Stray Soul

Realizing the sun was rising once more over the forest, I decided to get down from the branches of the tree, where I had found refuge last night after running away and start my day.

But not before I went over what I did last night.

After escaping from the rustling sounds coming from behind me, I ran for… I am not actually sure, but I ran for quite a while. Then, after I stopped, I decided to try climbing a tree to be safe for the night, remembering the Hybrids who attacked me from the branches of the trees around the small clearing where we had our kafuffle.

Then, after managing to get up to the branches of the tree and getting comfy, I started to experiment with my soul and tried to increase my proficiency in soul manipulation and experimented with just filling random body parts with mana, just to see what would happen.

And, to my dismay, filling my eyes and ears with mana neither gave me night vision, nor super hearing. But, after I managed to manipulate my soul, and my mana cloud by proxy, into thinner… strands, tendrils, I don’t know what to call it, I managed gain a new function for my mana strengthening! Harden!

Harden: Allows the being in possession of it to harden parts of their body for mana.

It… umm… doesn’t sound that great to be honest… but, hey, maybe in the future I’ll find a good use for it?

I mean, just filling parts of my body with mana should give them some extra mass other than making them harder because mana can interact with matter, and even cause blades of grass to sway around in large enough quantities! So, even if its hardening effect is… ass. It should be of some help for me for when I inevitably charge at something as a big animal!

But… I’ll first need to test how much mass one mana has… which will not be an absolute pain in the ass!

That’s—that’s a lie. It will be an absolute pain in the ass. But I am also going to procrastinate on it for as long as I possibly can, because I cannot think of a worse thing other than having to somehow measure the mass of a small particle in a forest without any scientific equipment! Not that I know what scientific equipment would even be useful in helping me learn the mass of mana anyways…

Shaking my thoughts away, to hopefully forget about them and never have to experiment with harden, I carefully got down with both of my bodies.

But not before I oriented my self towards the gigantic tree, which was seeable from the most upper branches of the tree I spent the night in.

And there was one simple reason why I needed to go back to the gigantic tree, and it was for the lake.

Now, as you may or may not remember, this morning I was having quite a hard time with exploration of the forest and, most importantly, finding a good base location where I could just stay most of the time, and experiment with mana, magic, and souls. Not because I couldn’t go around without being attacked by demonic abominations, but because I just couldn’t remember most of the forest, and because I was also having problems with setting up signs to show that I had already been somewhere.

So, instead of making a lot of smaller signs, I’ve decided to have a few big landmarks, with smaller signs dotting the areas of importance I’ve found, of course.

And my first landmark is, the lake! Or the gigantic tree… but the lake is bigger, so the lake it is!

Though I may have trouble with finding other, noticeable landmarks to help me find my way throughout the forest… but I’ll think about it later.

Worst case scenario, I just go back to the lake, and start going upstream, or directly towards the mountains in the distance.

Going to the mountains will probably take a few days but, like what I said, going to the mountains is a worst-case scenario because, as everyone knows, mountains are high levelled areas! So, unless I am of at least G or F rank, I am not going there willingly.

But I wonder… do I even have to worry about fantasy things from earth, like mountains being high level zones? Or could I just walk to the mountains with few or no problems at all?

…Guess I’ll find out in the fut—

*crack*

Quickly turning my head towards the noise, I saw… a deer. A normal deer, not like the one from before with the floating vines.

Then, as both of my bodies, and the deer had a staring contest I realized something, the deer was tense.

“It is… scared of something as small as me?” I thought but then came to the realization that these Hybrids must’ve been a bigger annoyance than I previously thought if only 2 of them could scare a deer… and the fact that there is 2 Hybrids instead of 1 probably contributes to the deer’s fear too…

Then, I quickly got back to walking. I didn’t want to bother the wildlife too much now, did I?

Not like I need a new body either… I mean, I’d prefer 1 big body instead of 2 smaller ones because I feel like it would just be safer, but there is also no reason to go after every animal I see because they are a bit bigger than the ones that I am controlling right now.

And I am not sure if I want the body of an herbivorous animal… I mean, don’t get me wrong. Horses and such can be really, and I mean it, really dangerous, deadly even. But I am not sure if I’d be able to use a body without any natural weapons other than their size effectively… at least, not for now.

And, even if I had to take a deer as my next body, I’d prefer if it was at least a stag or something, then I’d have some horns at least to use like some sort of biological spear!

… Though that’s not really how antlers are used… at least, I don’t think so? Actually, I’ve never seen a stag fight or something similar to it… so, maybe?

Then, as I continued to walk towards the gigantic tree, I let my mind wander into random directions, not thinking of anything in particular and just being careful enough to not walk into a monster’s mouth. Then, eventually, I came to the edge of the lake, still not at the gigantic tree, but I was close enough to the tree that I could probably just use it, or the lake, as a landmark without actually going to the tree itself.

…Should I still go to it though? I am quite curious about the tree after all… not that I can experiment with it but… just bland curiosity. I should be fine if I don’t stand around it for too long… I could actually just attempt to climb it too but… I don’t think that would end too well.

Deciding to pay the tree a short visit, and then continue my exploration of the forest, I set off towards the tree and, after a short while, I could see it!

Everything seemed same as the first time I saw it… except there wasn’t a weird vine deer or something resting on its shadow… and hopefully no wolves.

Though would wolves even attack something as small as a Hybrid? I think not but, you can never be too careful now, can you?

