“I’m back!”, using up all of the stone pile, Akiel stretches his limbs. Getting on his feet, he starts moving around, “Dang, this is like arthritis. I made it as smooth as possible, why are there still issues with my joints.” Bending his joints forcefully, he struggles to get his limbs to work properly. Akiel starts making kicks and punches, gradually getting more fluid as time passes.

Grunting with satisfaction, he looks at himself with his mana sight. Finding nothing wrong with his mana structure, he searches his body for anomalies. Finding something attached to the inside of his shell around his abdomen area, he quickly uses remodel and ejects it.

Shooting out of his stomach is the guide book that he had lost. Picking it up he finds a message on the front. It said, ‘Guidebooks are attached to your active being but are generated upon size requirements being met.’

Smiling at the sheer convenience the little booklet provided he opens it up to the map page. “Let’s move away from the capital, at least until I gain some power. I’d prefer a frontier town but let’s see what the map has marked near here.” he muses to himself.

Flipping to the map page, he locates his marker. Just kilometers away from the town from before, he browses through the nearby landmarks. “So, a religious landmark, a rock formation, an infested forest, and a minority settlement. Right now, I just need time to read that book and experiment. Well, that rules out everything to do with people.” he ruminates. Setting a course to the rock formation, he pulls out the book he was given by Taggen and starts walking to his destination. “The comprehensive collection of all documented runes, enchantments, and mana structures. Great, it’s an encyclopedia,” he mutters.

***

“Oh boy, oh boy! Hey Cedric, that's your beloved, isn’t it? She looks happy with her kids, a boy, and a girl! And who is that? Hugging her from behind and -” the clown teases before being lifted by the neck. “Shut up and watch, I didn’t come back to enter her life. I just want to see her from afar. Why don’t you go and leave me here for a few hours?” Cedric says distractedly.

Sniffing in discontent, the clown adds, “Dear, young Cedric has no lover, no family, and no future. Why don’t you just find another?” Looking back at the clown, Cedric sits up from his position atop a tall stone structure overlooking a modest village. “Someone else? Like who? You know that I’ve only yearned for her and after acknowledging that she wouldn’t be mine I still couldn’t move on.”

Putting on a thoughtful expression, the clown quietly says, “Just because you haven’t gotten over her doesn’t mean you never will.” In a slightly louder voice, she adds, “I mean, I’m here aren’t I. I better in every aspect! I’m practically perfect.”

Laughing, Cedric retorts, “Perfect? You? That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard since I was accused of mass murder. Your face is disfigured to the point that I can’t even look at you straight. Plus I knew your lover like a brother. It just isn’t going to happen in this lifetime clown.”

Not disgruntled in the slightest, the clown continues to pace behind him. “So what? I have to come back to this village every once in a while so you can play god and protect them? Just say the word and I’ll kill the man and his spawns. All you have to do is swoop in and save her from me and act out a fight scene with me. After that, convince her to go around and travel with me. I’ll even wear a disguise during the scene.”

Cedric looks back again, thinking it through this time. After a bit of playing with his fingers and weighing the options, he looks back at the happy family. Sighing, he says, “It’s okay. She’s happy so I’m happy. Even without her. I don’t think holding her while she thinks of her dead children and former man could ever make me happy.”

Shrugging, the clown starts walking away. “Whatever, I’m going to go for a walk. We leave in two hours, make sure you stare at her until she goes up in flames.” she chuckles. The air suddenly distorts as Cedric appears in front of the clown, fist ready to drive her into the ground.

With a snort, the clown asks, “Would you hit me? For a harlot that couldn’t even wait, would you hit me, dear Cedric?” Veins bulging, Cedric breathes heavily. Not removing the fist from in front of her face he continues to stare. “Oh dear. Oh dear. You are slow, aren’t you? Yes! Yes, you are. She doesn’t need you. Want you. Love you.Your just a foolish little boy that's confused and misled.”

Snarling, Cedric warns her, “Watch your mouth. I don’t care if she doesn’t want me in her life. I don’t want to enter in it either. I can be happy alone. Shouldn’t you focus on your own love life? Anyone you love dies. You're the only reason he died. If you just slept with the king once, he would still be alive. At least think a little about others before you spout more nonsense.”

Frowning the clown folds her arms in front of her chest. Her eyes wander around the fist before she pushes it away, “Fine. Just go. Watch her. I’ll be back tomorrow.” Fiddling with the lace covered dress, she leaves with a frigid expression on her face.

Sighing, Cedric loosens his expression. Calming his nerves, he shakes his head to clear his thoughts. Walking back to the cliff edge, he sits down. Drumming his fingers on the ground, he continues watching like before. The family plays around for a whole hour afterward before heading inside. Unknown to him, the love of his life glanced his way as she entered her home. His thoughts were elsewhere.

***

“Perfect, an explosive rune. Now I just need the fuel and materials to make it,” Akiel mutters. Pulling out the guide book and checking the map, he finds that he is still a day away. Shaking his head, he turns back to the mind-numbing task of reading an encyclopedia. “Let’s see, All I need is several beast cores and something to inscribe them with. I can make a tool from my hand using remodel, but the beast cores are a problem. I need something I can use right now. I need something convenient and easy to reproduce constantly so I can gather cores. As I am now, I’d be lucky to gather a few without being destroyed again.” he says while practicing a mana manipulation exercise.

