Step after step I take and do not stop slowly reaching the deadly border. The wind is rather pleasant on my fur, but my but is rather cold… oh, no tail, gotcha.

The reason I took tailless is he is more expendable than, for example Alpha with his rather taut body. Another reason is, I had to thank him, as he is the one who helped me, even unconsciously, so it should be his honor to do the testing. My feelings for him might be shallow, but what can someone do, who has dampened or maybe even no feelings anymore, because of…

While I ramble in my head I now stand in front of something. It is beautiful and the smell is soothing. The giant tree of the forest is up close way more impressive than seeing it via my silly mockery of sight.

I am outside.

…

The feeling of being out in the forest the first time and not being a stolen memory is breathtaking. If I had one, I would wag my tail, although I am not sure if I just feel happy, because I think that I should be happy or if feelings still exist somewhere deep inside my husk of a Realm.

Walking around I remember the different nuances of the forest I learned from all of the Monsters I took over. There are some herbal plants, that are bitter but help the stomach stop hurting. This Moss when someone rubs their scars on them they heal better. That vine… better not go near it, as it can strangle even strong wolves, and tailless is far from strong.

So many things to see, but I have to keep levelheaded, as this is a dangerous place. What I am searching for is what they ignored most, so I have a rather bad start. Seeds are not tasty and ignored for the most part. It is as much as humans often ignore things like dandelion, even if they are tasty as my elven companion… never mind.

Nuts, seeds, fruits. Something like a plant is needed for some experiments. As I would like to take the Moss, it needs the bark of the tree, and I can not take the tree. Maybe a sapling, if I find one around, but I have a hard time searching for non prey as a predator.

Carefully smelling the air for kind of dangers, as the wolves explained to me, I trod forward and search the area. Because it is the danger zone in their minds, no Monster goes even close to it unless they are desperate. Sad to think my place is rather avoided, but it explains why I needed to wait for weeks until something thought of looking into a place with soothing Mana.

It was not only the mouse, the wolves liked the pure mana too, as it soothed their spirit. Although they would never stay long, as wolves got stronger only in the miasma, it is a nice resting place for recuperation. Always learning new things. Mana is nice, but not good, Miasma is good but not nice to Monsters. What I am more interested in was their place where they lived was rather less in Miasma and more full with Mana, and I would like to know why, but I am not stupid enough to go as tailless. The pack would rip me to shreds after exiling him.

…

Not much to find right now, but I found a stick. No I am not suddenly getting more dog than hu… Void creature, I just thought maybe I can plant the branch and it takes root. It is a magical World after all and Mana I have enough to make magic happen.

Bringing it into my Domain I already broke a small place open for the stick to be planted. I have even created the best nourishing soil out of the dirt of the crater and limpy. It should have enough nutrients that way.

Planting the branch I search again for more things in the woods. Maybe I can bring another Monster back to throw into the portal.

…

The hunt is not going well and I still look for some kind of seed. It should be possible to find even one in a forest, but I am not able to. Are they invisible or maybe they do not fall until another season?

The herb I saw earlier is the best thing I can find right now, so I take that. Digging out the roots I take the whole thing including the dirt with me. My tongue does not appreciate the taste of dirt, but it is not even my own tongue so who cares.

Looking for a nice place to plant it I take tailless back into the Realm and disassemble him for the time. The best way to preserve my Monsters is in parts, as those do not use energy and calories to function. Rather crude and brutal, but I have to stay effective until I can have more options with preserving my helpers.

By the way, tailless does not have a tail in spirit form. I at first thought it was a recent injury, but his memories talk about a bear with a rocky carapace which he too late noticed. This shows another thing I did not know before, as injuries can affect the spirit. Most recent scars of the fight with the pack were healed after reassembly by the way.

…

The experiment with the branch did not work, but the herb is thriving. Right now I did not take over the herb, as I want to see if anything can grow in the crater, while I am here, and the herb shows promise.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

With more variations of plants I should be able to have a herbal garden and maybe see if I can dabble in alchemy or potion making. You never know if it could come in handy with anything, and I will be throwing everything including the kitchen sink at my problems and see what sticks.

The next experiment might destroy a few of my spirit bodies. I sure hope not, but I can not stay passive, if I get no new bodies for a long time. Maybe this would be a suggestion not to work with rare materials, but it is a priority to empower my only Avatars until I get new ones, so it is more of a necessity.

…

The first thing is understanding what Mana and Miasma does inside a Monster. For this I take one of the other ones and look at infusing it with more of the same Miasma, as it has in his system. I called them storm wolves as they are filled with wind affinity Miasma from the start. So if they have only wind Miasma, I give them only that kind of Miasma for now.

The Miasma seems to flow inside without effort, but slightly damages the body. Looks like it is still harmful to have Miasma inside a body. Then why is there Miasma anyway and how does it relate to becoming a Monster? So many questions.