And as I stepped on the weird circle of short grass next to the tree, I felt something… weird. It was like warmth I felt the first time I entered the clearing, but also… different. But before I could put a finger on what that… weirdness was, it disappeared, and the warmth I felt when I first entered the clearing returned.

“That… wasn’t creepy at all!” I said to myself in a sarcastic tone, but nothing seemed amiss so… I guess I am going to check on the tree and go back after that? Sounds like a plan.

So, that’s what I did. I went to the tree, and looked at its branches for a few moments, wanting to know if there were any branches I could hop on, and go higher. But sadly, there where were none.

Then, my attention drifted towards the lake for a moment, and I saw the silhouettes of a few fish swimming in it. Which made sense because it was a lake, quite a big one at that.

And, as I was about to leave the tree, I remembered something.

“Oh, yeah… I never improved my mana sense, did I?” I said, knowing that I should be able to improve it… hopefully.

I mean, I learned quite a few things from the time I gained mana control, so, using the knowledge I gained from mana control, I should be able to increase my mana sense without much of a problem.

After deciding that improving my mana sense now would be better than improving it later, I decided to hide behind the gigantic tree instead of continuing my exploration until I found a good main base location.

Quickly getting behind the tree, I left my other body to keep watch, while my main body closed its eyes, and started experimenting.

Now, how had I gained mana control? I basically just loaded a part of my body with mana, and then sent a blast of mana outside of my body, which I am sure is not a thing I can do in my soul form.

So, if mana acts… somewhat differently in a body, and thus makes is easier or possible to get mana control, I should be able to improve my mana sense which I developed when I was in my soul form, outside a body.

But how does one even improve their mana sense? While gaining mana control, I took inspiration from fantasy stories from my old world but… I don’t believe many stories actually talk about what mana sense is, they just say it works and… it does.

But how does it work actually?

“Well… I’ve always thought mana sense was somewhat similar to echolocation… instead of sound, it uses mana.” which I think is… somewhat correct, because mana sense is always this 6th sense that allows people to sense their surroundings, even without sight or sound.

“But how exactly does mana even interact with matter? As far as I know it just either changes its direction, gets stuck in them, or very slowly passes through them… none of which seem useful for what I am trying to do… well, then there is only one way to find out.” opening my eyes, I turned towards the gigantic tree, which I was sure I couldn’t damage with random blasts of mana, so, it should prove quite a good test subject.

Then, I pointed out one of my… paws? Fuck it, paws at the tree, then started channelling mana through it, waiting until that feeling of a raging river flowing through it appeared once again, then I prepared a few tendrils from my mana cloud that I will shoot forwards after my crude mana ball hit the tree to check out if mana bounces off of it, or if it just gets absorbed.

Then, without much fanfare, I launched the crude mana ball forwards, then quickly sent forwards my mana tendrils and… I felt a lot, a lot more ambient mana than usual near the place where my mana ball hit. So, either most, if not all, of the mana ball bounced off of the bark, and I sensed that. Or for some reason there was just a lot more mana there than usual… I am going to just say my mana ball bounced off of the bark.

Then… how do I sense mana that bounces off of objects? I can, of course, just have a thousand mana tendrils, constantly flailing around and checking things. But the intelligent part of my brain thinks that isn’t a good idea… so… what to do…

Hmm… what about a radar of sorts? I shoot a lot of mana towards a certain direction and catch the ones that come back and hit me in some form of an antenna… though how will I make an antenna?

Hmm… I mean, whenever I do this, I will be consciously doing it, so it will be an active radar, not a passive one. So, I don’t need the mana around me to be always hitting my makeshift antenna, telling me where stuff is.

So, I could just use a chunk out of my mana cloud to feel the incoming mana… but then, how do I… decode the returning mana?

…I—I don’t have an answer for that… anyways, I can always improve upon this later, I just need to test this a few times to prove my concept.

Then, if what I am trying to do really works, I can improve upon it further… when I have a main base of course.

Then, I pointed out my paw towards the tree once again, but this time, I first started making an antenna of sorts, expanding from the paw which caught… a lot of ambient mana… those might cause some sort of signal scramble or something of sorts in the future… no matter, like what I said, I need to just prove my concept to myself, I can improve upon it in the future.

Saying that, I once again started to move mana into my paw, waiting to feel that feeling. Then, when I felt the raging river of mana below my skin, I once again shot a crude mana ball at the bark.

Then, I waited. And a few moments later, I felt a wave of mana hit my crude antenna. They were of… decent speed so, if the thing I was hitting was close, I’d have no problem sensing them. But if they were far away… then that’d be a problem…

Then, after a few more tries which resulted in… similar amounts of success. I focused on the real world and started to think about where to head towards to and, hopefully, find a second landmark other than the lake and the tree.

“Hmm… for now, I should be fine at nights as long as I don’t encounter a giant ass bird… not the terror birds, of course, they are stuck to the ground, and I plan on staying in the branches at nights. And, if I climb up the trees occasionally, I might be able to see areas of interest before I am near them… sounds like a plan! So, where to?” then, I raised my head, once again seeing the imposing form of the tree.

“Oh yeah… I wanted to know if more of your kin existed up stream… well, why not go there then? Not like something important will happen in this area in the day or 2 I will be exploring upstream.” then, deciding where I was going to go, I quickly scanned the tree line before heading into the forest with my other body, quickly starting to make my way up the lake.