After a quick forage, Leon returned to the tree, absently smashing nut casings with a rock and picking out the insides as he fiddled with his newfound power. He went through idea after idea of what he could find. The majority failed to give the desired effect, but he had finally managed to call up a design for his ‘status’.

It was a similarly designed ring to the first, nicely fitting with the aesthetic, also sharing twelve bands, each labeled with a word that floated above that segment in the same neat cursive:

Name: Leon

Race: Human

Mana Type: Forming 61%

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 8

Agility: 8

Constitution: 11

Vitality: 9

Resistance: 9

Intelligence: 9

Wisdom:13

Control: 8

The difference, however, was a smaller central ring, which contained three glassy transparent sections, the contents within separated by 3 colours. Red for health, green for stamina, blue for mana. They were pretty much full. It was hard to tell accurately, so he pushed at his thoughts, trying to get the percentage display. With some resistance, it reluctantly relented, appearing in the vials themselves as a proper percentage. He felt he might be able to do more customisation given time, but this was the best he could do for now.

He looked outside. The sun had passed out from the clouds, and with it, he got a better sense for the length of time left in the day.

Now that he had been awake for the full period, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the day was longer here than on Earth. It would be the least of the peculiarities if that was the case.

The information told him one thing quite clearly, and he once again pulled out the band for Mana Affinity. He would have to complete this if he wanted to actually put magic into practice, and he knew of only one place to go for it.

He put his freshly dried shirt back on, and stepped outside. He grabbed the straightest branch he could find and snapped it over his knee, leaving behind a wickedly sharp point. The wood was dry and hard, and would be easy to break, but it would do for now.

It was time to go back to the lake.

* * *

The lake excursion wasn’t going well.

The journey there had gone well enough. He had spotted a few new creatures along the way, and it came to his attention that the foliage had grown thicker since he was last there, as he constantly found himself lost in a thicket, having to travel a long way around. Was the magic lake recent? If so, how did it get here? How long had it been there?

Eventually, he got to a section where he felt it was thinnest, or at least safest, and he plunged in.

Many muttered curses, insect bites and scratched clothes later, he gave one last push, careful not to jar his still stiffly swollen arm, and broke through.

He crouched low, looking intently out at the beach through the bushy cover and trying to ignore the multitude of sticks stabbing into his ass.

He waited a fair while, spotting nothing but the ripples of the water, and just as he was about to creep out from behind his cover and into the clearing, the mouse returned.

He looked in shock at the thing that was once a mouse.

It had grown to about the height of a Great Dane, bordered with the bulk and width of a Newfoundland, and from its fur grew a thin coating of green tinted moss. In the forest, it would have been nearly impossible to see.

It sniffed at the air, raising its razor sharp front teeth into full view, then trotted back into the undergrowth.

After a tense moment, it returned, dragging something out of the bushes along with it.

Leon watched in shock as the mouse pulled the bear out of the undergrowth.

As in a full sized, steal your picnic, prevent forest fires, buzzing of the bees full-on bear.

It had barely a wound on it, except for a thick gash in its neck, which left a trail of red as it was dragged into the clearing. The trail of blood was slowly obscured as the plants nearby rose up, greedily sucking up the meal.

The mouse had nearly killed him when it was small, and it had only wanted to chase him off.

Now, it wouldn’t even be a match.

The mouse finished dragging the bear into the clearing, and then darted off into a bush.

Leon sat there, breathing as quietly as possible.

To his right, there was a loud, heavy rustling, and into the clearing came an enormous paw, followed by another, and two more.

And another two.

The hexapedal behemoth stalked into the clearing, footfalls quiet enough to almost make it seem like a visual illusion. Its head was long and forward, tapering out like a horse’s, but its mouth stretched a large way back, ending in a forced leer, filled with rows of jagged teeth. Its body from there was akin to a big cat, a lion or a leopard, with two pairs of front legs bunched closely together. It glided over to the bear’s corpse, which was in the process of being buried by the grass that surrounded it, and sniffed it for a moment, nose huffing out air.

Its neck bent down, and it bit into the bear’s thick hide, tearing open a section of flesh and exposing the muscle and bone within.

Leon watched it eat, before a brief flicker of movement drew his eyes, pulling them over to the edge of the clearing where the mouse hid. There, he watched as it crawled out, ever so slowly, keeping out of the scope of the behemoth’s sight, and he felt a shiver down his spine. The bear hadn’t been a meal.

It had been bait.

Leon weighed up his options.

He could let the mouse have the ambush, and let him kill the giant thing for whatever reason it wished to do that. He could let the little thing that had nearly killed him, broken his fucking arm and kicked him out of the one place where he knew he could get his magic and heal up...

Leon looked down. There, near his feet, he saw a rock. He picked it up with his left arm. It fit perfectly in the palm of his hand.

...or he could have a little revenge.

