Slowly opening my eyes after a restless night plagued with dreams of malevolent shadows, the first thing I realize is that I am thirsty, very thirsty. Stretching out tight muscles I crawl over to the water surrounding the small island and dip my hands into the cool flow. Cupping my hands, I bring some to my lips and let out a sigh of contentment. The cool water instantly sooths the dryness in my mouth and throat, while simultaneously sending a cool rush of energy through my entire body. All I want to do is plunge my head into the depths and gulp down the water until I burst.

Everything here is mine now… I could just drink it all. Hmmm… no the old tree said I had to protect this place and the forest, and that means I cant waste resources. Doing that would make me like one of those outsiders it spoke of. Letting out another sigh, this one of resignation, I force myself to back away from the water.

Well on the topic of being the new guardian of this place I should really come up with a plan on how to get strong enough to defend this place. My quests gave me a solid outline of what I need to do… Ah! My quests! I still have that knowledge text that I can claim! In a rush of excitement, I quickly pull up the quest information to see what my options are. It looks like I can choose between crafting, magic, medicine, and plant care… so which do I want?

Magic would be really cool and would definitely help me to get stronger, but I don’t know if I would be able to use it or not. Having no memory makes picking that one rather risky because I might not be able to understand the concepts it would go over and then picking the magic text would be a waste. Also, when I was looking at my status page it said that my mana was locked so I probably cant even use magic until that becomes unlocked. I guess that means the magic text is out.

Crafting would help me to make use of the gift the tree gave me, maybe. The branch is meant to be crafted into a bow, but the crafting text might not tell me how to make one. Also, there is the issue of me not having any tools that could be used to help craft things. There are too many negatives to selecting this text, so crafting is also out.

Now plant care would directly help me to complete one of my quests, but the old tree already told me what I needed to do to grow my seed. It said I would need to feed it blood, water, mana, light, and dark- oh and that I would need to talk to it so that it could learn how to be a good guardian. I feel like it would be a little weird to talk to a seed all the time but probably less so than always talking to myself. Getting of track again. With what I already know about taking care of my seed, getting the plant care text would be redundant and I would undoubtedly gain very little from it.

This leaves the medicine text as the only one that I haven’t yet eliminated. I see the same downsides here as I did with the magic text. If the concepts are too high level or rely on things that I have forgotten, then the book won’t be a lot of help. On the other hand, my constitution is really low so it might be a good idea to know how to heal myself when I inevitably get injured.

“Well little guy what do you think?” I ask my seed. Naturally the seed says nothing. “Good chat. Medicine text it is then!” I proclaim while chuckling softly at myself. In the rewards section of the quest box I focus on the medicine text. The quest popup disappears and in a brief flash of light a large book appears in the air in front of me, whereupon it promptly falls victim to gravity and drops down onto my foot.

“Shit! Stupid… reward my… rrrrr” I swear loudly before proceeding to grumble incoherently while rubbing my now very sore foot. That book was quite heavy. Looking at the title scrolled in thin golden script across the grey cover of the book makes me want to start swearing again. The stupid book is called ‘Medicine Made so Easy Even a 14 Year Old Can Learn it!’ I feel like some of these quests and now rewards are made specifically to screw with me. Giving the book a hard glare, I reach over and pick it up while grumbling a bit more.

Well I’ve goth nothing else that I know I can do today so I might as well start reading this beast. I mean it is a rather large book. After giving the thing one final glare I flip it open and start to read.

Hours pass by in a blur as knowledge fills my mind. Not only can I understand almost everything the book contains, but the material is fascinating. The book is broken into to sections: Natural and Energy.

The natural section goes into great detail about the natural healing capabilities of the body, and different things that can be found in nature to aid the body in healing itself. There are plants to help improve regeneration, roots that cause the body to expel toxins and so much more.

The material from the natural section was interesting but the part of the book that took me the longest to understand and held the largest part of my interest was the energy section.

To put it in simple terms the body has an internal pool of energy, and when that energy is moved through specific channels in the right directions a myriad of effects can be gained. These effects are all similar to those granted by the natural methods but don’t require any materials. Simply by moving energy in the right way it is possible to reduce pain, speed regeneration, expel poisons and more! The book even hinted that high level practitioners of the energy method were even able to regrow organs and limbs within hours or minutes! Loosing an arm or something would really suck, but with this I would be able to grow it back! This text was definitely a good choice. Now then time to experiment!

