When I woke up in the morning, I was instantly assaulted by the sensation of my stomach letting me know in no uncertain terms that the single bowl of soup I had before bed last night had been nowhere near enough for me. I groaned, my stomach growled loud enough that I'm pretty sure the birds near camp went quiet.

Torill giggled from right beside me, and held out a large chunk of jerky for me as I sat up.

I thanked her as I ate it in two bites. I started to put a bit more of a conscious effort into pulling the local mana to myself, it helped a lot more than the jerky. I noticed that, even though we were several miles away from the edge of the stone forest, the mana in the area was already heavily skewed towards earth.

"How close is the nearest town? How likely am I to run into people if I go exploring a little?" I asked, now that I was refreshed and energetic, my instincts were gnawing at the idea of hunting for myself and Torill.

"No one lives within a hundred miles of that thing, the only people who might be in the area would be adventurers, and they don't come here very often."

"Good, I'm going to get us something fresh for breakfast. I shouldn't be long." I wondered exactly how far I'd run while I was under the effects of Torill's spell. More than one hundred miles, that much was obvious.

After crawling out of the tent, I didn't run off to explore right away. I took a few moments to appreciate the feeling of happiness that radiated from my instincts. No matter what my contract said, my new self was meant to be out in nature, far away from people.

I was also meant to hunt for my food, the urge to run off into the woods and start sniffing out breakfast was strong, but I held myself back. I had a faster way to find prey.

I channeled life mana, focused on locating anything of interest living in the area. The interactions of predator and prey was a natural part of the circle of life, so an Aspect that matched my desires was easily managed.

I shifted to my sky terror form, and launched into the air, headed straight for my meal. I flew over the forest and swooped down upon my unsuspecting prey. I shifted again just before I landed on the back of the enormous stag in my true form. I was very careful to omit my venom glands on both shifts. I would be sharing the meat with Torill, the last thing I wanted was to ruin it for her.

The animal was probably close to making a transition to either spirit beast or monster, I could feel the earth mana in its body, and it was big enough to not immediately collapse under the weight of my form. A crushing bite to the back of its neck still did it in.

Dragging my meal back to camp was the hardest part of the hunt.

"Holy shit, Angel. Where'd you find that thing?" Was my greeting.

I trotted over to her with my tail held high, and leaned down to gently nose her towards breakfast. Trying to communicate with words didn't seem natural, so I just didn't.

She looked at the carcass, laying on its side, it was taller than she was. "We probably should take this a bit away from our tent before we get started hun."

I flicked my tail, grabbed the deer by its leg, and looked at her, asking with my eyes for her to lead me wherever she wanted it.

She led the way into the woods, a bit away from where she'd set up. While she walked she gave me a very necessary reminder with a simple question. "Why are you radiating life mana right now?"

I switched away from my life core, the deer felt a little heavier, and harder to drag, but otherwise I barely felt a change.

"Life mana feels so natural, I forgot I was channeling it." I said, feeling a little embarrassed.

"I can see that, nature mana comes from life mana after all."

I cocked my head to the side.

"Books on higher tier mana are next on the list. We'll get to them when we get back. Knowing about tier two mana is going to be very important soon, but I'm pretty sure Nefen wanted you to understand the most basic expressions of mana first." She said as she quickly and efficiently cleaned my kill, making some of the meat disappear into her storage as she carved it up.

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I was practically drooling as I watched. I wasn't terribly surprised that my instincts were happy to allow her to take as much as she wanted. She was so very precious to them, I'd almost say that her wellbeing came before my own as far as they were concerned.

She looked up from her work, and saw me with my gaze fixed on the food in front of me, sitting perfectly still.

"Okay, I'm headed back to camp to cook some of this for myself, you go ahead and have this. I know you want to, I'm not going to judge you. Come back when you're done."

The sweet angel of a woman didn't have to tell me twice, I tore into the deer like the starving animal I was. She left me to it.

The haze of hunger overtook my mind, and I barely remember the time between when I stared, and when I found myself licking a rock on the forest floor for the last scraps of blood. I had an uncomfortable moment where I contemplated exactly how dangerous hungry had the potential to be, and how much I hated it. I didn't feel satisfied, I still felt a phantom ache of hunger in my belly, even as I felt the pressure of how full it was.

