It certainly painted a pretty picture, you know. All kinds of colors, just hanging around.

Actually, it was weird. It made no sense, but I wasn’t here to ponder life.

I came here to learn how to use these cool, deadly toxins. Did I mention I drank these deadly toxins and now they were just chilling in my body? Now to just figure out how to utilize them. When I said before that I learned how to activate the poison that I gained immunity to… well I was kind of lying.

Kind of, because right after an experiment “session” I cut my finger a bit and managed to squeeze out a bit of purple blood. But that was it.

Now, it was time to use them for real. But now that I found them, I was at an impasse.

First, I tried to imagine one of the orbs moving towards me. As in me, I meant my figurative body in the “database”. Didn’t work. Then, I tried to go to it and touch it. Nice! I touched it and then nothing. Lovely.

Then I got an idea. They were in me. Wasn't I the boss? So I tried to think of calling one.

And it worked! It was moving slowly but surely towards my position. Then… it got there, hung around a couple seconds and left. Damnit.

It was then that I remembered a video I watched online a long time ago (or in the future?). I couldn’t remember who was talking and about what, but I do remember one line.

“Magic is subjective. It is different for us all. Especially inside. It takes many forms, it is you who shapes it, in your own way.”

When I called it, wasn’t I doing it like calling a dog? Of course it would hang around a bit and leave. I was the boss, I had to command it! Hopefully.

Taking a (figurative) deep breath, I projected my thoughts - but this time, with the intent of a boss. Like I was ordering it. And now, it spun around and instantly came over. Like a bullet, it was already here. I (figuratively) smiled and gave another command.

‘Follow. And learn’

I turned around, and sure enough, it was behind me. Every couple meters (again, in my imagination; the “database” didn’t really have a form) I would look back and it was still there. Even when I went faster, same thing.

Slowly and carefully, I got out of the space in the “spiritual” heart and got in the physical one. Looking around, I found it behind me, bobbing around. Sending the same mental command, it came near me and waited like an obedient puppy.

‘Works, I guess’

Smiling, I guided it out of the heart, into the veins, did a loop around the whole system, and surprisingly, it stuck around until the end. Actually, towards the last part it was like it was getting more confident. Weird, I know. I had to treat it like a child, which was kind of annoying, but it seemed to be working. Now it was showtime.

‘Spread around.’

It stood still for a couple of seconds, making my heart skip a beat, but with a bob, which I swear seemed like a nod, it elongated. Like play-dough, it spread around in the veins, into the arteries, then the capillaries. It worked! Then I realized a problem. Okay, it was spread, but it was still separate from the blood. Now I had poison and blood in my veins, keeping a distance, like water and oil.

‘Combine with the blood’

Again, it stood still for a while but eventually did it. Slowly, the purple liquid (did I mention it was purple) combined with the red one. But the red one was fighting back, pushing back as well, and in this case, I couldn’t talk to the blood.

Funnily, in this situation I was the invader in my own body. With whatever intent I had, I pushed back against the red team, and rooted for the purple guys. Amazingly, it appeared to work, as the purple soon assimilated the red.

After a tour along the veins, I ascertained that everything seemed fine.

Coming back to the place where we started (not that it really mattered), I gave the little guy a mental thumbs-up. Again, weird, but fun.

All done, I disconnected after sending a command for him to stay like this. Now back “outside” the body, like I was supposed to be, it was time to see the fruits of my labor. Taking a small fruit knife from the ring, I made a small cut on my index finger. Lo and behold, it was purple.

“Yes!” I jumped.

Man, it felt good.

Now what did this one do? I really didn’t want to go through each one and note what it did. So, hoping it would work, I gave a command to my blood (now poison) and asked the little guy, making sure to define that I was asking him, not the actual blood.

This time, I didn’t get a response from him, but from somewhere deep inside. Something I instinctively felt was the ‘database’. Turns out it didn’t just store the immunity and toxin itself, but also its information.

The message basically said, in no way in words, that it slowed blood flow. But to a ridiculous extent. The little guy could make you numb. But I mean REALLY numb. Or at least that was what my poor memory of biology told me.

