I woke up in an unfamiliar tent, and held my head. The pain was gone, but the memory left me shuddering as I lay on my back. I slowly crawled out of the tent I didn’t recognize, feeling awkward for some reason, and instantly had to shade my eyes from the sunlight. I blinked for a bit, and my eyes slowly adjusted, making clear one of the changes that came with my enhanced mana.

I’d always had twenty twenty vision, not needing glasses, but what I could now see made me feel like I’d been blind my entire life. I could see individual leaves on the trees in the distance, looking down at my hand I could see the pores within it, colors seemed to be more vibrant than I remembered, and shadows didn’t seem to hide things nearly so much as they used to. I breathed in the breath I’d forgotten to take, and simply sat there for a while, looking around. I was totally absorbed in examining my newfound sight when Sophie came up to me.

Looking at her, I instantly became lost in her deep green eyes. I’d thought they were pretty before, but with my new vision, I was practically drowning in them, the darker striations forming a beautiful pattern within them. It took me a moment to realize that she seemed to be looking into my eyes much the way I’m looking into hers. I was starting to turn a bit red from the attention when she commented.

“I like the new eyes,” she said with a grin.

“What?”

“Your eyes. You know how you pick up the characteristic from whatever you enhance with, I got my pointy ears, you got some impressive looking eyes.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a mirror would you?”

She nodded and took a small hand mirror from a nearby tent, and I got a good look at my new eyes. Rather than my original deep brown color, they’d turned a shiny copper color, with golden lines stretching out from the middle, but the most distinctive thing was that my pupil was now vaguely cross shaped like the Wyvern’s. It’s a curved plus symbol, thicker in the middle and thinner at the edges, extending to the edge of my iris. I looked at them for a moment, slightly unnerved by their new look, then turned back to face Sophie, who was waving her brother over. I looked towards him, and note that I can see him as clearly as if he was a foot in front of me, except he’s a good twenty feet away at the moment. I blinked, it was going to take some time to get used to the new vision.

“So what other benefits did you get? Well, aside from the cool looking eyes?”

“The ‘cool’ eyes are letting me see way better than before.”

“Well that can’t be it, I got more than just the infravision from the goblin cores. Try running around for a bit.”

I looked at her a bit funny, what was running around for a bit going to show. Deciding to do it anyway to humor her, I slowly got up, frowning as everything seems to feel a bit off. I shrugged off the feeling and pressed down on the ground with my right leg, but something still felt off, and I started to flail my arms as I got sent further, faster, than I expected. I tried to catch myself with my left leg, but ended up slamming it into the ground rather than carefully catching myself, the foot sliding out from under me as I faceplant. I groaned a bit as I get up, and noticed Sophie holding her stomach in laughter.

I glared at her for a bit before questioning her, annoyance creeping into my voice. “Did you know this would happen?”

Her giggling didn’t abate as she nodded, and I simply glared at her, spurring even more laughter. I slowly got up, noticing how clumsy I felt, and wondered why exactly I felt like this. Deciding that the first thing to do would be try and get a little used to how my body now felt, I carefully started walking in circles. I’d started walking, feeling like I was a small child again, when Will got to us, a resigned expression on his face as he looks at his laughing sister.

“She did that to me too you know.”

I raised an eyebrow at him as I slowly and carefully walk. “What do you mean?”

“When I enhanced my mana for the first time, she got me to try running, and I ended up doing about the same thing you did, though mine wasn’t quite so dramatic.”

“Wait, you’re enhanced? I didn’t notice any characteristics though?”

He mumbled something in reply, to which I give a short “Huh?”

“My hair…”

“What about your hair?”

“It turned blue… I dye it, but you can see it at the roots.” He tilted his head down to give me a clear view, and I can easily see the blue at the base of his hair. It’s not a deep blue either, it’s a shiny, sapphire blue that is horrendously bright to my new sight.

“What on earth did you kill to get hair like that?”

“We call them parrots. They actually look closer to a flamingo or a stork, with massive claws at the end of their legs, scarily sharp beaks, and they’re painfully blue. They don’t give you much of a physical boost, just enough to make you feel terribly awkward, but they really increase how much mana you can handle. They’re not terribly common around here though.”

“So I’m curious, is it common to collapse screaming in pain like I did when you first enhance your mana?”

