I gave up on doing pushups and dropped my spell so that I could look at Barti. His brows were furrowed. So much so that it almost looked like he had a unibrow. “What?” I demanded.

  Barti either didn’t hear me or didn’t know what to say because Tindi was the one who answered my question. “That’s not something a human would get.”

  “Why?” I wanted to stand up and look at the three of them in the eyes and demand to know what was so weird about being offered this skill but whatever was on my back was very heavy. In fact, now that I thought about it, how was I holding them up? When I dropped the spell I should have been unable to hold that much weight up.

  “Honestly, no clue. All I know is that it is a skill reserved for Fox Beastman. You are the first person I have heard of that has been offered it.” Tindi answered.

  “That makes no sense. I thought skills were related to one’s elemental affinity and personality” That or there were things the three of them were not telling me.

  “They are.” Barti finally spoke up. Most of the weight on my back vanished with a wave of his hand. Free to move and feeling light as a feather, if a bit achy, I shot up. “But some personality traits are so ingrained in one's upbringing that it is nearly genetic. The relevant trait here has to do with foxes and their need to trick people. Typically in revenge for something the target has done to them. It is to the point of being a part of their culture. To not get pranked is to be insulted.”

  That sounded closer to Kitsune than foxes, but then again this is a magical world so who knew what traits foxes would share with their mystical counterparts? As I thought back over how I dealt with issues and bullying, I found that I did love to trick people. Both subtly and not. After all, if no one had any evidence that you were the perpetrator then you couldn’t get in trouble.

  While I thought myself a bit of a prankster, who wasn’t in one way or another, I didn’t think that I was good enough to be on par with legends and myths. Yet this game seemed to consider me at least equal enough to earn the right to get the skill. I didn’t know if I should take that as a compliment or a subtle jab. “So, do I take it or not?”

  “Up to you.” Barti shrugged as he turned around to grab something off the table. “If you are going to I would do it sooner rather than later.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you're still learning magic,” Mindi spoke from just behind me. Something about her tone and presence there caused a shiver to run up my spine. It took everything in me to not spin around or jump away. “It will change your connection with fire enough that you will need to retrain with it. Not because it changed how it works, but how your mana interacts with fire.”

  I am sure to her that sounded like it made sense but it didn’t. A skill would change how another skill interacted with something without changing how it worked. I could understand if it was a circuit or something mechanical, but it was energy interacting with other energy. There was nothing between the two. Unless Fox Fire stepped in but then wouldn’t it make me weaker when it comes to fire? It would be adding another step in the process to control anything fire-related after all.

  With a shake of my head and not knowing what else to do, I asked my AI to flip a coin. If it was heads I would buy the skill, otherwise fuck it. “Flipping coin. The coin landed on heads.” A sigh escaped my lips, bringing with it a bit of relief as I bought the skill.

  With no warning or notice, I felt pain. It was nothing like when I bought the ability to use fire but it hurt nonetheless. My heart felt like it was burning up. Wait, not my heart. It was whatever the sphere containing my mana. The damn thing felt like it was on fire. It wasn’t the only thing either. Flares of searing heat flashed out of it and across my body. The flames burned everything as they made their way out. I heard as the people around me tried to talk to me, to ask me questions, but I had no time or energy to spare to understand them, let alone answer. It didn’t help that my instincts were screaming at me loud enough to drown everyone else out.

  They were telling me that I would regret it if I didn’t get control of whatever was going on. They also told me I didn’t have long. Even over the couple of seconds that had passed since the burning had started, the flares had sped up and grown in strength.

  I forced my mind into a meditative state as I focused on my chest. On the sphere that sat there. The liquid radiated heat and pressure that blinded my mind’s eye. If it had been physical it could have given the sun a run for its money.

  As the pressure built, small, thin streams of mana burst out from the surface. Each stream that escaped did so with such force and speed that I could barely see it blur by me. I fell to my knees, giving up as there was nothing that I could do. Not against something so powerful or unpredictable.

  As if in response to my giving up, everything stopped. “What the fucking hell!” I screamed. Somewhere in the back of my confused mind, I wondered if my screams were real or just in my head. That part of my mind was smacked by the part that demanded that I focus. As I knelt there, uncertain of what I could do, I waited to see what would happen next. Maybe the sphere would explode or something.

  Suddenly, a series of god-damned fireworks erupted from the surface. As they finished, they left behind sparkling words that hovered in the air for a couple of seconds. I groaned as I read them. ‘Got You!’ Great, now even my mana was going to be playing tricks. At least now it was quiet.

  “Damn it,” Mindi’s voice cut through the silence “If you don’t respond in the next couple of seconds I am going to have to do something we both don’t want.”

  Did I want to know what she meant? No. But I also needed to deal with my mana and its behavior. If any little kid, hell even if it had been an adult, pulled such a trick on me I would have likely decked them, or their parents. The amount of power and heat being given off reminded me of something working its way up to an explosion.

