The sources of the howls entered the clearing, and soon thereafter the sounds of morbid feasting began. Marcus would cringe at the audible sounds of cracking bone and tearing flesh. He had been preoccupied before, but now the smell permeating the air was nauseatingly perverse – unavoidable. Morbid curiosity drove him to find out what manner of beast was outside, peeking through a shattered window, Marcus saw a scene that would cause no small number of nightmares for anyone.

Calling whatever those things were beasts just didn’t describe how simple monstrous they really were. If anything, they resembled something out of myth, a chimera, or an animal comprised of various body parts of various species. The chimeras as he decided to call them for now had the head of wolf, body of tiger, and the legs of something else unidentifiable, but chitinous plates covered them entirely. Marcus couldn’t rationalize why these things existed until the truth hit him like a sledgehammer – these were manifestations.

He wanted to nothing more than to just wait for rescue, if was even coming anymore. Regrettably, smoke, caused by the fire, continued to spread through the cabin; even now breathing was becoming difficult. Marcus estimated that in another ten minutes he would either leave or die from smoke inhalation, leaving him with only two options – escape or fight.

Three creatures roamed from corpse to corpse gorging themselves while avoiding burning debris that littered the area. Marcus continued to watch them while planning out the encounter - no matter what variable used the result consistently came down to speed. He was no track star but trying to outrun a pack predator was just hopeless… which left killing them. Obviously, proper weapons were in short supply on an aircraft. The next-best option was a shiv fashioned out of scrap metal - refusing any consideration at using fists; whether either would be effective was another question entirely.

Smoke continued to accumulate as more time than was comfortable passed, Marcus didn’t like the odds arrayed before him, desperate for any other option. A small dagger just wouldn’t be enough to take those things out, He finally concluded that he’d have to attempt something somewhat insane; to put trust in his new abilities.

During the transition he’d stumbled upon a pool of power – gaining a pair of manipulation skills for mana and elemental forces. Marcus wasn’t sure if everyone heard the call he had – certainly a question for the future. The two skills had slowly gifted intrinsic knowledge outlining how to use them, and what they were. Firstly, Mana Manipulation functioned by pulling from internal mana reserves that flowed through the body – mostly using veins/arteries. The pool within himself as filled by unaspected, or raw mana meaning it lacked an elemental charge; something akin to anions and cations - negatively/positively charged ions respectively. After gathering that mana, the second step stage process begins – granting an elemental charge or alignment. Elemental Manipulation pulls upon the prepared internal mana and transforms it into something specific, for example, fire. From there forward the mana is now aspected and can be used to affect the Aether around him. Now what exactly the Aether was, wasn’t clear… perhaps another question for the future?

Marcus did know that that unwittingly he’d used this system earlier to make fire mana. Honestly, immediate events following that creation are fuzzy at best, but he’d channeled that mana back into himself; what exactly that accomplished was unknown.

He figured that since he’d already had success with fire that it would be his best place to start. Marcus began to experiment, he wondered if instead of making his own attack would it be possible to redirect one that already existed instead? To that end he looked at his approaching doom, cracking a small smile.

Pulling from within himself he created a small string of fire aspected mana – only taking several minutes. Marcus had surpassed his previous expectation on how long the action would take and directed his new ‘string’ into the blazing inferno. Making contact produced no results, but unperturbed, Marcus gave the ‘string’ a small pull. His ‘small pull’ triggered a gout of flame to erupt out to impacting the floor, quickly burning down to the steel beneath in two seconds. After a moment of awe Marcus cut his connection causing the flame to cease; which he immediately when the backlash slammed into his mind – he noted to himself, do that gradually next time. Checking his mana, discovering the two seconds burst had eaten half of the pool; the cost was high, but it would have to do. While waiting for his resources to regenerate, he tried his best to observe the creatures.

The chimeras continued as before with little deviation, but they did continue to avoid flames, often taking a wide route around - possibly inconsequential, but it was the first piece of good news so far; they probably weren’t immune to fire. Taking one last breath he sat up, it was time.

Waiting for the creatures to get as close as possible to each other he finally got lucky, two of them had decided to munch on the same body. Pulling on his meager reserves he again formed the ‘string’ connecting himself to the inferno; figuring there was nothing to lose he formed an imagine of what he wanted, holding it firmly in his mind. As mana continued to gather for the attack, understanding flooded his mind – confirming one suspicious he’d held. Intent, rather than image, could be used to mold parts of the spell. With a final tug, Marcus released the held energy, a sum of his entire pool, directing it towards the monsters.

A beam of superheated fire split off the blaze and rocketed across the distance in the blink of an eye. The effects were nothing short of spectacular if not grisly, but these fiends deserved it. The beam slammed into first chimera, boiling skin in less than a second – an instant later lancing through its brain. Much of energy had been spent decimating the first target, but enough remained to impact the second. While the second chimera wasn’t dead the attack managed to expose its ribs - showing a still beating heart; a mortal wound for sure just not immediately.

Crying out in pain the creature searched for source of its torment. Marcus was spotted not long after, unfortunately for it he was still inside the plane with an elevated position. During the crash the plane had come down on its belly leaving this portion of the airframe in its appropriate orientation. The smoke had filled the cabin now, but Marcus was able to wait long enough for the second chimera to die while it fruitlessly tried to climb up the wreckage to him. Grabbing a piece of lose cabling he gave it pull, confident it would work he used the makeshift rope to get to the ground.

