Chapter 28: Mana Crystals.

  Gaia World, Day 14 After the Shattering.

  A blond-haired man in a stained, torn T-shirt and pants sat before the dancing fire, staring idly at a piece of meat sizzling over the flames. He scratched at his two-week-old, itchy excuse for a beard, lost in thought.

  The fire pit had been dug directly into the bare ground between thick tree trunks, as far from the undergrowth as possible. Towering trees spread their green canopies overhead, shading the entire area even in the middle of a sunny day like this.

  Not far from the fire stood a rough wooden rack, a large brown hide stretched taut across its frame. Several stakes were planted nearby, each pierced with chunks of fresh meat.

  Under one of them lingered a large bird, eyeing the food with naked calculation. Every few seconds, it flicked its gaze back to the man.

  Could it risk it?

  The bird shuffled one hesitant step closer… then froze, watching for a reaction.

  Pawe? muttered something under his breath.

  Snack sprang backward at once, wings fluttering in exaggerated innocence, as though the very thought of theft had never crossed its mind.

  Completely innocent. That, it was.

  Unaware of Snack's sneaky snack-snatching shenanigans, Pawel pondered his own predicament deeply.

  "Why am I always so damn hungry? I know I move more than usual lately, but this is just absurd."

  After wolfing down the organs of the hunted croco-hyena—as he'd decided to call it—Pawel had already cooked one portion of the meat. He expected it to be enough, but after eating it, he already knew he needed more.

  “Do I have some kind of parasite?”

  “Uh… not likely. My magic would probably deal with it.”

  “Unless it can’t deal with living things?”

  “But then how would it deal with bacteria? I know it does.”

  “Maybe… it’s… a magic tapeworm?” He lingered on the thought longer.

  “I know monsters can advance by killing each other. Animals probably can as well…”

  “…and parasites kill things, so—” He gasped in sudden realization and shot to his feet, sending Snack into a full panic. The creature bolted away from the meat skewer as if it had suddenly sprouted demon heads.

  “Oh, please God. Don’t let there be superpowered mosquitoes and ticks!”

  A ripple of the bird’s alarm came through their magic link, pulling Pawel out of his thoughts. He looked toward his pet, scanning the area for whatever might have startled it.

  But Snack was focused on pecking some bugs in the soil.

  "Probably some big scarab startled it," Pawel thought to himself.

  "Yeah, you show them, buddy!"

  "Craa!" Snack affirmed wholeheartedly. No bug would survive—it was completely focused on that task, and nothing else!

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Pawel stood there, not thinking about anything in particular, just watching his ridiculous friend hunt something in the bushes.

  After a moment, he reached into his backpack, took out the two mana crystals he had gathered recently, and returned to the fire. Sitting down, he prodded them with his supernatural mana sense.

  Perhaps these could help somehow.

  Both crystals were the size of fingernails. One was vivid green; the other a dim brown whose appearance brought to mind a strange, twisted fusion of animal life, soil, and plant growth. The green one emanated something that could best be described as the concept of growth and vegetation.

  These impressions appeared in his mind even before he properly analyzed them with his ability.

  The green crystal resonated perfectly with the power already contained within him and was quickly recognized as his own kind.

  When he examined the energies inside himself more closely, he realized he no longer possessed just one type. There were now two kinds of “green mana.”

  The first was created by himself in his first days here—his personal concept of nature, blending animal life, plants, and even inanimate phenomena. “Nature” was not quite accurate. It was more like the lifeforce of a forest—his idealized vision of it.

  The second variety matched the crystal in his hand. It was narrower in scope, focused purely on plants and growth, obtained from the thornbeast.

  Logically, one might expect it to exist within the broader category of the first—but it didn’t. They were like identical flavors mixed in different proportions. Or perhaps like alloys made from the same metals. Depending on temperature, pressure, or order of mixing, entirely different materials could form—each with unique properties, despite sharing components.

  Somehow, his soul had strengthened enough to wield this new variety of magic.

  Unfortunately, it mostly duplicated what he already had before—regeneration.

  Well… not exactly.

  He scrutinized the new ability the mana had coalesced into.

  Unlike his original green energy, this one had not been shaped consciously. He had not designed it himself, and so he could not fully understand how it worked—only what it did, and how to use it.

  Where his earlier healing required deliberate activation, fueling, and direction, this new ability felt almost like a living entity attached to him. It passively monitored his body, constantly searching for anything foreign or “not right,” ready to pounce like a predator and consume or alter it.

