Flynn was rapidly getting used to waking up in strange places. He could almost count himself an expert at it. His eyes fluttered open, his breath hitched, and there was no wasted moment trying to blink away the last dregs of sleep, or confusion about where he was. He was alert and ready in a heartbeat and he immediately shot up to a seated position.

  The monster’s warning was the first thing to come screaming back to his thoughts, and it focused his mind in the way that only immediate danger could.

  His fingers hopped around and found his bow a few inches from his hand whilst blue eyes swept over his surroundings, looking for the vague, formless danger it’d spoken of.

  Flynn was expecting something along the lines of the ape-things, or maybe the globulous monster itself. What he was attacked by almost immediately was a threat more immediate and more potent than any monster he’d seen so far.

  A stench so powerful that it brought tears to his eyes. Flynn reeled away from the dizzying violation of his nose and desperately tried to exhume his lungs of the smell. It was like rotten cheese and a bathroom retreat after taco night had come together in an unholy union, and that was being charitable.

  His stomach churned and his lungs burned with every breath. He coughed and then grimaced as his stomach roiled and all manner of unpleasant sensations surged towards his mouth like a dam slowly creaking open.

  Flynn clenched his fists and turned until he was in a foetal position, every bit of his willpower dedicated to keeping from yakking all over the place. He managed it by the slimmest of margins, and it took him several minutes more before he could bare to open his eyes without being blinded by tears.

  With his arm wrapped around his nose like a mask, Flynn unsteadily took stock of his surroundings.

  The peaceable white of the room was gone, and in its place was a murky gloom that covered everything.

  It took him a second for his eyes to adjust, but when they did, he quickly realized that he was in a tunnel. A big one too, and long. The walls ran in shades of red and pink and glowed with a faint inner light. Strange stocky plant-like protrusions of varied shape and size sprouted in patches along the ground. Pools of disgusting, bubbling brown liquid simmered in scattered puddles everywhere he looked, whilst apertures randomly opened and closed along the walls spilling more of the viscous liquid at random intervals.

  The ground beneath him was soft, spongy as he shifted his weight, and combined with the reddish colour it almost resembled...

  Wait. Flynn pressed his foot down. It squicked.

  He could see the lines of veins running through it like little rivulets.

  His eyes widened.

  No.

  Not just resembled but...

  Disgust coloured his complexion. It really was...

  Flesh.

  He was surrounded by flesh in every direction, as if he were in some massive creature’s body. Considering everything else that’d happened, Flynn wasn't going to discount the possibility. But more than that, he realized that his surroundings hadn’t been the only thing to change.

  His clothes were different. Gone was the hoodie and jeans he’d been wearing just moments ago. In its place he wore a simple white uniform. The design was like fantasy melded with the kind of weird shit he sometimes saw being worn down catwalks, but the material was decent, even comfortable. That didn’t make the loss of his stuff any more tolerable.

  Where was his phone? His wallet?

  And why was there a backpack next to him? It was decently sized, but clearly only half-full, if that. Flynn studied his surroundings again before he decided to inspect its contents.

  Flipping open the latches, he found a square-cut hardy bread-like food arranged in neat stacks and bundled tightly next to them, a few wooden cannisters. Twisting open the cannister revealed water inside. These were rations, he realized.

  It was charitable, but he didn’t expect charity from whatever force ran this show. Not after it’d killed someone. Not after being hunted down by that monster. No. If the powers-that-be gave him rations, and enough of it for... probably three days.

  Flynn frowned.

  How difficult was this exam expected to be?

  How long was this exam expected to last?

  A lot, and probably very long. The thought of spending that much time in this fleshy hellscape grated on his nerves, but Flynn knew better than to complain.

  At least he had supplies, small mercy that it was.

  Hauling the bag onto his shoulders, Flynn steadied himself. Survive, the monster had said. That was his only goal. Well, it’d generally been his goal in life for the most part, and he’d done a damn good job of it thus far. Flynn didn’t intend for that to change any time soon.

  And his first and foremost task to maintaining that state of being was getting acquainted with his magic.

  Intent and will, the monster told him.

  Right.

  Flynn focused himself and reached out with a hand. He probably didn’t need to, but it felt right to do so. A second later, the book sat hovering above his palm, its pages flipped open to his character sheet. Flynn smiled victoriously.