I took the time to clean my fur as well as I could before trotting back to camp. I smelled the remnants of Torill's breakfast, and the unmistakable aroma of Catnip tea faintly present.

I had to remind myself that though I would probably have to nap and digest my large meal before I did anything else, I was here to hunt in a very dangerous place, and I really shouldn't ask Torill if she had any tea for me.

I still couldn't help but sniff Torill, she'd obviously stored her cup, and the pot she'd made the tea in.

She laughed and pushed my head away. "Ugh! Your breath smells right now hun. My spirit can show you to the river, go clean off."

I lowered my head, but laughed internally. I should have known my breath wouldn't be minty fresh after what I just ate. "No need to lead me, I know where the river is."

I did too, I could already hear the thing, though it wasn't terribly loud. I could smell the faintly fishy aroma coming from it as well. I trotted off to go jump in the river, it had been a while since I'd taken a swim. I wasn't sure how my body would float anymore, with the density that had been granted from my milestones.

Not that it mattered, if I got in trouble, I'd just channel water. I couldn't drown while I channeled water, I knew that now. If my lungs filled with water, and I tried to breathe air, it would be uncomfortable. That was all. I remembered my fear, what felt like ages ago, when Samuel dragged me out of the pool while I was meditating. It had been entirely misplaced. The only reason I felt like I was dying was because I was so frightened.

If I was being honest, given what I'd found out about my species, I wasn't sure I ever really needed to breathe. I was made of magic and Concepts, I was no longer sure how many biological rules applied to me. I had so many questions, and no great way to get answers.

I asked Belua as I walked, but I got a vague feeling of uncertainty in return. I hadn't really expected her to know. I tried asking Hash, the fragment was either in that mode that passed for sleep, or didn't feel like answering me. I was betting on the second.

The river took some time to get to, it was massive, and deep. I jumped in.

My feet sunk into the mud, I had to trudge some distance into the water before it threatened to cover my head. At no point did I start to float. I sank like a rock, I could manage to stay on the surface for short periods if I pumped my legs like crazy.

I drank plenty of water, and held my mouth open in the current in an attempt to improve my breath, I think it helped. What did not help, though, was anything else.

When I walked out of the river, my legs were coated in mud, I chuffed, remembering having been in a similar situation before. In this case I just channeled water mana long enough to summon water from nothing and rinse myself off. I could have just chosen an Aspect that turned my body to water, but I wasn't sure if my breakfast was considered part of me by the System yet. For some reason that seemed to take time with large meals.

I also managed to force myself to usher the water away from myself to join the flow of the river. I barely stopped channeling the element in time to stop myself from following it.

When I made it back to camp, I wordlessly laid down in the sun for an hour. Torill didn't question me, she silently laid with me. We had a week to accomplish something that sounded vaguely impossible. I prayed to Belua to ask if we were right about our target, and was told that it was too dangerous to live. She also said that the limited foresight she had told her I could do it, but figuring out how was up to me.

When I grumbled about it to Torill, She said it would be amazing for my contract if we could bring back proof of me killing the thing. She said she could get Janus and Martin to help spread the word. The way they loved telling stories, I didn't doubt it.

Once I'd digested enough of my breakfast to shift, I told Torill that I was going to fly off and have a look at the actual stone forest.

"I should make that protection contract for you before you go. The aura is dangerous, if you touch it by accident…"

I shook my head. "I want to test something first, I have a feeling that if I'm already stone, I won't have to worry about the aura. I don't want you to have to give something up if you don't absolutely need to."

I shifted and launched myself off the ground before she could argue. I'd already seen the tree during my earlier flight. I'd been distracted by my hunt, but not completely oblivious. The huge section of forest that was composed entirely of stone with one tree towering above the rest was pretty hard to miss.

I landed when I felt the aura touch the edges of my senses. The air was thick with crystalline earth mana, it didn't usually float, but it seemed that the rules were different when there was so much of it. I took a gamble, and switched to my squirrel form. Channeling earth mana, I envisioned my squirrelly body turned entirely to living stone, but otherwise the same as it had been when I experimented with the elemental squirrel forms. I felt the urge to dig and tunnel, but I felt a greater urge to explore the area that felt so welcoming to my senses.

When I walked past the edge of the aura, it sank into me, it almost felt like it was greeting me as a friend. That thought made sense when I realized that to my shock, I sensed a mind attached to the aura.