Torill took a moment to sort through the memories I shared with her, she grimaced before speaking up.

"Well, that explains a lot. It's obviously some sort of necromancer, that's not a class the System ever gives out randomly. I wonder what they are playing at. Obviously nothing good if they are off in the deep mountains playing with monsters. We'll have to tell Samuel, hopefully he'll be able to call in higher tier reinforcements."

"That was a person? I thought it was some sort of intelligent monster." The voice in my head had felt so tainted by death mana.

"Well, yeah, if it's intelligent, then it's a person. You'd think you of all people would understand that one."

I ducked my head. "Yeah I guess you have a point. But they definitely sounded like they were lost to the mana."

"Oh, I don't doubt that. Necromancer is a one of the classes the System can shift you to when you are on the verge of being completely lost to death mana. It gives them a chance of recovering their senses. The System locks them in whatever zone they were corrupted in. From what I gather their class pushes them to bring the undead in the area under their control. I think the class is meant to help contain the threat larger death zones carry, but people don't deal well with being stuck in those places all alone. They often have to be put down."

"That sounds pretty tragic." I couldn't imagine what it would be like being stuck in a place like that. And to have your class push you to surround yourself with undead things? They might just have the worst class I had heard of so far.

"It is tragic, but apparently it's better than the alternative." Torill looked off into space like she was listening to something.

"Apparently, before the System, that type of corruption would produce something called a lich. Which was an incredibly hard to kill, intelligent undead creature driven to use death mana to grow the mana zone they were reborn in. They excelled at creating and controlling lesser undead. The necromancer class is the System's way of limiting them, and keeping the mana inside them from causing them to transform."

My eyes widened. I knew liches from stories, I was pretty glad I wouldn't have to worry about one of those.

"That said, we should probably leave the area. I have a feeling they will probably try to find you again. I'm guessing they are keeping their distance because that spirit beast was here. But you still stink of death mana according to the spirit I have watching you."

That was strange, considering my life core was still active. But inspecting myself showed that the cores that had been invaded by the death mana were still tainted. Noticing it made me feel disgusted, and queasy.

The mana running through my mind hadn't seemed aware of them until I touched them with my mind. As soon as it was aware, I was slammed with the intense desire to cleanse myself of the taint. I followed the mana's impulses, pushing it at my earth core, hoping that it would burn away the filth.

A wave of rejection pulsed through me aimed directly at the core. With a pop it disappeared from my senses. The loss hit me like a truck, I regained enough control of myself to switch away from my life core.

I was trying to figure out what happened to all that mana when I felt the sudden need to empty my stomach. What came up was a perfectly round orb that was roughly the size of a peach, and smelled strongly of death tainted earth mana.

"What just happened? Is that what I think it is?"

"Uh, if you think it's my earth core, then yeah. I didn't know I could do that."

It was a class feature, I knew now that I thought about it. I could make new cores any time I encountered mana of a type that I didn't already have, but there was a maximum amount of mana my body could house. There would come a time when I would have to choose. Now wasn't nearly that time, but my firm rejection had caused the ability to trigger.

The first thing I considered was trying to eat the core to get it back, but it seemed it wouldn't quite be that easy. I would have to learn how making a fresh new core would work, which was a shame since I'd expanded that core a little bit. But it really was only one day of work, and I would be able to experience a part of my class I hadn't before.

That would be worth experience, I wanted experience. I licked my lips.

"Are you going to be okay? What are you going to do with that? Do you have any idea how much that is worth?"

I poked the orb with my paw. I felt absolutely no desire to consume it. It also didn't seem to be leaking anything, unlike the monster cores.

"I'll be fine. I can make a new one, it'll take some effort though. I need to figure out a better way to clean out my other two corrupted cores. I should probably just be able to empty them? I think? But I think I'll need to activate them to do it."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"I think I can get a spirit to help you if you just need to empty the mana from a core, but can we move first? We really don't want to risk that necromancer sending something like the wendigo to check the area."

I shook my head to clear it. "We can move. They aren't really causing much trouble, I think the Concepts inside them are mostly contained. They just don't feel right." It was hard to explain how it felt, they simply no longer matched the mana my body was built from. That mattered. It upset me. But Torill was right, we needed to move.

I shifted to my sky terror form, and noticed the difference immediately. The air mana wasn't begging me to switch my core. The moment it touched me, it fell away. That wasn't good considering how much my form relied on it.

"I don't think I can fly until it's fixed."