Having finished reading to book I was not in a hurry to run into the forest and try to find healing herbs, no I was rushing right into attempting to learn the energy manipulation method of healing. Was this reckless? Probably. Did I care? Not in the slightest.

Okay so to do this the book said I first had to be able to sense the ball of energy that should be present in my core. That’s what it was called but it should be located near my heart. After I find that I need to identify each of the seven channels leaving that area and pass a thin stream of energy into them. That is the part where I need to be very careful since overdrawing my energy and completely draining my pool could kill me. Since it refills with time I just need to wait for it to replenish naturally before continuing if I get close to being drained.

Satisfied that I had the method to establish the baseline for the energy method memorized I adjusted how I was sitting to get more comfortable then started to meditate. Closing my eyes, I turned all my senses inward and started to search for the tightly packed ball of energy near my heart.

I search for a while before I come to the realization that something is wrong. I do not have a tight ball of energy inside me, instead my chest is perfused with a loose wispy cloud of the stuff. Now that’s just not going to do. I want to learn this method and nothing in the book said I could do that with my energy in a loose cloud. I will just have to force it to form myself then!

My mind made up I set to doing just that. This is much harder than I anticipated. The energy is a fickle thing, slipping and sliding through my mental hands as I try to force it together. Getting fed up with the energy sliding away from me I focus harder and form what I can only describe as a mental bucket of sorts. This time when I start pushing the energy into the bucket it is much easier to control since there is only one way for it to escape. After corralling all the wispy clouds of the stuff, I can find into my bucket I am about to seal it off when I notice something curious.

I can sense thin tendrils of energy seeping back into the area I just cleared but it is not coming from my bucket. This must be my natural regeneration refilling me with new energy or it could be my body absorbing the ambient energy that is around me. It’s going to be a problem if it just fills into another cloud. I need it to flow into where the rest of my energy is.

Working carefully, I search for the points where the energy is entering my body. After finally tracking them all down I create small mental pipes for them to flow down. The pipes lead to my bucket and after some mental gymnastics I finally create a series of one-way valves that let the energy flow in but keep it from escaping. Checking around one final time for any energy that I missed I close off the bucket and prepare for the next step.

Whew, that was not easy. Okay the next step, now that I finally have a ‘ball’ of energy is to condense it. Turning my focus back to my bucket of energy I set my mind to smoothing it out into a ball. Being very careful not to let any holes form I stretch and shape the bucket until it turns into a perfect sphere. The shape finally set I start to condense the ball. After just a moment of work I stop realizing that I will need to extend the ‘pipes’ containing the incoming energy as I shrink the ball.

Refocusing I bring all my mental power to bare on the task at hand. Mind straining, I begin the arduous balancing act of shrinking the sphere while refusing to let any energy leak out. Going from the size of my chest to the size of a loaf of bread to the size of three fists, the ball shrinks getting harder and harder to condense further. I try to focus harder but no matter how much force I try to apply to the ball of energy it refuses to shrink any further. Hmmm well the book never said how small the energy ball would have to be, but this will just have to do. I think I did pretty good for doing this from scratch. Now I just need to make sure that I can hold this pattern without too much effort.

For an undetermined period of time I focus on just holding the pattern fast in my mind. Gently relaxing my hold on it as time passes and I get used to holding it without constant effort. A few times I have to quickly exert my will to reshape a part that deforms or to patch an area that starts to thin.

Eventually I feel confident that the pattern will hold and release my hold on it. Watching for a few minutes and seeing no changes I feel satisfied, deciding it is time to move on to the next step.

Mentally reentering the core, I start to probe the edges, searching for the openings to the channels described in the text. Finding one I start to gather a thin thread of energy from the core and begin feeding the energy into the channel.

Curious to see where it goes, I let my mind be dragged along the flow. I am ferried along a long twisting tunnel that goes from my heart, up the back of my neck, around my skull and eyes, then back down my throat returning to the core. Repeating the process six more times I fill all the channels with energy, watching with a little bit of concern as my core gets very low. Luckily there is enough there to complete the task without needing to stop.

Now very pleased with myself I am about to exit the mental scape inside my body when I notice something very curious. There is a new set of channels that shouldn’t be there.

