Two enforcers are investigating the body as I speak to the third one. One of the two enforcers wears a white lab coat instead of a typical uniform. He is using some sort of skill on the body. I try to keep lying to a minimum. Who knows if this guy in front of me has a lie detector skill.

“So, you are testifying that your suspicious neighbor broke into your basement at midnight. And you killed him because you thought he was a thief and your life was in danger.”

“I am but a humble tamer. If it wasn’t for my tamed beast getting the best of him in a moment of weakness, I could’ve died.” I don’t verbally confirm his statement. He was no danger to my life.

One of the two enforcers investigating the body comes up behind the guy I am talking to, he whispers into his ear, but my perception is high enough to listen in.

“We’ve identified the guy. He matches the records of who owns the apothecary next door. We also found some scurva in a hidden pocket. He also has signs of drug abuse from multiple sources. We will need a full lab to identify each one.”

Scurva? That's some brutal stuff. I heard that withdrawal symptoms cause your body to come apart at the seams. Since he also ran an apothecary, I believed my neighbor would have more ‘natural’ stuff… Is scurva natural? I wouldn’t know, but I never heard of a ‘scurva leaf.’

The enforcer whispers back, “Cause of death?”

“Complete destruction of the brain. The skull was fully intact. Possible entry point: left ear canal.”

He nods and looks back at me. “Everything checks out Mr, please be patient for the crime scene clean up people to get here.”

“Thank you, enforcer. I would offer you some tea and a place to sit, but I just moved in.”

“It’s not a problem. We will be out of your hair in a moment.”

In a rare twist, I trust these enforcers in my house. I have nothing they can steal unless they want to carry my fridge out the front door. I go upstairs and lock the door. My tamed beasts were hiding out in my room.

I didn’t want to give them any reason to believe I had everything under control. The only beast I showed them was Khan. It turns out that his swarm can separate into separate entities. On Khan’s [Status], he counts as one creature when all together. The individual ‘clones’ are way weaker than the main body.

Khan doesn’t seem intelligent…

He can understand simple orders, but I think that's a credit to my class rather than his intelligence. I wonder if he has a hive mind situation with his clones or if they are just simple enough to always be in tandem with the main body. Are they clones? They could be just mana constructs rather than flesh and blood.

I want to experiment with this new fascinating creature, but that would be unethical. I named it after all.

Maybe I should do some research on insect colonies. That's where the idea of a ‘hive mind’ came from in the first place… fuck, there are so many different types of ants. Where do I even start?

I take my mind off of ants before I go crazy. [Crazy Ants] might be a good start…

Fuck. I just force myself to sleep instead of staying up any longer.

~

I go to my classes the next day. I might as well ask a professional about my queries. However, my Khan is ‘something that shouldn’t exist.’ It probably won't be wise to ask about my tamed beast directly. I am getting a lot of stares today. It might be Duchess hanging off me again, but she did it when she was shorter, and no one batted an eye.

My monsterology professor is a short old man that people mistake for a gnome. He swears he is at least 98% human and vehemently disagrees with anyone who says otherwise. I am apparently also his favorite student. Even though I barely went to his classes, I always knew more than any other student. He also liked how I kept asking questions that other people wouldn’t give.

“My boy, what brings you to your old professor? What can stump you so that you need this old man’s help?

“Professor Earnshaw, I wondered about the complexity of a hive mind found in creatures and how it empowers the collective. I also pondered similar effects, not necessarily a hive mind, but similar. “

“What brought this on, my boy.”

I hesitantly answer, “ants?”

He intensely looks at me. He is standing on a stool that makes him reach my eye level. It would look comical, but he is giving off a serious vibe.

“Don’t go down the rabbit hole of studying ants. That is no rabbit hole but an ant hill that will suck you in and never let you go. An estimated 12,000 species of ants were cataloged even before the Great Upheaval, not to mention what mana has done to them. And after the Collision happened and introduced whole new species of ants, forget about it. I discovered over 100 new variants, and don’t get me started with the entire evolution trees of those monsters. Instead of becoming a new species, their evolution just puts them higher in the social ranking they have…

Did you know Ellis, there is a race of otherfolk that have common ancestors with ants, the same way we humans have a common ancestor with primates? An entire race of super social workers entirely united under one ruler? If their potential wasn’t ultimately based on their birth status, they would've taken over the world. Don’t be like me, Ellis. Aim higher!

Look into the stars with a telescope, don’t crawl around in the dirt with a magnifying glass.”

He leaves after his parting words. I couldn't get a word in when he was ranting… I made a mental note to never mention ants in front of Professor Earnshaw.

~

The library is the natural spot to go if I want to get in some light reading. I take the manual that Master Wang gave me and start reading. I don’t feed it to my [Lexicon] yet since If another enchantment notifies Master Wang of its destruction, I probably will have a difficult time the next time I see him.

I start my leisurely reading and read the opening line.

“The path to a broken body routes the way to a broken mind.”

I almost got angry again, but I ignored any feelings and read. The first step needs me to… sever a limb… and cast it away…

Step one is done. I read the annotation at the bottom of the page. “This step can be skipped as long as the practitioner has the appropriate mindset for these techniques.” Too late now.

~

I spent a total of an hour reading this manual. I haven’t reached the end yet but what I have read confuses me. I thought these types of books were supposed to have pictures. The way it’s written makes it hard for me to visualize what I have to do. Inside the book is a set of exercises and forms on the foundation for the technique, but the poor writing frustrates me.

The simplest is the bone body foundation, where I have to repeatedly break my bones until they are unbreakable. There is a specific way of doing it, or you will be crippled. It would be helpful if the book mentioned what the method is…

Then you break your muscles, skin, organs, blood, then spirit. Constantly breaking them down so you can build them back up. This kind of self-harm is needed to do what my [Adaptable] trait already does. I don’t think I need to do them, but going through one round wouldn’t hurt.

Although the manual doesn’t explicitly say how to not cripple yourself, it mentions a method of breaking should be controlled explosions of mana from inside your body. I have quite the grasp of using my mana inside of myself with all the practice I get from healing myself. I start to do the opposite of healing and use my mana to try and break myself.

It hurts way more than I expected. My skin bulges as my bones break and assemble themselves back together. Now I know how it feels to be Rob. I gained a new resistance from all this.

[Resistance Force: 0 > 1]

What’s force? How is that different from blunt damage? I need to figure this out…

[Resistance Force: 1 > 2]

[Resistance Force: 2 > 3]

[Resistance Force: 3 > 4]

I see now! It's basically organ damage resistance. [Force] has similarities to blunt force trauma but has a crucial difference. Blunt-force is typically used against armored targets since the force of impact ‘travels’ through the armor and still damages the insides. A hammer can break bones without needing to break the skin.

Force resistance is what keeps me from turning into soup from the inside. My mana ‘explosions’ are not like a hammer but more like a burst of radiation or a sound wave. From the outside, it looks the same, but it’s fundamentally doing something different to my insides. I decide to take a break and socialize a little.

~

I hung out with Jerry because of the promise to his father. I have to check that he isn’t “going down the wrong path.”

He wanted to play arcade games, so we played at our local game center. There was a fighting game that got my attention. It's your typical select a character and battle against your friend, but the characters are all based on real people that shined during the Collision. Aurelius the Undying, Saint Valentine, the Lightborn, etc.

My grandfather is not a character but a boss you defeat in story mode. The developers mustn't have wanted to code the man who had an army as a playable character. We played for a few rounds, but a specific character caught my eye.

Unyielding Wang.