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  Through arduous study of a mana signature, you are able to copy that signature and make it your own, assuming the identity of the studied beast.

  Mana Cost: Form Dependant

  While the second one had me a bit excited, it was the first one that I really enjoyed. Finally, I had started on the path to becoming a Xeno-Shifter! Naturally, I immediately selected yes and accepted the Sub-Class.

  Sub-Class changed to Wild Shaper

  Congratulations for choosing your Sub-Class! Your Growth rate for skills related to this Sub-Class increase by 20%, and you have been granted a Sub-Class special skill.

  New Skill Unlocked!

  Aura Sight – Beginner Level 1

  Exp: 0%

  The ability to perceive auras at a glance, by infusing magic into your eyes.

  Seeing the two messages pop up after I chose my Sub-Class, I was even happier. Now, I would no longer need to hold an object or creature between my hands to study its mana signatures! Though, this likely didn’t let me detect the ‘feeling’ of the mana signatures, so it would be harder to memorize. Still, it shouldn’t be that hard right?

  Before I had noticed it, there were two small birds nuzzling up against my head, seemingly glad I was back to being a man. And nearby, still sitting where she had been, was Sharon, who had a wry smile on her face. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she had managed to guess what had happened during that brief exchange. Though, any doubts immediately disappeared when she spoke.

  “Turned into a girl bird, didn’t you?”

  “Yup…” I let out a sigh, while propping myself up. I didn’t want to always turn into female creatures in the future. Especially if I ended up studying a female alien for my Xeno-Shifter abilities! I’d need to find some way to secure my manhood.

  At this time, there was a light clapping coming from the edge of the grove. Surprised, both Sharon and I looked over to see Jarl there, accompanied by his usual wolf. However, there were also six horned rabbits, two young wolves, a small doe, and what looked like a white raven accompanying them. “Good, you’ve finally worked up the courage to take the next step.” He said, looking at me with an amused expression.

  “You knew… didn’t you?”

  To my question, he could only grin. “Of course I did. But it was too fun to watch your hesitation over it. If you want to know, the way to change a form’s gender is simple. Just study both a male and female of the same species, and find the components which determine gender. After that, just make sure you leave those bits unchanged, and you won’t have another gender accident.”

  Well… at least he told me that part. I let out a tired sigh as I heard him talk. “So, I’ve got to ask… what’s the difference between animals, magical animals, and monsters?” I recalled that bit being mentioned in my notifications, so wanted to clarify. This entire time, I’ve been pretty much considering all animals as video game monsters.

  He looked surprised at my question, however. Perhaps he hadn’t expected that we wouldn’t know? “Well, there’s really no harm in explaining. And the difference is pretty simple. Regular animals are those who have evolved naturally, and not had much of a reaction to the magic in their surroundings. Magical animals, on the other hand, have incorporated this magic into their evolution. Unicorns, for instance, are magical animals capable of manipulating water and light.

  “It’s common for magical animals to have some special powers, by the way. And no, this forest shouldn’t have any in it. Now, monsters are a step further. They are races that, rather than evolving naturally, were spawned by magic itself. Slimes, for instance. In areas thick with certain types of mana, a slime might appear. But there are other examples as well, such as elementals, goblins, and even certain types of elves are all considered monsters by this standard.”

  The last bit threw me for a loop. “Wouldn’t elves of any type be, at most, magical animals?”

  He smiled, as if having expected that question. “If they had evolved, then yes. Though, sentient species are no longer classified as any of those three by these standards either. There are cases where the world will spawn a race which is very close to an existing race. Those are the ones considered as monsters. Though, out of beasts, magical beasts, and monsters, the latter are the most likely to gain sentience. I mentioned slimes and goblins as monsters, but there are also sentient goblin tribes, and even a race of slime people. Though their races started as monsters, they have transcended that level to become a sentient creature.”

  I nodded, and began going over the information in my head. So it’s mostly dependant on the magic concentration, right? Low levels are found in normal animals, moderate levels in magical beasts, and high levels in monsters. And once a race gains sentience, they add a further layer of control to their own magic. That could explain why the races have different difficulties for my shapeshifting skills, I guess.

  Now that he had finished explaining, he turned to look at Sharon. “And you must be the new apprentice Rita was sending. Your friends found me a little bit ago.” He waved his hands around to indicate the various animals around him. “Though, for the most part I would say you have advanced your training on your own far past the normal level.”

  Seeing that he was about to start teaching her the basics of druid elemental magic, I decided to tune him out and begin cultivating my own three affinities. Later I can learn what I can from the wolf corpse, then see about learning new shapeshifting powers!

  Chapter 21: The Claw

  After a couple hours spent cultivating, I was somewhat annoyed that I hadn’t made much progress. Though, I also should have expected it. Although I managed to raise Earth Affinity to 6%, neither of my other affinities increased. Back when I was solely focusing on one at a time, it’d take several hours to gain a single percent, and now my attention was divided between three of them.

