Hadn’t the Administrator said that it had left me something to eat?

Looking around the clearing I spotted a small sack and walked over to it.

“Aha!” I exclaimed reaching inside and retrieving some of the contents which resembled some sort of oatcake. The sack contained another 5 of these things which didn’t seem like enough to survive for more than a few days, but I decided to withhold judgement until I had tried them.

After looking at it curiously for a moment I took an experimental nibble and soon I was licking the crumbs of the demolished cake thing from my fingers. It probably wasn’t actually made of oats, but it was definitely made out of something similar and positively laced with something like honey and a sweet chewy fruit that reminded me of dried bananas. In fact, if I was still human it would’ve probably been too sweet for me but apparently my new body had a sweet tooth. It was also surprisingly filling making me wonder if there was some sort of Skill at work. In fact, now that I thought about it this was probably the case as there was so much that I didn’t know about the System. If these things filled me up this much, I could get by with one a day meaning that I had five days to find something else that was safe to eat. However more importantly I was now very thirsty.

There was a clear pool of water on the far side of the clearing, so I walked over to it to gaze cautiously into its depths freezing as I saw my new face for the first time. The admin hadn’t lied, I did look pretty similar to how I had when I was a human just a bit thinner at least until you noticed the stripes. I now had markings on my face that made me look like I had gone to a kid’s party and gotten my face painted, in fact my entire body was covered in these darker markings. The pattern on my face was reminiscent of the markings on the face of a cheetah, a resemblance that was only intensified by my long limbs and skinny body. Actually, I was sure that if I wasn’t wearing a shirt, I was skinny enough that you would be able to count my ribs.

“Man, I really hope I only look so skinny because my Stats are low,” I sighed shaking my head. I had been a fairly solid guy back on earth so seeing myself like this made me feel quite uncomfortable even though this was a new body. I wasn’t just skinny I was little more than skin and bones.

Crouching down I cupped my hands together and dipped them into the clear water, I wasn’t particularly worried about this water being dirty, not only did it look like the alpine lakes back home in New Zealand the Admin had told me that there would be clean water nearby that I could drink and so far, it hadn’t lied to me.

Once I had quenched my thirst, I took a closer look around the clearing, for the most part the trees and other plants didn’t look too different than the ones from earth, a few of the trees did look a bit odd but it wasn’t like there weren’t odd looking plants back on earth either. Anyway, it didn’t look like there was anything that would hurt me in this clearing, so I decided to take a closer look at the weirder trees.

As I approached the odd feeling, I got from the trees only grew until I realised what was bugging me. The branches were moving slightly but this wasn’t because of the wind like it would be back on earth, in fact there wasn’t any wind, the branches were moving by themselves and realising this I leapt back in surprise.

“Holy crap!” I shouted staring at the slowly waving branches.

My heart beating wildly, I glanced around the clearing as I realised that shouting like that was probably a bad Idea before turning back to the trees when nothing leapt out at me.

“Yeah that’s weird,” I said my voice still quavering slightly from shock. A closer look told me that it wasn’t all the branches that were moving but only the thinner ones that had split off from the main ones. Thankfully the branches didn’t seem to be interested in me but seeing something like this only reinforced that this was an alien world. While these trees seemed harmless to me that didn’t mean that others would be and with branches like that, they could be very dangerous especially as the only weapon that I had was a small knife.

“Alright, so I’m definitely not going anywhere until I have more Stats and Skills and even then, I have to be careful.” I decided.

Having come to this rather obvious conclusion I walked back to the pool of water and sat down next to it before opening my Aspects Screen once more.

Unlocked Aspects

Aspect of the Yajash 1/10, Aspect of the Pioneer 0/10, Aspect of the Beginner 0/5

Aspect Points:14

Personal Aspect

Aspect of Evolution

1

Preparing myself to be bombarded by images like I had last time I placed a second point into ‘Aspect of the Yajash’ but to my surprise nothing happened.

“Huh,” I grunted before adding another point increasing the total to three. This time the images did come but they were quite different from the ones that my Soul Aspect had shown me.

In these images I was running through a jungle moving with incredible fluidity through the closely packed trees my footsteps making absolutely no noise whatsoever as I did so. It was an incredibly freeing experience, one that I had never had as a human and when I came out of the daydream there was a notification floating in front of me it was similar to the one that had appeared the first time that I had put a point into ‘Aspect of the Yajash’ but had a lot more information on it including a new Skill.

Aspect of the Yajash has reached 3/10 providing you with the following benefits.

The Yajash are most at home in the forest and are capable of moving silently and with a fluid grace unmatched by most other Species.

Coordination +2

Agility +1

Sneak Skill Unlocked!

Aspect Points:12

Wow that’s actually quite useful, it seems that Coordination might be one of the better Stats that Yajash have. Unlocking the Sneak Skill will also be quite helpful as I’m sure that most of the things that live here would just love to eat me for breakfast so being able to move silently is an important Skill for me to have.