Believe it or not, but before all this craziness I was a med student who recently got into a prestigious school. Don’t blame me, a few decades is a long time, I couldn’t even remember the name of the school.

“Good times,” I mumbled, remembering a different time. Not that I complained, I’d always take magic over medicine. Which was ironic, because I didn’t know any spells.

I waved my hands around, trying to take those thoughts out of my head. Okay, now what I had to do was give the little guy a break, I couldn’t have poison running through my veins all the time.

“Poison, running through my ve-” I stopped my stupid singing and gave him a mental command to go back and remember how to do it next time. With a ‘good job’ message as he left.

I looked at the wound and sure enough, what was flowing out was blood. Hopefully, at least it looked like it.

Heaving a sigh, I plopped back down, only now realizing that I sat up at some point. I assumed the Trait was somehow changing my body to function on poison since I was still alive, but I really felt better knowing I was functioning properly.

Theoretically, any poison I put in my veins would work non-stop, since it was just making circles in the bloodstream, so I could (again, theoretically) have poison instead of blood 24/7.

And if I ran out of the poison-blood (yes, I named it) I could just call more from the database. Don’t ask me where it was coming from, it’s magic.

Anyway, now with that out of the way, I was gonna start my magic journey by meditating and forming that damn Core but right now I was so spent I could just fall asleep right there. But I also knew it was just 8 PM, and - oh, apparently that only took an hour, ok.

Like I was saying, if I went to bed now I would still wake up at the same hour and a few hours of sleep wasn’t gonna do me any good so I decided to chug some other toxins that could theoretically instantly end me. But I was cool and I could take it. And it didn’t take any effort so why not?

I took the first one, which looked like one of those funny looking drinks they gave kids that tasted like medicine.

When I concentrated on the code-bar on the bottom, I got a handy window from the System. Most prestigious stores from the System, including those from the Black Market had one of these, which showed you the information of the product as a window.

Anyway, this one outright killed you when ingested. I’d also like to point out that I got the ones that worked in all ways, by going in through the nose, blood, mouth, and some even skin. Anything else I bought because it was just really good. So when I say ingested I mean crevices and blood.

Taking a deep breath, I started drinking, and thank God I intended on downing it from the beginning, since it tasted like hot, steaming garbage. Using all the willpower I’d stored until now, I pushed the red abomination down.

Damn happy my stomach didn’t have any taste buds, though. Oh, and that wasn’t even the worst part, then came the headache, then the feeling of suffocation, followed by outright loss of consciousness.

I woke up about three minutes later, all good, like I didn’t just drink the “Anything Eliminator 3000”.

Ok, next.

—-----------------------

Two hours later, a disheveled young man could be seen lying in a pool of his own sweat, panting as he tried to move. He eventually gave up and just stayed like that for 10 minutes.

Apparently my Trait decided, for whatever reason, to keep me awake for the last one. And it obviously wasn’t pleasant. Oh, and the best part? I still had ten more bottles to go through.

The last ten guardians, guarding the door to greatness. Or so I liked to imagine.

Last ten or not, they were a matter for tomorrow; I was spent, aching all over, and smelled like a pig. Fortunately, since magic was a wonderful thing, there was a potion that gave you a quick and easy shower. You just had to open it above your head, a blue light would cover you all over, and boom, you were squeaky clean.

They weren’t cheap, but we’re not gonna talk about that.

For dinner, I had a quick jerky pack while watching the four moons surrounded by their little star buddies, then I went to bed.

G’night.

—-----------

Different from the previous night, this one sucked. I had to get up to pee three times, thought I heard rustling in the bushes two times, and woke up for no reason another two. Did I mention I ached all over?

Horrible.

But those were petty, mortal thoughts, something I would discard when I became a God and watched puny mortals struggle from above. Probably. Hopefully not, otherwise I wouldn’t have anything to complain about.

I was almost a hundred years old, I did get to whine like a grouchy old man.

Sadly, no map fell from the sky overnight, so I had to buy one, otherwise I’d better start building my house now because I wasn’t getting anywhere.