That’s odd… where do you go? Moving back into my core I move my mind through the new paths. Curiously these paths move relatively along the same paths as the previous channels that I filled but reside on a much deeper level.

This is really odd but now that I’ve seen them I just have to fill them as well. How much energy is in my core? Hmm, not much… damn looks like I have to wait.

Impatiently I watch as energy lowly trickles back into my core. After a small eternity my core is finally full again. Without hesitation I feed energy into the new channels. As soon as they are all full an intense tingling sensation runs through my entire body and all the energy flowing through me takes on a denser consistency and turns a pure shimmering white. Shivering in pleasure I fall over writhing on the ground. Jerked from my meditative state by the intense sensations I let out soft whimpers and the occasional moan as the energy seems to permeate my entire body.

Oh god wha- what was that? Th- that felt amazing. My face flushed and body covered in sweat I gingerly run my hands over my body. Fresh from the aftermath of what just happened everything is still to sensitive. The merest touch against my skin makes me shiver. Trying to regain some semblance of control over myself I just lay there attempting to slow my breathing.

In the midst of this the green dot indicating new notifications flashes so rapidly it is almost constantly on. Oh… I must have several new ones that came in during my meditation that I didn’t notice. Why is it flashing so much? Is it because I’ve been ignoring it or does it mean there are multiple notifications? Hmmm, well only one way to find out. Mentally focusing on the dot I will my notifications to show and my head nearly explodes as a tidal wave of information crashes into my mind.

Intelligence + 2!

Wisdom + 1!

Skill acquired – Speed reading

Speed reading has reached level 4!

Speed reading – You don’t just read, you SPEEED READ! Not content to absorb knowledge at the rate of a regular person you quickly and eagerly devour information that is written down. Reading speed increased by 5% per skill level.

Skill acquired – Coalescence

Coalescence has reached level 3!

Coalescence – Not satisfied with the use of uncontrolled energy you have learned to contain energy so it can be released in a controlled manner. Condensing this energy makes it more potent and allows you to contain more. +1 Wisdom per skill level

Skill acquired – Mana Manipulation

Mana Manipulation has reached level 5!

Mana Manipulation – You have learned to move and shape the energy that is mana. Forcing the energy to go where you want it and assume the shape you will it to, this is your mana. Increase skill level to improve you’re control over mana. +1 Intelligence per skill level

Skill acquired – Energy Healing

Energy healing has reached level 2!

Energy Healing – You have learned that it is possible to heal without the need for plants or potions. Simply by moving the energy within your body in a specific way you can cause your body to heal. Healing potential increases with skill level.

Skill acquired – Mana Channels

Mana Channels ha reached level 7!

Mana Channels – Mana flowing freely through your body can cause some serious problems but you have found the solution. Natural paths in your body allow for the free passage of mana.

+1 Intelligence & +1 Wisdom per skill level

System Alert!

Pure Mana Affinity acquired!

Mana affinity is determined by the tings that influence you at the time of acquisition. Somehow you used knowledge of a healing method to unlock something you did not understand in a way that should not have been possible. Due to having no influences at the time of acquisition you have unlocked the Pure Mana Affinity. You are able to sense and manipulate any type of mana without penalty.

Mana unlocked!

Luck + 2!

New class options are available!

Mental resistance has reached level 6!

Holly crap! My mind was hit by so much information that it registered as a psychic attack! And boy oh boy is that a lot of information.

Slowly making my way through all of the notifications my heart starts to beat faster as I get to the part about pure mana affinity. Mana unlocked! Ho- holy crap I unlocked my magic! I did it! I Somehow did it! Jumping up and doing a little happy dance I celebrate my newfound skills. Now that I can use mana I have to learn magic!

In a giddy rush I pull a little mana from what I now am pretty sure is my mana core and run it down my arms to my hands. A warm tingle flows with the mana and upon reaching its destination a small cloud of white sparkles bursts from my palms.

Squealing in delight I dance in the cloud until a wave of exhaustion hit me. Bending over while gasping for breath and trying really, really hard not to fall over again, I wait for the sensation to pass. This- wheeze- must- wheeze- be mana depletion- wheeze. I need to be careful with that and try not to overdo it again.

Having just used magic for what is the first time I can remember a wide smile crosses my face.

I can’t wait to experiment some more!