  Given that the damned thing was inside of me, I didn’t want to know what would have happened to my body. Would such a thing kill me or leave me crippled? Would I have died only to respawn with it happening again over and over until I logged out? Yeah, no.

  Of course, that brought up another question; how did one punish a piece of themselves? I couldn’t just whack it like I did a hand as it reached for my food. What about the fact that it was energy and not a physical object? That added yet another problem, though maybe instead of hitting it physically, I could hit it with mana instead.

  My mind wandered down track after track filled with possible ideas on how to deal with my mana. So much so that I hadn’t even realized a minute had passed since Mindi had yelled at me. So when someone put an ice-cold hand against my neck, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I say nearly because at nearly the same instant a bolt of mixed mana stabbed its way into me. It raced up and down my spine and down every fucking nerve.

  I reeled against the feeling of the lightning that raced along my nerves. While the bolt wasn’t all that powerful, it was like being shocked by static electricity everywhere at once. Add to that the feeling of some of my blood turned to slush while other parts felt like they were boiling. I was in hell.

  To top it off, as if it had been waiting for this moment, my mana decided that its earlier joke was nothing. Only, instead of sending out small flares of hot mana, it shed an ever-expanding shell. The thing burned, oh did it burn.

  Under the onslaught of fire, water, and electricity, my heart was starting to stutter. It skipped one beat here, another there, only for the shell of mana to slam into it. I am damned sure the thing stopped.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Silence filled my ears. It was the sound of my death as the reaper came to pay me a call. At least he would put a stop to the attack on my muscles. I only wished he had been here earlier. That he would have been able to take me before most of the pain had seared its way along my body and mind.

  As the shell of mana continued to expand, the muscles in my heart that came into contact with the shell quivered before they contracted as fast and as hard as they could. Moments after the last muscle did so, my heart fluttered before beating itself with all the force it could muster. The moment it did so, the specter of death vanished. It didn’t complain about its victim being taken from it. It never did. Death was always a patient hunter. One who would always get its target in the end.

  The next beat of my heart was normal, as were all the subsequent ones. The heart was free of pain and any foreign mana from what I could tell. With how realistic every feeling had been, I wondered as to why the pod hadn’t kicked me out. Even if it hadn’t affected the real organs and muscles, wasn’t the emotional toll of the event enormous?

  The wave of mana didn’t stop there. It continued to expand outward. Wherever it met the foreign mana, it burned it away as easily as if it were a pressure washer washing away some dirt off some piece of concrete.

  Unfortunately, mana kept pouring in from my neck. While the shell cleaned up everything else fairly easily, it had to fight for every inch as it climbed toward my neck. Finally, the last vestige of mana whipped out and struck the spot where the mana was pouring in from.

  Suddenly free from the last of the pain and mana, I heard the world around me. The first thing I heard was Mindi as she shouted “Fuck!”

  “What happened?” Barti and Tindi asked.

  I snapped my eyes open in a mixture of fear and anger. My voice was hard as I demanded. “Why don’t you tell me?” Barti and Tindi stood a few feet away. Both were looking at me. Mindi was just visible out of the corner of my eye with her hands clenched together. One looked like it hurt given how she was holding it.

  “He burned me,” Mindi’s voice was soft and slightly pained as she walked toward them. Her path was curved away from me as if she was scared that I would do something. When she got closer, she opened her hand to show them the damage.

  Given that she was the one that my mana had burned, I snapped at her. “And you electrocuted, froze, and boiled me.”

  “I told you we both wouldn’t like what I was going to do if you didn’t respond.” Her voice was rough. It almost sounded like she was either hurt and about to cry or angry and about to yell at me.

  “Yeah, and how did doing that to me hurt you?” My body started to shake as I tried to not straight up scream at her. “If not for my mana doing whatever it had done, I probably would be dead.”

  “Like that would be much of a problem for a traveler.” Snorted Tindi. I shot her a look that said to stay out of this. She paled and shut up.

  Mindi spun to face me. Frustration and anger were tinged with a bit of fear as she started to shout. “You think I like hurting people? Do you think I like seeing other people hurt in such a way that leaves them unable to do anything to stop the pain? This was something that my professors did to us whenever our mana ran wild. Did they go far a few times? Yes, and some of those people are dead or crippled.”

  What the hell kind of place did she go to to learn magic? No punishment should have the possibility to cripple or kill someone. Not unless there was no other choice.

  “I had to watch as one of my best friends was burned from the inside. All because a new professor put too much power into their spell.” She continued as tears started to stream down her face. Something told me that she was mentally reliving the memory of the event. “She wasn’t my only friend lost either, only one of the first. At least her death was accidental. My boyfriend killed someone when learning to use this spell. He ended up taking his life.”

