Sam cancelled his [Meditation] ability and was thrust into a world of pain.

All of his senses assaulted him with their needs. His legs ached from the lack of blood flow and his stomach growled with hunger.

He slowly began stretching his legs and arms in order to help the blood flow back to them. It took at least five minutes before he got up. Once up, he looked through the window blinds and saw that the sun was slowly beginning to rise. He wondered how long he had been in [Meditation]; his guess was a few hours.

He headed straight for the kitchen to find some sustenance for his protesting stomach. He managed to find some apples which he wolfed down eagerly. After the apples, he grabbed some dried strips of beef and started chewing on them.

He frowned at the exhaustion he felt in his body. His mind was as clear as a bell after the time spent in [Meditation] but his body felt exhausted. It felt like he hadn’t slept at all.

Since he had some time whilst eating, he checked the notification he had gotten when he ended [Meditation].

Mana Mastery: Meditation level 2 gained. Mana Sense is now available.

He grinned eagerly. New skills would always be welcome! Sam quickly inspected [Mana Sense].

[Mana Sense] [0]: Allows the user to sense the mana in and around their body.

Another sense? He already had five senses. How would a sixth sense work? It seemed really useful because [Meditation] was a world of nothingness and it made his body vulnerable. Would [Mana Sense] solve that problem?

He refrained from purchasing the first level despite how fantastic the skill sounded. He wanted to test out his Water skills before he purchased any more levels.

He headed back to his room and lay on his bed. He put some of the beef strips next to his bed in case he felt hungry again.

As he lay there he wondered where Jerald, Jeremy and Annabelle were. Wouldn’t they normally be eating breakfast at this time? He missed clocks and watches. Had they invented them but maybe farmers were too poor to have them?

