“Without a sun overhead, the only way to tell time is with my internal clock.”

I keep treading along the strange and lush cavern terrain, quietly talking to myself. Recently, I’ve been growing more worried in this place. Or insane.

“I simply have to put blind faith in myself, scratching a line onto the Sleep Slab every time I feel the call to rest.”

Monsters, killer flora, dangerous terrain. So many things that could kill me.

“I keep walking through the forest, just me… by myself. The grass is nice, and the atmosphere… I’m looking for some salt.”

I’ve been silently rambling for who knows how long now. No one is around to hear me anyways, not even the monsters, which have been lessening in encounters over the past few days for some reason.

In my inattentiveness though, I step on a few sharp rocks.

“...shit...”

I let out a sigh.

I just want someone to talk to...

“Someone to talk too~ Lift me from my blues…” I sing like a crazy person. Offbeat and a little loony sounding.

I laugh to myself. I’m really so stupid...

God this place sucks.

“Hmm, can I really use God at this point? Maybe veiled, because they were the one who made the monster's form that I am in?”

I continue to talk to myself as I tread on through the misty forest I was in. It was quite hard to see, even with the numerous amounts of glowing mushrooms there were. That’s all that’s here isn’t there? Just a bunch of mushrooms, not even edible. It’s been so boring that I’d prefer a monster to fight me right now.

Oh well. All I can do is just keep looking.

Looking for the lake, or rather, what it used to be.

Some may call it crazy to be looking for a dried up lake bed in the cavern. Those people haven’t had to eat unseasoned food for the past week. And it’s not completely groundless either, because this place has shown that it could have rivers and the like. And if there’s a river, there could be places that the river has once flowed through, and then stopped flowing through due to erosion and stuff like that.

I yawn and mess around with the little globules of mana around me. I don’t know why being a mana monsters means that you have these little things floating around, but I guess a lot of things in this world don’t make sense.

I move it up, down, spin it. Everything you’d do to an object if you had the power of telekinesis, I’ve done it. It serves as a nice distraction.

Your External Magic Manipulation has leveled up LV2 → LV3.

Oh, I forgot about that. Hooray. Go magic.

...It’s actually amazing how quickly one can get used to such a radical change in how you live life. I guess that’s just how people are: they adapt quickly. Still, the feeling of leveling up is nice, even if my feelings aren’t as pronounced as they were before.

I conjure up an ice bullet, and twirl it around my hand. It’s much easier, as expected, and I feel a slightly deeper understanding of my magic.

I grab it and expel the bullet towards one of the bigger types of mushtree next to me, hitting it with lethal force. A loud bang resounds in all directions, shaking some of the less stable mushrooms. My body turns to face the direction on the tree. I let out a sigh.

“Come out and fight me, instead of hiding like a coward.”

Out of the massive tree comes a huge troll. It holds a massive, bloody club in one hand.

It cracks its neck and then lets out a guttural roar, deafening all those nearby. I blow its brains out with an iron bullet, shot with the power and precision that comes with all of the experience of fighting this monster before. And I’m not just talking about experience for levels either.

It pauses for a moment, shaking back and forth, before finally falling to the ground. It lays there, bleeding tremendously.

The troll begins to grow fur, its skin turning a silvery white. A snout appears out of its head, and it begins to grow paws as its club fades away. Damage dealt to the illusion for this particular wolf is dealt to the caster as well. Isn’t that so convenient for you, monster.

You have slain…

Dismiss.

Damn wolves, it’s like all I see is them nowadays. Dealing with the normal ones are so annoying.

I tread through the mushforest, a little more irritated. Great, now my mood has worsened. I step forward and my foot suddenly sinks slightly into some white, grainy substance. Very dry.

No way. Is it really? Have I really found salt so quickly?

Granulated Bone Powder.

Bones ground into a powdery form. This specific pile of granulated bones has been formed as a by product of high intensity, sustained magic. The bones are mixed in origin, including many different creatures.

The composite is made of mammal bones, hardened exoskeletons, microorganisms, carnivorous flora, drake bones, cellulose, iron, and gold.

Oh, what an absolutely fantastic substitute for the old and depreciated sodium chloride. Instead, try bones!

“What the hell… “

I tread on the powdered bones. So this is the result of magic? Interesting.

I continue to walk along the fields of bones and dead things, curious about the nature of this place.

…

Okay, I know that it could potentially be very dangerous but can you really blame me for this? This is too weird, and I want to at least find out a little about this whole thing.

