To my amazement, I woke up again, this time to receive another message from my Core's internal System.

  Ambient Temperature Returned to Normal Values Re-enabling Cognitive Function. Functionality Temporarily Reduced to Compensate for Overheating.

  I no longer had any plant material as it had all seemingly burned away in the Conflagration. I took a minute to look over my system notifications.

  Milestone Achieved: For surviving an event that a little plant just shouldn't be able to.

  Species Level (Runaspriggan) Increased +4 (5)

  +4 Might, +12 Wit, +16 Spirit, +8 Fortitude, +12 Arcana, +8 Grace

  This was the second time I believed the system couldn't quite tell that I wasn't a plant. In fact, the plant portion of me didn't survive, as only the grace of somebody making my Core rather heat-resistant led to my survival. With the level achieved, apparently, there was a skill selection available.

  Congratulations on reaching level five! Choose one of the following three skills to shape your path to Eternity:

  [Species Skill Option]

  Name: [Rapid Circuit Building]

  Tier: [Basal]

  Description: [You have learned to construct Mana circuits under time pressure. This Skill will allow you to build circuits faster and more precisely with any material.]

  It could be useful, but I don't see how building circuits faster would do me any good right now. If I have to kill something, either I have everything I need prepared beforehand, or I die before I even know what hit me. It's fairly simple, really.

  [Species Skill Option]

  Name: [Adaptive Growth]

  Tier: [Wrought]

  Description: [You've developed an intuitive mastery of Nature Mana, enabling you to replicate and incorporate any plant material you're familiar with into your personal biomass for greater versatility and resilience. Consume plant material to gain an intuitive understanding of related biology.]

  That seems pretty great, actually. I was annoyed that I couldn't form any kind of bark armour over myself. Not that it would have done much for me so far. I wouldn't say I've mastered Nature Mana, though. Unless the Skill is just confused about my attunement? I have a feeling I wasn't supposed to start with one, so that's probably the case.

  [Species Skill Option]

  Skill Name: [Cinderborne Resilience]

  Tier: [Hellforged]

  Description: [You have been tempered by the fires of Kharathyx, the Cinder Sovereign, gaining increased resistance to heat. Your body can endure higher temperatures, and the burning touch of fire leaves you with little lasting effect. As one who has been touched by the Cinders, you gain the ability to manipulate any fire you create.]

  Hmm, while this seems incredibly useful if I decide to stick around, I also want to get the fuck out of this zone and never return. If I could just never be near something that hot again, that would be great. Also, once I figure out what a Cold Mana Rune or Ice Rune or whatever looks like, maybe I can build a kind of passive cooling system. The Tier seems pretty high, though, I think… I should figure out what these Tiers even mean. They didn't use the standard "Common, Uncommon, Epic, etc." So I'm really just going off instinct here. Obviously, my Basal skills are the first Tier. Then Wrought is probably the second. Hellforged sounds way up there, so maybe I'd be basically immune to fire, unless I decide to hop into a pool of lava or something equally stupid. The fact that some dude—or creature, who's to say—caused that fire, and they're influential enough to have a Skill name itself after them just from me being hit once, really makes me think I should pick it.

  Instead of doing that, I picked [Adaptive Growth] and hoped that if I ever re-entered a fire zone, I could go back and select the Skill. The main reason I did that was the notification following the Skill choices indicating I had plenty of time to skedaddle.

  [Zone Warning]

  The next Conflagration Event will be in five hours.

  They were so kind as to offer me a warning to get the fuck out before five hours pass. It's like I'm not even in hell. It almost brought a tear to my eyes if I even had that function. Maybe I could build circuits to squeeze Water Mana out of the corners of my eyes?

  I'll keep that as a future project. If I ever reach civilization again, maybe having that feature would come in handy. At least it would make me more personable. I took a moment to look at my last notification before checking my status menu, and again, I didn't quite know how I knew how to do these things. Perhaps they just dumped the information into my Core, or it came pre-installed as bloatware… Not that I could see Eryx adding bloatware. He seems like a Linux guy to me, and those guys hate that shit. Anyways!

  [Title Acquired]

  Name: [Scorched Survivor of Kharathyx]

  Tier: [Emblazoned]

  Description: [You are the first person to survive being within five hundred metres of Kharathyx during a Conflagration event in the Cradle of Ash without even trying to block it! Obviously, you are built differently from your contemporaries and deserve to be acknowledged for this.]