Going online, the first and one of the few links was for the Association of Maps - stupid name but whatever. Here you could buy any maps for your region. Like I said, the System was split between regions and if you bought a map for a different one you just couldn’t use it until you unlocked that region.

Map bought for Hont Barony, thank you very much. Only 2500 Crystals since the area was pretty small. Ok, have it your way. You see, usually, only magical products required Crystals to be bought, but maps were such a big thing for the Beast World that it kind of made sense.

I packed up everything I could, only leaving the Formation active. Now was the moment of truth. Would I make it in time?

First thing I saw when opening the map was a lot of brown; it seemed like I was in a mountainous region. The Barony honestly seemed like a really good place to defend. Too bad nobody wanted it, since it was all it was good for. It could be seen by this situation, the Kingdom just let the city be overrun by Beasts.

Good thing maps worked like the ones in video games, or I would’ve been lost for quite a while. You would get a point on the map, representing yourself of course, and it would move as you moved. No waypoints, sadly.

It seemed like I wasn’t that far, the city was just behind the mountain I'd seen in the distance and it would probably take about three days to get there. Now I felt like an idiot; I would’ve obviously gone there at some point - but what was done was done.

Did I mention the Beast Wave happened a week after the attack on the prison camp? I had already wasted two days, and with another three on the road, I only had two days to scout the terrain and plan the heist.

The noble family would obviously take all the good stuff from the castle before running away. What, you thought they would stay and fight? Sorry, we don’t do that here.

With that done, I took the Formation down and hit the road. With the Perfume on, of course; I was still a coward, thank you very much.

And barely ten minutes in, I heard voices.

‘Oh, bollocks.’

I hid in a nearby bush as fast as I could, looking towards the voices. From what I could gather, there were three of them, seeming relatively young and joyful.

Slowly, I could see silhouettes forming in the distance between the trees. Four people, three men and a woman, chatting while making their way through the bushes.

One of them, a taller buff man, was honestly the only one who knew what he was doing, if you ask me. He was constantly looking around, scanning every tree and bush, and you could tell he was all business.

I could say I was really confident in my ability to hide, but this guy instantly saw me. No more than fifty meters away, we made eye contact. At first I just brushed it off, thinking he only happened to glance my way, but he never looked anywhere else.

‘Fuck’

Now what? A longsword appeared in his hand, and he said something to the others, who subsequently took their weapons out. No other way to play it, I got out of the bush with my hands up.

“You got me,” I said.

“What do you want?” the woman asked.

“Hey, I was just minding my own business, you bumped into me,” I shot back.

“Sneaking around in bushes?” she snorted.

She kind of made sense, now that I thought about it. I never bothered to change my prisoner clothes, which was extremely stupid. Something to note for the future. Most of the people I met in my past life already knew my identity so I never bothered.

Then I thought of a good response.

“Oh come on, can’t I do my business peacefully?” I said.

The look on her face was priceless.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought you were hiding from us,” she said bashfully.

“Oh, it’s fine, I had enough time to pull my pants up.” I responded. I really had and itch to go on and make her more embarrassed, but I feared it would make her have a worse impression of me. And the big guy was glaring.

Like he was reading my thoughts, he spoke.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

“What? Come on man, I have no reason to lie. And a bush is the best place to go number two, you know?”

“Anybody could say that,” he narrowed his eyes, grip tightening on the handle.

“I’m not anybody” I spread my hands.

Luckily, his friends came in clutch.

“Just leave him alone, he looks like he’s been in the wilderness for years, he couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to. We’ve got you after all, right?” one of the other men said and patted the big guy. The other man echoed.

“Yeah, it’s fine, let’s just go,” he said.

They all put their weapons back, except the big guy, who still eyed me while backing up. I tried to approach them, only to have him point the sword at me.

“Woah, woah, I just wanted to offer you a deal.” I raised my hands.

I’d like to think that I could judge anyone at first glance, and my gut was telling me they were worth it. Judging by the way they were talking and their actions, the two guys were rich kids, the girl was a gold digger and the big guy was a bodyguard or something similar. And I felt like I could sweet talk them.

“Speak,” one of the younger men said, much to the big one’s dislike.