  Maybe I should practice them one at a time until 10%, and then work on them in the background while I practice the next? I thought about it like that, and decided that I’d start working on it after I did some more training with Nature Magic. And in order to do that, I’d need to study the wolf corpse I had collected.

  But… better safe than sorry. So, breaking out of my trance-like training, I looked over and saw that Jarl was sitting near Sharon, watching her practice her first session of cultivating mana. “Jarl, quick question.” When I saw I had his attention, I went ahead and asked. “There isn’t a penalty for studying the mana of a dead animal rather than a live one, right?”

  He thought about it for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders. “Yes and no. If they have an activated ability like your birds, you won’t be able to study it. But… if they’re just normal animals, you can still see the aura left behind, as long as it’s not been dead for too long.”

  I winced slightly at that. “How long is too long?”

  “Twenty-four hours, typically. After that, the aura begins to degrade. That’s why resurrection also has a twenty-four hour window. Once the aura begins to degrade, it shows that the soul has left the body. So, unless a corpse is magically preserved so that the aura isn’t damaged, you only have that long.”

  I nodded my head, a bit relieved at that. It had definitely not been a full day since I killed the wolf, and if I remembered right, I had not quite killed the snake twenty-four hours before I studied its scales. Taking another look at the armor’s mana signature, I discovered that the paths of light that I had previously memorized in the snake scales had started to shrivel up and lose their glow.

  Having resolved my doubts, I pulled the body of the wolf out of my inventory, and decided to use my new skill, Aura Sight. What I saw caught me off guard for a moment. I could still see the wolf, the grass around it, and myself, but inside of each there were the strands of light I have come to associate with mana signatures. Even floating between the wolf and myself, thin, nearly invisible wisps of white light which seemed to be wind
mana were mingling with straight, yellow rays descending from above. The latter, I decided was like light mana.

  On the body of the wolf, I was pleased to find that the lights weren’t shriveled up or fading like the snake scales. Though it was missing the extra level of detail since I wasn’t actually touching the aura, I could still clearly see it. Only.. I wasn’t sure how long it’d take me to study even one small portion of it from this perspective.

  As I dismissed the Aura Sight, I began to wonder something else. Just how had I managed to activate it in the first place? The system has never really assisted me in the activation of skills before in this game, so maybe Aura Sight is a common skill that anyone can do by passing mana into their eyes, and the game took pity on me to let me know? If so, that’d make me feel like a real idiot…

  Well, that might have been the point. I mean, I never did try to sense things away from myself, even though it seems like an obvious thing to do now. Anyways, back to the wolf! There were a couple of things that I wanted to get from the wolf, primarily their claws and nose. I didn’t need to be able to turn fully into a wolf, but if I managed to learn the entire aura by then, I wouldn’t be one to complain.

  Thinking about it like that made me a bit depressed, because I probably don’t have enough mana to shift into a wolf form, seeing as it took practically all of my mana just to turn into a bird. As such, I’d have to increase my intelligence stat a bit more to get more mana. And to do that, I need to level up!

  Back to the wolf… again. I first focused my mana on sensing its paws, and looked at the structure of the lights within. While the composition of an aspect can be determined by what colors and patterns the lights are, the form of it is determined by the shape of those lights. So… the wolf’s furred skin is an interwoven gray and purple light, but I could just as easily replace that with the pattern of the snake’s scales. What I needed to focus on was the shape that those lights made.

  I can’t wait to get back to leveling, and selling the bodies to earn money. Then maybe I can get another kind of magic. What would compliment my Nature Magic well? Summoning? Eh, I already have to deal with more animals than I’d like to, and anything my summons could do, I could do eventually. Gravity, then? It’d be nice, but not necessary. I almost dismissed Technomancy outright, since it would conflict with the druid image and Nature Magic, but then I realized something… If I was able to store information like a computer, or have mental access to such, then memorizing mana signatures would be far easier! Not only that, I might be able to mix and match configurations to make ‘preset’ forms.

  Alright, that’s decided, once I get another five silver, I’ll learn Technomancy. Wait, I was trying to focus on something, wasn’t I? Dammit, this is why it takes me so long to do things, I keep getting bored and distracting myself! Wolf, wolf, study the wolf! Come on, Falenel, you can do it!

  Roughly half an hour later, I had finally managed to memorize the pattern of the wolf paws. Taking a look at my own hand, I made sure I was doing this right before I started. I didn’t want to edit the wrong part of my mana signature, and have the paw coming out of my elbow!

  But, with a fair amount of caution, I shifted the mana signatures in my hand to match that of the paw, complete with its claws. It felt weird, seeing my thumb melt into my hand, while my fingers thickened and reshaped themselves, my fingernails growing out into thick claws. But, since I didn’t copy the fur of the wolf over, my hand was still bare.

  New Spell Unlocked!

  Aspect of the Hunter – Nature Magic – ★

  By studying the natural weapons of an animal, you are able to mimic them on your own body.

  Mana Cost: 50

  Alright, good. Now, for the nose. I looked up, and saw Sharon staring at me. And not in the happy way, I’d like that a bit. This was the ‘what did you do to that dog’ stare. “Uhm… something wrong?”

