Chapter 6

Mana Debt

"It will be fine, I promise! Goodness I hate to think how you'd have reacted to touching fire mana like that! Now I'm going to change the mana here to just be one type. Air is actually a good start I think. Also, I think this setting wouldn't be good for practice. As amusing as the results might be."

The room disappeared, leaving me momentarily in a blank white space, before I landed on my ass in a large meadow, ringed with a wall of trees. I let out something between a house cat's yowl, and a roar. "Dux! You asshole, you don't disappear a chair out from under someone! Jackass."

I grumbled as I clambered onto my feet. Tail swishing, and ears flat. I took a minute to look around, sniffing the air as a breeze ruffled my fur. I could smell grass, soil, and far off wood scents. But nothing else. The area felt real, but it was wrong, empty, there was nothing living there. I was amazed at my senses, the leaves rustling slightly one hundred feet away were perfectly audible, it was like I could hear each individual leaf. This didn't override the sound of my own breath, or the separate sound of the grass moving in the breeze. My ears moved back and forth like radar dishes, my instincts were on edge because of the lack of life. I couldn't convince them that it was okay. I couldn't shake the notion that something unseen and was lurking, waiting to come after me.

"Dux, uh buddy I'm not really mad, but um, does this place have a, like, ambient nature setting or something?" I couldn't help but feel the fears that the young spirit beast's instincts were pushing at me. Despite myself, my eyes kept scanning, watching for any movement. My nostrils were flared. My tail held stiff. My muscles were tense, my claws were out. Then, suddenly I saw a bird. I heard and smelled some rodents moving in the grass, and a variety of insects buzzed around. I was instantly able to relax. I sighed "Thanks."

"Sorry Angel, you wouldn't believe how complicated the controls on this thing are. Are you ready to begin?"

I accepted his apology, and went through some breathing exercises from my old life to help calm myself, when I said I was ready. He walked me through the process of sensing the mana around me, he taught me how to flick mana sense on and off. Mana sense seemed to be primarily visual, though I caught hints of the mana through my other senses as well. With mana sense on the whole meadow glowed, and I saw streams of yellow light flowing along with the air currents, many of the bright streams spiraled around and me ruffled through my fur, touching me before going back to dance in the distance. It was beautiful, somehow the movement projected a joy at being. Turning mana sense back off felt like a crime.

He instructed me on how to slip a small amount of my personal mana out of my body. I found I could control the mana I had been cycling for a while like a strange new limb. Moving it felt perfectly natural after just moments. It gave me feedback like an ephemeral tongue, I tasted the sweetness of the surrounding mana. I had to touch the loose mana with my personal mana. The goal was to use my personal mana as a proxy for my mind, shielding me from the full effects.

The moment my mana touched it, it was like tasting pure sugar, I felt the same need to move as before. But it was easily discerned as something else's need to move. I still shifted from foot to foot in sympathy. Dux told me to try to get a feel for it. So I mentally listened. It felt like it wanted to play. Like it wanted nothing more than to move and play and touch, it wanted to help everything keep playing with it.

Dux taught me how to communicate with it, sending simple ideas through my mana. I asked it to make the air move faster at a spot in front of me. The mana seemed overjoyed to do just that. A strong gust blew the grass flat. I could feel its joy at playing with someone, and I got an idea. I asked the mana if it could move with me as I ran. Not that I was being affected by its need to move or anything, I really just wanted to try out running. I was a lot more confident with my new body now, and this body was definitely made to move.

So I ran, and the wind flowed along with me. I felt pure joy at the movement, and wanted nothing more than to run faster still. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be able to run. I laughed loudly, the world seemed so much brighter, everything around me took on a beauty. My body was so full of energy, and life I almost wanted to cry with the joy of it.

Connected to me like it was, the air mana responded to my desires and tried to help me move faster. I wasn't ready for the gust to suddenly hit my back and I stumbled. I went tumbling, skidding across the grass, and I landed in a heap. I was unharmed, my clothes had taken a beating and I had grass in my fur, but as I pushed myself to a sitting position I laughed at myself. I had asked the magic for things and it responded so quickly! I wasn't really in control of it, and I got the feeling I never would be. But I called the air to move, and it did. I was so full of joy at the experience, a face full of grass was just part of the fun.

"You let yourself be influenced, disconnect, center yourself and try again."

"Aww Dux, I was just having fun! I'm not letting it influence me, it just made me realize that I haven't had a chance to really move around!" I wanted to frolic in the meadow. I let myself fall back and rolled in the grass like a kitten, rubbing my face on the ground. It felt amazing, this new life was such a gift! I saw a squirrel in the distance and bounded on all fours dashing towards it, wanting to catch it and pet it and bring it into my game. I stopped, and released the mana realizing that I was, in fact, letting myself be influenced by the emotions the mana carried.

It was like abruptly coming down from a high. My ears drooped, and my shoulders slumped. My tail, which had been held high behind me like a flag, fell limp. When I let the mana go, it was like all the joy I was feeling flew out of me. I wanted to reconnect immediately. I definitely didn't want to put a mana barrier between us. My heart cried out, wanting to feel that joy again. I stopped myself with an act of will.

"Dux, is there something else we could do? I don't think trying again would be a good idea for right now." I thought for a moment "why don't you tell me about the world? I've been assuming a swords and sorcery, medieval fantasy world, but no one actually told me. I am pretty sure it would help if I could be clued in about how the human civilization I'm supposed to be joining works."

