Forever

Morning came with a cramped stomach and aching back. The pain of sleeping in the wild was becoming more familiar as days went by, which hit Salim with a feeling of longing. Compartmentalizing, Salim pushed his head off the ground, looked for Fallon and, failing to find her, began to hunt for food.

Fishing was thankfully unproblematic and Salim was able to snag small, thin looking fish that glowed brightly under the effects of [Arcane Eyes]. Past the point of caring about the side effects of eating magical fish, Salim was able to cook and partly clean out the less edible parts before noon. While the fish wasn’t tasty by any means, but the flavor didn’t register on his tongue as he gulped down charred flesh.

Fallon still hadn’t showed up as the sun reached its peak in the sky, and it was making Salim antsy, paying close attention to the more shaded parts of the forest. Not being able to just sit still next to the fire, Salim decided to mess with magic to hopefully make progress and gain a level. His reserves had filled up overnight, and he was fully ready to attempt a pull spell, since it seemed like the inverse of what he had already done.

Tossing a palm sized rock he had found in the river bed onto the grass, he began to try and get a feel for how he would implement pulling something with his code. Almost immediately he had issues; with pushing, it was a simple ejection of energy out of his hand and the item would go flying. However, to pull an object to him, he needed some way to project his energy out of his body and keep control of it.

Symbolism and intent this was not, and since Fallon was MIA, he couldn’t ask for help to get past the first hurdle. Annoyed at being abandoned, Salim tried a few more times to try and control the energy as it left his body before he decided to give up on that avenue. While he was a little disappointed that he ran into limitations already, it could simply come down to needing more research which while he had the time for, he had to spend part of the time working on his own survival.

Effort and skill was required for an extended life expectancy, so he just went back to messing with his push spell to try and make it more effective. I’m not giving up… I’m just saving it for another time, he told himself as the small stone he was holding shot out of his hand and splashed into the water with a plop. It was still novel to him, but he had to admit fairly useless, with his upgraded physical stats he could throw stones at speeds his magic just couldn’t match.

It wasn’t a complete loss, as he was able to grasp some of the nuances of casting from his experiments that he was sure would help him out in time when he got a bit more instruction from Fallon. With casting, he could finally see the use of [Acuity] and [Resolve] outside the effects they had on his mental stat, letting him focus the spells effects into finer and finer points until he finally hit a wall where he struggled to output the spell in an area smaller than his fingertip. The inverse was true as well, eventually the spell seemed to lose cohesion after trying to cast with the entirety of his arm.

Output and efficiency were also taken tested, as Salim managed to empty his reserves after experimenting with the spell for an hour or so. It didn’t take long until he wound up by the riverside, staring at the dull red at the bottom of the stream.

Getting bored by his own inactivity, Salim decided to explore the surrounding area, scouting for anything interesting or unusual. Walking back to his sleeping area, Salim climbed the unusually thick trees into the canopy for a view of the surroundings.

Now up high, Salim looked around to spot anything unusual, scanning the treetops for any breaks in the foliage that might have obvious landmarks. Unfortunately, nothing stood out, especially since most of the trees stood at a similar height and stopped anything lower than the treetop and sky from being visible. Checking his reserves, Salim confirmed that he had just enough mana to maintain a few seconds of [Arcane Eyes] before sending the mana.

Much more conscious of the flow of mana used by the skill, Salim still wasn’t able to make heads or tails of the symbol that the system created. Still, he kept watch as the mana flowed to his eyes, surrounding the surface of his eyeballs before flowing inward through the pupils where the ability fully activated. The process was intriguing, but he was hesitant to imitate, the price of failure too daunting.

Twitching as his reserves began to run dry, Salim scanned the skyline for anything that stood out among the glowing green of the treetops. As his eyes shifted from treetop to treetop, his eyes caught sight of a harsh amethyst light to the north, statically hanging in the air like panes of glass. He froze, his stomach dropping out as his mind flashed to the night in the field, his palms sweaty against the branch he balanced against.

Guess I know where Fallon went.

Climbing down the tree was significantly more difficult than going up, his shaking hands making his grip slip a couple of times against the smooth bark. Thankfully, he was able to reach the ground safely, jumping from a branch he was standing on once he decided it wasn’t going to cause any issues. The shock from the jump had hurt, but he preferred it to an uncontrolled slip and fall, so he brushed it off. Once he had finished recovering, Salim had a quick internal debate.

It would be better to know what Fallon is up to than have a repeat of our last life, the left side of his brain argued, monotone and logical in its argument.

The right side just sent back images of flashing red lights.

Sighing, Salim started trekking in the direction of the lights, the afternoon light shining down onto his back as he walked. Pausing the hike for a moment, he had a sudden thought. Pulling up his menu to remember the name of the ability that he had forgotten in his previous day of experimentation.

The skill channeled through his core before shooting up to his brain and doing a similar thing to [Arcane Eyes] before flowing into the general area of where he assumed his frontal cortex would be. That was very concerning to Salim, and he definitely wasn't going to try and replicate it anytime soon, especially since memories seemed to be the only thing that he was able to keep after death. While he was a bit concerned about the skill, it wasn’t concerning enough for him to stop, with his thought processing being that none of his skills had ever caused him harm before.

