Heidie cursed her own stupidity in trusting the demon as she paced along the barrier which encircled the clearing she was now trapped in. The comical sight of the large carrion birds trying to fly away and smacking into an invisible barrier wasn’t enough to raise her spirits. They’d mostly stopped though. The handful of large birds had banded together on the opposite side of the clearing from Heidie, cawing occasionally. Sometimes flying into the clearing proper and eating a bit more college freshman meat.

Lome’Matar had brought up another contract after she’d woken up. Apparently it was a Contract with a capital C. Evidently the demon had a method of enforcing the terms of a Contract for both parties, so long as they both agreed. This was a Contract in which she would become his student for real and properly learn magic this time.

Heidie had silently heard him out before leaving the upside-down head stuck in a patch of drying mud. She wandered to the edge of the clearing to think before doing anything else. The contract had appeared to be pretty fair: Lome’Matar, by his own stipulation, would never lie to her, attempt to control her, or take any action or inaction that would affect her free will or general freedom in any way. Heidie would learn sorcery from the demon, focusing upon necromancy, and become strong enough to cut out a safe haven somewhere nearby. She would build Lome’Matar a body when she had the skill to meet the requirements. In exchange for his knowledge, Heidie would agree to never take hostile action against her teacher or by action or inaction allow harm or a situation which would undermine his existence or freedom. She would do her best to keep Lome’Matar entertained where it was reasonable, and should Heidie make contact with civilization, the contract stipulated that she must make every effort to provide the demon with local literature or whatever form the civilization used to pass down information from generation to generation. There were some further stipulations about what kind of new body was acceptable for the demon’s purposes and that Heidie needed to at least attempt to follow Lome’Matar’s teachings to the best of her ability, but there was nothing that appeared to Heidie as too shifty. The ‘never lie to you’ part was clearly abusable but it could have been worse. Even so, thinking about accepting the contract grated on Heidie after what she’d just been through.

She’d seriously considered leaving the head behind and trying her luck in this world alone after waking up. Unfortunately a short walk to the edge of the clearing and some annoying comments from a certain disembodied butthole had disillusioned her of that idea. A force-field like barrier prevented movement outside. Lome’Matar had said nothing on the outside could perceive in, but nothing stopped Heidie from seeing out.

This area looked a bit like wetland rainforest on earth, but with larger trees; trunks too thick for Heidie to wrap her arms around. It was very moist terrain. Lots of water breaking up bits of solid ground and enormous, thickly clustered vegetation. There were differences from a rainforest of course. Heidie was pretty sure Rainforests on earth didn’t get so cold at night, but whatever the correct term for the biome was, it was beautiful. It was also a wake up call to Heidie that she was in a very dangerous position. She knew Rainforests were a dangerous place for the unprepared. Evolution could pull out all sorts of dangerous things and rainforests were exhibit A of that. Maybe exhibit B. Australia existed after all and there might have been other particularly dangerous places, but rainforests were definitely somewhere in the top ten. Heidie thought it was worth noting that such comparisons were by the standard of Earth. She was worried what a world with magic might evolve and vomit out to kill her in nasty ways. Hopefully not anything among the myriad of annoying insects that seemed to be absolutely-fucking everywhere.

Heidie tried listing out her options. Option one: demon head contract. Chance of survival: unknown. Problems with option one: It is a demon. It is an asshole. And it fucking tricked me into paralyzing and torturing myself. Heidie grimaced. Her attempt at mana circulation had been the worst experience of her life. Even worse than her initial plummet into this world. Option two: try to get out of the barrier or outlast it to wander off on my own. Chance of survival: dismal. Heidie poked the barrier with a stick. It seemed solid. She poked the barrier harder a few more times until the stick broke. Problems with option two: I don’t know how long the barrier will last and I don’t have any good ideas to get through it other than ‘Heidie strong: me smash’, which..probably won’t work. I also have no idea what is dangerous out there, nor do I have any experience in surviving by myself in the wilderness. I don’t want to just believe that there are predators out there because the shithead told me, but yeah..there are probably predators.

Heidie felt terribly depressed. She didn’t really want to be here. Reading about adventure in another world was much more fun than suffering through it. These options sucked.

Suddenly, Heidie’s eyes were drawn to movement in the forest outside the barrier. Her heart started beating faster. She’d mistaken them for stunted branches before, but long spindly legs were poking out from the side of a tree trunk, pretty high above the ground, and they were moving. A horror came into view. A spider who’s cephalothorax(mid section) was at least three feet long was crawling into view. Square-Cube law be damned. It had purple and green stripes along its abdomen, extending all the way to its neck. Its legs were green and brown, camouflaging against the trees and shrubbery. Two barbed hook-like appendages Heidie almost mistook as extra legs rose from the creature’s back, just behind the neck. Across the entire body, legs included, was a plate-like exoskeleton. With its long hairless legs added to its size the thing was an absolute beast of an arachnid.

If it had been a fight to the death between this spider-thing and a couple of mountain lions, Heidie would bet on the spider. Heidie had not minded spiders on earth, but this one’s existence was seriously pushing her goodwill of the species. The spider moved sluggishly for a moment, then skittered across the tree trunk and jumped from tree to tree with frightening speed. It quickly disappeared from view. That was official then: Heidie did not want to go into the jungle. Fuck the jungle, in fact. Option one it was. Yes there was a chance the monster out there was some elaborate trick, but to stray down that path of thought too much lay indecision, and indecision felt like death. Her way out was learning magic and that was that. Her only regret was that Lome’Matar said he would focus on necromancy and not pyromancy. She felt like cleansing flames would be a better solution to the spider than some zombies or whatever real necromancy was about could be.