* * *

The mouse was nearly close enough. It had learned from kill after kill the perfect distance to travel where the prey had no chance to stop you, no matter their size. It felt inside of it the power that bubbled within him, the threshold it needed to pass. This giant, clumsy thing practically oozed power, and it set its hair on end to look at.

It was all going perfectly, and then there was a whistle of air, and the sound of a rock thumping behind it.

The mouse froze in place, and the behemoth stopped eating.

It lifted its head, forward facing eyes settling on the mouse.

The mouse hissed, ambush advantage lost, and threw itself forward.

* * *

Leon watched from the bushes as the two titans clashed, wishing he had some popcorn.

Despite its added bulk, the mouse didn’t look to have lost any speed, blurring from spot to spot faster than Leon’s eyes could track. It scored wound after wound on the behemoth, who roared in anger.

The behemoth was doing a reasonably good job as well. It moved with a speed and grace that belied its size, and twice it came close to taking down the blurry form of the mouse. It also didn’t look like the mouse was making many deep wounds.

It came down, then, to a battle of stamina. Leon felt safe in shifting his position now, clearing his pants of sticks as best he could.

The behemoth managed to catch the mouse by the tail, and was rewarded with a claw to the eye. It roared in pain, and began to attack with renewed frenzy.

And then the sky went dark.

Leon looked up just in time to spot the massive bird plunge from above.

Its claws raked across the behemoth’s back, and its roar shook the forest.

The mouse moved quickly, taking advantage of the behemoth’s momentary weakness to strike-

And it was flung aside as behemoth swiped it out of the air.

He flew into the undergrowth, and the two remaining giants struck.

The bird hovered above, screeching down at the behemoth below. The flapping of its wings sent arcs of water flying up from the lake below.

The behemoth wasn’t backing down though, and after a long stand-off, the eagle gave up, flying up to the nest above.

The behemoth snarled up at it, but it could only glower at the bird up above, preening its feathers as it stared down at the tantruming giant below.

Eventually, the behemoth gave up, and bent down over the water to drink. Leon watched, astonished, as the deep gashes on its back closed over. It stared up at the bird above one last time before walking out the way it came.

Leon waited a bit, before finally getting up and walking into the clearing. He stumbled as his legs finally remembered their jobs. He hadn’t noticed how long he’d been squatting there, and it made him conscious of just how unfit he was, despite his fairly fat-free body.

He walked down to the water’s edge, and cupping a hand, he lifted a small amount of the clear water to his mouth, and drank.

The water slid down his throat, and as it did he felt a tingling warmth fill his body. It spread from his stomach outwards in a slow, pulsing wave, before it finally reached his arms.

He seized up, a scream cutting out in his throat as he felt pain pierce through his arm. He gasped short stuttering breaths as his arm locked in place. It lasted a few seconds and an eternity before he heard a snap, and his vision faded to black.

He somehow didn’t fall unconscious, vision returning as the pain disappeared, as if it was never there.

He lay there, panting, and flexed his hand.

It was tender, and weak as all hell, but it was functional, which was more than he could say it had been since he encountered that little mouse at the lake.

As he sat up, he heard a rustle.

He turned his head, hand settling on his makeshift poking stick. Out of the tall grass which surrounded the stony beach of the lake, the thing that was once a mouse limped forward.

It held one of its front paws up and to the side.

Leon had come ready to kill the mouse, or at the very least give it a memento worth holding on to, but at this point he would gladly ignore the thing if it ignored him.

It didn’t, and even weakened as it was it hissed at him, limping forwards.

Leon sighed, and pulled himself up into a crouching position, bracing his weak grip against the stony shoreline. If it just went over to the water and got a drink, he would be on his way, no fight necessary, but it was obvious that he wasn’t getting the luxury.

The mouse broke into a stuttering gallop, still impressively fast despite its wounds. It feinted a jump left, gauging his response, before making its choice.

It was quick, and its back legs were powerful. It was already much stronger than this puny little thing that invaded its territory. If it had been at full strength, it would have taken him down without it being able to blink.

It was right about that, but it was too young and too arrogant to know its own limits. In a quick movement, it planted its feet, guided its arc, and leapt through the air, claws and jaw open wide. In the air, it barely had time to register its final, fatal mistake.

It had misjudged the jump.

Leon twisted and the world slowed, the stick moving through the air like it was treacle. The mouse was fast, but it could do nothing to maneuver once it was in the air, and soon the makeshift spear was in its path. As it contacted, the weight of the mouse made itself known, and the blunt end of the stick buried shoved back in Leon’s stomach, knocking the air out of him. The stick sunk into the mouse’s chest, slipping through two ribs and colliding with the back of the ribcage as it snapped.

Leon and the mouse collided, and together they fell into the water.

The water closed around his head, and his chest clenched as his lack of air became apparent.

In the clearing above, all was silent, save for the birds and the wind. The ripples of the splash spread, before fading to nothing.

A small section of water bubbled, then fell still.