Cain continued downstream with renewed urgency. He needed food, and then he needed to find shelter and hopefully make a fire. Actually, making a fire was probably off the table; he didn’t know where to look for flint so the best effort he could make would probably be rubbing sticks together. That meant he’d likely end up eating any food he found raw, which would make him ill. Maybe I should just think of it as training my constitution? He fully gave up on stealth, resigning himself to the fact that it wouldn’t do much other than slow his pace. It was getting noticeably colder as the red glow behind the clouds grew gradually dimmer with the passing minutes.
Cain had been speed-walking along the shallower end of the creek, but now noticed the water seeming to drag at his feet more strongly than it had been doing previously. It was cold, too. Begrudgingly leaving the softer silt to walk through coarse dirt and twigs that poked at his soles, he picked up the pace as much as he could without putting extra strain on his already tired self. It probably wasn’t necessary to rush quite so much, but an eerie prickle in Cain’s stomach made him want to at least find shelter before it was fully dark. He didn’t quite understand why he felt so compelled to seek shelter. Typically the most dangerous things in forests should be terrestrial predators like wolves, snakes, and bears, with feline predators occasionally appearing in certain regions. To Cain’s knowledge, most of these could be avoided by climbing a tall enough tree and not drawing attention to yourself. So there wasn’t much reason to rush, right? What could make this forest in particular more dangerous than others? Wait a minute…
Cain had received a tidbit about the grasslands he appeared in just by looking around. From what Cain could tell, tidbits appeared when you already had some or most of the important information, and simply filled in the blanks. Why hadn’t he received a tidbit for the forest? He had seen a good deal more of it, had much more interaction with it, and was now actively questioning its nature. That should have been more than sufficient to trigger a tidbit, unless he had somehow missed a vital piece of information. He confirmed he hadn’t somehow missed another notification as well, directing part of his focus to keep watch for the itch in the back of his head that seemed to signify more information from Order. He sped up to a jog, now actively concerned about his situation. He had no food, no shelter, and seemed to be lacking important information about his environment. Which was doubly concerning due to the presence of magic. For all he knew, creepy shadow monsters could start jumping at him come sundown.
Cain had jinxed it. Just as he thought about shadow monsters, the last of the faint red light that came through the canopy went out.
[ Tidbit Unlocked : Deep Forest (Entropic) ]
Dense woods that have experienced prolonged exposure to the Forces of Entropy. The result is a nearly lifeless expanse of withered vegetation and starving animals. In the absence of the sun’s light and heat, the reanimated dead commanded by the Manifestation of Death become more active. Their energy-averse nature makes the forest’s entropic denizens much more aggressive during night and winter months, as well as making them weak to magical attacks, especially fire and life aspects.
That was the worst news possible, other than giant spiders. Cain was in an undead forest, and had spent the entire day walking deeper into it. Running away wasn’t even an option, there was no possibility of him escaping now that it was dark. There was only one option left to him.
Step one, climb a tree. Step two, don’t draw attention to myself.
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If his enemies were weak to magic, he would have to learn fast. Cain sat uncomfortably in the bough of a tree, straining his ears for any hint of danger while probing his mana sense to try and figure out how to manipulate mana. The split focus and the constant alertness was greatly hampering his efforts, though some progress had been made. While his mana was most active during the ‘pulses’ that aligned with his heartbeat, there was always a passive flow that kept it in constant motion. After significant mental effort, Cain found he could speed up that flow, which seemed to exponentially increase the power behind each ‘pulse’ as well. His mana largely returned to normal when he released his focus, though it was flowing ever so slightly faster now. An itch at the back of his head told him he’d probably manifested an attribute related to that. Recalling that most games had a way for characters to passively regenerate mana, Cain stopped listening to the world around him for a moment to direct all his focus inward. Using his kinesthetic mana sense, there was no observable change happening for several uncomfortable moments. However, he eventually managed to notice an abnormality in his heart. Where most of his mana was just a loose, flowing mass of energy, in the center of his heart was a small disc that seemed to be… spinning? A portion of his mana was simply looping back on itself endlessly, never leaving the heart and circulating through the rest of him. But as he focused on the odd formation, he noticed little threads connecting the ring to the rest of his mana. Except, they all seemed to be flowing outwards? The mana disc seemed to have a constant mass, but if all these threads were carrying mana away, it must be passively producing mana. A pitiful amount from what Cain could tell, but an amount nonetheless. That definitely broke the law of conservation of energy, but breaking the laws of nature was basically the founding principle of magic.
A twig snapped ominously close to Cain’s tree. He looked and saw a vaguely humanoid figure walking towards his tree.
The figure’s movements were rather soporific, but that was little comfort. He could only see it in the now pitch-blackness because it somehow seemed darker than the rest of the forest. Keeping his eyes firmly locked onto the silhouette as it stopped at the base of the tree and looked up at him, Cain refocused on his mana sense and redoubled his efforts to somehow learn an attack spell in the bough of a withered tree. Focusing solely on the disc of mana, he decided to experiment by trying to speed up his mana again. The mental effort was difficult to maintain while staring down what was presumably an undead. However, once he managed it, he noticed that the disc’s rotation seemed to accelerate, and two new threads shot out from it. Did that mean he was increasing his mana generation? The itch made it seem probable. As he released his focus, the disc slowed down a bit — not quite to where it was before — and one of the threads snapped, but the other managed to persist. He’d definitely found a way to improve his mana production. This called for further experimentation.
