‘Mana Manipulation.’

The pain hits, but I was semi-expecting it this time considering how using my first active ability went. My eyes don’t hurt, though, this time it’s something different.

I place a hand on my chest right above my diaphragm, underneath my breasts, where the pain is. I’m not writhing on the ground screaming in agony this time, but it definitely hurts. It’s kind of like the worst heartburn I’ve ever had in my life times ten.

Seconds pass, and my brow begins to sweat. My skin feels hot underneath my palm. I lean over and brace an arm against my knees, because it’s getting kind of hard to breathe. Both my heart and my lungs feel like they are being pressed against with every movement. The heartburn gets worse, like acid hollowing out my insides, but as the heartburn increases my breathing gets easier.

Roughly a minute later, the pain eases and I feel something warm lodged in my chest. I focus on it and it begins spreading throughout my body. I gasp in surprise, like I unknowingly jumped into a hot bath, except I’m not wet and the feeling is on the inside.

I raise one of my hands, and the warmth follows my intentions. I feel like my bones are being warmed from the inside out as a heatwave moves down my arm, but eventually it gathers in my hand.

I stare at my palm closely. I can’t tell that there is anything different from the outside, but within my hand there is a ball of warmth loosely pressing against the barrier of my skin. I focus on thoughts of extrusion, of it leaving my skin and resting in my grasp.

Something green and viscous rises out of my palm. As soon as it leaves my body, my control of it slips. Faint wisps rise off of it and disappear into the air, but I keep going. The warmth… well, at this point, it seems obvious that it is mana. The mana continues gathering in my hand until I’m holding a slightly warping, partially opaque, sphere of green. As I tilt my hand, it jiggles a little, but it doesn’t slide around, still affixed to the center of my palm where I was feeding it. I cut off the connection, and the difference is again immediate. What were once wisps have turned into large currents, sluicing off the ball and fading away. I face the fox’s body and wind my arm back, tossing it with an overhand throw.

The ball of mana sails through the air and lands on the fox… splashing and then dissipating harmlessly into the air.

I frown. I had hoped it would do something, at least, even if I didn’t expect to be shooting magic missiles from my hands. I check my mana.

MP: 39/41

So I have part of it figured out. The thing in my chest is some type of mana core, although I could use activities that needed mana before I gained it so that’s not completely right. Should I be more freaked out about the confirmation that my body is changing as I interact with the System? Maybe, but I’m still more weirded out by something being near my eyes than having something lodged behind my heart. Mana cores are an idea I can get with.

I skim through the description for [Mana Manipulation] again. If this one lets me interact with Time, then maybe I need to use [Eyes of Time] concurrently so I can see what I am doing.

Which circles back to the thing in my eyes. If I run with the idea of body modification, then initial ability activation gives me the part I need to use the active ability.

I deactivated my ability last time when I prodded it. It felt kind of like how doctors get your legs to jerk by tapping your knees with that little hammer. So, a reflexive contraction would imply that [Eyes of Time] gave me a new muscle to play around with.

Grounding the freaky eye thing in basic biology (even if it’s definitely magic-related) makes me feel less icky about it. The question now is, how do you learn how to use a muscle?

I start with all the things I can do normally with my eyes. I blink rapidly a few times, then screw them shut and open them again. I perform exaggerated eye rolls to move them around in their sockets, still nothing.

Hmm. I stare at the tip of my nose I can see in my vision and make myself go cross-eyed. It doesn’t trigger the ability, but it does feel a little different? I repeat the action a few times, but all I succeed in is giving myself a headache.

Hold on a second. Didn’t I have a book when I was little that made you do something weird with your eyes?

-Here, Kira, take this and go play for a little bit, okay, sweetie? Mommy and Daddy are trying to have a talk right now and you need to be quiet.-

Yeah, it was full of those images that had hidden 3D puzzles inside them. There was a trick to seeing them, you had to unfocus your eyes in just the right way…

YES! I raise my arms in victory. When I loosen my vision like that, it also relaxes the muscle holding the gray filter back. Now that I know what to pay attention to, I can feel a slight twitch underneath my eye when it moves. I tense that area, trying to catch the muscle- and the gray filter recedes. I repeat the process a few times, feeling it sliding back and forth across my eyes triumphantly and grinning widely as sand appears and disappears in my vision.

Now to combine them. So, [Eyes of Time] on. The world turns gray around me. I didn’t notice this when I was spamming the ability, but my eyes feel faintly warmer now too. Is that my mana being used? Also, the world isn’t a flat gray like it was back in the cube. In the cube, I was the only thing there and I could only see sand getting kicked up when I moved.

