Pain coursed through my entire body. It was not the sharp violent pain of being stabbed, nor was it the burning pain of a cut. It wasn’t even the mind crushing pain of a mental overload. This was a deep, hot, throbbing pain. Every muscle had been pushed to the brink of tearing, my mana channels were dry and cracked from overexertion, my mind was pushed to the braking point, and my very blood had scorched my insides.

My use of the tireless hunt skill had allowed me to push past mental and physical limits and now my body had shut down to try and handle the backlash of going six days without stoping. Calling on the power of the forest had allowed me to power a spell that should not have been possible and now my mana channels were blocked as they healed from the overload. Most damaging of all was the price I had paid for calling the song of water.

In a final effort to escape from the hunters who were chasing me I had called on the power of the song to cool and slow their blood, rendering them unconscious. The price for that power was a balancing of the scales. As their blood cooled and slowed mine boiled. The pain had been beyond words. If it had not been for my already beaten and exhausted state I am sure that the pain would have made me pass out. My healing matrix had barely been able to keep up with the spreading damage, but it managed to keep me alive.

I am not sure what caused me to approach the last hunter. The lady who had strange fleshy ears on the sides of her head and no tail. Something about her called out to me. I had hesitated at first as she was an outsider but I have learned to trust my instincts. I decided to give her a chance. If she wanted to continue hunting me she could, but if she wanted our eventual meeting to be on friendly terms then she would need to prove her and her companions were worthy. My instincts told me she would understand the message.

After the final hunter had passed out I left. I stumbled off into the forest my mind and body falling apart more with each step I took. At some point I too passed out, and now I am here.

I don’t know where here is. The space I am in feels small. The air is warm and dry, filled with the scent of earth and living beings. There are several large furry masses curled up against me. So warm… soft. Not as soft as my tail though. Where am I? What’s happening. A soft groan makes its way out of my dry cracked lips and I try to open eyes that are held shut with dirt and gunk. In my weakened state I fail to do even that.

“Rest young guardian.” A soft chittering voice calls out trying to sooth me. “You are safe here with me and mine. Do not try to move you are still to injured and would only hurt yourself more. Rest now.” The words sooth me and as soft fur brushes against my cheek I slowly fade back into the darkness.

This continues on for some time. When I wake the voice calls out soothingly to me. Once I am able water is slowly trickled down my dry throat, eventually I am fed crushed berries. The entire time I continue to recover. When awake, which is never for long, I focus all my energy on healing my mana channels. Once those are repaired I can feed mana into my healing matrix and speed my recovery further. Finally, the time comes when my mana channels have recovered enough to allow me to pass the smallest trickle of mana through them.

I let out a deepfelt sigh of relief as the soothing energy of my healing matrix starts to permeate my body. The feeling of relief caries me once more into the blissful embrace of sleep.

When I next woke I felt much better. My body was still a wreck and I doubt I could do more than sit up, but my mana channels are nearly healed. I can feel them knitting back together and the flow of mana to my healing matrix is increasing. My mind also seems to have recovered mostly from the damage it sustained. My thoughts are still a bit sluggish but I can think coherently and can tell my reserves of energy are starting to replenish.

With great effort I manage to open my eyes. The sight that greats me is a small dirt chamber. It is barely large enough for me to stretch out in with a low ceiling and rounded walls. I am also finally able to identify what has been curled up against me this entire time. Squirrels? They must be the ones who were taking care of me. So that must mean that I am in their burrow. Large grey squirrels each about the length of my legs and weighing about a fifth of what I do are curled up against my back and sides.

“Ah it is good to see that you are back with us at last young guardian. How are you feeling today?” Asks a soft female voice from up near my head. Moving my eyes that direction I see a much larger squirrel that must be the mother to the others who are resting with me. “Mm- mm- better.” I manage to reply. The effort to speak through my dry lips and throat harder than I had anticipated. “That is good to hear. I will fetch you some water and then we can talk.” She replies before scampering off.

She returns shortly holding a small bowl that has been made out of a rather large seed and filled with water. Pressing it gently to my lips she tips it and starts to trickle cool water into my mouth. It sooths my throat and the dryness that coats my mouth and lips. Once I have drank it all I find it much easier to talk. “Thank you. Wh- what happened to me?” My voice is just above a whisper and still a little shaky, but I manage to get the words out.