A leaf crunched softly. A spindly, four-legged figure that came up to the other’s elbows joined the first at the base of the tree. With mounting anxiety, Cain tried his best to keep focusing on his mana. He had long since lost the focus to feel his entire body’s mana at once, so now he was just observing his heart. He tried to pull a thread from the flowing mass, but barely managed to move it at all. He wanted to direct more mana into the disc to see if that would improve it, but if he couldn’t manage that level of control he needed something else. Even attempting that maneuver had been taxing. With a rush of inspiration, Cain attempted something that was probably stupid. He began speeding up his mana flow as much as he could. Two new threads formed. He snipped them both. The flowing ring of mana grew erratic and the remaining threads, of which there were three, seemed to strain to pull away the excess energy. He tried to keep the mana flowing like it should while preventing it from slowing down or forming new threads, and found the endeavor to be nearly impossible.
The key word, however, was “nearly.” The disc began stabilizing, and even grew steadily in size while the threads began to thicken and reinforce themselves. After reaching a certain threshold, the threads seemed able to keep up with the mana production and the structure stopped growing. However, a mental push did allow Cain to form a fourth thread and speed up the disc once more, and while it took much more effort than before, the new thread seemed much more stable than before. Unfortunately, he was now mentally exhausted and could barely manage to focus on his mana, let alone manipulate it further. Eyeing the shadowy figures still staring silently at him from below, Cain slipped out of consciousness.
He could’ve sworn that one was smiling.
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It was still completely dark when he awoke. After an initial start, Cain realized with a breath of relief that he was still in his tree. Looking back to where the shadows were, he was dismayed to see seven silhouettes staring back at him. They didn’t move at all or even sway on the spot. They didn’t make any moves to attack him, and they didn’t make any sound. He couldn’t even hear them breathe. They just stood and watched him like statues, and he would’ve been ten times as scared of them if he hadn’t managed to catch the first one moving when it first approached. Cain tried to slow his shaky breaths and calm his heartbeat. It didn’t do much. He was also far too anxious to go back to sleep now, even if he wanted to. The tense silence made him realize that other than his own breathing, he couldn’t hear anything. There were no crickets or insects humming, there was no breeze rustling the leaves, and even the creek that was just a short distance away from the tree he was perched in was silent. In fact, Self-Awareness told him there was no breeze at all. His kinesthetic sense was now sensitive enough to clearly detect even faint winds, but there was nothing but his own breathing. Dead stillness seemingly overwrote everything about the forest, creating an unnatural chill.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Deciding his best hope was still magic, Cain tried one more experiment. He attempted to will his mana to form into a ball between his hands, expecting it to be a Herculean task — and was incredibly surprised when there was almost no resistance. The ball was a bit smaller than a tennis ball, and the same soft buzzing he felt from eating the mana flower now pressed against the palms of his hands. It was invisible to the naked eye, but Cain’s ocular mana sense registered it as a soft blueish-white glow, the same as what he found inside himself. It was an encouraging development, but he doubted this would do much against the figures still looming beneath him. He needed something with actual firepower, not just a ball of energy. Firepower…? Didn’t the tidbit say these things were particularly weak to fire magic? Cain mentally paged through the magic-related tidbits he’d unlocked, and was surprised at how easy they came. Probably Order’s influence again, like mentally examining his attributes. Mana was susceptible to will, it said? That would actually explain why making a lump of energy in his hands was so much easier than making tiny adjustments to his internal mana. Smaller scale things are more specific, and require more mental effort to get the details right. Hence why trying to pull a single, tiny thread from his mana was virtually impossible. A ball of mana, though? Painfully simple. That meant his next step should also be relatively straightforward. He focused on the mass of energy between his palms. Burn.
The world lit up and Cain screwed his eyes shut, writhing in pain. So much so, that he fell out of his tree and lost control of his mana. Next thing he knew his hands were burning and an ungodly screeching noise was making his ears ring. Not knowing what was happening beyond being on the ground now, Cain started pushing his mana away through his hands and burning it with a thought, aiming for the general direction of the noise and waving his hands around himself from time to time for good measure. Something crashed into his abdomen as he tried to stumble to his feet, sending them both falling backwards and interrupting his flames. Cain acted out of pure panic, beating against the bony something resting on top of him, yelling incoherently the entire time. He couldn’t tell whether the screeching was him or his assailant now. Something bit into his left shoulder, puncturing flesh but seeming to lack the strength to rip it free. He remembered he had fire magic and grabbed the face of whatever was attacking him. Moments later the jaws unclenched and the shrieking intensified, trying to recoil from Cain’s burning hands. The mass on top of him writhed painfully for several moments before it and the face broke free of his grasp. He brought his right hand up to where his shoulder had been bitten, only to recoil as he seared his own flesh. The pain was coming from enough different directions now that he really couldn’t keep track of it. He just went back to throwing his hands around wildly, spitting fire at things he couldn’t see and couldn’t really hear over the ringing anymore. Functioning more on autopilot than any conscious thought, Cain kept going until the warmth streaming from his extended palms died down to a trickle and eventually vanished. The warmth, the pain, and the ringing all faded away as he fell unconscious once more.
