Groaning and grabbing his head. He thought ‘That must have been one hell of a party for me to feel this shitty. I don’t remember ever being this hung over.’ At the same time Allyce heard him groan and rushed in quietly calling out to him. “Endrian, how are you feeling?” Unfortunately with how Endrian was feeling coupled with his newly enhanced senses it sounded like someone was yelling directly into his ear.

Attempting to squeeze his eyes shut tightly because of the pain his mom’s question caused him, he felt something was off. He opened his eyes and looked around. What he saw took his breath away. It was his usual drab room but this time it was like someone was shining a blacklight in it. It wasn’t like what he had seen when he went to a club with black lights on but it was more of an accent to the visible spectrum of colors. It would highlight and accentuate the colors that already existed like someone turned on technicolor to a grey world. He looked around in awe and looking over at his mom. Her eyes had a slight glow to them giving them an ethereal look. Yet he could still see the sky blue color but it was just more. Almost letting out a Keanu Reeves trademark ‘Whoa’ as he looked around.

His mom saw him looking around in wonder and said “Your new eyes see better. It takes a little getting used to but there are many benefits to them.”

He wanted to get up and go look outside but as soon as he started moving again he was made acutely aware of the throbbing pain in his head. Groaning at the pain he asked “How long have I been out?”

“Out? You haven’t been out anywhere.” She said while looking at him strangely and wondering if there was some hidden damage that was done due to awakening early and with such a strong baptism.

Slowly growing accustomed to the more acute sense of sound he said “Ah, sorry I misspoke. How long was I asleep?”

“You’ve been asleep for an entire day.” she replied feeling much more relieved when he asked the second question. She handed him a cup of water which he took thankfully. Though he had to be careful when accepting the cup so he didn’t scratch her with his new claws. He awkwardly tried to drink the water but, much to his consternation, he got as much on him as in his stomach. The water helped even if he didn’t get as much as he wanted. After slaking his thirst he realized that he was exceptionally hungry as well.

Looking around to see if there was any food handy he saw a plate filled with some chopped up fruits and some dried meats. Grabbing some fruit and tossing it in his mouth he started to chew, but realized that chewing had a very strange sensation to it. As he got used to his new form many of the subtle movements and habits that he was accustomed to no longer applied. Still he was able to eat and drink even if he looked like a drunk monkey face fuck his food after having his mouth filled with novacane. ‘It’s a good thing they don’t have YouTube here, otherwise this shit would go viral.’

“We are going to have to work on your ability to eat without making such a mess. Trust me what I say cleaning juices from between your scales is possibly one of the most irritating things you will every have to do. Also make sure you don’t shift before you have cleaned such a mess otherwise whatever you haven’t cleaned will be absorbed under your skin which can be… uncomfortable.” Endrian’s mom’s eyes took on a slightly unfocused look when she said that last part.

“Thanks for the food mom. I feel much better now that I have something in my stomach and water to wash it down with.” Endrian said to his mom.

“Actually you will need to thank your little sister Ethese. She has brought food at every meal taking away what wasn’t eaten and finishing it so it wouldn’t go to waste. She has been very worried about you. She even went as far as to give up her food at dinner last night incase you woke up and were hungry.” Allyce said with a smile.

A trace of a smile touched Endrian’s face, well as much as he could smile while getting used to the new muscles and facial structure he had. It was very heartwarming and touching that she would even go so far as to give up her own food for him.

“She said she needed to practice taking care of her man so she should start with her brother first.” Allyce said. Aaand there goes those heartwarming feelings. ‘Stupid society corrupting such a sweet and innocent little girl.’ Endrian thought when he heard his mom.

Sighing to himself he started to clean up the mess he made both on his face and the floor. After finishing cleaning up all the mess even from under his scales which had a very unique feeling to it. He decided that the next order of business was to see all of the changes. While he hadn’t been too fussed with what he looked like as a human boy, he is dying to know what he looks like now. Looking at himself in a bucket of water had never appealed to him because you had to find the right lighting and a bucket with clean water then hopefully with no wind you might be able to see your face, maybe. Since he could see all his fingers and toes, everything worked and he had no problems with his little johnson he hadn’t been terribly curious about his looks. Now though he needed a good mirror to see himself.