“I’ve been wounded and used all my Mana so I’m a sitting duck right now. So how about you take me to the nearest city for a bit of pay?” I proposed.

In the Beast World at least, if you used every single bit of your Mana, besides a killer headache you wouldn’t be able to use any spells for a few days, depending on the person. Actually, could my Trait circumvent that? I could try.

“Depends on what you’re paying,” he said.

“Coin?” I raised my brows.

“Crystals or no deal,” he smiled.

“Ugh, fine. Fifty. Twenty-five now, twenty-five when we get there,” I tried to seem hurt.

It was like the sun exploded, because their faces lit up like crazy, making my stomach churn.

‘It was too much, wasn’t it?’

They probably realized their reactions were a bit suspicious, because they immediately straightened them and the other spoke.

“Aren’t you afraid we’ll take the first half and run? Or maybe even kill you?”

“I’m pretty much useless, so I either die now or later, it’s all the same to me,” I shrugged. “And a good Mage always has a last resort,” I winked.

“Well spoken,” he smiled.

I remembered some famous guy used to say that.

He proceeded to come over to me, past the big guy who tried to stop him, and grinned.

“I’ll take that deal,” he extended his hand and I shook it.

“Awesome.”

Handshakes were universal, by the way.

“So how do we do this? I gotta get in the city as fast as possible so if you have nothing to do, can we go now?” I asked.

“Oh, sure, we were just hunting, so we can turn back anytime,” he nodded.

“In the middle of nowhere?”

“You can find the most valuable Beasts here”

“Uh, I guess.”

Then we just stood there, in awkward silence for a while.

“Uh, the Crystals?” the woman asked.

“Oh yeah, sure, sorry,” I sighed.

Taking out a bag of exactly 25 Magic Crystals, having picked the ones that looked the worst (it didn’t matter), I handed it to him.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” he smiled. “Should we get going?” he asked.

“Right after you,” I said, and went past the big guy who was still glaring at me. He did put his weapon back in his inventory, so progress, I guess?

“I’m Jason, by the way, son of the Baron. My father owns this land. This here is my brother, Killian, and our friend, Clarissa.” the guy who I’d made the deal with said.

I tried my best not to smile.

‘Just the people I was looking for.’

“I’m terribly sorry, sir, I didn’t realize, please have my deepest apologies.” I stopped and bowed low, trying to seem flustered.

“Oh it’s fine, you already paid us plenty, and with more to come; how can I hold you accountable for anything?” he waved his hand, but I could see the pride in his eyes, knowing he was better than me. Still better than a spoiled kid who never shuts up, I guess.

“Oh and I forgot to mention, this big guy here is our family’s knight, his name is Langos. He looks serious but he’s really nice when he wants to,” he said.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, sir, my humble name is-” what was my name? Uh…”-Clarence, sir”

‘Motherfucking Clarence. Quick thinking, dumbass,’ I grumbled, but nonetheless kept pretending.

Whatever, it worked.

And so, we continued on our way, chatting about various boring subjects that I would forget the next day. At some point they pointed out that it would be better for me to buy some clothes, something I wholeheartedly agreed to.

They wore light leather armor, something that screamed ‘poor’ since most people would buy normal clothes with enchantments on them. They were the sons of a Baron alright, but still a countryside one.

I, on the other hand, looked like I’d been living in a cave for the past year, battling bears every day. So, I went online and bought something I’ve been dreaming about for years. A battle robe.

No, not the one with enchantments. It was normal, boring everyday cotton, but it was so cool - pretty much the robes you’d see in those chinese martial art movies.

Since the Beast World was an amalgamation of every culture possible, that also meant there were all kinds of clothes. Some people chose to wear jeans and normal shirts, others like me robes and some like these guys, armor. And nobody would bat an eye.

I bought a black one, with red lines going all over the waist, coiling around the torso all the way to the shoulders. Beautiful.

Looking on the map, we were actually heading towards the city like they said, so it was all good. I did feel like punching myself in the end even more now that I met these people. I just had to buy that map, didn’t I? But what was done was done, and I was a firm believer in having no regrets so I let it go.