Still afraid of the mean crystal IT chose to hide behind the junk of meat, just in case. Soon afterwards the friendly giant came back again. “So sorry, little one. The crystal must have had a bad reaction to your existence. I think because you were created from a dragon heart, you possess internal magic, that allows you to use a different form of it. Maybe more natural styled than our pure mana? I will have to look into that. For now, no more crystals. I promise.”

IT confirmed the thought with a quick body of light spell. The giant looked rather puzzled. “I think you should be able to use a healing potion. It works outside the pure mana system, since they are produced from herbs or creatures…”

He put down a huge flask of red liquid. It had a familiar feeling, like the stone just now had, which made IT feel very sceptical. Luckily IT would not have to try drinking it for now, the flask was closed and even if it weren’t there would have to be a drinking cup or something. Seeing as the giant vanished IT had a very bad feeling though.

How could IT survive the upcoming experiments the friendly giant wanted to try on IT? IT needed more legs. After browsing the body enhancement page and the spells for a bit, a very interesting idea came to mind. The Create spell.

[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.]

Immediately IT cast the spell and thought of a leg made from hardened earth. Being cheap as IT was the use of only one single mana point should be sufficient.

Earth rose off the ground and attached itself to the right stump, forming a marvelous copy of IT’s other legs. Sadly the density was really bad and putting pressure on the leg was letting it crumble immediately. Only after IT tried three more times, putting more and more mana into it the leg finally held all stress tests.

Four mana for a leg. So expensive. IT sighted. And soon the giant would be back to ruin the leg with the glowing red liquid. Hopefully it would work this time. Bored as IT was it used a few mana points on the body of light spell. Maybe IT would level up the General Magic soon?

After having used a rocking 47 mana and being left with a tiny amount of seven, it finally had worked.

[General Magic has reached Stage 2.]

[Increased Talent will lead to faster Mastery.]

Huh, odd. Unsure what that meant, IT opened the Spellbook again.

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

[General Magic - Mastery 05.10%]

[Mana Cost: 1 Mana/second]

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

The body of light spell seemed to still be the same. IT had used 51 mana so far on the spell and the mastery had increased a full 00.10% per use. How much would the mastery increase be after this improvement of General Magic?

It would have to find out. But seeing the friendly giant return to the table, holding a bowl, IT would have no time. “Ooooh. Neat. You created a prosthetic leg? Very smart, good thinking. Here you go, this will make you feel better, hopefully the potion heals your leg for good.”

The giant poured the red liquid into the bowl and IT was able to feel the energy coming from this liquid immediately. No way this would be safe. But well, would only blow up his artificial leg after all. Slowly approaching IT dipped the fake leg into the liquid. Quickly it burst backwards, waiting. Nothing happened.

Of course it did not, the leg was just earth after all. How would it have any reaction to this? IT felt stupid. This time approaching with the left frontal leg IT really hoped the process would not repeat. After hesitating a while the giant reassured IT. “Go on, it really should be fine. It’s not harmful.” Dipping the leg in, the friendly giant continued to talk. “I hope at least.”

If IT had enough mana IT would have tried out the fireball spell now. He was joking in a situation where IT could lose another leg! But soon it was clear, that the liquid did not harm IT at all. Relieved IT continued to drink the liquid. Then something wonderful happened. While the leg did not regrow, IT discovered something very promising, that made IT forget about the leg even.

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

[Energy: 46/250]

[Power Level: 9]

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

[Enhance Body] - [Remaining Points: 0]

[Eyesight: 5: Max.]

[Legs: 3]

[Stomach: 8]

[Wings: 0]

[Mana: 7/100]

[Mana Regeneration: 1 per 5 minutes]

IT had drank as much of the red potion as possible, normally something like this would have filled the energy bar by 8 points. This time a rocking 40 points came in! This potion was a treasure for growing!

“You did not heal. Huh. Maybe the potion has other effects on you? Since you are a magical being? Maybe I should get other potions too. But what if they poisoned you? Hmm.”

It pointed towards the potion and used the body of light spell, while dancing. Friendly giant had to bring more of this stuff! Best thing ever!

Sadly the seven spare mana did not last very long. But the giant understood. “Haha, you like that? They are expensive, but hey, I can get you some more later.” IT was happy with the development of this situation. The potions tasted very odd though. Very sweet, very unlike meat. While IT waited for hunger to come back, checking out the spell mastery came to mind.

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

[General Magic - Mastery 12.10%]

[Mana Cost: 1 Mana/second]

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

If IT had a jaw, that would be dropping now. The mastery rose ten times faster now! Kinda curious on what IT would receive on the upgrade? But that was still some time off, so growing was the next thing to try out.

Now the waiting game continued. Kind of bored about the situation, IT started to build small balls of dirt and rolled them to the edge of the table. “What are you doing now?” The giant seemed really interested. No way to explain, IT just ignored him, and soon he was scribbling on his paper again. What did he need to write down so urgently that he could not keep in his head?