“We found you out in the forest. You were unconscious and gravely wounded. After what you did for the forest, I just wouldn’t feel right about leaving you there. My children and I brought you back to our burrow and have been taking care of you ever since. I have been giving you water and what little food you would take. My children seem to enjoy having you around and have been sleeping curled up around you to keep you warm. You have been with us for nearly five suns and I had started to worry that you would never recover, but now I am sure that you will be able to heal. I have sensed the return of your magic and since then you have started to improve greatly. I would only ask that you stay with us a while longer until you are fully healed and so that you don’t injure yourself by doing too much before you are ready.”

The squirrel’s explanation makes me cringe a little on the inside. I have been out for five days. Five days. I really was worse off than I thought. If they hadn’t found me, I probably would have died. I don’t know how much longer I can stay here. I can’t leave yet but if I stay here for too long, I might bring the hunters down on them. I guess that I will need to focus on healing as fast as possible. I also have a couple of breakthroughs that I need to make in my skills, but I am too tired to do that today. For now, I will rest then I will do my best to heal and get stronger.

“Thank you for taking care of me. I will accept your hospitality and find some way to pay you back for your kindness.” I whisper. “Oh child there is no need for that. You fixed the scar that has marred our home since before I was a newborn. I see this as a kindness that I can provide you after all you have done for us.” The squirrel replies while shaking her head. “As you wish then. I think for now I will rest. When I wake again, I should have more strength.” I whisper as the darkness once more claims me.

After waking from my rest again I do a mental scan of my bodies condition. My mana channels have healed completely and the repairs to my muscles and organs is proceeding slowly but steadily. I am still to weak to move so for now I will have to do what I can mentally. The first thing before I try and make any kind of breakthrough is to check my notifications. I had not looked at them after fixing the scar due to the arrival of the hunters. After dealing with them my injuries had been too severe for me to handle the information they would bring. Now that my mind has recovered however it is time to see what they say.

Ding!

Enchanting has reached level 7!

Mana Manipulation has reached level 25!

Spellweaver has reached level 13!

Healing Matrix has reached level 15!

Pain Resistance has reached level 7!

Mental Resistance has reached level 7!

For increasing your understanding and use of spatial magic your spatial belt has gained an additional storage space. Size of storage spaces increased by 10%.

For increasing your understanding of gravity magic weight reduction of storage belt has increased. Weight of stored items now reduced by 60%

Quest Alert!

Quest Alert: Guardian of the Forest

The heart tree is dead. You have agreed to take up its duties. This forest is now yours, but you do not control it. To carry out your new duties there is much that is required of you.

- Defeat the 4 forest queens

o Queen of illusion

o Queen of shadows

o Queen of deception

o Queen of ?????????

- Cure the blight (Complete!)

- Drive out the drakes

- Fix damage caused by the outsiders (Complete!)

- Grow a new heart tree

For preforming a great service to the forest class Druidic Defender has been increased to level 14!

For gaining a basic understanding of all applicable skills class Orionian Archer has been increased to level 2!

For pushing your mind and body past their limit’s attributes have increased

Strength +2

Dexterity +3

Constitution +6

Endurance +5

Intelligence +4

Wisdom +6

Luck +1

Oh wow so I made a lot of progress during the days I spent fixing the scar. I made huge progress in almost every area. I improved a bunch of my skills and gained a good number of attribute points. The only shame is that I nearly killed myself doing it. I am happy to have made progress in the heart tree’s quest as well. Since I am still too weak to take on any of the queens and I am not yet ready to grow Mel into a new heart tree I guess that my next target will have to be the drakes that are encroaching on the northern part of the forest. If I want to put up a good fight against them I am going to have to get even stronger than I am now.

I will have to improve all of my skills and I will definitely need to make a bow. The one attempt that I made at doing that was a real failure so I guess that will be something I start practicing once I fully recover. In the meantime I think I am finally ready to make a breakthrough in my coalescence skill.

Since I was told that I had hit the threshold and that I needed to change the way I viewed mana I have been trying to come up with an answer to no avail. The idea for my breakthrough actually came by accident while I was developing my fog seed. At first the fog seed was working as planned but I had forgotten to put a limit on the amount of mana it could accumulate. As more and more fog gathered in the storage space it started to condense until I checked on it once only to find that it was filled with water.

Up to this point my mana had always appeared to be a pearly white gas. I could give it solid form by condensing it in my weapons but in my core it had always remained a gas. My thought was that if I could condense the gaseous mana in my core and get it to form a liquid then I would be able to make the breakthrough. With the idea firmly in hand I delved into my mental landscape.