  Flynn Killwen

  Lvl. 2

  Initiate

  Traits:

  -

  Stats:

  STR:11 | SPD:12 | END:12 | PERC:16 | MPO:13 | MCP:10 | MAL:15 | MCT:11

  Unallocated Stat Points: 1

  Syscoins:

  3

  Class Spells:

  Illusionary Archer

  [Spectacle Arrow] [Create Illusionary Self] [Summon Bowst]

  Quests:

  1. An In-The-Body Experience

  The screen was different compared to the last time he’d seen it. All his stats had gone up by one, probably because of his level gain. He made a note of that. He also had an unallocated stat, which delighted him. Being able to freely min-max the perfect character to an almost obsessive level was one of the many reasons why he loved DnD.

  Of course, here and now, the character he was controlling was himself, and a single stat point might mean the difference between life and death. Flynn couldn’t afford to be lackadaisical with his choices. After a moment’s consideration, he eventually decided to wait until he had a better understanding of what he needed.

  He was in no rush, despite his situation.

  Stats aside, his syscoin count had also gone up. The word had no tooltip he could summon for clarity, but he didn’t need one to guess that it was a currency of some sort. Considering how he’d only achieved one notable feat since all the craziness had begun, it became evidently obvious what he’d done to earn those three coins.

  As if he needed another reason to cut apart every monster he saw.

  The only other change in the screen was the addition of a quest.

  An In-The-Body Experience

  Survive the journey to The Mouth.

  Reward:

  3 Spellgems | 1 Legendary Trait | 1 Lineage-Graded Item

  The Mouth?

  The Mouth...

  Flynn didn’t like the sound of that, and the more he thought on it, the less he liked it.

  A journey, it said. He glanced about, taking in the fleshy hellscape around him. The stink abundant in the air, and the pools of bubbling brown...

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Brown.

  He blinked, and then it all clicked with terrible, impending clarity.

  Flynn felt that familiar twinge of nausea churn again at the realization. It’d been bad enough when he’d assumed he was inside a body but now.

  Now?

  He was inside a fucking butthole. Or at least, a representation of one.

  Wonderful. Incredible. After spending most of his life surrounded by assholes, he was now inside one. Was that supposed to be divine humour, or irony?

  He wanted to laugh, or maybe cry. Instead, he sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

  Talk about a shitty situation. Flynn swept a hand over his hair. Well, whatever. There was nothing to it but to keep on keeping on.

  At least the rewards seemed worthwhile. He couldn’t be a hundred-percent certain, but he figured that anything labelled ‘legendary’ couldn’t be a bad thing. The lineage item was the only real question mark of the bunch, though it’d likely be just as good as the others.

  He’d find out if he survived long enough to earn it. He was sure that a quest with legendary rewards wouldn’t be a cakewalk, and just so, Flynn heard the squick of movement from off to his side, as if it’d been waiting for the perfect time to make its appearance. He eyes snapped to the source.

  There, protruding from the dark, he saw a fleshy toad-like creature with mottled brown-black skin skittering towards him on far too many short, stubby legs. Two large black eyes started at him, curious at first, but quickly settled instead by a bestial hunger.

  He raised his bow immediately, no time wasted on thoughts and hesitation.

  An arrow was loosed and flew with unerring accuracy, aimed right at its head. Flynn summoned another arrow just as the first one was released. The speedy ape had taught it not to expect an actual hit. Fortunately, the toad-thing was way slower than the ape, and it barely even flinched until it jerked with the impact. A soft, hoarse cry escaped its lips for a short second before it stopped, gurgled and spat a foul black liquid that might’ve been its blood.

  And then it died.

  Flynn blinked; his breath even as he eyed the corpse. He scanned his surroundings, hunting for any more of the things. He saw no more of its kind, but he wasn’t taking that for a promise.

  He had to get his magic in order quick.

  Intent and will, he repeated. Looking to the book, he noted that his syscoin count had gone up by one after the kill, confirming his guess, before he eyed the first spell in the list.

  Re-reading the tooltip for Spectacle Arrow, he visualized it coming to life upon his bow as he drew the string back. There was a flutter inside him in response. Not nausea for once, but more like the tingle that he felt whenever he made a mana arrow.