  Effect: [+20 Fortitude, +5% Effectiveness of Fortitude, Permanent Minor Heat Resistance]

  Name: Ellie Winters

  Species: Runaspriggan (Lvl 5)

  Titles: [Pioneering Explorer of the Boundless Horizons], [Pioneering Explorer of the Vast Expanse], [Pioneering Explorer of the Far Reaches], [Scorched Survivor of Kharathyx]

  Might: 7 (+55%)

  Wit: 21 (+55%)

  Spirit: 28 (+55%)

  Fortitude: 34 (+60%)

  Arcana: 21 (+55%)

  Grace: 14 (+55%)

  There are benefits of just waltzing into an endgame area, I guess. I get a bunch of cool titles before I get gimped. Or, well, I think that's slightly less likely now that I'm so fortitudinous. It is a bit odd, though the description of the title doesn't seem quite right. I definitely tried to block the fire. Maybe it didn't count because the shell I was constructing was made of plant matter, just like my skin? I had no idea, and after trying a couple of times, I realized I couldn't even open the bug report menu to check if that was an intended feature. Kaelzar really meant it when he said I wouldn't hear anything for a month.

  Also, holy hell, I'm just a short walk away from the dude. That fact prompted me to have already begun my [Regrowth] process, adding in a layer of redwood bark to the exterior of my shell because I'm fairly certain I'd read something about it being pretty fire resistant.

  Ten minutes later, I sat up in the ash and looked down at myself. I had managed to replicate my clothing almost exactly as it was previously without over-depleting my Mana, despite having bark added to my structure, which surely added additional biomass. It came out looking quite nice, if I say so myself. My body was scaled over with reddish-brown bark with little golden streaks running through it where my Mana channels lay. My clothes were now made from fibres of the bark pulled out and blended with cotton to make them silky soft. I could only hope they didn't catch fire as I noticed the ground around me was still glowing a dull red. The air shimmered with heat haze, and the sulphur smell was even worse than before. I just sealed up my nose and kept my mouth shut. There are so many advantages of not needing to breathe! I took a moment to dust myself off and check my Core's status.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Mana Stores at 52% Capacity Restoring 1.3% Per Minute

  Current Biomass 85% of Maximum Capacity

  Doing some quick math, it seems I was now using a measly zero point five two percent of my maximum Mana per percent of biomass restored. I was also pretty sure that the ratio of restored per minute was just my Spirit stat divided by my Arcana stat, which meant that increasing Arcana increases my Mana pool, and Spirit increases my regeneration. Actually, with the massive increase in stats I had obtained, I felt pretty damn good. I did a few stretches and thought I was able to move comfortably despite my increased weight from the bark armour. Given my increased Mana pool alongside a little bit higher Might and Grace, I could probably move a lot faster for longer periods before running out of Mana to power myself.

  To test that fact, I began running at a decent pace in the opposite direction of Kharathyx, and as I usually did while running, I tried to send a pulse to my Puzzle Ring. Coming to a screeching stop, I turned around and ran back because, obviously, it had fallen off. Since my hands didn't survive the fire, what else would have happened to it? I wish there were a way to keep the damn thing safe.

  Just as the thought crossed my mind, a window filled with a series of empty boxes appeared.

  Inventory (0/20)

  Ah, obviously, there was an Inventory mechanic. There are already a bunch of game features included with the system. Why didn't I think of an Inventory? No, wait, that's not the game system. That's my internal System. That's weird. I would have thought I'd have been made aware of spatial storage being tied to this species. Shouldn't it have appeared as a Skill or something? My other functions came through as Skills. The fact that this one didn't come through like that only made me wonder what other hidden functions Eryx had packed in there. Luckily, I detected the Mana the wooden ring was holding fairly quickly. I felt like my sense for Mana is better now than it was before as well, as I dropped it into my Inventory as a test.

  The ring just vanished, and only checking the Inventory window confirmed that it was still there. From my Inventory, I could examine the item again, being given the same description I had been given before. After I had finished playing around, I pulled it out and donned it on one of my fingers while continuing on my merry way at speeds rivalling those of a high-level sportsball player, despite my diminutive size. I smiled to myself as I noticed that fact. I think I love getting stronger.

  It's funny that while living on Earth, I mostly spent my time just coasting through life without ever finding something meaningful or fulfilling. But here, despite being thrown into a situation that's definitely going to end in my early demise, I finally feel like I have some measure of control over my life despite the ridiculous situation I am in. Things I work on or achieve here seem actually to have a measurable impact that I can feel, and no matter how things go, I know it will entirely be on me. I come from a world where the only way to achieve anything was to get lucky, and hard work meant absolutely nothing. This whole new life was like a breath of fresh air. Something about living in a society where a significant portion of people believe they live in a meritocracy when, in reality, your success in life could accurately be determined by the postal code you grew up in made me sad.

  I was interrupted from my musings and the puzzle I had been working on when I detected a massive Mana signature that had appeared seemingly from nowhere fifty metres to my right. The sudden shock to my senses led to me tumbling over into the ash, where I lay face down for a moment, waiting for whatever that was to end me. That only lasted until I realized what sensing Mana actually meant. The thought made me giggle—a bit of a struggle, given that my face was currently planted in the ground.