Sneak Lvl 1 Unlocked!

This Skill improves your ability to move quietly in any terrain.

Increases Growth Rate by 1 Coordination.

Hmm, looks like Sneak is an ordinary Skill due to the lack of a rank next to it but it still increases my Growth Rate. The description’s pretty lacklustre as well but it looks like all it does is decrease the sound of my movement instead of making me invisible like a similar Skill would in a game which makes sense as this was reality. Not that it would be impossible for there to be some sort of Skill or magic that can do that, but if there was it would be more powerful than the Sneak Skill.

Now I paused to consider what to do next, these images suddenly appearing in my mind like this was dangerous. If I did it at the wrong time, I would be defenceless but right now I was safe. The only question was; should I try to unlock some more Skills on my own first or keep spending Aspect Points?

Eventually I decided to continue adding points to ‘Aspect of the Yajash.’ This was what the Admin had recommended, and it understood the System much better than I did being technically a part of said System.

Placing another Aspect Point into Aspect of the Yajash did nothing as I had expected but the second was different and once again, I found myself in a different forest from the one I was actually in but instead of running through it I was standing calmly in a clearing surrounded by other Yajash who were sitting down watching me carefully and I closed my eyes breathing deeply before raising a hand and opening them again. As I did so a strange sensation rushed down my arm followed by a blue glow as a ball of writhing energy formed at shot towards a small wooden target set up nearby striking it with a loud bang.

Simultaneously I once again found myself in the ocean like I had the first time I had put a point into an Aspect, the juxtaposition of being in two, or was that three places at the same time throwing me off a little but I didn’t fail to notice that instead of the DNA I had noticed forming last time there were instead primitive cells that were rapidly splitting as they absorbed nutrients spewing from a nearby volcanic vent.

As my mind returned to my real body a huge smile covered my face as I read the notification that appeared in front of me.

Aspect of the Yajash has reached 5/10 providing you with the following benefits.

The Yajash are natural wielders of magic but it pays to remember that this mysterious power is something that must be practiced to master fully.

Intelligence increased by 2!

Wisdom increased by 1!

Mana Manipulation Skill Unlocked!

Mana Bolt Spell Unlocked!

Affinity System Unlocked!

Aspect Points:10

Your Soul Aspect has reached Level 5!

What was once merely the beginnings of life has grown into new breeds of organism that can survive in even the harshest environments.

Toughness increased by 2!

Heat Resistance Skill Unlocked!

“Magic,” I breathed excitedly. Now that I had the Mana Manipulation Skill, I could feel that same energy that I could in the vision pulsing somewhere inside of me as though begging to be used. I was than far more interested in this than the rewards from my Soul Aspect but that didn’t mean that those rewards were bad it was just that magic was one of the main reasons that I had finally decided to accept the Admin’s offer in the first place. Realising this I looked at the other notifications that had popped up after exiting the first one.

Mana Manipulation Lvl 1 Unlocked!

This Skill allows you to manipulate the Mana in your body and the world around you in various ways.

Increases Growth Rate by 1 Intelligence.

Mana Bolt Lvl 1 Unlocked!

Fires a bolt of Mana at a target dealing a small amount of magical damage. Cost: 5MP

Increases Growth Rate by 1 Intelligence

Affinity System Unlocked!

The Affinity System is a measure of the affinity you have for different elements. As you increase these affinities you can unlock different ones. It is possible to unlock spells that you don’t have enough Affinity for, but it is very dangerous, and it is recommended that you don’t try to force yourself to create spells more powerful than you can handle.

Affinities

Fire

0%

Water

1%

Earth

3%

Air

1%

Nature (Locked)

5%

Time (Locked)

2%

Well now this was even more interesting than I had anticipated, it seems that while you get one spell just for unlocking the Mana Manipulation Skill you have to think up others for yourself, this was actually both a good and bad thing as it allowed you to have spells tailored to your own style but meant that less creative people would find themselves quite limited. Although I suppose that less creative people wouldn’t even bother using magic too much in the first place. In my excitement I decided to exit the notification regarding my other new Skill without even looking at it. I could always come back to that later, right now I wanted to try my magic out.

Mana Bolt was pretty much what I expected from a spell that I had unlocked alongside Mana Manipulation, I didn’t think it would do much damage but it did look like I could Level it up like other Skills which along with its low MP cost would make it fairly useful going forward.

But most interesting of all was the Affinity System, as expected I had absolutely no affinity for fire due to my new species but what actually surprised me was that I had two Affinities that were locked; nature and time. Based off what the Admin told me I had these Affinities because of my Soul Aspect, but it looked like I would still have to increase other Affinities to unlock them properly. Nature should be easy enough to unlock as if I had to guess it would just be a combination of water and earth, but I had no idea how to unlock time.

However, for the first time since arriving here I felt an urge to try something that there was no way I could refuse and positively leapt to my feet. I still had the same goofy grin on my face from when I first realised that I could use magic, and this wasn’t likely to change anytime soon.