Before he realised it, he had fallen asleep thinking about inventing a watch in this new world.

~~~~~~~~~~

Annabelle crushed a mud crab with her wolf clawed foot on the barn floor. As her foot returned to its human shape she knelt down and moved around the pieces of the crab, hoping to find clues as to who the owner was.

Earth mana infused with Water mana. It was a rare gift to have the talent and skill to combine the two elements. It required a good understanding of both elements individually and combined. It was for this reason that Annabelle had focussed solely on Nature mana for her own Masteries.

After looking at the crab for a minute she came to a conclusion. Based on the creature's shape, composition and the fact that Sam was freshly baptised, it pointed to a certain infamous duo.

The Crab Slavers.

Her father had mentioned them before at one of the tribal meetings. They were a dangerous duo who kidnapped people, especially those who had been baptised, to sell them to the highest bidder in the criminal underworld.

One of the slavers used crabs made of mud as sentries to get information on their targets. Once the crabs were spotted an attack would happened merely days later. Bandits and gangs were also sometimes involved, paid to create mayhem and chaos.

The slavers also had a poison maker who used poisons to paralyse, murder and to help them catch their targets.

The strange part was that their victims were almost always baptised by Earth and Nature. She hadn't heard of them targeting the Water baptised before but she guessed they wouldn’t give up the opportunity.

She became aware of her sudden annoyance for no reason whatsoever. She sighed as she reined her raw emotions. It was always the case after she gone through an involuntary transformation. She could feel angry, anxious, frustrated and depressed all within an hour.

Her mood swings made her feel like a teenage girl and it only annoyed her further.

It had all started with Sam's arrival. The wolf inside of her had gotten very agitated for no reason. So agitated that she had transformed against her will after just using up some of her mana. Something she hadn't done for months. It didn't make any sense to her. She had worked so hard at gaining control but it always seemed to slip.

She had cried in Jerald's arms the whole night after the incident in the barn. She hated feeling out of control. She hated feeling weak. It made her furious.

Annabelle suddenly realised both of her hands had transformed into clawed hairy paws. She focussed and reined in her anger and her hands shrunk back to their previous human form.

She sighed in resignation as she began leaving the barn. She knew what she had to do but she had been avoiding it.

She had to speak to Sam. The boy was probably very scared of her at this point and she didn't blame him. The last time she had lost control with someone around...

Guilt gripped her heart painfully as Jeremy's blood covered body appeared in her mind. The pain and guilt kept the incident fresh in her mind despite the fact it happened years ago.

The nightmares had returned recently and had only made her emotional state worse.

She didn't just want to talk to Sam about the attack. The boy was a big unknown in her life and she didn't know what to do with him. She had many questions for him and she wanted the truth.

Jerald and Jeremy, especially Jeremy, had welcomed the boy like a long last son and brother.

She recalled her husband’s words.

"He has our surname, Anna, it is destiny!"

Destiny. Argh. She had berated Jerald for using that word. It had reminded her of her brother Berry and the path he had taken.

She headed towards the stables. She was low on Nature mana after intentionally using all of it to fool the crabs. She had noticed that they had a seal on their backs and after watching a few from a distance, she concluded that the crabs had a sensing seal of some kind.

What they recorded or measured, she had no clue but if she were to use sentry crabs then measuring mana seemed like a good way of sizing up an opponent. It wasn’t a fool proof method but better than nothing. If the crabs didn’t measure mana like she guessed then her trick would have achieved nothing, unfortunately only time would tell if she was successful.

She felt excited to absorb Nature mana; it made her feel so alive. For years she had worried about the happy feeling the mana gave her but her father had told her there was only one type of mana that was truly addictive: fire.

She had made sure to avoid all forms of fire and even the candles they were currently using in the house had annoyed her. It was for these reasons she had made Jerald and Jeremy leave for Haventown without Sam. They had no Spirit crystal lamps, the geyser was almost completely out of Fire mana and they needed more dried meat for the house and more. The list of things needed didn’t seem to end.

It would definitely be an expensive trip to Haventown but unfortunately the supplies were needed. The trip would make them some income if Jerald and Jeremy could sell some milk and get some milk orders in.

She also knew they would need to start selling a few of the horses soon. The local races had died down over the years and the wealthy in Thistlevale had clearly invested in other forms of entertainment.

Annabelle smiled as she remembered taking some city visitors on a horse tour around the farms. City folk were so clueless about nature but they often had a lot of coin.

She arrived at the stables and the horses neighed in greeting.

She fetched her favourite brush and began stroking the nearest stallion. It neighed happily in response. As she brushed the horse, one of her Animal Caretaker skills called [Caregiver] came into effect.

The ability gave her Nature mana replenishment over time as well as increased Nature regeneration whenever she was caring for an animal. It also gave her the ability to take Nature mana from the creature. The ability put the life of the creature in her hands and was a burden for her to carry because if misused, the animal would surely die. She fought off the haunting memories of the past as she focussed on caring for the horse.

Annabelle moved from horse to horse in her normal brushing routine as she replenished her Nature mana. She didn’t need to take any Nature mana because the replenishment and regeneration would suffice. After half an hour she was bursting with Nature mana and her light green eyes shone brightly with power.

As she left the stables she felt the Nature mana move throughout her body. The feeling of power was fantastic and also a burden to bear as she realised that she still needed to be on guard and lookout for the slavers. Knowing she couldn't be in two places at once, she decided to summon her familiar.

Summon Familiar: Felix

Because she had the time, she let the Nature mana slowly flow from her body thus reducing the cost of the ability.

A patch of grass was suddenly uprooted as the soil burst out the grass in a large ball. The round ball of soil began changing shape as it formed an assortment of features like a nose and large floppy ears. Four legs grew out of the bottom of the ball as it grew larger and the different features became more distinct.

As the summoning was coming to an end, the light brown soil colour rapidly darkened and hardened until the creature's whole body was the colour and texture of a dark metal.

Felix the Earth Hound panted excitedly at Annabelle and gave her an enthusiastic bark.

She smiled as she walked up to him and scratched his hard head affectionately. She didn't get to spend as much time with Felix as she wanted.

She vowed to herself to summon him more often.

Hello Felix. It is good to see you!

Felix barked happily at her.

I know it has been awhile. Life is quite busy on the farm.

Felix whined before his whining was silenced by more ear scratches.

There is an enemy who has been or still is watching us. I am expecting an attack soon.

Felix started growling.

I worry that they will be powerful. I need you to guard the farm’s fence. You should find some summoned crabs that are made of Earth and Water mana. If you can get their scent, it would help us find the enemy.

Felix rubbed himself up against her legs. His metal fur was cold and hard. She chuckled happily before commanding him to go.

Felix rushed off across the farm and Annabelle smiled as she watched her dog companion enjoy the freedom of running.

She definitely needed to summon him more often.

She started walking towards the pond since she had seen Sam head there earlier. She could also smell him from where she was standing. Tracking people with her sense of smell, even untransformed, was a trivial exercise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam swung his legs back and forth whilst sitting on the edge of a narrow wooden bridge.

The bridge was one of the few crossings made to help the Underwood family members navigate across the marsh. The marsh was made up of many small and large streams cutting through the long grass and around islands of mud to eventually join and enter the pond in the forest.

Sam's toes broke the surface of the water as they swung. The small splashes of water unnaturally avoided wetting his legs.

He felt very excited because his water powers were awesome.

He could move water with his mind! He had been practicing since he woke up and his excitement had grown more and more. Moving water didn’t seem to cost anything. His stamina had dropped a little but Sam had attributed that to him flailing his arms like a mad man for the first fifteen minutes.

After he had worked out that no physical movement was required to move water, he had sat very still and focussed on his testing out [Water Manipulation].

He could make dozens of small waves, a large wave, a vortex or a mini explosion of water. The options seemed endless.

He pushed himself to his limits and discovered that the only thing stopping him was his own mental strength or lack thereof. The water seemed to obey his instructions but it only took direct commands. Complex ideas or shapes had to be painstakingly created through multiple commands and it was exhausting to hold the water in place for so long.

The power he had gained made him feel good about the choices he had made to upgrade his skills and abilities. His other skills were not as tangibly cool and not easy to test or use.

[Endless Regeneration], the ability of [Endless Vitality], could only be tested when he was injured and intentionally hurting himself to test a once a month ability didn't seem wise.

[Water Manipulation] was the most fun and Sam loved the sensation of controlling water. Did someone say aquaboy?

[Water Attunement] was also incredible but in a more subtle way. Whenever his foot was submerged, the water would 'talk' to him. It was less talking and more an influx of information to his mind.

There was so much information that it ended up feeling like a room full of people were shouting at him. At the start, you didn't hear or understand much but after a little bit of time and some focussing, you could sort through the noise and retrieve the interesting parts.

An eel lives over there, a crab is walking across the mud and a frog and its tadpoles are swimming against the current further down the stream.

It seemed really powerful to gain so much information so easily and he knew it would be useful when fighting in familiar water, even if it couldn’t pose a direct threat like [Water Manipulation] could. A drawback he did find was it took a while for his mind to sort through all the unnecessary information.

The last one, [Water Clarity], was also untested. The skill had said he needed to be in water so without going for a swim he didn't think he could activate it. Bath time would probably be his best time to test it.

After a brainwave, Sam came up with several new ideas on how to use [Water Manipulation]. He quickly took off his shirt and grinned widely.

As he began commanding the water in the stream to start spinning rapidly, his excitement coalesced on one idea.

He could create his own washing machine and clean his own clothes!