  She just kept staring for a moment before speaking. “That puppy… did you kill it..?”

  This is going to go bad no matter how I answer, so… I nodded my head, and could see her clenching her fists. “Not like I had much of a choice. It attacked me on my way here.” That seemed to placate her a bit, but she was still looking angry. Guess that she’s the kind that loves animals, and would rather befriend them than kill them, even in a game. “I only fought as much as I had to, until they started to run away. This one just didn’t make it that long.”

  That seemed to help a bit more, and she pulled a wolf of her own close to her, hugging it like a giant stuffed animal. Surprisingly, it did not really resist her at all, and even nuzzled closer. “Okay… as long as you aren’t bullying them…”

  Seriously, what is with her? I know this game is a bit too realistic, but still… Guess that means I won’t be taking her with me when I go to grind levels, but it does explain why she took so long to get her class, and had so many animal companions.

  Even Jarl was shaking his head, seemingly disappointed with Sharon’s actions. The animals of this forest kill each other more in a day than I could if I stayed here for a month, maybe even a year. Refusing to accept that fact for her might hurt later on, when she comes across more powerful creatures that she can’t tame.

  Shaking my head again, I looked over to Jarl as I remembered something, completely by random. Though, it might help me make money in the future if it works. “Jarl, I was told Alchemy and Nature Magic mixed really well. Is it possible to use Nature Magic to help make the potions themselves, rather than just copying the effects of them?”

  Jarl seemed about as surprised by my question as I was by the thought of it. However, if this worked, then I would no longer need to constantly hunt for familiar herbs. After a moment, he nodded his head slightly. “I guess it would be possible, just not easy. Just like how you can change your aura to match that of a beast, you can do the same thing for plants. If you bleed a little into a bottle, but changed the signature of your blood to match the combination of herbs you use to make the potion, then your blood would become that potion.”

  I nodded a bit, though winced as I imagined how much I would have to cut myself to make a profit like that. “What if I copied an animal that constantly produced a liquid, and changed that instead? Like the venom sac of a poisonous snake?”

  Again, he nodded his head. “That would also work, though would take a bit more practice. You’d also need an easy way to extract it from yourself, which could be with a snake’s fangs. Most druids don’t go down that route, since it is rather difficult to get right. If you mess up, you could accidentally fill your body with a deadly poison, and die on the spot. If that happens, then even resurrection magic would not help you, unless someone managed to remove all of the poison from your body and replace it with normal blood.”

  That made me wince even more as I pictured that kind of failure. “Well, I need some way to make money. Not that good at hunting, next to no skills when it comes to making items, and I don’t know enchanting. I can cook, and I can do alchemy.”

  Jarl thought it over for a moment longer before speaking, an interested look on his young face. “Well, if you had a personal garden, you could grow your own herbs. There is an advanced druid technique that would help, and it’s actually something Sharon would need to learn eventually if she hopes to advance to become a Colony Druid.”

  Seeing that I was interested, he spoke with a slight smile. “If you train your affinities and Nature Magic to a certain degree, you can make an ‘internal world’ within yourself. That’s how a Colony Druid stores their animal army inside their body. It’s also where many druids cultivate their grove. But, in order to achieve it, you need all of the necessary affinities at at least 5%. That means water, earth, fire, wind, and light all need to be at 5% to start it. Without one, you will be missing a key element to sustain life inside your grove. And, if you plan to have any nocturnal herbs, you’ll need Dark Affinity as well.”

  I blinked, taken aback by this new option. “Y
ou mean… once I get all of that… I’d actually be able to have a garden… inside my own body?” The implications of this were huge. If it was a part of my magic, wouldn’t it carry over when I logged out?

  “In a sense. You’ll need to care for it like normal, and can only bring in plants you assimilate on the outside. But once you have it, you’ll be able to take any plant from your grove, and bring it out into the real world. Normally, this isn’t talked about until you grow a bit more powerful, but I figure telling you now will give you some motivation in your training.” He winked jokingly to me, and laughed.

  Suddenly, I remembered the various forests I had seen when I flew into the air before. “Then, this forest..?”

  “Right, this is my grove. Most forests on this planet are maintained by a druid, who allows others to create cities within them. But, don’t think that your grove will be this big when you first make it. You’d be lucky to have it even one percent of the size. The size of the grove will grow gradually over time as you continue to absorb the mana of the various elements that compose it.”

  Well, this opened up a whole new path for me to make money. I still had several herbs left in my inventory that I could plant once I managed to make what he was talking about. But first, I needed to get the nose from this wolf, and then cultivate the last few elements that I need!

  Chapter 22: Training Montage

  Analyzing the wolf’s nose was surprisingly difficult, as a sense organ is far more complicated than something like a paw or wings. Still, about an hour and a half later, I had managed to memorize the pattern. With a bit of hesitation, I gradually applied to spell to unlock the next Aspect for my magic.

  New Spell Unlocked!

  Aspect of the Tracker – Nature Magic – ☆

  By studying the sensory organs of various creatures, you are capable of assuming those traits to enhance yourself.