Before talking to the demon and accepting the Contract Heidie decided to gather and catalogue the contents of every backpack and briefcase she could find. Critical items needed: food, water, toilet paper, and something to dig holes with. Nature called.

One single roll of unsullied toilet paper was found in some well-prepared student’s backpack and business was buried and taken care of, a student teacher Contract had been formed. Heidie sat, still covered in mud and deeply uncomfortable but still doing her best to focus. Lome’Matar’s head was smiling atop a relatively level piece of gym equipment and droned on about mana and mana channels.

Heidie sat in rapt attention, chewing on an energy bar, resisting her desire to scowl at the shit-faced demon. She was doing her best to ignore the smell of death in the clearing that was growing ever worse. It was a very shitty smell. Quite literally, to Heidie’s dismay.

“Mana channels branch out from mana reserves, typically located in the center of the chest on humanoid species, to the rest of the body. They allow the mana to flow throughout a living body without becoming dispersed into the surrounding tissue, potentially causing feedback loops. There are channels that lead through every inch of flesh and bone. They must be developed before circulation can be attempted safely” Heidie felt a bit of rage rise up within her. She took a deep breath and beat it down. Lome’Matar happily continued, “If the channels are are not developed enough to contain the circulation mana will start bleeding between channels and surrounding tissue. This sometimes causes mana to bleed between seperate channels and cause dangerous feedback. Paralysis, generation of heat, and damage to soft tissue are some of the symptoms that can occur should a student foolishly attempt to circulate without being truly prepared. The steps a student will typically go through before they can use any magic are mana awakening, channel development, and mana circulation.”

“How do you develop your channels?” Heidie asked. Keeping her anger in check. Anger would not help her right now. The demon responded,

“Typically a prospective acolyte would spend years preparing to awaken their mana followed by weeks or months meditating under controlled circumstances and very slowly and carefully pushing then retracting small amounts of mana through their channels to widen them. They would continue until they had gotten a functional network throughout their body widened sufficiently. Think of the channels like a muscle. They get torn and damaged from work then heal and become stronger.” Lome’Matar’s smile as he spoke was really getting on Heidie’s nerves. “In your case, your channels should be developed enough to circulate properly right now. After experiencing a feedback loop tearing apart your mana channels and my magic patching them back together, your channels have easily reached the minimum requirement for an acolyte.” Lome’Matar smiled wider, exposing fierce teeth. “This would not be possible without my unique knowledge of healing. Some would call it natural healing and some Necromantic. Either way it is far superior to the common methods of the divine. You have enjoyed a speed of progression not even the children of royalty could hope to experience. Nonetheless, there are further challenges before you which must be overcome swiftly.”

Lome’Matar’s eyes burned as he paused and stared at his student for dramatic effect. “The largest problem, looking ahead to your future training, is that your body is pitiful. You have no developed muscles.You have no stamina and your resistance to disease and sickness might as well be negative. You are going to die if this is not remedied. Unfortunately there is no time for that right now. The first challenge you must overcome is to break through to the level of a first Circle acolyte: the level of emitting mana from your body at will. Mages and sorcerers are spread out into levels referred to as Circles. There are seven Circle in total. There were ten bottlenecks called tiers within each Circle that must be broken through before reaching the next. You may think of the Circles as notable separators of ability and quality while tiers are much more modest in scope: more of a measure of how close one is to a breakthrough. A second circle mage of the first tier is significantly more powerful than a first circle mage stuck on the tenth.” This was quite a lot of information. Heidie did her best to commit it to memory. “You must reach the first stage of the first circle within the day. You must be capable of a basic mana probe and to create your first minions for protection immediately. Secondarily you must learn to heal yourself as soon as possible. You will require fresh water and a source of food soon. We will establish your basic needs of food, water, and shelter. Then move to correcting your miserable body and begin training in earnest.”

Heidie took issue with some of the adjectives used to describe her, but otherwise felt it was an okay plan. Better than nothing anyway. Shooting for basic necessities first sounded good. Luxuries such as a bath and maintaining basic hygiene would be nice too. Her hair and body itched. Being coated with mud was getting really uncomfortable and would only get worse. Having enough extra clean water for a bath sounded very nice. There was also a small matter of only having a single roll of toilet paper and a complete lack of feminine hygiene tools. She had a few weeks, probably, but a period out here was going to be even shittier than usual. Lome’Matar continued speaking. Detailing the process of controlling circulation. Apparently stopping was pretty easy as long as a catastrophic amount of feedback wasn’t going on. “You must circulate now.” Lome’Matar said. A glowing symbol of green smoke flowed out of his eyes and hung in the air between the teacher and student. “This is the most basic symbol you must learn. It is useful in many spells, but you shall be using it to construct a mana probe-a means of using mana to collect information about your environment. Circulate and focus on a symbol which is outside of your body. Try to imagine the mana flowing from your body into it” The symbol looked like a maniac’s attempt at kanji. Heidie tried to memorize the symbol and looked at the demon suspiciously. “This won’t cause mana feedback?” she asked.

“It will not.” the demon replied.

“It won’t cause terrible pain?”

“No.”

“You’re not leaving anything important to successfully manifesting a mana probe out of your explanation?”

“Certainly not.” the demon replied impatiently. “Now get on with it!” Heidie eyed the severed head for a few moments and thought about the spider she'd seen outside. Goddamn it. She thought.

“Fine.” Heidie said. She began to circulate.