Light from the waning moon struggled to illuminate the forest floor. There in the understory a large cat lay curled, sleeping. The peaceful scene was interrupted as a young teenage boy slowly lifted his head from the middle of the mass of fur.

Looking around dumbly, the boy, Danny, stopped to stare at the moon above. Just looking at his gaze, one could tell his thoughts were not about anything lunar in nature. The ghost leopard eventually lifted her head and, purring, rubbed her face on the boy’s back. This seemed to wake the boy from his daze. He turned and smiled at the cat’s display of affection. Reaching out he rubbed behind her ear where she liked it the most.

Danny’s hoarse voice croaked out, “Hey girl… what happened… where exactly are we?”

A voice spoke out from the darkness, *You flew pretty far after that explosion, then struck the tree above you. The large broken branch covered in your blood is where you stopped.*

After looking quickly around, Danny turned to the cat in shock, “Phantom, you… you can speak now? It just used to be feelings, emotions, and memories. I can hear your thoughts like words now!”

The cat licked her lips and laid her head down, not taking her eyes off of him.

*What? Ohhhh! Yes, I have always been able to speak with you. You just been too stupid to hear me... Meow.*

Danny excitement faded as he paused in thought, “Did you just think the word ‘Meow’ at me? Wait... why do you have a masculine voice?”

The boy squinted and leaned closer to the cat. Lifting her head, the cat rubbed her face against his before laying it back down again, this time choosing to look away.

Danny face contorted in outrage, “Cranny, is that you!”

Danny ears were assaulted by the howls of laughter from the now all too familiar voice. Waiting for the laughter to end, Danny just sat there, not amused in the least.

When the laughter finally died, with a long sigh to finish it off, Danny asked, “You done now?”

*Oh you should have seen the way you turned and looked at that cat… Meow!*

The laughter came back with a vengeance. Throwing his hands in the air with defeat, Danny laid back against the cat, to wait it out again.

*Sorry, sorry, it's just been a long day and I needed a good stress reliever.*

Folding his arms, Danny replied, “Well, I'm glad you’re feeling better, but that doesn't answer my question about what happened.”

*Of course, I was going to try and catch you on your way back into the land of consciousness but things have been crazy. Come to your sanctuary and I will show you what I mean.*

Danny rubbed the cat’s back and told her, “I will be back in a bit.”

Focusing on the unnatural calm he now feel permitting his body, he quickly fell into a meditative state.

In this world, all creatures of significant intelligence can gain access to their mental sanctuary through meditation. The benefits of the mental sanctuary come in the form of increased intelligence, agility, or strength.

As he had expected, Danny came into his mental sanctuary sitting down in a chair at the center of a large room. While it had once looked like the bridge of a science fiction starship from a poorly budgeted B-movie, it now appeared sleek and refined. Though, everything had odd angles and there wasn't a curve to be seen anywhere. Lighted crystalline channels ran uninterrupted between every surface. Where the control panels used to consist of buttons and nobs, they now had holographic keyboard floating above them. The old monitors that lined the front of the room were replaced with holographically projected ones. All it needed was an overabundance of lense flares and Danny would expect to be the lead actor in his own blockbuster movie.

Two chairs sat at a long console in front of him, below the holoscreens. Danny looked to the one on his left, seeing Cranny sitting there working away. When Danny had reached a milestone with his sanctuary infused intelligence, he received a split consciousness in the form of his previous, Earth, self.

Noticing something out of the corner of his eye, Danny looked over to realize the other chair was occupied. Looking around the room it finally registered that the room was filled with other people, working at the different stations. Having watched a plethora of sci-fi movies in his previous life, it was almost expected that they be there.

Cranny turned around and smiled, “Welcome Danny, to Sanctuary 2.0.”

The other chair in front of Danny spun around and a woman, he vaguely recognized, looked at him in surprise. She quickly stood up at attention and saluted, shouting, “Captain on the bridge!”

The activity in the room came to a complete halt as everyone stopped to stand at attention, saluting in Danny’s direction. Danny looked around, unsure of what to do.

Erratically nodding his head to the room, Danny stuttered, “Uhh… um… as you were?”

Everyone immediately turned and got back to their assigned tasks. Danny looked over at Cranny incredulously. The other man was smirking over a cup of steaming coffee.

Putting down the cup, Cranny cleared his through and began, “Where were we, a yes. After being impaled on that tree you eventually fell to the ground. You had a large wound in your shoulder and multiple bone fractures and breaks all across your body. As expected, there was also extensive internal bleeding. I used nearly all of your mana with air affinity to avoid the branch from piercing your heart. I quickly came to the realization that you would die from your injuries before I could use your slowly recovering mana to heal you.