One creature remained and sure enough it had been drawn by the sound of its dying pack-mates. Thankfully the monsters weren’t all that large at only a meter tall and twice that in length. After focusing on the last foe something popped into his vison, but he swiped it away, now wasn’t the time. Being stealthy wasn’t an option anymore after using such a flashy ability and the final creature wasn’t cowed by the loss of its allies. Before Marcus could react, the creature took off like a bullet, barreling into his chest; even if he had tried to dodge there simply hadn’t been time.

Teeth began to rend flesh and Marcus began to panic. Thankfully the impact hadn’t caused him to drop his shiv otherwise he wouldn’t stand a chance. Gripping the weapon, he stabbed desperately trying to get this thing off. After taking several wounds the creature jumped back but continued to circle its prey – looking for an opening to finish its grisly deed.

Agony, pure and total agony was all Marcus could understand right now. The situation was more that bad, not only only was he bleeding profusely, but he’d been partially gutted. Instead of falling into despair he instead embraced other emotions, primarily anger, indignation, and a primal refusal to pass peacefully into the dark night. Marcus needed to slow the creature somehow, otherwise landing a killing blow would be impossible. Using the last of his regenerated mana he formed another string, but instead of fire, used earth. Pulling at the ground of chimeras’ feet he willed it to restrain the monster whoever it could. The earth responded by first becoming soft, and malleable – before it dropped, shooting out tendrils of stone to grasp at the surprised opponent. With a yelp it began to struggle, causing many of the bonds to crack. Stunned by his own actions, Marcus was stunned briefly before moving to finish an immobilized foe. He had almost acted too slowly; the cracks quickly expanded – even some of the bindings had broken entirely.

Marcus quickly circled the creature before finding his target and driving his shiv into the location he’d seen the heart located on the other specimen. For a moment the monster froze before taking one last gurgling breath, crumpling to the ground; Marcus following it soon thereafter. His wounds were terrible, even if he had any mana remaining, he’d be unable to focus to use it.

The pain continued for an unknown amount of time before slowly becoming a dull ache. “I guess health regeneration will return me to peak condition if given enough time,” breathing in deeply, “For all of the bad those bastards are causing this type of recovery is simply absurd…” The type of wound he’d taken had been mortal, at least without immediate hospitalization. Perhaps if he survived combat he’d slowly recover if even just one health point remained, but he wasn’t eager to test those limitations.

Marcus just sat there, unsure of what to do next. He had been severely depressed after all that had happened before Integration had begun, but now he finally had a reason to keep living. Rage filled him, more controlled than simple anger. Instead of blaming himself, he instead focused the raw emotion on to those who caused it, the so-called Grand Hegemony. Before he could even attempt at get his revenge he needed to survive, and to survive he needed more power.

He was but a single man, but Marcus hoped that could be changed soon enough, power in numbers and all that. He’d never been hero, maybe that would change, but for the moment he couldn’t even convince himself to check if any of the bodies showed signs of life. Caring had nothing to do with it, he cared about people; but what were the chances two people miraculously survived the unsurvivable?... there shouldn’t even be one.

Shaking his head Marcus began to gather his thoughts. Adrenaline continued to cause him to shake; combat wasn’t something modern humans really encountered. Having survived a brush with death, the reality of it was slamming into his psyche. As a distraction he decided to investigate the notifications received during the fight.

Twisted Chimera – Level 2 | Type: Aberration | A creature born into existence after native fauna was exposed to high concentrations of mana. Feeds on ambient energy but can also supplement its needs by consuming flesh.

[Level + 2]

New spell learned - (U)Scorching Ray – LV. 1| Fires a concentrated lance of fire mana at a target. Number of beams, range, and damage increase with level.

New spell learned – ©Tendrils of Earth – LV. 1| Tendrils of earth erupt under the target(s) and attempts to bind target(s) to the ground. Durability, duration and radius increase with level.

Mana Manipulation +2,

Elemental Manipulation +2

Looking over his gains he couldn’t help but be mildly impressed, he had gained several new spells and about two levels in everything else. To be honest all this information just added more questions to the pile. Were experience requirements exponential or linear? Could he kill boars like that one show to max level? Did all creatures have this information? how about people? Finally, and this was the big one, how many more monsters were out there?

Each level had given him five free attribute points. Marcus couldn’t afford to hoard them before he had more information unfortunately; it was simple a matter of survival. With that in mind he began to assign points, beginning with adding two to Constitution to bring it up to the assumed base value of 10. Before continued he began to theorycraft his path forward, and how it was decided any future growth. As if thinking the word path was a trigger, several new notifications bloomed into his vision.

Sometimes a journey begins with one step, one choice. Each person must forge their own destiny - an infinite number of paths exist, but all begin with three. Consider carefully, as these choices are irrevocable.

Rite of the Arcane – You crave to learn the mysteries of the Aether, +5 to mental attributes per level. Easier to understand and manipulate more complex aspects of mana.

(Wisdom/Intelligence/Perception)

Rite of the Knight – Honor guides the hand of the savior. A knight seeks to bring stability, peace, and prosperity. +5 to physical attributes per level. Easier to learn and master martial skills or abilities.

(Strength/Constitution/Agility)

Rite of the Ranger – A skilled ranger provides for himself and his people. +5 alternative physical attributes per level. Easier to learn skills related to forestry, survival, and marksmanship.

(Agility/Perception/Luck)

Honestly, Marcus was anxious of this choice, it was a decision that would permanently affect this life and he improved in the future. Lingering for too long would only bring him more heartache. Thus far, mana proven to not only be powerful, but it had also kept him alive. Hoping that he wouldn’t ruin himself, he mentally selected - Rite of the Arcane