  But this was a fuller feeling than that. More draining. A jog compared to just a walk.

  An arrow condensed on his fingers as soon as he’d drawn the string back fully. Flynn eyed it with wonder. It didn’t look very different from a regular mana arrow, but it certainly felt it. He could feel the faint thrum of its energy as a palpable sensation in some newfound part of his mind.

  Flynn revelled in the feeling of the mesmerizing power for a few seconds before he collected himself. A wide grin held his lips though, and he didn’t think that he’d be reigning that in any time soon. Aiming loosely at a distant wall, Flynn studied his surroundings again to make sure that there were no more of the toad-things waiting to jump him when he was distracted, before he finally prepared to release.

  The tooltip had said that the spell had three possible effects that it could produce, so Flynn opted for the third, and the arrow answered in turn. A wreath of spectral energy covered the arrow, flickering chaotically at first until it slowed, its shape condensing until it crystalized into an arrow of ice. Flynn marvelled at the change. The illusion was perfect.

  At least from a distance.

  Up close, he could tell that it was fake solely from the fact that he felt no cold wafting off its surface.

  With a soft exhale, he released the arrow. It flew in a soft arc before it slammed into the wall. A crystalline cracking sound echoed out from the impact, and a patch of ice spread in short tendrils around the area. The illusion lasted for a few seconds before the ice burst into a wispy energy and faded away into nothing.

  Flynn stared at the wall with utter delight before trying again, this time infusing the spell with more mana. The result was the same, but the tendrils spread further and there was a lot more ice. Flynn then tried an arrow of water, fire and wind and they worked great. Attempting to use more esoteric ‘elements’, however, was not as easily successful, and all he managed was a diluted version of the first four elements.

  The light and sound variants functioned as expected. He could finetune the light’s colour and intensity or set the sound it produced to mimic a surprising number of things, from animal calls to car alarms to a generic person’s voice.

  It was pretty damn sweet, actually, and considering its sheer breadth of variability, he could see the spell becoming his bread and butter for most situations. Hell, he would probably use it for fun, or just to mess with people. It was exactly his kind of spell that way.

  His Illusionary Self was also his kind of spell, but for completely different reasons. The image flickered into being without a sound, though he certainly felt the strain of its casting. It was a demanding one. He had no handy-dandy mana bar to check how much he had left, but a sixth sense told him that it had drained a fifth of his mana. Not entirely bad, but not something he’d want to throw about for fun like his Spectacle Arrow.

  The image itself was a perfect replica of Flynn down to the last messy strand of his onyx black hair, and the dust staining his face.

  And there was a lot of dust. The past half hour hadn’t been good to him. He looked like he could use a good long shower, and he felt it too.

  “You're still a handsome devil though, aren't you?” he asked with an amused smile.

  The image smirked and offered a grandiose bow in return. Flynn snorted. Trawling his eyes up and down its length, he quickly realized that despite it being a really good copy, there were a few tells that made it obvious that it was just an illusion. It couldn’t speak for one, and it produced no sound, even as it walked. The spongy floor didn’t bend under its weight, and it cast no shadow no matter how much light he threw in front of it.

  It was also intangible, so any direct contact was a no-go as he found out when he tried to poke it. His finger went right into its chest, the uniform around it rippling like disturbed water, to which the image responded with a look of playful bashfulness.

  He shot it a wink. It winked right back.

  Nice.

  One thing it obviously didn’t lack was a personality. It was also smart, as smart as him, which was really smart in his fair opinion. It acted on his commands and exactly to the intent that he commanded it with. It wasn’t about to slay any enemies any time soon, but it could probably distract and bother and spook anyone long enough for him to put an arrow through them.

  His final spell, however, probably would slay his enemies for him.

  The Bowst, surprisingly, wasn’t that mana demanding to cast. At least not initially. It cost about as much as a Spectacle Arrow had. Unlike the Spectacle Arrow, the Bowst continued to drain a sliver of mana from him even after it was cast. He felt it as a slight but noticeable drain on the very edge of his senses. Not that he was very surprised. It made sense for a permanent construct to demand a constant upkeep.

  It was one he was happy to pay for a little help along the way.

  The construct itself was a small, purple-tinged bow roughly the length of his arm. Its design was plain, ungarnished, with its only note-worthy feature being the simple sight attached above the arrow-rest.