Hunger returned and so IT feasted on the potion again. Energy shot up to a rocking 86 and finally the upgrade for size was purchasable. Using it immediately IT was hyped about the result. The body grew, thickness of the legs increased only slightly and the legs grew a bit longer too. All in all not a huge growth. What earlier was about seven centimeters long, now held a stunning nine!

It was fun to grow, and with the bigger body came the added benefits:

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

[Energy: 36/250]

[Power Level: 10]

[Size: 2] - [Upgrade: 100 E.]

[Enhance Body] - [Remaining Points: 0]

[Eyesight: 5: Max.]

[Legs: 3]

[Stomach: 16]

[Wings: 0]

[Mana: 1/200]

[Mana Regeneration: 1 per 5 minutes]

The mana pool doubled from 100 to 200 and the stomach also doubled in size! Now IT would grow twice as fast, maybe growing again would bring more of these awesome results? This meant, eat, eat, eat. Immediately after growing IT was hungry again. The newly developed body was able to bring in 80 energy of the potion in one go, opening another growth spurt.

The body enlarged again. Not much in thickness again, but the length of both body and legs grew quite a bit. With fifteen centimeters IT was now much more frightening. Or hopefully at least unable to eat IT.

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

[Energy: 16/250]

[Power Level: 14]

[Size: 3] - [Upgrade: 250 E.]

[Enhance Body] - [Remaining Points: 0]

[Eyesight: 5: Max.]

[Legs: 3]

[Stomach: 32]

[Wings: 0]

[Mana: 2/400]

[Mana Regeneration: 1 per 5 minutes]

Doubling down on the numbers again, IT was a bit sad that IT would level up before being able to grow again. All this growth was thanks to the friendly giant. Such a helpful guy, doing all this just to help IT. Two more eating cycles and the next level up would be here too!

So much to look forward to!

Soon afterwards IT was manufacturing more and more balls of earth, and prepared them on the edge of the table. IT would show those nasty rats to run around the masters home! When they came back IT would let those balls rain on them with magic!

Sadly none appeared and soon the giant also fell asleep. Now IT noticed how tired IT had been. Staying awake eating growing and doing magic for so long was tiring. Lying down next to the potion bow, IT fell asleep. Only waking up in the moments IT needed to eat and immediately falling asleep again, IT hardly noticed what was going on.

A long time later, the friendly giant woke IT up. “Are you sleeping? You have grown a lot, the potion seemed to be helpful? I will leave you another full bowl here. Two should keep you happy for a while. I have to go, my father called for me. Stay safe and don’t cause any trouble, you hear?”

IT stood up, only to see the friendly guy leave through the giant wooden door. IT was sad to see him leave. Telepathy was not far off! Soon IT would be able to. Waking up, it started with a good drink of potion.

[You have reached Level 6.]

Wait, what? Level six? Baffled on the sudden growth it checked IT’s stats. Apparently IT had eaten much more while sleeping, than IT thought.

[Profile] - [Magical Being] - [Level 6]

[Energy: 706/1.000]

[Power Level: 14]

[Size: 3] - [Upgrade: 250 E.]

[Enhance Body] - [Remaining Points: 10]

[Eyesight: 5: Max.]

[Legs: 3]

[Stomach: 32]

[Wings: 0]

[Mana: 122/400]

[Mana Regeneration: 1 per 5 minutes]

This potion was way too broken! Happy, IT used some enhancement points on the stomach departement. Sadly that one reached maximum after two points. Putting the rest into mana regeneration and using the growing upgrade the additional stats were baffling.

After that, hunger came to mind again and another growth upgrade that cost 500 Energy was available too. Growing again, feasting again on the potions, this morning started very, very promising.

Now that IT had grown twice again, the current body size rose up to a stunning thirty centimeters, body as thick as two fingers, while the legs were about finger size too. All in all IT had reached the size of a normal keyboard. Still camouflaged as a piece of tree, IT would have been a great disguise in a forest. Deadly fireball shooting stealth mage. Sounded kind of cool.

It decided to try that when the opportunity presented itself. Sadly the potion was empty after all the drinking IT had done. The increased stomach size threw up new problems. Food. Where to get it from? For now some meat and bread was available, but for how long would that last? A couple of hours?

Looking at IT’s stats one more time IT smiled happily. Time to do some magic.

[Profile] - [Magical Being] - [Level 6]

[Energy: 935/1.000]

[Power Level: 29]

[Size: 5] - [Upgrade: 1.000 E.]

[Enhance Body] - [Remaining Points: 0]

[Eyesight: 5: Max.]

[Legs: 3]

[Stomach: 160]

[Wings: 0]

[Mana: 137/1600]

[Mana Regeneration: 1 per 30 seconds]

IT smiled. Muahahahahahaha.