Out here, I can see far more. There is an outline of a massive river moving above my head, meandering in some spots and swirling in others. The wind? The trees all have softly vibrating circles of sand covering their top halves, with little spikes and divots forming and disappearing on the surfaces constantly. That must be the leaves, fluttering in the air.

It’s not just me then. Anything that moves disturbs the sands around it, making the currents of sand visible in the air. With all the visual noise, I keep expecting to hear something to go along with it. It’s eerily quiet though, which gives the impression I’m looking into another world.

I raise my hand and focus on the process of pulling mana along from my core and out through my palm. The little practice I’ve had has already made a notable improvement in speed, and soon my mana pokes its head through my skin.

I stare in fascination. I thought everything in this world was going to be monotone, but it appears my mana is the exception. A vivid green wisp stretched up from my hand, made all the more eye-catching because of the gray background. Although, it seems to be dimming slightly as it remains outside of me…

I squint at it, trying to get a closer look. Ah. It’s not that my mana is dimming, it’s that it is slowly getting coated. I see gray sand beginning to collect on its surface, forming a speckling exterior. I move the tendril of mana, wondering if it’s like the barrier that exists on my skin. Will it break apart?

A feeling of excitement grows within me as I realize the answer is no. Even as I move the tendril of mana, the sand on its surface appears to be stuck to it. Actually, moving the tendril is causing it to sway through the air, gathering even more sand.

I watch it in wonder. Everything else that I tried to interact with the sand hasn’t worked, but my mana appears to be like flypaper to it - once it touches it, it gets stuck. My once-green mana now has a gray crust to it. The next goal, of course, is to get it inside of me.

The most obvious option first. I retract the mana through my hand, slowly reeling it in. At first, I struggle, until I realize I need to feed the mana still in my arm back into my core so that there is space for the returning tendril. I watch as it slips back into me and I feel a surge of relief as it takes the sand with it instead of just depositing it on my skin. I feel something cold slip beneath my skin and run along the direction my mana is now flowing, up my arms and toward my core. I’m worried for an instant, but it seems to settle there, my core now providing me with contrasting feelings of heat and cold.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

I check my status.

MP: 38/41

Time: 1/44

I did it. I grin stupidly, staring at the text box floating in air. In fact, I feel almost giddy, like a mad scientist creating life and watching their creation taking its first shambling steps.

Accounting for [Eyes of Time] being active, I spent less mana on this than I did the ball I threw at the fox. It also seems that my ability to gather sand is dependent on the surface area of my mana. The most efficient way to get more sand would then be through a thin sheet of mana that I sweep around me.

I start trying to create a long, thin piece of mana, but when I get smaller than a certain thickness I can’t keep it together anymore. I also don’t have the control to make ruffles or give any kind of texture to the mana that would help it grab more sand. I’ll have to stick to flat surfaces.

I start off with a section roughly the size of my forearm. It seems faster if I push mana out of me from multiple areas on my skin at the same time, rather than just through one point. The thinnest I can get it to is roughly a couple inches, and keep pushing mana out until I have a roughly square shaped piece attached to my arm like some sort of weird wing flap.

I raise my arm and lower it quickly a few times- wait, what?

I can see color.

In the area I just waved my arm through there is a noticeable lightening of gray. The grass and tree bark that I can see through it have regained some of their respective greens and browns as well. I move around it uncertainly and realize that it’s not that the trees or grass have their color back, rather, there is a bubble of air that is recoloring what I see through it. I glance at my arm wedge, covered in sand. There was so much sand in the air, it didn’t occur to me that I could steal some and have it matter. I reach a hand out to the bubble-

Wait. Don’t be dumb, Kira.

First, I reabsorb my mana so I’m not needlessly using it. A chill zips through me and I check my status again.

MP: 28/41

Time: 17/44

More time for every point of mana spent, at an almost 1.5:1 ratio. With practice I can probably improve that.

I scan the ground and my eyes land on a small rock, perfect for my test. I scoop it up into my palm and raise it above the bubble… which has noticeably darkened in the time I’ve spent trying to figure it out. At least that means I didn’t break the space-time continuum.

I drop the pebble above the air pocket, moving my other hand below it to catch it at the same time.

I almost miss it.

The rock falls normally until it hits the area that has less sand in it. There’s no disruption to its fall, rather, it speeds up as it goes through. When it exits the pocket of space and returns to the normal density of sand, it also returns to falling like normal.

My heart begins to beat rapidly as implications filter through my mind. The sands seem to be acting like a resistance of sorts. This goes beyond just storing time to be used for other abilities - the very act of ‘removing’ the sands of time leaves behind a pocket where things move faster.