Will and Sophie both winced. “No, it’s normal for it to hurt a good deal, but what I saw was definitely outside that. Probably because the core you absorbed was from that odd monster.”

“You mean the wyvern?”

“Is that what it’s called? Some guy was calling it a wrath something or other.”

I snickered before slowly fading into a darker mood. “So what happened to the people the wyvern hurt?”

Sophie and Will’s cheerful expressions faded quickly enough to make me think that they had just been looking for any sort of amusement to try and hide the pain. “A lot of us didn’t make it. Over half of the hunters died. We’re still not sure what to do with the bodies, as the gate back to earth still hasn’t opened.”

I stood there in a somber mood for a bit before shaking my head. There wasn’t anything I could do for the dead, and there were more immediate worries. “Can we even continue to defend the camp with so few people?”

They both shift uncomfortably for a bit before Sophie replied. “Well it’s not like we have much of a choice. We just need to hope that it opens soon.”

“And if it doesn’t?” I snap back.

Sophie hesitates for a moment, Will deciding to fill in for her. “It will.”

I shook my head, they were both acting horribly optimistic, at least in my eyes. We had no clue when the gate would open, we had been facing almost constant attacks, and I seriously doubted that something as weak as the wyvern we’d faced could have forced people like the refugees we’d found to flee. While just two of them hadn’t been able to handle it, if they’d had a group even half the size of ours, they could probably have wiped the floor with it.

I sighed, I couldn’t fault them for being optimistic. “Thanks for letting me borrow your tent, and sorry for being so snappy, I’m just a bit tense right now. Is your arm doing ok Sophie?” I asked, changing the topic from our disagreement

“Hm? Yeah, I can still fight, so it’s fine,” she waves the bandaged arm at me as if to show it’s totally fine.

I shook my head, of course her first thought is if she can get back to battle. I noticed her brother glaring at her a bit, and had to bite back a snicker. I could understand her brother just wanting her to stay safe, but he was going to have a hard time keeping Sophie away from the fighting.

Looking up, the sun hadn’t changed much from where it had been when I’d passed out, so I decided the best thing to do for now would be head back to my tent, I really needed to change out of my blood covered clothing. “So, where are my guns?” I ask, not seeing them around me.

“Oh, let me grab them for you real fast,” Will says, diving into the same small tent Sophie had grabbed the mirror from, and soon came out with my weapons, including my knife, which must have been cleaned off while I was asleep, as it wasn’t completely covered in blood like it was when I’d last been using it. I took my weapons gingerly, putting my revolver in its holster, grabbing my rifle by the stock, and held onto the knife awkwardly until Will came out again with my backpack to put it in.

I put the backpack on, and then started to notice exactly how blood covered I was. It looked like I’d taken a bath in the stuff: my clothes were crusty, my skin had dried bits flaking off of it, and my hair seemed to be one solid mass. I shuddered, I felt absolutely disgusting. I’d have to go visit the stream nearby to clean off soon.

Will, Sophie, and I walked in silence back to my tent. Next time they’d know where to drop me off rather than lending me one of their tents. I stumbled along, tripping over my own feet constantly with my new found strength. We soon arrived, and I headed into the tent to change into my one set of spare clothing that I’d brought. Once I’d gotten changed, I let out a sigh, I was still absolutely disgusting, but at least my clothing was no longer crackling from dried blood.

Coming out from my tent, leaving behind my bloody clothes inside, I came out to see Will and Sophie looking as lost as I was feeling at this point. “So what the hell do we do now?”

“For now? Let’s go get some food,” Will replied. I nodded, and we went off to get some more steaks from the butchery. As we cooked them up, Will looked at the steaks with a complicated expression.

“Not happy to be eating meat?”

“I mean, I know I really shouldn’t be happy about it, but it’s kind of nice having an excuse to eat some meat for once.”

I nodded, I could definitely understand that. I know I wouldn’t survive long on a vegetarian diet, it had always been sort of impressive to me that some people could manage it at all.

“So what’s the plan? Just hope that the gate opens?”

“Well what else could we do?”

“Well the people we found out in the forest had to come from somewhere, if they could find us I’m sure we could find another camp.”

“So you’re saying we should run off when the gate hasn’t even been closed that long? They’ve always opened pretty soon after closing.”

“So far they have. And we don’t even know what was chasing the people we found. I saw them fight, if something managed to scare off people like them, whatever it was will utterly stomp anyone staying here.”