With that understanding, I decided to use that large mass of mana we had been storing outside your body for days. Unfortunately, you were in no shape to help me separate a smaller portion of it to use, and I couldn't manipulate that much mana the way I really needed to. So, I just compressed and centered it on the wound at your shoulder. Stopping the blood loss was the most important step, we could always heal your bones later

It easily healed your shoulder and the rest of your body. I expected the excess mana to just eject into the air around you but it didn't. I didn’t even use half of it…

It was quiet there for a few moments, then you started screaming, and I thought you would never stop. You eventually passed out. Now, the excess mana did something to you. I tapped into it for a moment and it felt kind of like an extreme burning sensation. It was all centered on your shoulder and slowly started to spread. It was consuming all the mana you were regenerating, and I was operating on only reserves and my natural connection to your body. Before whatever that change was reached it, your heart almost gave up due to the strain. A few of your other organs decided they didn't like what was happening either. It was everything I could do to keep them all going. Once, the change reached your connection to the source of mana, it started to spread even faster.

That was when I noticed the zombie goblin. It came from, what I assume, was the direction of the battle. Danny, it was inches from you when Phantom showed up and tore into it like a blender. Phantom was bleeding from a few places but it looked like she had faired a lot better than we did.

In all the chaos with the goblin I almost forgot to keep your body going. Then the change reached your brain and everything went white for a while. When it all came back, I found myself here. When I noticed we had mana again I started up some of the little protocols I created previously. That's when they showed up. Air scan, earth scan, and mana sight all created one of them. Not very talkative bunch, but every time I thought of something else I wanted to do, another showed up.”

Danny looked around the room again and asked, “Did we hit the second triangle with intelligence? We shouldn't have been that close.”

Cranny shook his head, “No, but our intelligence did rise a bit. I think the presence of the crew is part of your upgrade.”

Danny tilted his head, “Upgrade?”

Cranny nodded, “There have been a lot of changes, and not just to your sanctuary. Here, look at this.”

A holographic, three dimensional display of Danny’s internal body appeared in front of him. Nothing looked different to Danny.

Cranny reached behind him and dragged a holographic keyboard around so he was still facing Danny and the holographic display.

“As you can see, nothing has changed much from this view. Your mana regeneration doubled. Which is fortunate because any more and I wouldn't have been able to keep up. I have no clue how much mana you can store now because we still haven't topped off the tanks yet.”

Danny interrupted, smiling, “My regeneration ONLY doubled! I'll take that.”

Cranny cringed, “I didn't finish. About a quarter of your mana regeneration is being lost to your body.”

Danny looked confused, “How can I lose it to my body? Where is it going?”

Cranny zoomed in the holographic image and Danny was shocked to see it zoom in further and further. A grouping of cells were visible, doing their thing.

Danny’s jaw dropped, “Is this live or just a recreation.”

Cranny nodded, “it’s live. Our cells have been changed on a fundamental level. My current theory is that our body uses mana now as an energy source. All operations that used chemical energy have been replaced. We are still mostly water and carbon, but there is a crystal like nature imbedded throughout our body.”

Zooming in further the cellular walls could be seen. Danny remembered from biology, how the outside looked bumpy, kind of like the surface of a basketball. There was also the proteins and lipids sticking out, doing various functions. Danny didn't remember what they all did. Now, there was something new. Interspersed evenly across the wall were crystal like structures.

Danny leaned in alarmed, “Are those viruses!”

Cranny shook his head, “No, those are now natural components of our cells. I haven't figured out their purpose yet. Now, look at your mitochondria.”

The view panned over to a something that looked nothing like a mitochondria. It looked like someone froze a bean and it grew countless ice crystals on its surface. Particles of light were flowing into it as streams of energy shot out to various parts of the cell.

Cranny didn't wait for a response from Danny, explaining, “Took me a while to realize what that thing was. I can only assume magic is being absorbed naturally from where it is stored in our body, and is then processed in some way, before being sent to the various parts of the cell. Why it needs to be processed, I don't know. The mitochondria is supposed to handle a few other important processes so I don't know how that is being affected. The rest of the organelles in your cells have the same crystals dotting their surfaces. Your DNA now includes nucleotides with a crystal structures, especially at the ends. In summary your body is now a highly efficient magical machine.”

Danny didn't know what to say and just shook his head.

Getting up, Cranny motioned for him to follow. “Let's go check out the rest of the sanctuary.”

Danny paused at the door to the hallway as he realized something, “Cranny, I have a body here now."

Cranny had stopped on the other side of the doorway to let a woman pass, "Yes, like I said, lots of changes."

Danny looked back at the woman who had just come through the door, "Wasn't that woman... Isn't she that actress…”

Cranny looked back quickly and interrupted him, “Yep, that's her, let's go.”

Looking around Danny continued, “In fact all the women here are famous actresses... Didn't you say you created all of them. Look over there. Didn't we used to work with her at the lab. I remember us having a crush on her?”

Cranny eyes widened and he jerked his arm up to look at his empty wrist, “Look at the time, we need to get going. There is a lot more to show you!”

“Wait, why are all the men in red uniforms? Hey, they are the only ones in red uniforms.”

Cranny’s voice called out to him through the now empty doorway, “Hey Danny, you gotta come look at this!”