Looking at his mom he asked if she had something for him to see what he looked like. Giving him a knowing smile she went over to a small table, which had been brought in for his convenience while getting used to his new form, and picked up a copper looking hand mirror. It wasn’t the best mirror he had seen but he could finally get a decent picture of what he looked like at least in this new form. He took a look and he could see that his face was draconic looking. His snout didn’t come to a sharp point more of an equine esque look to it. He had a strong jaw line, or at least it looked that way to him. His face was also more streamlined than a horses. The scales on his face were smaller than on his arms but were still the interlocking scales similar to a rattlesnake. His eyes looked similar to his mothers but he couldn’t really tell the color due to the way the copper tinted everything in the reflection. He could also see some horns on his forehead which were small but looked like they would take the look of the stereotypical devil horns. He could make out his face and neck and he knew based on his own vision that his scales were a silver or platinum color. They were highly reflective and would actually make a better mirror if they were completely smooth than the piece of copper he was using. In the reflection he could also see a relatively small set of wings behind his back. As he focused on them and trying to feel them, while marveling at just how crazy it was to have wings. He tried to stretch out his wings to get a feel for them but it was similar to when he was a baby and trying to move his arms. Fine motor control was not something he had with them. As he attempted to stretch them he wound up flinging his right wing wide open too fast and it felt like he pulled something. Wincing a little in pain he decided to stop staring at himself before he became a narcissist and asked his mom “So are you going to help my get used to my new form?”

Nodding her head in agreement she said “That and more. I will be imparting your first cultivation technique so that you can start gathering mana. This will be the first step towards body strengthening that you have always asked about.” Pausing to watch Endrian’s reaction to this news she was disappointed to see that there was no real excitement there. Continuing on “We will also go over your different mana affinities and offer some ways for you to improve your control over them. As well as provide some ideas on what you could use those affinities for. First though I would ask that you tell me your affinities in detail. I think I know all of them but one and I would rather be sure I am correct before assigning tasks for you to complete that will help you with your control and manipulation.”

Endrian was going to protest that he didn’t have a clue what affinities that he had, but after just a moment of thinking he could feel them and even more surprisingly identify them. After realizing he knew his affinities he listed them off for her. “I have the following: Lightning, Metal, Magnetism, and Air.” He didn’t know the word for electricity or even if they had that word but knew the one for lightning so used that as the closest approximation. He also didn’t know the word for magnetics but after describing, to the best of his ability, what it was, she able to tell him the word for magnetics.

“Okay, so what I want you to do is read this cultivation technique for the Gathering stage.”she said while handing over a clay tablet. “I want you to read, memorize and then practice this. This should help you advance in your cultivation. Once you reach level 1 of the Gathering stage you should be recovered and then we will work on transforming.”

Endrian took the tablet and felt the excitement bubble up in him. He could remember all of the things that he had done in his previous world from from camping and surviving in the wild, to all his school learning up to calculus 2 and other useless information like computer programming to his time in the US Navy and so much more, but this was the first time he had truly come into contact with mystical cultivation techniques that could not only be proven but validated. There was a little disappointment that his first techniques was only one tablet but his excitement far outweighed his disappointment. At least until he read his cultivation technique.

The instructions were coached in mystical language but the gist of it was breath deeply, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Feel the mana around you and call out to the mana with your affinity. Then become one with it by picturing it coming into your body…. And that’s it.

So get rid of all the crap language that makes it sound cool and you have two maybe three sentences of instructions that are about as helpful as pissing in the wind. After reading it again a small Endrian has a small tirade of thoughts in his head. ‘No explanation on what to visualize. Nothing about why you should focus on the mana that matches your elemental affinity. Nothing about prioritizing which affinities to choose. I mean do you just focus on all of them and sense it and call it if you find it? What happens if you can’t find mana with your affinity? Are you screwed or what?’ Forcefully calming himself down he looks at the “cultivation technique” and then to his mom and then back and forth a couple of times to make sure this wasn’t a joke. Finally he asks “Is this it?”

Giving her son a strange look she said “Of course. What more do you need?”

