Deep in a forest there was a peculiar thing. It could be considered cute, unnatural, dangerous, or fascinating. It was a small wolf that was created entirely from the natural convergence of mana.

It had a physical body, it seemed no different from a normal wolf cub except for the fact that it was purely mana. Its fur seemed completely white but if you looked closely there was actually some very pale purple and blue mixed in. Its eyes were a light red in color and filled with the light of curiosity. It was usually called a Mana Wolf by the local people and was only in myths but according to the [System] it was a species called [Mana Monster] and only the subspecies was [Mana Wolf].

This small wolf was currently wandering around the place it had appeared in and was very interested in anything and everything.

It was unafraid of anything that could be lurking around. It smelled everything it found, tasted some things that didn’t seem dangerous, and listened for any sound possible.

‘It should be around the time for my [Identify] and [Inspect] to level up. I wonder what new things I’ll be able to learn with them afterwards.’ The wolf thought.

As expected, the two skills leveled up a few minutes later.

Identify Lv. 4 → Identify Lv. 5

Inspect Lv. 3 → Inspect Lv. 4

The wolf immediately tried them out on some nearby plants starting with [Identify].

Night’s Sorrow: An uncommon plant found in the depths of Crow’s Forest. Has mild poisonous properties when ingested.

‘Hmm, so I’m in the depths of Crow’s Forest? It also seems like this plant has no harm to me unless I decide to eat it which would be interesting to determine the exact effects. Now it’s time to test [Inspect].’ The wolf noted the new information and moved onto using [Inspect].

While [Identify] used the [System] to analyze something and then give information, [Inspect] enhanced the wolf’s ability to gather information using its senses and couldn’t give any exact information.

After using [Inspect], the wolf noted that the Night’s Sorrow gave off a barely audible crying noise. The wolf also noted that this specific Night’s Sorrow had small pieces of the flower bitten off by what it believed to be an animal.

‘If it had been slightly eaten then there should be an animal nearby. If there’s an animal nearby then there should be tracks nearby. If there are tracks nearby I can follow them to the animal and gather more knowledge.’ The wolf was very happy at the possibility of gaining more knowledge and started searching.

Since [Inspect] was still active it didn’t take long for the tracks to be found. The wolf proceeded to follow the tracks in pursuit of more knowledge.

*****

It took a bit for the wolf to follow the tracks all the way but eventually it found the end of the tracks that led to a rabbit. The wolf decided to watch for a bit before doing anything as that would allow for more knowledge to be gathered.

The rabbit didn’t notice the wolf and continued what it was doing, which happened to be eating some very tasty looking blue colored grass. The grass was so tasty looking that the wolf decided to use [Identify] on it so that he could remember it for later.

Moonfallen Grass: An extremely rare type of grass found in the heart of Crow’s Forest. Is almost guaranteed to kill anything that ingests it due to its extremely poisonous properties. Is very tempting to anything that sees it.

The wolf was surprised as it had never seen anything described as rare before. The wolf had determined a while ago that uncommon and common referred to how often the wolf could find the thing. The thing that the wolf could find the least of was described as extremely uncommon and the wolf had only seen it twice.

Since this thing had “extremely rare” where the uncommon or common description appeared then didn’t it mean that this was the most unlikely thing the wolf could find that it knew of since it had only found the grass once?

The wolf continued to watch the rabbit eat the thing that would kill it until a very large shadow appeared over the rabbit. Looking up, the wolf saw that an eight legged thing had come from the sky.

The wolf decided to use [Identify] on it as this was a very interesting thing.

Name: N/A

Level: ???

Species: Forest Spider

Title: Terror of Mystre

The wolf was very interested in the new information. It wasn’t the first time that it had used [Identify] on an animal but it was the first time that the level was replaced by question marks, there was a title, and so little information was given.

New Title acquired: Fearless

Effects: Less fear felt from all sources.

Description: You felt no fear when discovering a creature with a Terror title.

The wolf was excited to have earned a title just from looking at a new creature and was happy to have learned that even something as simple as not being afraid could give a title.

Fearless title advanced into Above Terror.

Above Terror effects: Any fear inducing effects something attempts to apply to you are negated and reflected back at 50% strength.

Above Terror description: You felt excitement, fascination, and joy when discovering a creature more than ten times your level with a Terror title.

The wolf was even happier due to indirectly discovering the spider’s level. The wolf wanted to remain and learn more but due to facing a creature above level 20 it knew that retreating was a much better option.

The spider decided to ignore the dying rabbit and focused on the small wolf it had detected before. The spider had originally ignored it but now the wolf gave the spider a bit of fear. The spider knew the wolf couldn’t harm it in any way and originally the spider was going to eat it but since there was no need to take a risk due to the rabbit being enough food and the wolf retreating, the spider decided to just watch as the wolf left.

The wolf of course was disappointed it had to leave but was happy that it gained some very interesting knowledge.

*****

Back in relative safety, the wolf decided to inspect itself to find out what had changed in its [Profile] since last time.