“We don’t even know if something did chase them off, it’s not like anyone here can understand them,” Sophie chimed in. “Besides, we have no clue how long it took them to find us.”

If she didn’t have a point I would be glaring at her, but as is I simply frowned. I guess I just wasn’t comfortable sitting around doing nothing. “You’re probably right. I just feel pretty helpless not doing anything”

I got a small smile out of Sophie in acknowledgement, but Will just kept his plain expression. “So, back to an earlier topic, how long will it take until I get used to my body again?” I’d been pacing for a bit now, and while I felt slightly more in control, everything was still feeling off.

“Well it depends, you’ll probably be walking like normal by tomorrow, but running may take a few days if you don’t actively work towards getting used to it, and you’ll probably be accidentally crushing things for around a month. Just make sure to not use your favorite cup until you’ve gotten it under control.”

“Now that you’re in cleaner clothes and fed, c’mon, we need to figure out what to do with the body of the wyvern,” Will said as he motioned me to come with him. “I wonder how much you could get for selling the thing, as far as I know there hasn’t been another monster like it hunted, and unique monsters always sell for a lot.”

“This may sound a bit silly, but I actually want to try and make some kind of armor out of its scales. Whatever they were made of, they managed to bounce my bullets, and my bullets will go through a seriously thick sheet of steel. I have no clue how I’d go about making it though.”

“Why not just make it how you make your bullets?” Sophie asks, and I pause. Why don’t I just try and make it like my bullets, just take a bunch of the scales and fuse them together into one solid plate. The only issue would be if I was able to shape it at all. That thought reminded me, and I took out the warg claw to see if I could get any sort of reaction out of it now that I’d enhanced my mana.

I focused on it, slowly pouring mana into it like before, but don’t seem to notice anything different than before I’d enhanced my mana, so I simply continue to pour in more and more mana. It’s at this point that I start to notice the difference. Where before the mana I could control topped out at a certain point, now I easily passed that point, the mana feeling more like a stream compared to the relative trickle I could control before. I hadn’t even reached my new maximum when I noticed that the claw had softened enough to mould. I grinned, and swung my backpack around to my front to grab out my bullet mould. The change in weight however, sends me stumbling for a few steps as I overcompensate for the shift, my enhanced body causing me yet more trouble.

I eventually got balanced enough to grab the mould and stuff the softened claw into it, shaping it to fit before pulling it out and scratching my arrow runes into it. It wasn’t until I was admiring it that I realized the problem. While the bullet may have more mass than my normal bullets, it would only get the same amount of kinetic energy as my normal bullets, so it would simply fly slower with the same energy as one of my hardened stone bullets. Maybe the hardness will help, but as is, it shouldn’t have any more penetrating power than the bullets I’m currently using.

I sighed, I couldn’t pass more energy to the bullet with my current weapons either, the enhanced stone could only carry so much mana at once, I’d need to make them out of a different material to allow more mana to flow if I wanted to make my bullets go faster. I put the new bullet aside, if the reason my bullets didn’t penetrate the wyvern’s scales was due to the bullets shattering, it may have some use, but most likely it would simply be a curiosity for now.

We soon arrived at the wyvern’s body, and I shuddered as I see it, this thing killed almost a dozen hunters. The only ones to survive were the ones Will protected with his earth wall and the people who hadn’t joined the fight. I expected to feel a bit of rage at the monster, but it seemed all I could feel staring at it was a deep sadness biting at my heart.

“So what should we do with it?” Jacob, the man who ran the butchery, asks.

“I want to sell it, but first I want to collect a bunch of the scales, I want to try something.”

Jacob nodded, and I stepped forward, taking out my knife, and tried to be as careful as I could while removing the scales of the wyvern. My new strength caused some issues, but largely made cutting into the wyvern significantly easier than it had been before I’d enhanced my mana. I eventually peeled off enough of the scales, entirely filling up my backpack, and I gesture for Jacob and his workers to go ahead. They nodded and started dragging it over to the butchery, making me wonder how they’re even going to get it in there. I knew there was a back entrance to the actual butchering part of the butchery, but I wasn’t sure if it would be large enough to accommodate the wyvern. Oh well, it wasn’t my problem.