With the mana suffused into his brain, Salim finally felt the effects of [Arcane Navigation] pulling him towards the moonlight, memories of the acid taste causing his body to wince reflexively. The skill was a useful surprise, as it did nothing the first time he had tried to use it. Using his mental magic detector, Salim realized that he had been slowly drifting off course before using the skill, and quickly course corrected towards the caustic energy.

The walk was short, with the only difficulty being a few bushes and thorny undergrowth that cut at his heels as he walked through. Soon he could see a clearing, the surrounding trees looking withered and burned, like the lightest breeze would collapse them. As he approached, he could feel the moonlight trying to push itself into his body, like a vicious sunburn, his face and chest felt uncomfortably warm.

Stopping, and refusing to walk any further for fear of… burning to death or some other horrid fate he couldn’t imagine, Salim walked around the perimeter to try and get a better look into what the clearing held. However, as he slowly walked around the outside of the energy, taking great care to watch how close he was getting.

Halfway, Salim realized that the area was much larger than he initially thought, stretching to the size of a small field. Trying to get a clear view of the area beyond the treeline, he kept walking, making sure to avoid touching the grass, which was a strange ashy gray color.

After a couple of minutes walking around the perimeter, he found a break in the trees that let he see further in from a semi safe position. He was standing far enough back that while Fallon’s energy prickled his skin, but it wasn’t actively burning. Craning his neck while squinting his eyes, Salim tried to make out the shapes further in, which was difficult when the sunlight was blinding him.

In the middle of the clearing was a strange tree, not sickly and burned like the others, it instead was a lustrous white, its branches spreading out with bright leaves atop them, deflecting sunlight in every direction. Positioned at the base of the trunk was Fallon, integrated into the bark as stingy vines wrapped around their body. The tree swayed along with the ashen grass to an unknown tune that he was deaf to, noticing that the dying trees of the surrounding forest stayed stoic and still.

Unable to deduce anything, Salim decided to retreat and regain his mana as navigating had burned the rest of his reserves. While he knew that the moonlight most likely wouldn’t kill him, it wasn’t a pleasant experience, and he wasn’t going to wait in pain as his reserves replenished.

Killing time while he waited, Salim went through his skill menu to check on his progress and get a feel for how quickly the skills improved with his small trip to the tree.

Skills

Arcane Shape (Class)

Lvl. 3

Take shape the forces of the other world.

Arcane Eyes (Class)

Lvl. 4

See true, the world beyond the veil.

Reinforced Channels (Class)

Lvl. 2

The lifeblood of a mage.

Learned Mind (Class)

Lvl. 2

A hungry mind is a healthy mind.

Arcane Navigation (Innate)

Lvl. 2

The mystic arts will guide you.

Much slower, was his unspoken answer. Whether that was because the skills were more complicated or because something was actively capping out the rate at which the skills grew, Salim wasn’t sure. His [Channeler] skills grew much faster this life, probably because he had a better understanding of how the skills work. Although, a counterpoint was that he failed to max out [Energy Tolerance] like in his previous life, but that could be due to it needing constant use, like working out.

Salim wasn’t willing to start working out with his [Reinforced Channels] just yet, since the easiest way of doing so was walking into the magic exclusion zone that Fallon had created. Content with making donut shapes out of mana as it slowly filled back up, Salim waited as the sun slowly set. The orange tint that covered the forest was beautiful, but it did remind him that he needed some sort of cover before it disappeared.

Wanting to see what was going on with Fallon, Salim decided to set up cover still in eyesight of the tree, the glow of the evening light off the white leaves cascading like a sunlit disco ball. While beautiful, it didn’t make him want to get any closer as his hair was already standing up on its own, responding to the ambient moonlight pressing against his body. While his reserves had eventually filled up to the point where he could move closer, he didn’t think that would be the smartest choice.

Instead, he braced himself before activating [Arcane Eyes]. As the mana flowed into his eyes, he thought for a second that he went blind, pale light completely filling his vision. Closing his eyes, Salim could see the light through his eyelids, shining through the skin to torture him some more. Turning fully away, he was able to open them just enough to see the pale light emanating from behind him, a faint magenta color that was attempting to burn his eyes out.

Slowly, he turned with his eyes squinting to try and look into the bright light, not the smartest thing he had ever done, but he assumed it wasn’t as bad as looking into the sun. He pivoted, staring out into the light that had fully eclipsed the glowing colors of the surrounding forest, the invisible culprit that slowly burned away at the clearings trees. Squinting as best he could, Salim looked at the shining tree, the harsh silver light obscuring the base of the tree where Fallon was resting.

As he focused his attention on the tree, he began to see a shape… an eye. The same eye that he had seen on the night of his death, which immediately sent him into a cold sweat. He shut off the flow of mana to his eyes and, plunging him into darkness.

The sudden absence of light blinded him, opening his eyes to see that he had fallen to the ground, barely registering the impact in his panicked state. Standing up to look at the tree this time without magic, Salim couldn’t see anything, even with the miniscule amount of light that the moon provided, just dark shadows of trees rose towards the sky.

Standing back up and making sure he had his balance, he headed out of cover, feeling the real moonlight bouncing off his skin as he didn’t plan to stay exposed for long. Checking his energy reserve, Salim dragged his magic together one more time and looked towards the moon.

And squinted as tendrils descended from the heavens.