Name: N/A

Titles: Fated, Lone Seeker of Knowledge, Creator, Above Terror

Species: Mana Monster

Subspecies: Mana Wolf

Age: 8 months

Level: 2

Health Points (HP): 60/60

HP Regeneration: 0.6/second

Mana Points (MP): 300/300

MP Regeneration: 0.2/second

Stamina Points (SP): 117/140

SP Regeneration: 1.4/second

Stat Points (StP): 10

Vitality: 6

Strength: 3

Intelligence: 30

Wisdom: 20

Agility: 8

Dexterity: 7

Skill Points (SkP): 2

Skills: Identify Lv. 5, Inspect Lv. 4,

Created Skills: Assimilate Self Lv. 2

Unique Skills: N/A

Racial Skills: Shift Form, Physical Mana Manipulation Lv. 3,

Status Effects: N/A

Besides the increased level of [Inspect] and [Identify] along with the new title [Above Terror] there was nothing different. However, the wolf had an idea. Since titles have an effect, there should be a way to check what they are rather than only seeing it once from when the title was acquired.

The wolf decided to use [Identify] on the titles since it showed information when used on things like plants, objects, and creatures.

Title: Fated

Effects: Unknown

Description: You were fated to exist for a purpose. Will you fulfill this purpose or fail?

The wolf was very interested about what [Fated] did but it saw no way to learn the effects unless it increased its [Identify] level. Moving onto the next title, the wolf was curious if anything changed since it had been acquired.

Title: Lone Seeker of Knowledge

Effects: Combines General Skills and Personal Skills into Skills and allows you to increase the levels of General Skills by using and training them. Gives a bonus to the speed of leveling Personal Skills related to information gathering when alone.

Description: You have discovered functions of the system without the help of other people.

The wolf noticed that there was a change in the effects of this title. Originally there was only information about being able to train General Skills to increase their level, while now there was information about bonus leveling speed for information gathering Personal Skills.

Excited by this new information, the wolf used [Identify] on the final title, Creator.

Title: Creator

Effects: Unlocks the Created Skills section and allows you to modify existing Skills to create your own.

Description: You have created a new skill that is officially recognized by the System. Congratulations!

The wolf was slightly disappointed that nothing changed but was happy enough that there were changes for the other titles.

Having checked every title, the wolf was unsure of what to do next. It could go around searching for new things but since there was one thing much stronger than it, there was likely to be another. The second might not be as willing to let the wolf leave as the spider.

Deciding that moving around blindly was dangerous, the wolf decided to train its other skills since there was no risk of dying, probably.

[Physical Mana Manipulation] was a very special skill. Due to the fact that the wolf had a physical body that was made of mana, its physical body could move the surrounding mana which is what the [Physical Mana Manipulation] skill was referring to. To train it, all the wolf had to do was intentionally move mana around and do new things with it which the wolf enjoyed.

It started by making the mana into squares, circles, triangles, and every 2D shape it could think of which was quite a lot thanks to its fairly high [Intelligence] stat. Then it started making the mana into more complicated shapes like cubes, spheres, pyramids, and others.

This was more difficult due to mana having a tendency to not stay in one shape, causing the wolf to have to constantly hold the partially created shape in place while adding on more. It took more than three times as long to create the 3D shapes compared to their 2D counterparts but once that was done the wolf moved onto something it had only started doing recently.

First it grabbed a random nearby rock that had a fairly flat surface on at least one side. Next, the wolf formed the mana into a 2D shape with a specific image. For the first one it decided to create an image of the tree that was nearby. It wasn’t a very leafy tree making it much easier to make a rough image of.

Once the image was created, the wolf carefully placed it onto the flat surface and activated another skill it had, [Shift Form].

[Shift Form] caused the wolf’s body to shift from a physical wolf to incorporeal mana but the wolf wasn’t trying to do this, the wolf wanted to shift the mana into reality rather than itself.

This was much more difficult and the wolf only had a chance of succeeding due to the [Creator] title allowing it to modify existing skills. The wolf was trying to redirect the mana that takes effect when activating [Shift Form] into the mana tree.

After numerous attempts, over four hundred in total and twenty during this session, the wolf finally succeeded and caused the mana tree to form into a very strange glowing pattern on the rock. When the wolf poked the pattern, there was no physical change but the wolf had a feeling of growth from the pattern.

Like a tree that starts from a small sapling and grows into a tall tree with thousands of leaves. The wolf was curious as to what effect this would have when a message appeared.

New Skill acquired: Ancient Enchanting Lv. 1

Description: Enchanting was originally done by transforming an image made of mana into a physical form and then placing it on an object but has since devolved into the current method of imprinting non-solid mana onto an object and then using the properties of that solid mana to produce effects. You have found a way to replicate the method of enchanting used by those people long ago. “Took you long enough.” - ???

Use: Allows for easier creation of Ancient Enchants which are permanent but can be destroyed much more easily.

The wolf was happy with the new skill but much more interested in what the meaning of, “Took you long enough.” was.

I replied, “I was waiting until you finally acquired that skill before talking to you.”

“And who are you?” The wolf was only more interested.

I had been watching this wolf since it was created but its lack of fear still surprised me sometimes.

“I am the [System Owner] but you may call me by my name of Cyrus.”

The wolf didn’t seem to recognize any of what I had said but was still curious.

I decided to explain to it the prophecy that I had decided to take a role in and tell it how it could communicate with me by expressing its thoughts to the System.

“Well, that’s interesting. But why do you want to help me? According to what I know, the destruction of this world would be bad for you. So tell me, why do you dislike this world?” The wolf asked.