I glance at the fox, and I can’t help but wonder - is it just movement that speeds up?

I walk a few steps towards its corpse and squat down beside it. I hold my hands out like I’m warming them at a campfire and focus on my mana.

First, I need a barrier to stop the ambient sand in the air from rushing in as I remove it. I create a bubble around the body. The sand sticks to my mana rather than flowing through it, so mission successful.

Second, I need to do my best vacuum impression and suck up all the sand inside my bubble. I create as many tendrils as I can and focus them on sweeping up all the sand.

All the tendrils together acting in harmony gives the impression of tentacles, or perhaps the many tongues of some alien creature looking for every morsel of food it can find. I absorb all the sand as I collect it, leading to a steady influx of what feels like cold water running up my bones.

The chilly stream stops. I stare uncomprehendingly for a moment as the gray sand begins to bead up on my skin, then I check my status.

MP: 3/41

Time: 44/44

Ah. So that’s what happens when I reach capacity. I physically can’t take in any more time. I’m almost out of mana too. I just have to hope it was enough to make an effect. I stop creating my tentacles of mana and take a look at the fox.

…Holy fuck.

There was definitely an effect.

Before I started, the fox’s corpse looked stiff, but still whole. Now, it looks dry and half-eaten, with patches of flesh missing. The ground beneath it is damp and soaked through with bodily fluids, and the smell-

I gag as the smell hits me. No wonder they call it putrefaction. My eyes water, and I take a few steps back. The only thing that didn’t seem to be affected is the claws… which look just as sharp as they felt when they were tearing my skin open. I hesitate, then take one of my discarded dirty bandages and reach towards the closest claw. I cover my nose with my other hand and try to breathe as little as possible as I lean forwards and grab it.

Prize secured, I retreat back to a safe distance and examine it. It’s about six inches long, so fairly short, but it is still wicked sharp. The fox was called a [Sharpened Fox], is this what that means?

You have [00:03:00:00] left to complete your required SAD objectives. Hurry up!

The notification of the system jolts me out of my reverie. I glare at it. I know I have a habit of getting stuck on a train of thought and riding it off a cliff, but I think my usage of time right now is justified. If a Level 2 fox and whatever that squirrel was almost killed me, then a rock just isn’t going to cut it going forwards. Excuse me if it takes me more than ten minutes to figure magic out.

It doesn’t matter, I still have one more thing to test before I’m ready to head out.

I reach a mental hand towards the cold half of my ‘core’ and poke at it, the same way I did for my mana. It responds, but it seems almost sluggish. Half-pulling, half-pushing, I move it down my arm. It fights me the entire way, and when I get to the surface of my skin it refuses to budge any further.

I think for a moment, then try adding my mana as well to see what happened. I form a hollow tube of mana and add a bubble to the end of it, although I keep it small I’m almost out of mana. Then, I push the cold out, like I’m squeezing toothpaste out of the tube. It responds hesitantly, at first a trickle of sand emerging from my skin. I push harder, forcing more sand through, trying to compact as much as I can into the bubble I made. Since it is small, it doesn’t take much before I can’t fit any more in no matter how hard I try.

I loosen my control on my mana, letting it dissipate rather than trying to reabsorb it and accidentally pulling the sand back in. I’m left with a little mushroom cloud that’s significantly darker than the air around it sprouting from my palm. I raise my other hand and move my finger through the ‘top’ of the mushroom.

My finger slows down as it encounters the thick area of sand. It doesn’t feel like I’m pushing against anything, and I still can’t feel the sand no matter how thick it is, but I’m moving slower. I attempt to pull my hand out and for a brief moment I think something might be very wrong - my finger doesn’t respond to the change in direction and at my knuckle where I’ve entered the area of slow time it feels like I’ve been caught on something. I lean back and pull, but it doesn’t have any effect on how fast my finger is moving. I just have to wait and slowly pull it out.

The slow time cloud seems to last for longer than the fast time pocket, meaning it takes longer for the sand to evenly distribute itself than to fill in gaps. I’m lucky I didn’t make a bigger area to test the slow time in, I could have trapped myself by accident.

I look at the world around me though, and I can’t help but grin. The gray sands floating in the air make sense now, in a way. It’s like the entire world is an agarose gel, with the sand being the agar and everything in it the DNA moving through the gel. On higher density gels, the DNA moves slower, and on lower density gels it moves faster. Using my mana, I can control the density of the world in real time, speeding up and slowing things down as I please.

I feel a sharp pinch run through my eyes, then the filter retreats and my vision returns to normal.

I glance at my status.

MP: 0/41

Time: 38/44

Well, speeding up and slowing things down as my MP and Time bars please.