IT decided to not fear the giant towering above, that was looking down at IT. There was no way to outrun such a threat but maybe it was possible to impress him and gain an ally? IT immediately decided on the only right choice: Magic Entity. Clearly a small sized insect would only impress a giant with magic! Also it could not wait to best more powerful opponents with fire or summon monsters to fight for IT.

The evolution took place rather slowly. An electric feeling went through IT’s body, paralyzing and stunning the small insect. Then however IT’s physical appearance changed as well. The small, ant-like body expanded, grew considerably in size and stretched out. With a body as nimble as a stick and six similar legs IT was about ten to fifteen times as long.

Even the thought process felt different. Much more information stretched out in IT’s mind and thinking felt much easier. Meanwhile the giant had changed his attitude. Scribbling on a giant sheet of paper he was writing down everything he observed. Now it was time to impress. Very curious what kind of spells IT would have received IT browsed all the new information.

[Profile] - [Magical Being] - [Level 3]

[Energy: 42/100]

[Power Level: 7]

[Size: 1] - [Upgrade: 50 E.]

[Enhance Body] - [Remaining Points: 5]

[Eyesight: 5: Max.]

[Legs: 3]

[Stomache: 8]

[Wings: 0]

[Mana: 5/100]

[Mana Regeneration: 1/hour]

While the new additions of Mana and Mana Regeneration were no surprise, the rise in Power Level was. Seven points just from evolving? Noting that the stick insect had no real offensive tools aside from small claws on the frontal legs, IT felt even less capable in melee fighting than before. Maybe that was just a temporary thing.

Then IT had another thought. Magic could have altered the power level as well. Maybe the power level was just a factor to compare and assess the general danger of things based on one’s own power?

Moving on to the magic pages the new information revealed the real interesting things.

[Magic: Talent]

[General Magic: 1]

[Fire Magic: 0]

[Water Magic: 0]

[Air Magic: 0]

[Earth Magic: 0]

The Talent page had no options for upgrades, so IT assumed this worked with a grinding system. Do fire magic gain fire magic points. Pretty simple. Moving on, the spellbook page was offering the really interesting stuff. Here IT finally found spells to show to the giant that was still writing while keeping his distance.

[Magic: Spellbook]

[Body of Light] - [Upgrade: 100 E]

[General Magic - Mastery 00.00%]

[Mana Cost: 1 Mana/second]

[Turns you into a Entity of Light to blind or confuse opponents or to navigate through the darkest places.]

[Fireball] - [Upgrade: 100 E]

[Fire Magic - Mastery 00.00%]

[Mana Cost: 100]

[One time, single target Spell]

[Every sorcerer knows the art of throwing a ball of fire. Nothing special.]

[Create] - [Upgrade: 100 E]

[General Magic - Mastery 00.00%]

[Mana Cost: depending on action]

[Turn materials around you into something different in shape or function. High level creation magic allows you to construct many different things.]

[Exchange Power] - [Upgrade: 1.000 E]

[General Magic - 00.00% Mastery]

[Manacost: depending on action]

[Exchanges Energy for Mana or Mana for Energy.]

[Exchange Rate: 10:1]

As the mana regeneration with one per hour was literally non existent IT had to make sure the five mana would get noticed. The body of light spell should provide a lot of attention, hopefully the giant was smart enough to realise IT’s efforts. Five mana available meant the spell could be used five times. When the giant looked up from his writings the next time, IT immediately used the spell.

A warm energy rose inside IT’s body, and streamed out to all ends of the stick insects limbs. At the same time IT’s body began to shine in a very bright light. A second was really very short, so the effect ended far quicker than IT had hoped for. The feeling had been very pleasant, magic was really interesting.

Luckily the giant took notice and rose from his scribbling. Staring intensely it was as if he could not believe his own eyes. IT decided to use the spell again, at the expense of another precious mana point. This time the giant understood. A voice spoke in IT’s mind and information rose over IT’s consciousness again. Both at the same time was very confusing so IT held the newly found information back.

“Did you use magic just now?” The voice was warm, pleasant and oddly familiar. IT did not know why, but the giant suddenly felt like an old friend, welcoming him in his house. IT had to be friendly too. Immediately IT used the spell another time to confirm the question.

The friendly giant rose his eyebrows. “Interesting. You can understand what I am saying too right? Blink again if you understand me and can use magic. Don’t blink if you can’t.”

It immediately confirmed with another spell. Only a single mana point was left. If the giant continued to ask more such questions IT would have to waste everything. “Good. Can you speak back to me?” IT remained still without using the spell to deny the question. “Hmm. I will leave for a minute and find some things that may help. Stay.”

With these words the friendly giant left. IT was sad that he left, oddly enough IT liked him. But no use, he told IT to stay so IT began eating some more of the food that remained. Now there was time to investigate the information IT had ignored before.

[Magic was used on you. Type: General Magic. Spell: Telepathy. Spell added to your Spellbook.]

In the spellbook it found the newly discovered spell.

[Telepathy] - [Upgrade: 1.000 E]

[General Magic - 00.00% Mastery]

[Manacost: 1/minute/meter]

[Allows communication between magic users. Increased distance makes it harder to uphold the communication.]