Unsure whether to laugh or cry, he placed his face in his hands and slowly shook his head. After a few seconds of trying to fathom the absurdity of what he just read and what he was told, he promptly gave up and started asking questions. He started off with “Okay first question. Assuming I have to focus on finding mana that matches my affinity how do I prioritize which to search for first?”

A light of understanding went off in his mothers eyes. “I tend to cycle through them. I start with my strongest affinity and then switch back and forth until I find a matching affinity. This will probably be difficult for you since you have four affinities that you have to search for.”

Nodding his head but still maintaining his scepticism, he asked his next question “Okay, then is there a reason that I have to ‘find’ mana with my affinities?”

“Of course. How would you become one with something you have no affinity with? I know this sounds hard but when you start practicing you will feel it and understand.”

‘I don’t want to feel it and understand I want to understand so I can feel it.’ Endrian thought. However, because he had never cultivated before beyond his personal meditation in this world who was he to judge. Coming to this conclusion he decided to give it a shot instead of making assumptions. Closing his eyes he could feel his senses extend. It was hard to describe but the closest he could come was if you were in a room filled with gas, but the gas was a part of you and you could feel it and even control it. Picturing the room filled with a ‘mana fog’ he started to look for mana that had affinities in it. In his mental construct he felt like the majority of the fog was a whitish grey color and there were small pockets of different colors. Some of these colors would resonate with him so he would try to become one with these resonating pockets. Whatever that meant. Trying out different thought to try and cajole these resonating pockets to become one with him he started shouting anything that would come to mind hoping for some kind of reaction.

‘Merge with me? Hmm, Marry me…? Guess not. Join me on the dark side, we have cookies. No? How about, I can make you feel warm and fuzzy if you come over here. Do you want some candy? Still no dice. Let’s try… Become one with me and we shall take over the universe!! Come on move. Maybe, Let’s make a love child together?’ Saying a bunch of random things in his head to become one with the mana after nothing seemed to work he decided to ask. “Mom, what does it mean to become one with the mana?”

“For each person becoming one with the mana is different. It a very personal experience as it is the core of their cultivation. So I cannot and will not tell you how to become one with mana. You must feel it on your own. How well you can merge with the mana will decide how fast you can cultivate and what your future achievements will be.” She said this in a very serious manner.

Deciding to take a mental step back, Endrian started to question everything he knew about cultivation. Which was decided very little. That being said, the cultivation technique he was given was obscure and unhelpful, so he disregarded it as being useful or helpful at the moment. It talked about feelings and personalized experiences deciding capabilities. To some extent he could understand that. Every person experiences things differently and has different abilities. Thinking even further back on his meditations on mana or whatever obscure power there was before he knew anything, he remembered just before his awakening visualizing the mana as a gas or cloud kind of similar to what he perceived when he was sensing it just now. He had visualized it flowing to him and then being absorbed by the skin but there was no feelings required in doing this just his mental visualization. Thinking to here, he decided to put thought into action. Spreading out his mana sense again he could picture his room filled with a cloud of whitish grey fog with bubbles or pockets that had different colors in them. Focusing on a pocket that resonated with him he visualized in his head the pocket moving towards him and then being absorbed by his body. When he did this the pocket that he focused on moved into his body. After being absorbed by his body he focused internally, again similar to what he had done before being able to sense mana, and he could tell that the amount absorbed was less than the initial pocket but not by that much.

After a few seconds of picturing the mana being soaked up by the different cells in his body he opened his eyes. As soon as they opened his mother was clapping and saying “Excellent job son. You were able to grasp it so quickly.”

Endrian was not sure what to say or even how to react to this praise from his mother. “Uh..thanks mom. Uhm, I’m getting a little hungry and thirsty again can you bring me some food please?” He figured that if he asked her for some food he could get her out of his room long enough for him to quietly think about the things he had experienced and validated. After thinking everything over he realized that he had a choice to make. There were questions that needed answering and based on the current results of his questions to his mother she didn’t have the answers that he wanted. So does he experiment on himself? This was obviously dangerous as he doesn’t know if this could impact him in a negative way or not. Well he could perform one experiment and see the results if it didn’t work then his train of thought would be pointless anyway.