  Its existence came at a constant cost, steadily draining small amounts of mana.

  “What would happen if I stopped killing and ran out?” he wondered.

  “In battle, this could be much better. I wouldn’t have to meditate to activate it.”

  The green crystal in his hand almost seemed eager to be absorbed, resonating with the power in his soul.

  The brown one, however, felt foreign—almost hostile. Not as repulsive as the orange mana from the anomaly, but still deeply unpleasant.

  Now that his understanding of magic had grown, he realized he could absorb different crystal colors and convert them into fuel for abilities he already possessed. Eventually, once he strengthened his control over his current mana types, he could even add new colors to his repertoire.

  He was nearly strong enough to control this brown type. After absorbing the green crystal and improving his existing ability, he could probably manage it already.

  Whatever he had taken from the thornbeast, there had been a great deal of it.

  Apparently, the more magic one possessed, the easier it became to absorb other types—and grow even stronger.

  He frowned thoughtfully.

  “Hm. So it works almost like unlocking skills in games. I have to level up my existing abilities before gaining new ones… except here, I also have to spend those same mana crystals to power the skills I already have."

  Improving his existing ability with the green crystal was an obvious decision, but did he want whatever that brown mana could give?

  Pawel kept looking into that brown crystal, trying to somehow deduce what kind of ability was possible with it, but the concepts contained in it eluded his understanding.

  Then movement dragged his attention to Snack, with mana sight active.

  "Oh… OH! It is the same that Snack has!" Pawe? yelled out, startling the bird. Again.

  "Hmm, Snack had gotten some armoring or something, and size increase… perhaps I don't necessarily want anything like that. I mean, armor would be great, but not permanent scales or other mutations…" Pawel thought out loud.

  "But since Snack already has an ability made out of this mana…"

  "Snack, come on here, buddy. I have something for you," he called the pet.

  Snack answered in their magic link: "FOOD?"

  "Eee, not exactly. This is magic." Pawe? was just talking out loud, as these were too complex things to send through their connection, which was mostly just for emotions and simple concepts.

  Hopefully Snack could understand some speech, or would learn eventually.

  "Remember how you stole MY mana crystal from the predatory vine?"

  The bird came closer uneasily.

  "Yes, you did, you little sneaky thief… Here, have this. It is the same thing—magic."

  Pawel briefly realized that his pet might not think of this as something good, considering it got sick after eating the last crystal… but apparently it was close enough to being a "food item" that all reason and caution went out the window.

  Snack attacked it with vigor, and soon after, Pawel could observe as brown mana tendrils seeped into his friend, and then… a few seconds later, dissipated. Hopefully added to whatever counted as an ability for Snack. Probably just body enhancement.

  He delayed absorbing his own mana crystal for a minute or two. For some reason, the idea of taking it in made him uneasy. Instead, he simply watched his friend, checking whether anything unusual was happening.

  Eventually, he took two deep breaths and willed the crystal to be absorbed. The moment Pawel made the decision, it crumbled and vanished almost instantly, without any effort on his part. A warm sensation spread through him as the upgrade mana flowed into his pools.

  When the process finished, he directed it all to reinforce whatever new abilities he had gained, strengthening them as much as possible.

  The process went even more smoothly than on previous occasions, but the longer it lasted, the more discomfort Pawel felt. At first, he brushed it off as the usual sensations that accompanied meditation. Toward the end of the “upgrade,” however, the strange feeling intensified into borderline pain that spread throughout his entire body—especially his joints.

  “Was it always like this?” he wondered, slipping out of his meditative state.

  “No… I don’t remember it being this bad. Then again, I was always already sick or in serious pain to begin with. Maybe I just didn’t notice.”

  He rolled his neck with a loud crack, then raised an arm. His body protested with unusual stiffness. Every joint popped. He could have sworn even his muscles were creaking. It felt like the day after an extremely intense workout—after years of complete inactivity beforehand.

  “Ugh… ouch… that is not nice,” he groaned.

  Then the pieces clicked into place. After healing the wounds inflicted by the thornbeast, he had experienced similar side effects. So either the changes themselves—or the new abilities he had gained—came with unpleasant consequences.

  He cracked his knuckles, and the world did the same. MUCH louder.

  The anomaly was expanding again.

  "Oh… fuck me…"