And so, the mana monster forges his own unknown path, accepting the dangers that may come with it. Well, I think that my skills aren’t too bad at least. I mean, I still have those unassigned points that I could put into speed to run away.

If I die, then I just die. It's difficult to care more than that at this point.

I continue on, waiting in calm expectation of something to happen. I don’t really expect much, but who knows.

I leave footprint engraved into the bones as I walk, only about an eighth of an inch deep. Maybe I shouldn’t be treading on the dead, but like, I haven’t really learned to fly yet. Working on that.

Suddenly, I hear something that stops me in my tracks. Old and raspy, it barely registers as a noise. I focus on it, and I can hear it enunciate its words clearly.

“Help… me.”, it rasps on, coughing intermittently. “… please...”

I turn around and look at an emaciated person. Only its arms, torso, and legs exist, the leg portion dwindling off into a long, thin line. I meet its eyes. It crawls along to me.

Silently. Slowly.

It holds its head down the entire way. I simply stand there while I wait for something to happen. I'm not entirely sure who this man is, and I feel slightly repulsed at the sight of him. It makes me feel a little bit of pity for the poor guy.

Once it gets closer to me though, it jumps on me, screaming incoherently. I am latched onto by the old and decayed figure.

“PLEASESTRANGERHELPIDON’TWANTTODIEITHURTS”, it screams wildly into my face, grabbing a hold of me.

I fall back, a scream escaping from me. “Wait! What’s wrong with you.” I look into its eyes and see its red pupils dilated, shaking with extreme movements.

The strange being keeps shouting into my ears. Its entire body starts shaking even harder. I can feel its grip on my shoulders, squeezing it tightly with its bony, rough fingers.

A cold sweat runs down my neck.

“ITHURTSITHURTSITHURTSITHURTSTHEYCUTOFFMYLEGSTHEYCUTITOFFITHURTSITHURTS”

It uses its iron grip on my shoulders to push up closer to my face, closing the distance to less than three inches away from it at this point.

Its mouth is opened wide, much too wide for any human, or any thing to be able to do. It rocks its neck side to side and twists it as much as it can. The being digs its fingers into my shoulders, and I start to feel a slight pain from the intensity of it.

“HELPMEHELPHELPHELPHELPHELPHE-”

An arrow flies in front of me and shoots the screaming corpse off of me. Another voice speaks, and thankfully more coherent this time.

“By the Almighty, are you alright?”

A man speaks to me, covered in light leather armor. He wears light green attire underneath all of that leather he wears. In his right hand, he holds a short bow, made simply but with tiny, beautiful stylings to it. Strangest of all though is his wings. He doesn’t seem to be human, instead having strange, red scales instead of skin. A fantasy drake? It looks at me weird. Oh, I seem to be staring. Oops.

“A monster? You seem to be very much different from the others though. Can you understand me?”

My mind suddenly going blank in the face of the social situation, I can only nod. The person is taken aback by the response, surprised to see any comprehension from the mysterious monster at all.

“Almighty ones… What a peculiar thing you are.”, the drake says, an inquiring look on his face.

Is he a drake? Would it be like, wrong to assume that of him? He seems nice at least…

The person in front of me grins, he holds out his hand. “Hello, the name’s Vezhan. How’s it to ya?”

At the last second, he seems to realize his mistake, and pulls back his hand. How could a monster know any people-like mannerisms anyways? As he begins to do so, I grab it quickly, and shake it gently, like I’m touching some sort of rare and exotic creature.

“My name is Aaron. Nice to meet you.”

The drake looks at me stunned. He then lets out a loud, hearty laugh, “Glad to meet you too, pal.”

He smiles, and I smile because of how infectious it is. He reminds me of an old friend I had who always got along with everybody in the class and was always the one to brighten up the atmosphere. He was really one of the few reasons why I actually wanted to come to school besides academics. He stopped coming to school one day though. I guess leukemia can strike most unexpectedly.

Remembering it put a sad yet sweet memory in me. Vezhan looks around and talks to me, “C’mon, weird monster. I know a safer place than here. Follow me?”

He looks back, an expecting smile on his face. It strikes a node in my heart, reminding me of that ridiculously stupid grin that would appear on my friend’s face. My conscious relents, and my heart is happy to oblige. I give a thumbs up to Vezhan, and he starts to lead me through the bone flats, bow at the ready for incoming monsters. Not referring to me of course.