Raising my hand, I tried to get the energy that I could now feel to rush down my arm the same way it had in the vision that I had been shown and tried to make it gather into a Mana Bolt. This took considerably longer than it had in the vision but soon there was a glowing blue orb hovering in front of my hand.

“Uh, maybe I should have thought about what I was going to do with this,” I muttered as I looked around for something to use the Mana Bolt that I had formed on. I didn’t want to fire it at one of the trees because without knowing more about them I didn’t know what sort of reaction that would cause and the last thing I wanted right now was to be attacked by wooden tentacles. Just because they wouldn’t attack me normally making this area technically safe didn’t mean that they wouldn’t defend themselves if they were capable. Yes, I was probably being overly cautious especially considering the fact that I could now essentially create tiny explosive bullets out of magic, but this was an alien world that I still knew basically nothing about.

Spotting a medium sized rock on the other side of the clearing I took aim and fired the Mana Bolt which shot across the clearing with blinding speed and smashed into the target with a loud cracking sound sending a plume of dust into the air.

Shit that was louder than I thought that it would be. Immediately I went on guard straining all of my senses as I made my way to the centre of the clearing to make it more difficult for something to leap out at me from the treeline without me noticing quickly enough.

As I did this, I finally noticed something that I had been ignoring the entire time I had been here. I couldn’t hear anything other than the occasional scraping sound as the tentacle-branches of the trees came into contact with each other before moving away. Jungles like this were never this quiet back on earth, there was always something making noise whether it was something making others of its kind know that this was its territory or the sound of some unfortunate prey animal’s dying screams, hell now that I was thinking about it I realised that I couldn’t even hear any birdsong.

Now that I noticed it the silence was nearly overwhelming. From what the Admin told me about this world it should have been full of life, but I couldn’t hear any sign of such a thing and looking up at the blue sky I couldn’t see any birds overhead either. I had a method of defending myself now, although my Mana Bolt hadn’t been as powerful as I had hoped only knocking a few chips off of the target, so I decided it was time to do some investigating.

Making my way through the treeline I noticed something blue in the distance drew my stone knife before advancing cautiously noting that my footsteps were quieter than normal as I did so, it seems that my Sneak Skill was working as advertised.

The knife was a simple thing, that seemed to be made out of obsidian with a cloth-wrapped wooden handle. The only really interesting thing about it was that unlike what I expected from obsidian weapons its edge was smooth. As far as I was aware obsidian tools were made by chipping pieces off a larger piece of obsidian to form an edge but as this was an item that the Admin had given me for all I know it could’ve created the knife with magic, so I decided that my investigation of my surroundings was more important.

As I got closer to the softly glowing blue light in the distance my mouth slowly dropped as I realised what it was. A bubble surrounded the clearing a few metres into the treeline made a familiar blue energy, that I assumed was the same energy that I had used to create a Mana Bolt earlier. It didn’t seem to be affecting the nearby trees in any way as I could see the tentacle branches passing through it not even causing ripples in the barrier and the barrier itself intersected the trunks of the trees themselves without causing any damage.

“This is incredible,” I said holding out a hand towards the bubble of Mana, stopping just before touching as I suddenly felt the vibrations it was giving off making the fine hairs on my arm stand on end.

The bubble had to have a diameter of almost 30 metres and be higher than the trees if I thought that it was the sky but what was even more amazing was the thought that if a tiny ball of Mana like my Mana Bolt cost 5 MP to create just how much Mana would it take to even create one of these let alone sustain it for any length of time? And I wasn’t the only person that the Admin had chosen to help the Yajash settle Edra so who knew how many of these it was sustaining at once.

I had no idea how it actually worked but it seemed to not only be blocking light and sound but making it sot that anything that meant me harm couldn’t approach somehow but I decided not to mess with it for now. After all it was there for a reason and who knew what would happen to me once I left the safety it provided.

Having come to this conclusion I withdrew my arm and returned my knife to where it had been stuck into my belt and walked back to the clearing and sitting back down. The events of the day were really starting to get to me, first I had been killed in a traffic accident, then transported to an alien world with trees that had tentacles for branches while trying to make sense of all these menus and Stats and things, honestly, I couldn’t wait until nightfall.

“Ah,” looking up I realised something, if I couldn’t see the actual sky through the barrier that was protecting me then I had no way to tell what time it was due to the light it was giving off.

Well I suppose I’ll just sleep and eat when I wanted to instead of worrying about it for the time being, it wasn’t like I had to keep to a schedule anymore, well other than the one for the quest that I had been given but I had months before I had to worry too much about that.

“Well then if I’m tired, I should probably go to sleep,” I decided. “Huh, it’s weird to think that this will be the first time this body has ever slept.”

Lying down on a particularly thick patch of the grass-like plants that covered the ground I tried to make myself comfortable and soon drifted off to sleep.