I now stood before a gleaming ball of swirling white mist the size of my fist. Streams of mana flowed from the core into an intricate web that spread through my entire body. I stared at the dense cloud of mist for a long time pondering how to proceed. I knew that I could no longer compress my core so I would need to find a way to condense the mana just a little more without doing that. Having no firm idea of what I needed to do I decided to just act.

I reached into my core and tried to grasp at the swirling clouds of mana. No matter how I tried to grasp at it the mana would slip through my fingers leaving thick swirling clouds in my wake. So, this isn’t working. I can’t grab onto the mana when it is like this. Hold on a second… When I try to grab the mana it swirls away and gets a little denser before dispersing again. So maybe if I try spinning the mana rather than grab it I can get it to condense.

Having a new idea I set to work. I focused intently on moving the cloud as a whole rather than just part of it. Slowly, ever so slowly the cloud began to spin. As it spun faster and faster the mana was forced to the outer edge of my core and started flattening out into a disk. Slowly as the speed increased more the disk started to be forced into the shape of a ring. Once there was a ring about as thick as two of my fingers whirling around my core the mana began to change. First it was only a couple of specs but those quickly collected more of the mist and began to condense into drops. As more drops were formed they collected together and formed a stream. At long last all of the mana that had previously filled my core to the brim was now concentrated into a ring barely half the width of my smallest finger.

If I had thought that my mana had been beautiful before it was nothing compared to what it was now. The glittering white liquid was nearly transparent and refracted any light that hit it turning it into a glittering rainbow kaleidoscope of dancing light. As I watched the beauty of the display, I slowly started to become aware of a problem. With all of my mana concentrated only around the center of my core I would be unable to draw it into most of my mana channels. With a mental sigh I slowly set to the task of separating a fragment of the flow. Splitting off one seventh of the mana I focused on creating a second spinning ring that flowed in a new direction. Once I was able to maintain both flows at once I created a third ring. I did this again and again until I had seven separate rings that were able to flow over the entrances of all my mana channels.

What came next was a waiting game. I would slowly draw small trails of the liquid mana out of my core and feed them into my body’s network. When one stream would start to run low I would switch to the next, then the next. If all of the streams were running low I sat and waited for my mana regeneration to refill them. The process seemed to take forever. Once a channel was filled with a thread of the liquid mana and reconnected to my core it too started to flow. Eventually my entire internal network had been connected to my new liquid mana. What started out as just a thread along each pathway started to become a stream as the simple spinning motion of the mana in my core forced more and more into each pathway as it regenerated. After another long period of waiting all of the gaseous mana in my system had been replaced with liquid mana and all of the pathways were now full. Pausing for just a moment to watch the new glittering flow I turned away and exited my mental plane. My breakthrough had been successful, and it was now time to see the results.

Upon exiting my mental plain, I was slammed by a new wave of notifications.

Ding!

Congratulations you have discovered liquid mana! Liquid mana is the condensed form of mana and is thus even more potent!

Threshold passed – Coalescence!

After discovering liquid mana you were able to convert all the mana in your core to its new form. Due to its condensed nature more space has become available in your mana core. All bonuses from the Coalescence skill have been tripled!

Coalescence has reached level 12!

Threshold passed – Mana Channels!

Your discovery and application of liquid mana to your mana channels has resulted in your ability to pass larger amounts of denser energy through yourself. All bonuses from the Mana Channels skill have been tripled!

Mana Channels has reached level 13!

Living Enchantment updated! Healing Matrix has become the new skill Liquid Healing Matrix!

Your application of liquid mana has changed your healing matrix on a fundamental level. It now permeates your body on a much deeper level resulting in stronger faster healing. Bonuses from Healing Matrix have been updated to reflect these changes. Liquid Healing Matrix now provides a bonus of +2 Constitution and +2 Endurance per skill level.

“Wow Mel would you look at that. With this new discovery all of my skills and stats are going to get a huge boost. It will also help me grow much faster. It’s also good for you because now I can start feeding you liquid mana.” I whisper to Melody. In response she pulses happily against my chest sending feelings of warmth through my body.

Well now that I have finished with my breakthrough it is time to take this new liquid healing matrix for spin. I need to get healed up fast so I can start moving forward again.

Activating my improved healing network sent a noticeable wave of relief through me. It felt like cool streams of water were running under my skin. I could feel the difference in the healing, and I liked this one much, much better. I let the soothing wave of healing energy flow over me and drag me off to sleep.