Closing his eyes Endrian released his mana sense again. Focusing on the connection that he felt to the mana. This time instead of looking for the pockets of resonating mana he grabbed all of the mana in the room. He then pictured it all moving towards him like he was at the bottom of a hill and the fog was rolling towards him. He also made sure that he wasn’t trying to absorb anything, he just wanted to see if he could get more than just the resonating pockets to move. If he could then this would mean that potentially he could absorb more and different types of mana. If not then it was a moot point and he would go back to doing as he was told. As he got the picture in mind he started to “pull” mentally. Feeling that the majority of the mana moved he was surprised. Interestingly when he pulled on all of the mana in the room not everything moved. There were pockets in his mana sense that refused to budge. One specifically that he found was a pocket of bright white and green mixed together that gave of a icy cold feeling. The grey cloud around it had moved but that pocket was like a rocking in the river with the grey flowing around it. There were some other pockets that were similar to the white and green pocket as well. Some moved but were sluggish like they were coming but really didn’t want to. After just a few short breaths of doing this Endrian stopped what he was doing. His first question answered now he needed to know if they knew of any harmful effects of absorbing mana that didn’t resonate. He suspected that his mom wouldn’t have a clue but felt it was better to ask her and verify that no one knew what would happen rather than doing something that everyone knew was dangerous.

After running a few more tests to verify that the majority of the mana moved when he visualized it moving his mom had finally returned. After thanking her for the food he sat down to eat and drink. Eating slowly so he wouldn’t make a mess this time he focused on controlling the muscles in his face until he felt more comfortable with it. Even still he wound up drooling on himself some. After finishing his food and cleaning up some he decided to start asking his questions.

“I was wondering, mom, what would happen if I absorbed mana that wasn’t attuned to my affinities or didn’t resonate with me? Are there any negative effects I should be concerned about?”

“Why would you even do that?” She asked in response. Then paused and thought about it. “As far as I know no one has ever done that. At least I have never heard about it.”

“Okay, well what about attributeless mana? Do you know what would happen if I try to absorb that?” he asked taking a slightly different tact.

“Honestly! What’s going on in your head? The cultivation technique says to absorb mana that resonates with you. Why would you try to do something else?” she asked in perplexity.

Feeling a little frustrated with his mother he said “Why I am asking is besides the point, I want to know if there are any dangers I would need to be aware of like death, internal bleeding, becoming a cripple, unable to further cultivate, or things like that.”

His mother also becoming frustrated with her overly curious child “I don’t know. Just do what the technique says and there will be no problems.”

Thinking to himself ‘Come on this is the basis of science here. Propose a theory or question. Set an experiment to validate or invalidate your theory. Observe the results. Rinse and repeat until you have a solid understanding of how it works.’ Feeling more and more like he was talking to a wall he took a different approach with her “Well I feel like I should be doing more but I am worried about possible problems and wanted to be sure there would be no issues if I did something that the cultivation techniques didn’t say.”

“Oh, well I’m not sure what would happen. We can ask your father and see if he has any ideas on this, but if you feel it is something you should do then you can just do it. There should be no problems.” She said feeling much better now that she knew it was a feeling her son had which caused him to ask such strange questions.

Mentally throwing his hands in the air he gave up for now and decided he would talk to his father about it the first chance he got. However, since he was still stuck in his room until he could control the transformation he figured that would be the next thing to tackle. So he told his mom “I’m feeling a lot better now that I have had some food and water and didn’t wear most of it. Can we start working on how to transform?”

“Sure. If you are feeling better then we can start working on it. I can tell that you have reached the first level of the Gathering stage already. So there should be no problems. It’s actually not too different from cultivating. You just feel your natural body and then become your natural body. It’s difficult to get a feel for at first, but once you grasp the feeling you will be able to do it very easily.” She said.

Hearing her explanation Endrian felt like he just wanted to go hide in a corner and cry. ‘Is NOTHING properly explained in this crazy world?!?! It’s like a bunch of blind monkeys sticking their proverbial dick in any hole they can find. If it feels good you’re doing it right, right? Don’t try and see what you put it in or understand what you are doing just make it feel good. Okay Go! Seriously. What. The. Fuck!?!?!'