…

The conclusion came later, as the Miasma needs to settle it seems. It damages the body, but does it to reinforce it in a new way. Mutations slowly arise over time and look like a kind of Metamorphosis into something else, but what I do not know.

The next thing is, Mana flushes the body out and makes the Monster halt its progress of mutating. That is why they rest in Mana rich environments as it helps them not to change too fast as it will cripple or even kill them, when the Miasma inside rages too much.

Another aspect got clear after seeing the Miasma moving through the body. It transforms into Mana over time and gets expelled. Monsters are walking Miasma filters, and are rather efficient at that. Problem is only, they can just filter wind Miasma. Other affinities get rejected and when they enter the body they damage the body way more than wind Miasma. Maybe multiple affinities are possible, but the pain and injuries a creature has to endure must be torturous.

For now I want to see what the changes do, so I let him slowly absorb pure wind Miasma and let him rest on occasion to mutate. I call him boost, as he gets boosted with the benefit of not getting wrong miasma dragged in his system.

…

Now I have two other wolves in their spirit form in front of me. Those two are the most similar of their brethren, maybe even brothers. Their framework seems to be even quite similar, as I have an Idea that needs testing. Editing spirits is for me rather impossible without unraveling them, so the only thing I can try is to reinforce them. This test is, if I can fuse spirits.

Slowly I move the spirit bodies together, while carefully watching for some damage or even destruction. The bodies slowly overlap and seem to not react in any bad manner, what is surprising. No rejection or any other happening, is eerily comforting, as I could empower my Avatars in just fusing them.

…

After they overlapped completely something changed. Like a switch being pressed the spirits start to entwine each other and connect. It is rather mesmerizing, but at the same time terrifying, as I have no way to interfere with it in any way. I could, but it would most probably end in both spirit bodies ripping apart at the seams and vanishing.

Nothing I can do as to watch the Spirit taking their own time and watching what happens. Similar connections fuse and get thicker, opposite connections fight until the better one absorbs the other and changes the structure, parts where they are in different positions move, as the central knots where the core should be are on two different places. They compromise by moving to one place and merging, but it strains some paths.

…

It seems complete. Well at least it stopped merging, but it looks brittle and unstable. The only way to have it stay in the new state might be making the physical body it shows, so lets assemble what was created.

Flesh and Bone of both wolves gets used but seems to have problems. I had to make their whole parts into mush for it to fuse in the places they are needed. Luckily the spirit body just makes new bones, flesh, sinews and nerves. Another great find, as this means I don’t have to preserve the organs or bones in one piece all the time. Maybe I can just preserve a large blob of biomass to create anything back into the form. Best for later experiments, when I have enough to just mix creatures up in a stew.

What I first notice by creating the body is, that it is bigger. The spirit was not that big, but it seems reality stretches the body into the proportions it needs. The muscles are dense as are the bones. Scars have vanished, as the superior skin won in creating the body. Bones sometimes crack themselves to readjust the size and it looks extremely painful, especially when the skull just breaks to become a size bigger. Side effect is, the fur is close to bristles now, as the hair also grew thicker. Skin is rough and the blood vessels are reinforced. The brain is bigger and has many more connections, although it is still empty.

After all this is over and the Body does not want more biomass I put the rest away for now. Around 20 percent of one of the wolves is still there, what makes me first question why it does not need it and second being astounded how the wolf is now almost double muscle and bone size. This one is a unit right now and even slightly overshadows alpha.

This one I name twin, as it is two wolves in one.

Now I have to see what it feels to control this body, and oh boy are the muscles strained. Moving the body is rather problematic, as the whole body is a bit too dense right now. With regular movement it should be possible to make the muscles more flexible, but right now it is a rather slow albeit sturdy body. Maybe I should have him named tank, but I already have made my decision.

Twin himself is a work in progress right now, as the body needs training and at the same time needs to settle. The spirit body was unstable and the physical body should hold it in place, but disassembling him would threaten his existence.

So starting for now I build a dog house, or rather palace, as this thing has multiple rooms for all of them if necessary.

Now to the last one I have. I do nothing with him, as I want to see how long spirits stay. I can reassemble them but if I do not know how long those ghost images are stable, it would threaten my body count. So he will be the sacrifice for prolonged disassembly. I name him ghost.

…

Getting twin out of the Portal was hard, as he is bigger than all the others now. Walking him inside the doghouse, there is a big entrance room with four side rooms, two on each side. If needed I can make two more on the back or lengthen the building, but for now it is fine. Getting out of twin I reassemble alpha. This time I go out as alpha and search the area. He is rather fit for the job anyway and I might need some muscle to get more Wood inside my Domain.

Sadly I still do not have any way to grow trees, as I still can’t find any seeds, but branches and other parts should be enough to at least build a wooden gate.

Yes, I still hate the stone wheel and hope to retire it soon. I hate, that it even works.

With alpha as my avatar now, I walk through the tunnel into the forest to forage more things.