"I know as much as you do about what is outside. The System only granted me the knowledge of itself, and how to get you started with magic. Only the basics too. You'll have to find out the rest on your own. It makes sense, you're a spirit beast from the wilds. You shouldn't know about human society. You probably already know too much. I'm sorry" a glowing light flew from me without warning. Dux formed out of the light, but larger, roughly the size of a horse."I think I have an idea what you can do but first. I have a System approved shapeshifter trick I'm supposed to teach you."

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I stared at Dux, blinking, knowing what Dux would say about any complaint I had, I stayed silent. Thinking that for something that supposedly wanted me to succeed the System sure wasn't helping me as much as it could have. In fact, a lot of its choices seemed exactly the opposite of what I felt I'd need. I wondered not for the first time, if the System just wanted to watch me struggle. Because once I got out of here, and contacted humans. I was pretty sure I would run into some problems. I flicked my tail frustrated at the nonsense. I chuffed, I didn't believe there was such a thing as knowing too much. Dux really couldn't tell me what he didn't know, so I dropped it.

I did wonder what this shapeshifter trick was, so I asked him what he wanted to teach me. He proceeded to do something that cleaned and repaired my clothing.

The not so little dragon looked at me seriously."Before we get started, I have to make sure, do you like what you are currently wearing? It's kind of important, whatever we do this with will be yours for a very long time. Is there anything else you want?"

I thought about it, what I was wearing was fine, I hadn't really seen anything I liked better in the closet. There were two things though. "How about a belt and some shoes? I don't know how shoes would work with feet like this, but walking around barefoot seems like a bad idea."

"The belt we can do, but shoes are a no, most people with feet like yours wouldn't wear them if you bribed them to. Your instincts would probably go haywire if you tried."

Dux waved a forelimb, and a simple leather belt manifested itself, already around my waist.

I looked down, mildly annoyed that I hadn't gotten to try out my newly enhanced Dexterity, but I didn't complain, and just said "Thanks Dux."

"Okay, let's get started." I felt a flicker of something worrying through the bond, but it was gone so fast I didn't make anything of it.

He began to teach me how to inundate my clothing with mana. It wasn't hard, but it did take a lot of concentration, and I had to stop and refill my core once to finish it.

Once my mana had intruded every fiber, he had me refill my core as full as it would get. Then he had me request a binding from the System. He told me it was an action available to any shapeshifter. It worked for any non-enchanted item that could be considered to be clothing. In essence, they became a part of my form. They could be dismissed, and resummoned at will, and when they were summoned, they would always be in the state they were in when I bound them. They would also be able to slightly adapt to fit my form. Dux said it was because the System determined that shifters who utilized the binding service were much more likely to successfully integrate into existing social groups.

"That seems really convenient." I said thinking how nice it was for the System to offer such a thing. It seemed out of character, but then it did give me Dux, and a safe space to learn. So it obviously had things it was willing to do to help make life easier. Even if it didn't give me all the help I wanted.

Request Acknowledged

Selected Items Accepted

Soul Binding Process Commencing

The clothing evaporated in a puff of mana.

Payment Procedure To Begin In:

3

"Payment? What does it mean by payment?"

2

1

Starting Mana Retrieval

I gasped as I felt my core being forcibly drained. I desperately began consuming the ambient mana, but the energy was draining out faster than I could replace it. It felt terrible, it felt like life was being drained out of me.

When my mana was down to a faint trickle the drain slowed to equal my absorption. I found myself laying on the ground breathing heavily. I was starving, and too weak to move. My heart was racing as my core strained to keep my mana circulating with so little left. I felt like I was dying.

The drain was unrelenting, I lay there, completely incapacitated. My entire body cried out for sustenance, I felt like I was starving. I realized after a short period that I was beginning to look starved as well. My body was burning up my stores in a vain attempt to replenish my mana, but the System process did not stop.

Tears streamed out of my eyes. I started desperately trying to eat the grass by my face, even my instincts, so adamant earlier about wanting meat when I had thought about food earlier, cried out to eat whatever I could get in my mouth. But I couldn't stop gasping for breath long enough, and just coughed it out. It had begun to feel like there wasn't enough air. Then, abruptly, the draining stopped.

Mana Debt Payment Received

Binding Complete

You Are Welcome

"Fuck you." I wheezed, cursing the System between breaths. The drain was gone, but its effects were devastating. My core refilled, but my body was a wreck. I could barely move. I looked at myself, I was skeletal. My fur had thinned falling out in large chunks from the stress. My skin hung loose, I could see every bone in stark detail. My muscles had shrunk, having been cannibalized for energy. I looked like I had been through months or more of starvation, not ten or so minutes of draining. I no longer felt hungry. I felt tired, I felt like I had returned to my previous life, sick, and weak. Tears streamed down the already damp fur on my face. It felt like a nightmare, every lovely advantage of my new body had been ripped away.

Dux came over and started rubbing my back with a large clawed hand, in a way meant to be consoling. It hurt, being touched was immensely painful. He quickly seemed to realize that, and pulled away. "It's okay Angel, this is a known danger faced by Mana Beasts, and it was a lesson you needed to learn in a way you would never forget. Warning you would have lessened the impact. You seem like flesh and blood, but your body is made entirely from mana. If you ever encounter something that drains you, you will be in trouble. Being low on mana in your core will be fine, pushing beyond that is possible, but this is the result. For what it's worth I'm sorry, and the next lesson is how to fix yourself when this happens."

I shakily pushed myself up to a sitting position, my body felt so heavy. I could imagine what sort of entity would put someone through this to teach a lesson. A cold unfeeling machine. Magical Artificial Intelligence indeed. "Fuck you," I repeated, this time aiming the words at Dux instead of the System. I was feeling super eloquent.