On his palm is a pebble, floating and moving in a roughly circular path. Remembering of the fireball talisman he stops his mana manipulation practice and flips to the runes section. The first page explains the mediums that are viable and the types of liquids that he can use to make engravings mana conductant. The weakest being blood. It went on to say that some species with massive mana concentrations like dragons have blood that is a better conductor than the blood of lesser species. Reading further he finds that powdered bones are next best when combined with certain substances like an ink fishes tears.

Flipping to the runes, he finds what he is looking for. The basic runes only convert mana into a weak and disorganized elemental force. Making the rune with multiple smaller versions like a connect the dots picture amplifies the effect. Sighing he settles on the basic water rune. It would release a small but controllable ball of water.

Picking up a flat-sided rock, he fuses it with his hand and remodels the rune into it. Detaching it, he tosses it a few times before storing it in his stomach area with the guide book. Focusing on the mana manipulation training again, he mutters, “Now I just need some blood to work with.”

Rotating the stone faster in his hand he checks his mana reserves. Seeing it at a comfortable eighty percent, he continues. While practicing, he distractedly looks around for a small animal.

After hours of trekking, he comes to a well-hidden cave. Stopping his mana manipulation, he grabs a stick from the ground. Cautiously walking into the cave he finds signs of previous occupants but nothing recent. Avoiding a particularly large gathering of dung piles, he makes his way deeper into the cave.

Finding nothing, he activates his mana sight and takes another cursory look around. Finding nothing close to the entrance, he looks deeper into the cave. Seeing a few clusters of mana, he happily walks deeper. Reaching a fork, he follows the mana clusters into the left. Reaching a slightly bigger room he looks up to see the clusters behind a sheet of rock.

Knocking on the spot covering one of the creatures, he watches as the creature squirms but doesn’t seem to be escaping. Realizing that it doesn’t have an escape path, he strengthens his fist before smashing the thins covering of stone. Grabbing a handful, he drags the creature out. Pulling it to the entrance of the cave, he deactivates his mana sight and examines the creature.

Reeling back in disgust, he wipes his hand on some moss. Sighing, he starts smashing the frightened slug. Surprised to feel resistance, he notices a thin layer of rock had formed on the slug. Shrugging, he smashes it to death before dipping his hand in the remains and pulling it out.

Rather than blood, his hand was dripping guts and slime. Sighing, he pulls out his experimental rune. Smearing it with the slime, he supplies it with mana. Slowly tracing the existing paths he engraved, he activates the rune.

Slowly at first but faster as he supplies more mana, water coalesces above the rune. Stopping the generation of water, he focuses on using the mana to control the small ball of water. Mimicking his mana manipulation exercises, he slowly starts moving the ball in a circle.

Smiling, Akiel checks his mana reserves only to find the experiment used almost ten percent of his current maximum mana concentration. Punching the ground in frustration he opens the encyclopedia again. Flipping to the rune pages, he looks for one on mana aggregation. Skipping a rune that used the mana lines below the ground he finds a reference to a page in the mana structure section.

Flipping to the right page, he finds an explanation on the uses of beast cores. Apparently, even if the beast itself has died, the core will continue to gather mana. For this reason, beasts eat core whole if possible. Reading a bit more, Akiel finds himself liking the idea of eating the cores. If just having a bunch of cores inside me, mana wouldn’t be such a problem.

Realizing that even though he might have a potential solution to his mana problem, he still was nowhere close to getting a core. His new water rune was in no way a game-changing advancement. At most he could give his foe a bath and pray for it to get a cold.

Ruminating on his next move, he quietly practices his manipulation. Not long after, sounds of movement come from just around the entrance. Abruptly standing back to the wall, Akiel gets ready. With one hand empty and the other with his water rune, he waits for whatever was moving outside to pass by.

With a thump, a furry figure falls down just meters in front of him. With long hairy limbs and beady eyes, an ape-like creature looks around.

Finding the opportune moment when the ape was facing away from him, inspecting the slug remains, Akiel pounces. Hugging the ape's head, he digs his stony fingers into its eyes. Screeching in anger and pain, it reaches over its head and throws Akiel against the cave wall.

Immediately getting back up, Akiel attack again, this time he clamps his legs around its head. Using the water rune he generates a ball of water and seals the apes face. Faced with suffocation, the ape claws at its face, tearing several gashes along its cheeks. In desperation, it claws at Akiel after futilely trying to push the water away. Enduring the abuse, Akiel waits for minutes before the ape faints.

Releasing the ball of water, Akiel bashes the apes head against the rocky cave floor. When its skull finally cracks open Akiel relaxes. Sitting back, he chuckles.

Suddenly he hears a short shout, looking up he finds another ape in the trees just outside. Making a few more short shouts, it bounds away through the treetops howling much louder and longer now. Seconds pass and several howls answer it, all from different directions.

“This is just unfair,” Akiel mutters.