"That's okay, I'll carry you. Maybe go smaller though."

I nodded, very glad I had stopped myself from overeating, and shifted again to my squirrel form. I watched Torill lean down to pick up my former earth core, and scampered up her arm. Only when I landed on her shoulder did I realize that she had my pack on her back.

"I had my spirits pick up those death mana crystals for you." She said, seeing where I was looking.

I hadn't even remembered them, but I had killed several hundred of the small bats. I was glad she had thought to bring the bags.

"Thanks." I sent, I didn't get a chance to send more because I had to hold on for dear life as the woman launched herself into the air without warning.

I felt the same kind of strange, barely perceptible Concepts propelling her through the air that I had felt from Samuel when his form changed. They felt like ghosts, which I supposed made sense, since they were obviously spirits, given Torill's class.

The spirits carried us all the way back to the guild. When we landed. Torill smiled slyly at me.

"Tell them what mana cores you are willing to empty, to pay for that trip?"

"How?"

"They can hear what I can right now"

I rechecked the state of my cores. Making sure that it was indeed only air and water that needed to be emptied. For some reason the death mana never found my pure core. It was definitely different from the elemental cores, it was more connected to me than the others. It was my true core, that was why.

When I declared my willingness to donate the mana from those two cores, I felt a sensation similar to an oath. Then I felt something so foreign to me that my brain could barely comprehend its existence, reach into my cores and remove the mana.

I shuddered at the sensation, but it was gone the moment it claimed its price, along with every scrap of mana in the two corrupted cores.

"I hope that worked, because they probably won't take those mana types as payment again for a while."

I breathed in as much mana as I could, and watched as the cores refilled slightly, with thankfully pure air and water mana. I felt a spark starting to form where my earth core used to sit.

"I'm good, but I think, no, I know I'm going to need some undisturbed time soon." I felt how the core wouldn't be created until I chose to create it. But once I did, I would have to be in a safe, quiet place.

Core formation could fail. Probably would fail. The System let me know that it would assist me, but forming a core was difficult. There was a reason that there were thousands of monsters for every spirit beast.

Thankfully, in my case, failure would not mean becoming a monster. A malformed, leaky core would be jettisoned. It would feel bad, and tire me out, but there was no true danger.

Torill walked to my room with me on her shoulder. "It's not too long till breakfast, but I'll watch your door and make sure no one comes to check on you."

She reached for the door handle, and I scampered down her arm to unlock it.

"Thanks!" I sent, as she opened the door for me, and I hopped down. She smiled, and closed the door behind me, wishing me luck.

I headed towards the new, giant door on the side of my room, it opened on its own as I got near. My new bedroom seemed absolutely massive, even after I shifted to my true form. The bed that I had outgrown took up an entire wall, Samuel had obviously done something to increase its size. He had also moved the mirror into the room, and enlarged that as well.

I chuffed to myself when I noticed that. I wasn't so vain that I needed it. I stared at it for a moment anyway, I was extremely disheveled; thankfully, shifting to my small form had left behind most of the dirt and blood I had probably been covered in. There were a few small patches, but nothing too distressing.

I took the time to groom myself, the core formation could wait a little while. It would definitely be distracting if I left my fur like that. Once my reflection showed that I was good and clean, and I'd taken a few turns to make sure everything was right, I hopped onto my bed.

Closing my eyes, I began to follow the System's imprinted instructions. I called the mana to me, eating everything other than the earth mana until my room was filled with the stuff. It took a long time, earth mana moved slowly. The only mana I summoned less of than earth was death, because there was little of that floating around in Brightwood.

Once I had built up a large amount of earth mana, I began to pull it into my body. I had to use a combination of the pull that I used when consuming mana, and my minor mana manipulation to condense it into a ball. Once it started to form, I had to use my will to hold it together. The idea was to cause it to create a barrier around itself that would keep it contained.

Any weakness in my grip, would allow the mana's Concepts loose to flow into my body. I instinctively called on earth's very own Concepts of stability to help build the barrier. The mana barely fought, it was as though it knew it belonged there.

I astonished myself by forming a perfect new core on my first try. When I looked at my new creation, It didn't seem any smaller than the one I had before had been, which was nice.

When I pulled my mind away from my cores, I realized that I was utterly exhausted.

I perked up when I felt the System pinging me. It had been an eventful day, and I had agreed to allow Belua to uncapped my leveling. Surely I would be well rewarded.