  The Bowst rose from the floor upon its summoning, carried up on the wings of magic until it floated at eye-level before him. Its sight turned towards his face, and as their eyes met, he felt something connect between them. A link. A bond. A feeling that spoke of how happy it felt, and always seemed to point towards where it was, even without him keeping track of it.

  The little construct stared at him for as long as he did it before it suddenly did a wild spin. Flynn stepped away, surprised, and watched as the bow did a loop around him before it came to a stop next to his face. The end of its wooden limbs tapped gently against his cheek before it flew away, pirouetting through the air like a drunken pilot before again coming to a rest by his side.

  Had it just... had that been a kiss?

  Flynn eyed the construct with both brows raised. Well, that’d been something. Figures that something born of his magic would have the personality of a cheeky little shit. Just like the Illusionary Self. Not that he was complaining.

  “Do you understand me?”

  It did a bow’s approximation of a nod, which was to shake excitedly up and down. Flynn laughed.

  “Damn, you’re just a little bundle of joy, aren’t you?”

  It nodded again. Flynn smiled and waddled a finger in front of it, to which it responded with a waddle of its own. The little bugger absolutely oozed little dog energy.

  He’d always wanted a dog, though his parents had always told him no growing up. Probably something to do with having to care for a dependant being that put them off. He spat the thought of them from his thoughts before it threatened to ruin his good mood. Turning to better things, he scratched at the bow with a smile.

  “You want a name, little buddy?”

  The little bow nodded far more eagerly than before. A name, huh. He’d put himself on the spot a little bit. What would be a good name for a little bow being?

  Robin? He scoffed and threw away the idea as quickly as it’d come. Too generic. Everyone and their mother named everything to do with bows and archers after the famous character. He’d seen plenty of that back at archery club.

  He wanted something more unique. Something form-fitting for the little guy.

  Ah. The answer came to him in a moment.

  “How ‘bout... Cheek? ‘Cuz you’re a cheeky little guy, aren’t you? You like it?”

  The bow swooned which he took to mean as an emphatic yes. Flynn laughed.

  Cheek it was.

  “Alright Cheek, show me what you can do. Fire at that wall.”

  The construct hastened to obey. It summoned a mana arrow like his own but smaller and let it fly with a soft thwang. The arrow had been aimed well, which supposed should’ve been expected coming from a literal bow. If it didn’t have good aim, there wasn’t much else it could have.

  The shot hit exactly at the spot he’d pointed at and pierced deeper into the fleshy wall than he’d have expected from a bow so small and an arrow so plain. Impressive, but nothing beyond possibility. Cheek fired several more shots including one Spectacle Arrow as Flynn assessed its capabilities.

  Its damage wasn’t half bad. The arrows were more than just little pinpricks, which is what he feared. He didn’t think it could one-shot anything, but it could hurt, and more importantly, it could distract. The mana drain increased whenever it fired, and even more so when it used a spell, but that was fine too.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Flynn eventually reached a point where his reserves dipped painfully low, and that was when the exhaustion set in. He had to stop the little guy’s enthusiastic performance then. Note to self, he thought: a lack of mana was no joke. He felt it as a palpable weight dragging his limbs down, as if he’d just run a marathon.

  Fortunately, it didn’t take him long to recover afterwards and within a few minutes he was back to full capacity, the exhaustion gone as quickly as it’d come. He wasn’t sure yet if that was because his capacity was so low, or if his regeneration speed was high.

  Probably a bit of both.

  Afterwards, he carefully tested how many times he could cast each of his spells to ensure that he was never caught unawares again. He didn’t want to deal with that kind of exhaustion when facing another monster.

  Through his testing, Flynn managed to figure out that a single mana arrow cost him about half a MCP point to cast. His Spectacle Arrow cost an amount that varied with the choice of effect and its intensity, but on average it cost at least one point. His Illusory Self was his most expensive spell, at three points.

  Comparatively, Cheek’s mana arrows only seemed to cost him maybe a fifth of a point, and even its Spectacle Arrows were under a point each, which he felt was pretty cheap for what it could do.

  Which was good. He was sure he’d need every little advantage he could find if he wanted to survive whatever the exam had to throw at him.