Ow.

Owwwwwww.

As I slowly regain consciousness, a dull ache in my chest makes sure it is known. I open both my inner and outer eyelids-

Wait.

Ew.

I have inner eyelids? They’re clear, and I’ve kinds tried not to focus on the weird and potentially gross differences in this body, not that I pay too much attention to the stuff my body does automatically anyways. I don’t really know what to do with this information, so I’m gonna settle for pretending I never learned it.

Ah, blissful ignorance.

Moving on. I focus on my surroundings, but I can’t really see much of anything. Maybe it’s just because I’m under this tree or something? I crawl my way out from under the roots, and ruffle my fledgeling feathers to dislodge any rocks or dirt caught in them.

Yeah no it’s definitely night. How long was I out? It couldn’t have been later than noon or so when I selected my evolution. I need to get myself an alarm cluck or something.

At the thought of the evolution I selected, the dull ache in my chest picks up again. It feels like someone took a small rock or something, and just kinda, pushed it into me without concern for the organs already occupying the space, or the limited amount of room in my tiny body. If I had to guess, I’d say it originates from somewhere in the center of me, but towards the front. Maybe between where my lungs would be if I was still human? Near my heart at least.

Speaking of the core, I can sense a sort of… energy inside me. It’s warm, and I can feel it all over my body, like how after a major exertion you can feel your blood pumping through your veins. It’s not unpleasant, and it doesn’t feel abnormal unless I stop and really think about it. If anything, it’s more like it was always there and I just couldn’t see it, feel it until now.

Is… That mana? Does that mean I can really do magic now?

Going by how the other skills have worked, I should just… Mana Manipulation

…

….

Nothing?

Well, I suppose not all skills work like that? Or maybe none of them do and I’m just not the brightest….egg….in the coop? Ah, that one got away from me. I should really refine my punmanship before I talk to anyone. If I can talk to anyone. If I can find anyone. Anyways, I didn’t need to say the skills for Sneak, or for Claw, so maybe I just have to find the right action? I’m not going anywhere when I’m effectively blind, so now would be the best chance to practice.

I focus in on that warm feeling inside me. I can feel it pumping through my body, starting from my chest, then going to my head, traveling down my spine to my tail, into my feet, and back up into my chest. Maybe I can...pause it? Or at least slow it a little, so it pools. I focus on causing the mana to do just that in my head. At first, it seems like nothing is happening, but then I feel a pressure building up behind my eyes as my head starts feeling warm. I get worried for a second, but the pressure isn’t painful, not yet at least. It actually feels almost pleasant.

Snap

The small sound echoes through the dark, and I whip my head around to search for it before remembering that I literally can’t see anything. I briefly feel irritation at my inability to see, when I feel that pressure slip from in my head as a whole to just into my eyes

I can… see? Sort of? It’s not sight per se, not as I’d normally think of it. The world is painted in broad colors, like a wet painting in the rain. The ground is a vast smudge of light brown, with specks of green and more concentrated areas of brown throughout. The tree I’m hiding under is largely still invisible to me, but veins of green pulse through it illuminating the shape of the trunk and the path of the roots. Even the air around me has a thin, whitish tint that I almost didn’t notice.

Spell Learned: Mana Sight

Cost: 2 mana, 0.5 mana/second.

Allows the user to perceive ambient mana in a small radius around them.

So the colors I can see are ambient mana? And the different colors must be tied to the elements somehow. Noticing that the spell can only last around half a minute, I release the mana I had allowed to pool in my eyes, and my sight winks out.

I spend the next hour or so trying to find other spells by pooling mana in other parts of my body, but nothing else interesting happens. The most promising attempt was when I pooled it in my mouth in an attempt to breathe fire definitely something that is not breathing fire while sheltering under a flammable object. It didn’t work anyways though, but I did manage to get a puff of mana to actually pass out of my body. Every other attempt wouldn’t let it leave my body.

Mana Manipulation (Beginner) has leveled to 2.

Warning:

Mana has fallen below 10%

Oof. This is… really exhausting. It’s still dark out, and I didn’t die when I slept here earlier… I can probably sleep here till morning right..? Yeah that’ll be fine..

Content with the encouragement I gave myself, I brush aside the dirt below me to create a comfy pocket, and quickly slip back into slumber.

Spoiler: Status

Status Menu

Name: Grover

Age: 2 days

Race: Rooster (Juvenile)

Level: 6

XP: 328

XP to next level: 147

Profession: N/A

Seals: 1

HP: 20/20

SP 34/34

Mana: 18/18

HP Regen: 5/day

SP Regen: 10/hour

Mana Regen: 6/hour

Strength - 4[+]

Agility - 10[+]

Constitution - 6[+]

Wisdom - 10[+]

Intelligence - 12[+]

Charisma - 6[+]

Luck - 4

Stat Points - 16

Skills:

Instincts (Chicken)

Chirp

Peck

Basic Appraisal (Lvl:2/10)

Sneak (Lvl: 2/10)

Claw (Lvl: 4/10)

Mana Manipulation (Beginner) (Lvl: 2/10)(+1)

Spells

Mana Sight (Lvl: 1/10)

Titles:

Reincarnated

Spiritual Bulwark

Survivor