In this distance, we see one corpse crawling towards us. He readies his bow and shoots his arrow. It seems to glow yellow, and my mana sight told me that he was using some kind of special type of magic. I wonder what that was?

The corpse falls and fades away into the ground, leaving only dust in its death.

I look at it in amazement. Since when do monsters do this? How does magic even play into all of this? So many more questions!

Vezhan, on the other hand, averts his eyes slightly, a small frown on his face. I notice it, and is puzzled by it.

Vezhan looks at me and looks away, continuing to walk forward. “Poor things don’t deserve this.”, he says with a heavy voice.

Huh? I mean, they are monsters, right? Like maybe some kind of ghoul right?

“What are they then?”, I ask.

The drake pauses, and chuckles. “Nothing to worry about, really. They’re just some lost and tortured souls.”

I pause in my tracks, silent. The drake looks back, embarrassed at bringing something like that up.

“Uh… sorry, didn’t really mean to bring that up now. Let’s just continue to move on. The place I’m talking about is starting to come up.”

And we continue on. A monster and a draconian-slash-lizardian dude: Who’s a stranger sight?

“You know, you’re actually quite an odd one really.”, Vezhan says. He looks back at me. “You don’t really seem bloodthirsty like the others. Why though?”

I pause and try to think up a response. I don’t really feel like telling him that I’m a human in a monster body. It’s kinda personal, to be honest.

“I care more about the magic than the killing.”

Oof, eek, was that too cold sounding? It’s been a while since I’ve talked to somebody. I need to ease into this some more.

Vezhan continues to inquire about my nature. “So that’s the secret? Magic?”

"It's no secret really, I'm just obsessed with magic."

“Pft… what are you talking about even?”, Vezhan says looking at me with a ridiculous face.

What? I am shocked. Magic is nothing to be scoffed at by any measure at all. Offensive, defensive, medical, entertainment; It excels in all aspects.

“What I’m talking about?” I smirk, pausing in my tracks. “I’m talking about this.”

Something I’ve worked on in my downtime:

I conjure up an ice bullet in a very specific shape. A three dimensional Sierpinski’s triangle in fact.

With the power of my external mana manipulation, as well as my intelligence stat plus visualization, I discovered that I can manipulate light within these prisms to reflect certain colors of light with focusing other unwanted colors of light into tiny patches on the ground where you can’t really see it.

My fractal shape goes on and on endlessly. I generate another one, and another one.

I am left with five – the maximum amount of mass that I've summoned that I could manipulate at once. Now is this hard part: Decision making.

What do I want to see?

So many sights, so many things I could see. I could visualize the sky, the cities, the earth and space and stars. So many things that I could only see in my head, I could finally see in real life. But now I have an audience.

Vezhan. Hmm.

What have I seen that he hasn’t? I want something to knock his socks off. Or maybe scales.

The imagery of his scales getting knocked off comes to my mind. Maybe another saying would be more appropriate.

Focus, Aaron.

Yeah, can’t get too off track. So think – I want to build a hologram by combining the shattered prisms of these fractal structures. They will be suspended in the air around me, and I will make them glow with my magic.

What will I show him?

I think for a little and the thought hits me. I smile, and the triangles shatter. They stretch out around us for about twenty five feet – the absolute limit I could control anything with my magic currently. Luckily, these fragments are small. If they were any bigger, then I’d have to restrict the area I could disperse these fragments in.

The tiny, invisible fragments surround us. Next part is the visualization. I know about light and color theory, so that helps a little. I also know the basics in that I push in regular light and the shape of my prism alters it to show specific things. Now to let my intelligence do the work for once.

I want…

The Aurora Borealis.

Does that exist here? I have no idea.

I never even seen it in person – only in pictures. But the stat works its magic, and it appears. About 720P resolution is my limit for now. I hope to increase it so that it becomes indiscernible from real life.

I think of it, and the magic does its work. I see the snow, the lights, a cabin in the distance. I see the snow and me and Vezhan standing around in it. The Aurora Borealis shines in the distance, a grand display. Unfortunate that the resolution and maximum size of the hologram is so small, it's really such a shame. Something of this grandness is not truly represented in a reproduction like mine. Not until I'm able to increase its size at least.

Still though, I'm doing it anyway.

Cave? Hmph. No, we are in Alaska. The snow hits our bodies and the cold is real. Vezhan looks in awe at the display of art. He then looks at me and tilts his head.

To himself, he whispers,

“Just who is this monster?”