Angel for a few minutes before our conversation. I will be leaving for my own world not long after our talk. I feel perhaps you have things to discuss with the young lady you brought in with him anyway." He spoke gently, and I could see him trying not to make it an order, but Belua immediately set me down.

"Yes sir." She said, her voice was shaking. "Go on little one, I don't imagine he means you harm"

Randy started to walk away, and I followed him. "You're leaving?" I asked him in mind speech.

"Yep, as soon as my work is done with your guildmates. Gods can't stray from their world for long, even with the System supporting my work, the moment I am done, I feel the pull." The god continued to walk until we were some distance from Torill and Belua.

"I wanted to tell you that I was leaving, and let you know that I was taking Angela with me. The distance should not matter, nor should it get in the way of you incarnating in the future. This was the best solution to make sure she won't wake early, and she fully agreed to it. She has ceded all of her decisions on any future contract to you. Giving you what will amount to a double vote once you have more shards to make decisions with." He stopped, and turned around, then crouched down so he was nearly at eye level with me. "I thought you may want to say goodbye."

I walked up, and pushed my forehead against my sleeping other half. Without using mind speech, I wished her a good sleep.

Then I backed up and looked at Randy, searching for what Belau found so frightening. I could barely sense his Concepts, he seemed to be keeping them extremely well contained. I supposed that it must be as he said, most people saw any System Administrator as a threat. I felt sorry for him, since I knew what it had been like to see how wary the people in town had been of me.

"Belua seems scared of you." I said, letting him know I most definitely was not.

"She probably should be, what she did… the System would have warned her that it was a high Conceptual weight." He shook his head. "I'll have to find out what she was thinking, and depending on how she responds I may be able to force her to face some punishment."

"Ahh, should I ask her for some compensation or something?" I was joking, but only a little.

He laughed. "With her Authorities? Are you looking to have healthy children? Maybe you want to be more attractive to the opposite sex? I think you are doing okay there already."

My face grew hot, I hadn't thought about what Belua was known for, and what happened between Torill and I… well I wasn't sure it would have happened without the special brandy. Not that I was complaining, but I wasn't sure I wanted to talk about it.

"Ahh yeah, definitely none of those things, well maybe healthy children if I'm ever ready for that. The System told me core formation was dangerous, and lots of Spirit Beast children become monsters."

"That's only if the child is more than half Spirit Beast. Cores aren't going to form in a hybrid, you won't have to worry about any child you make with a demihuman at all. They are quite literally made for it, most old worlds have very few members of Torill's race remaining, when they have children with their guardian beasts, they end up spawning whole new races. It's what the base race is meant to do, that's why they have an instinctive impulse to submit themselves to Spirit Beast protection in the first place." He chuckled, and maneuvered Angela's sleeping form into one arm, so he could pat me on the back.

"Anyway, I better be going, I'm going to place Angela somewhere safe before I have my talk with Belua. Maybe I'll make sure you get that compensation." He winked at me.

He looked in the direction where I knew Belua to be and seemed to come up with more to say. "Try not to hold onto too much anger at the goddess. It's not that she doesn't deserve it, and it's not that you lack reason to be angry, but holding onto such feelings is like holding poison in your heart. Trust me when I say that what she has done will be made crystal clear to her if she allowed herself to be blind to it as I think she did. Oh! I suppose our talk is through, your lady friend is here!"

Randy gestured, and I looked to see Torill standing some distance away. I saw a large striped cub creeping up behind her. When I looked back to where the god had been, he was gone.

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, I was definitely older and bigger than most of the people here in their child forms. So when dashed with a little more aggression than you usually saw in Belua's realm, passed Torill, and pounced on the cat stalking her, he went tumbling.

He went tearing away from me, as I stood between him and Torill with my tail held high.

"Aww" Torill said, and I felt her jump on my back, wrapping her arms around my neck. "My hero! What would I have done if you didn't defend me from that scary little cub?"

That… definitely sounded like sarcasm.

My tail flopped down, and I let my legs buckle under me. I wasn't about to let anyone know that she was currently far too heavy for my little body to carry, so I made a show of "letting" her win.

We wrestled for a while, but eventually the magic of the place had us finding others to play with. She and I always stayed close to each other though.

We both had plenty of fun, right up till it came time to wake up.