[Locked. Requirement: General Magic: 3 or Air Magic: 6]

This meant IT had to use a lot more Body of Light spells to raise the General Magic level further. Looking at the spell there was another change.

[Body of Light] - [Upgrade: 100 E]

[General Magic - Mastery 00.40%]

[Mana Cost: 1 Mana/second]

[Turns you into a Entity of Light to blind or confuse opponents or to navigate through the darkest places.]

According to the mastery level IT would have to work quite a bit in order to upgrade the spell, but as the raising of General Magic was IT’s goal for now that suited the plan just fine. Now IT had to find a way to increase IT’s mana regeneration. The energy intake was manipulatable by putting body enhance points into stomach. Now IT would try to raise mana regeneration that way.

IT put all remaining 5 points into mana regeneration and the result was looking good.

[Profile] - [Magical Being] - [Level 3]

[Energy: 50/100]

[Power Level: 7]

[Size: 1] - [Upgrade: 50 E.]

[Enhance Body] - [Remaining Points: 0]

[Eyesight: 5: Max.]

[Legs: 3]

[Stomach: 8]

[Wings: 0]

[Mana: 1/100]

[Mana Regeneration: 1 per 10 minutes]

The result was quite good. Now mana regenerated six times faster than before. IT needed more enhancement points. But in order to do so IT had to level up. And to achieve that, the energy bar needed to be maxed out. Maybe increasing the size would help grow? But the risk was high, losing 50 energy would set IT back for hours. And there was no unlimited amount of food. At this point there was barely a couple hundred energy left.

IT decided to try growing once there was a larger food source, and gather up mana to work towards telepathy. Soon IT was caught in the same cycle of eating, digesting and waiting. It took a long time but finally the friendly giant came back. The energy bar was almost full with 98 points too.

“Hi. Sorry it took me a long time, some responsibilities held me up.” He brought a huge piece of meat and a loaf of bread and laid them around the stick insect. “Some food for you. You have been eating a lot, must be hungry right?” IT blinked again with the light spell to confirm the question.

Now there was more mana available and they could kind of communicate with yes and no questions. “I brought a description of a telepathy spell too, maybe you can read it? And try to talk with me? It’s a long shot, but… well.”

IT stared at the piece of paper continuously but the drawings and language that described the spell was totally incomprehensive for IT. Without the confirming blink the giant seemed rather sad. “Alright. Take your time, eat as much as you want. I am right here.”

IT liked having the friendly giant around. But questions that lingered in IT’s mind. Who was IT? Who was the giant? Where were they? And hundreds of questions on magic and spells as well. Then it was finally time to level up again.

[You have reached Level 4.]

Again IT received 5 points to enhance IT’s body. Immediately upgrading mana regeneration again IT did start to look rather promising. It was still far away from being able to use fireballs continuously but at this pace the mana regeneration would soon enough reach a level where telepathy was easily affordable.

[Profile] - [Magical Being] - [Level 4]

[Energy: 6/250]

[Power Level: 9]

[Size: 1] - [Upgrade: 50 E.]

[Enhance Body] - [Remaining Points: 0]

[Eyesight: 5: Max.]

[Legs: 3]

[Stomach: 8]

[Wings: 0]

[Mana: 64/100]

[Mana Regeneration: 1 per 5 minutes]

IT decided to wait with leveling up the General Magic and body of light until IT’s mana was maxed out. Hopefully growing in size would provide IT with a few more options, since the current pace of growth was rather slow. IT also used the downtime between snacks to scout out the small room. The friendly giant was working on a table a little further away, and IT was placed on a large crate of earth, mounted on another table.

Below there was a dirty stone floor, that matched the walls and ceiling. The wooden door was also old and heavy. It reminded IT much more about a dungeon than a working place. Why was the giant working here?

More and more questions came up as IT thought about the situation. Was IT an experiment? Secret and locked away? Would IT even be able to go outside later? That would be rather sad. Looking down the table and spotting a giant rat IT reconsidered the plan of breaking out. Dying should not be part of the plan after all.

After eating some more the friendly giant returned to IT’s table. “You don’t grow much, do you? How do you eat so much?” Unable to answer the questions with a simple yes blink, IT asked itself why the giant was constantly talking with telepathy? Speaking normally would be so much easier for him? Another question to ask later.

“Here, I got you something special. This is a manastone. They are made from Aggratit Crystals. Maybe you can use this?” The giant put down the crystal and waited for IT to approach. It was about the size of a thumb and of triangular shape.

The crystal was of deep dark blue colour, but when IT went to look at it up closer, a orange fire was roaming beyond. Fire Magic? Maybe this could be absorbed and used? Gaining mana right from a source would be much much faster than generating that by itself. When standing right next to it a feeling of danger came over IT though.

Was this really safe? Slowly it touched the crystal and felt the magic entering the right frontal leg. Stinging pain let IT jump away immediately though. No second too late, because the energy let the leg explode. The pain, that followed was disappearing rather quickly, which felt really odd. Wasn’t a leg supposed to be important?

But this could have ended much more dangerous. Touching the crystal any longer, could have very easily killed IT. The giant looked rather panicked. Hastily he disappeared searching for something on his desk.

It seemed like growing with mana crystals was not an option...