“I’m gonna head to the stream to wash off myself and these scales before I head back to my tent and see if I can figure out what to do with them, you guys wanna come with to chat while I work?”

“Nah, don’t want to bother you. We’ll chat tomorrow, see you later,” Sophie says for the two of them.

I slowly walked my way out of the camp and headed to the stream nearby. I’d found out about it after running out of water to drink the other day, and I’d been refilling my water bottles there, simply hoping that there weren’t any parasites or anything in it. After an uneventful rinse of the scales, I gave myself along with my backpack a rinse as well, getting as much of the dried blood out of my hair as possible. Once I’m, while not clean, cleaner than before, I headed back to the camp and started taking out the scales to see if I can mould them.

At first, it seemed like I won’t be able to shape them whatsoever, but at the very edge of the amount of mana I can handle, the scale slowly starts to soften and deform, so I pulled out another scale, and focused my mana on the edges of the scales, pushing them together as I soften them and press along the edge, willing it to fuse. I only managed to fuse a few inches before my mana peters out. I sighed, on one hand it looked like I would be able to make something out of the scales, but on the other hand, it’s going to take me quite a while to do so.

Whatever, I may as well work on getting used to my body while waiting until I could handle enough mana to continue. I got up, carefully so as to not fall over, and started walking in circles, slowly increasing my pacing speed until I switched to a jog, then even managed to get to a run. Once I tried to stop running though, I ran into an issue, the foot I planted to slow down pressed too hard and caused me to wipe out in the same fashion as last time. After rolling a good fifteen feet, I got up, and notice that I have a long scratch in my arm from wiping it. I grimace, it isn’t a very deep cut, but it’s sure to be annoying in the coming days.

Ignoring the new pain from the bruises and cut I’d acquired, I got back to jogging, not quite comfortable trying to run again. The rest of the day passed in a similar fashion, jogging around, doing pushups and other exercises to get used to my current body, and fusing the scales whenever I could handle enough mana. Eventually, the sun started to go down, and I went to bed, feeling slightly more comfortable in my body.

I woke in the morning yawning, with the sun already up. I rubbed my eyes, and threw on the clothing I took off to sleep, wishing I had cleaner clothes to wear. Deciding that I may as well continue with my armor making attempt, I worked on fusing another scale to the larger piece I’ve been slowly shaping to be a cuirass. I finished, and go outside to try running again, when I looked over to see the four people and the child that we found out in the woods packing up.

I watched them for a moment, a small idea growing in the core of my mind. At first I tried to dismiss it, thinking it’s not a good idea, but the more I mulled it over the better it sounded, and eventually my mind just went “fuck it, why not”, and I was soon packing up my own tent.

Will and Sophie arrived as I was packing and instantly began to interrogate me.

“What are you packing for?”

“Well the group we found in the forest are leaving, and I’m going to be leaving with them.”

“Why?” Sophie asked, staring at me like I’m an idiot, which I very well may be for making this decision.

“I can’t stand sitting here doing nothing, and they found us, it can’t be too hard to find another camp to go back through. We have no idea how long the gate is going to be closed for, I’d rather take the risk that’s actually doing something rather than just sitting here.”

“You’re a bloody idiot.”

I winced. She was probably right, but I’d rather be the idiot doing something. “You two could always come with me.”

Sophie gave me a withering stare, causing me to wilt a bit, while Will just seemed to look at me with an uncomfortable expression. I rallied my determination though, and set my face in an expression I was sure anyone would describe as stubborn. “Look, if I don’t find another gate to go through, I can always come back here.”

“And how are you going to find the way back here? There’s no streets to follow or GPS.”

I opened my mouth, but there’s nothing for me to say to that, so I close it, the stubborn set of my face not fading a bit however. “Well I guess I’ll just need to find another gate then.”

Sophie threw up her arms in exasperation. “Fine then. I give up. Go off and get lost,” she frustratedly barked out before storming off, Will just sort of trailing along behind her after giving me a short “Good luck.”

I finished packing not too much later, spending the entire time grumbling. I hefted my pack with my small one person tent attached to the top of my backpack with straps there for that purpose, and then I was ready to go. I soon went over to the group of five that we found out in the wilds, and greeted them with a nod. The guy with feline ears looked me over, glanced at my packed bag, then nodded and dismissed me. I took a deep breath, and sat down, I was going to be getting plenty of walking soon enough.