  That academy had even taught the kids how to do this to others? That thought, coupled with hearing about her friends and seeing her emotion-filled face, I couldn’t stay angry. Not at her. Not really. I wanted to just leave. Be done with this group and forget anything had happened here. But before I left, I had to ask one final question. “Why?” My voice cracked as I tried to speak. “Why do such a thing to me if doing so hurts you?”

  “Because a mage whose mana is running wild is a danger to not only themselves but everyone around them.” Barti cut in as Tindi wrapped Mindi up in a tight hug. His voice was calm as he started to explain. “As you know, mana is power. A living creature can contain it, concentrate it, and use it. Doing so is what gives each creature mana to use in various spells and abilities. The moment the body loses control over the ability to contain it, the mana breaks free. Rapidly expanding outward until it reaches equilibrium with the mana present in the world around it.”

  He didn’t have to finish what he was saying. The picture he had painted was enough. Even the small amount in my pool would have killed me. It might have even been enough to hurt of kill everyone else in the room. She hadn’t attacked me but tried to save me, or at least she thought she was doing so. Of course, I wanted to know just how such a technique would have stopped such a thing, but I felt like such a question would be best left for another day.

  Not knowing what else to do, I skirted around the group as I went for the door. I had no clue where I was going. I only knew that I needed to get out of the room. To get away and think. “Will you be coming back?” Mindi’s voice was soft. Barely audible even in the silent training room.

  Her question caused me to stop with my hand on the door as I took a second to truly think over her question. To think about if I could come back to this group even after what had just happened. After everything they had done, or not done, to me and for me.

  Yes, she had hurt me and been hurt in return. But she had a good reason for doing it, even if the reason was wrong. Then again, I only had their words to go off of, just as I only had Barti’s word on why they didn’t say anything in my defense.

  “Maybe.” That was all I could say before I left. I let the door close on its own as I walked to the main room of the hall.

  The place was nearly deserted. Given the time, I wasn’t surprised. Most of the people here were probably off doing some quests or out shopping. Both were options that would give me time out of here and get my mind off what just happened. The prospect of which instantly caught my attention. It wasn’t as if I didn’t need to go shopping. After all, I still needed to go get some more ingredients as well as find a stove I could take with me. The only problem with going shopping at the moment was that it would mean interacting and being surrounded by people and right now I just, I didn’t want to be around anyone.

  Then again, there was another option. An option that would give me something to take out my frustration on. I looked around and found the one place in this room I had yet to visit. The quest board.

  Barti:

  My shirt was practically soaked as the door to the training room closed. Not that I cared that Mindi’s tears were soaking my shirt. Not when, the moment she stopped crying and stood on her own I would cast a simple cleaning spell. I could even do it now but my mind was stuck on something else. Someone else.

  That boy, his mana was something else. At first, I couldn’t place it. It felt wild. Almost like that of a beastman on the verge of losing their mind. But he was human. Not only that, his mana was always like that. While I had a special skill that allowed me to see mana as if it were physical, I still couldn’t help but wonder why not a single other person had noticed or felt the difference.

  Neither of the girls had even guessed that his mana was closer to that of a beastman like theirs than any other group. For the last few days, I had been trying to find out what a beginner like him could have that would cause such a thing, yet I had come up empty. The only explanations left were either impossible or not something that would be found here in this little town.

  That was until he told us about the shop offering him the Fox Fire skill. It was something impossible yet explained so much. While Mindi had given him fairly good advice on buying it, I had been skeptical. And judging by his expression at the time, I hadn't been the only one. After he mumbled to himself about flipping a coin, his decision was made. Within moments, he purchased the skill.

  Not that you could miss him doing so. His mana, while animalistic before, became fierce. It snapped out at everyone and everything that came too close. It made its presence known to the world even as it changed on some fundamental level. Not losing something or anything like that, but almost like it was getting closer to being complete. As if it had found a piece of itself and was defending it from the world while also welcoming it home.

  Of course Mindi would go and misunderstand what was going on. The places this nation called academies would not allow one to lose control of their magic. To do so was to let tragedy befall hundreds, if not thousands of people given how much mana they had access to. Even if it meant that they lost mages and scarred even more with this barbaric method.

  Yet I still did nothing to stop her. My mind and body had been too occupied at the time as I took in the magnificence of his mana and what it was doing. In the end, it had snapped at her mana as if it were a beast defending its territory.

  As Mindi pulled back, I acted as if I hadn’t seen a thing. After all, no one other than the Guildmaster and the sub-Guildmaster knew of my ability and I sure as hell wasn’t going to share it with someone who seemed to be cozying up with the demons, even if he didn’t know it.

  Though, I will say, the shape his freed mana took was interesting. I didn’t even know that mana could form a pair of fox ears and a tail with nothing physical there to anchor to. Guess the wiseman of that beastman village long ago was right. ‘Even the gentlest breeze can hide a storm within.’ I would just have to wait and see if this was a storm that blew with or against us and our goals.