  I raised my head and spit out the ash I had somehow managed to get in my mouth. It tasted like sulphur, so I removed my mouth entirely. I didn't feel like building a circuit to make water to wash the taste away. Then I turned to look towards my new buddy. Unfortunately, my visibility only extended maybe ten metres in every direction, so I couldn't quite see anything besides ashen rain.

  Getting up, I made my way over, stopping just as the source of the Mana came into view. It was a little black sprout growing out of the ground. The only particularly notable aspect about it, beyond the massive Mana signature, was its rate of growth.

  The damn thing was sucking Mana from the ground like nobody's business and using it to rocket up in size. It was like watching one of those sped-up videos of a seed germinating and growing into a flower, which seemed like an opportunity I couldn't miss. I didn't think [Adaptive Growth] would come in handy so quickly. So I just sat down next to it and watched it grow. I was pretty sure I had found the source of all this damn ash, if these things were growing in this zone, that would be plenty of fuel.

  Watching the plant, I obtained a few insights into how Mana worked, and I realized that simple puzzles couldn't quite match what was going on in the plant. Through some kind of process, it was breaking down what I definitely knew now to be Ash Mana into Fire and Earth Mana. All of the Fire Mana was being stored in a core contained in the centre of the plant. Less than a minute later, I could tell this was some kind of flower, not just a normal-sized flower, mind you. If it kept growing at this rate, it would grow as tall as a tree in less than an hour. I checked my System log and noted the time I woke up and the current time before deciding I could probably wait a bit and still make it a safe distance away. I already survived one Conflagration after all. What's the harm in another one, especially if I'm not half a kilometre away this time?

  I had already repressed the memory of what my Core overheating felt like, so it wasn't that big of a deal.

  Suddenly, the Fire Mana that the plant had stored burst and spread through the stalk that had been growing. I was worried something had gone wrong for a moment until I noticed all of that Mana being sent into leaves growing out the sides of the stem. Intrigued, I went up to the plant and, after making some makeshift oven mitts out of redwood bark, I used Nature Mana to make one of the leaves fall into my hand. I dropped it into my Inventory and then checked what my Core thought about it.

  [Ashenflare Leaf]

  A leaf originating from an Ashenflare flower. A species of megaflora that thrives in environments with high concentrations of Ash Mana. The leaves of this plant are highly conductive to Fire Mana and have several alchemical uses.

  Neat!

  Once the leaf had entered my Inventory, I could immediately tell that I could consume it with [Adaptive Growth], so without much hesitation, I did that. The leaf vanished, followed by a rush of information entering my mind outlining the biology of the plant, and a notification appeared in my vision. I took a moment to process the info and found it rather strange. There were no cells or regular biological aspects like you would expect, instead, it was almost like a bunch of interconnected parts were managed through Mana alone. I wasn't sure if this was just what plants were like here or if this specimen was unique.

  Thinking about the implications, I figured the first answer was probably the correct one. After all, if Mana existed and could replicate life, wouldn't it be more likely for life to evolve using Mana as a base instead of all that messy biology stuff? Even more evidence pointing at that being the answer was my [Regrowth] Skill. It didn't consume any matter to grow me a new body; it just converted Mana into everything I needed. Do atoms even exist here, or is everything just made of Mana?

  My Skill didn't get into the physics of how the leaf worked, as that information wasn't needed at all in order to grow it. I just needed conceptual knowledge about how it worked, hence why I could create redwood bark. I should probably try it out, shouldn't I?

  Using [Regrowth], I tried to start growing a leaf on the mitted hand and immediately ran into a problem. Besides the fact my hand lit on fire, that wasn't that big of a deal.

  Mana Stores at 10% Capacity Please Halt Mana Usage or Risk Internal Damage

  The thing wasn't any less Mana hungry when being grown on my own body. So after I created barely a flake of the stuff, my Core started bitching. I sighed, which was quite the accomplishment without a nose or mouth, and resigned myself to waiting until I was at a higher level to make cool fire leaves—speaking of which.

  Milestone Achieved: Acquire knowledge on high-level flora as a plant species.

  Species Level (Runaspriggan) Increased +2 (7)

  +2 Might, +6 Wit, +8 Spirit, +4 Fortitude, +6 Arcana, +4 Grace

  They're just handing me levels like candy, aren't they? Also, I'm not a plant species…

  I hoped this was something I could do repeatedly because if it was, I was definitely going to exploit that fact and power level by grabbing bits from a bunch of high-level plants. I'm absolutely positive this isn't the only time I'm going to run into something like this out here. I dropped the flake into my Inventory and saw it give the same description as before, meaning I was genuinely creating usable material.

  I went back to the ring, given there wasn't much left for me to do until the plant did something new, and I felt like I could keep track of both things at once. I assume the increase to my Wit stat was helping me out here, in addition to the obvious boost in my ability to think up razor-sharp comebacks. This was the most useful stat, given that the nearest people I knew the location of were over six times the circumference of the Earth away. Meaning I had tons of time to think of them while heading back to Fateswatch.