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[ Ethereal Attribute Manifested : Mana Core ]
Affects the entity’s capacity for and generation of mana. Different structures within the core serve different functions, and refining those structures can improve mana capacity, generation, and control depending on what the entity refines. More powerful refinements require greater mana control, becoming exponentially more difficult as they accumulate. (Current Value: 6)
[ Mixed Skill Manifested : Mana Control (Lesser, I) ]
This skill is closer than most to an attribute in nature, and thus uses a mixed quantification. For each of the three typical skill grades, Lesser, Middling, and Mighty, five ranks have been implemented. Mana Control affects an entity’s ability to directly manipulate the form and flow of mana, making complex effects easier to form. Can scale with mana sense attributes.
[ Ethereal Attribute Increased : Mana Sense (Kinesthetic) ]
(Current Value: 5 -> 6)
[ Ethereal Attribute Manifested : Channeling ]
Affects the mental exhaustion incurred by the entity when imposing their will on mana. The capacity to exert will over mana is inherent to the soul, and may vary between individuals. Channeling decreases mental exhaustion, while increasing an entity’s tolerance for that exhaustion is subject entirely to the entity. (Current Value: 7)
[ Tidbit Unlocked : Undead (Entropic) ]
An extremely dangerous and unusually organized variety of undead. They are subject to the direct control of the Manifestation of Death and are a foundational piece of the Forces of Entropy. They display limited individual intelligence and hive mind behavior. Their most notable features are their weakness to magic and lack of decay as opposed to lively undead, as well as their ability to siphon a target’s mana and life force on contact. They are physically weak and usually slow but almost entirely silent and prone to swarming.
[ Body Attribute Manifested : Resilience ]
Affects the durability of an entity’s flesh, increasing resistances to a wide variety of harmful effects. Common examples include frostbite, burning, blunt force injury, slashing or tearing injury, puncturing injury, and abrasive injury. (Current Value: 6)
[ Skill Manifested : Burning Man (Lesser) ]
The entity takes reduced damage from overexposure to fire and other sources of heat. While actively on fire, the entity recovers mana slightly faster and consumes less mana to create and manipulate fire.
[ Body Attribute Increased : Constitution ]
(Current Value: 5 -> 6)
[ Skill Refined : Burning Man (Lesser -> Middling) ]
The entity takes reduced damage from overexposure to fire and other sources of heat. While actively on fire, the entity recovers mana faster and consumes much less mana to create and manipulate fire.
[ Objective Complete : “Survive the Night” ]
The entity has managed to survive becoming stranded overnight in an entropic forest without food, light, shelter or equipment.
[ Body Attribute Manifested : Vigor ]
Affects an entity’s overall liveliness and ability to recover themselves. Substantially increases stamina recovery. Moderately increases immune system effectivity and healing factor. Lesser increase to metabolic efficiency. (Current Value: 6)
[ Objective Complete : “Revenge” ]
The entity has avenged themselves upon the tree roots which have plagued their existence since arriving in the forest. Now, nothing but ash and cinders remain. Who says revenge is best served cold?
[ Objective Complete : “Wake Up” ]
The entity has regained consciousness after fainting from mana exhaustion and injury.
“what…? agh… where am…”
Cain’s ears were ringing. When he tried speaking, all that he heard was distant, muddled speech mingling with the constant droning. Was he concussed? He didn’t think he hit his head that hard, probably. Was it… the screaming? Maybe the screaming did it. That would make sense. A dozen or so notifications blurred past his consciousness, none of them really registering. He stirred a little and found he could move his body. He tried to lift his head off the ground and sit upright, but failed. His head fell forward and hit… nothing? It just sort of bounced a bit, like there was nothing but air beneath it. Huh. There was something solid beneath his stomach though. Remembering to breathe, Cain took in a lungful of air. There was a powerful smoky odor in the air, and his breaths felt somehow shallow even when he breathed as deeply as he could. His hearing cleared up a tiny bit, and loud crackling and popping made its way to his ears, nearly matching the ringing in intensity. There was also some… clanking. Yeah, that sounded like clanking to him. Then, he started to notice vibrations that were rhythmically shaking him, bouncing him up and down in time with the clanking. The something beneath his stomach was really hard, he noticed, and it was digging into his gut uncomfortably. Cain tried to take a deep breath in through his mouth in preparation to speak, but was interrupted by a painful coughing fit that made him realize just how incredibly dry and sore his throat was. But through the crackling, clanking and coughing, he heard snippets of what sounded like speech.
“Don’t… going to… out, here…”