Knowledge and Power: Reborn into a society that only values strength.

 I managed to track down a chef and have them cook me a ton of food, after eating it and resting for a few hours my manna was able to come back, and once that had happened I left to go demon hunting. The demon was hiding out about 2 miles from the manor, farther down the mountain. 'Its presence is stronger than any other I've come across… No… Maybe not stronger… Just… Bigger?'

I walked to the edge of a small cliff face and looked down to a massive basin where water pooled before continuing down the mountain. 'Is it in the water? Or in the abyss?' A bird flew over the pool and suddenly withered, turning to bones mid-flight. 'I guess that answers that… My anchoring art should protect me from effects like that though, in the same way it protects me from suffocating in the abyss or being crushed by the pressure. Still… How often is a monster's aura the scariest thing about it…' I took a deep breath and sighed. "Rafi, are you watching? You're not still hiding are you?"

After a moment of waiting nothing came back but the wind. 'Great… So I'm on my own. I really hope she's just busy… And not actually just wussing out.' I stepped closer to the edge. 'Ever since the last one I've really hated the idea of going in blind… So I'll just wait for a while. If she doesn't show up by the time I see the party coming to save me, then I'll go in....'

Hours passed in the blink of an eye and before long I began to see a large group heading towards the mountain, several miles out. "Rafi?" 'Still nothing… I'm kinda lonely talking to myself like this…'

I let out another sigh. 'Ok, I've got a few options here, I don't really want to get close to it if I don't know what it is though… So…' I slowly looked around my eyes being drawn to a massive oak tree. 'That should do.' I walked over and enhanced my body, putting soul energy into my knives and eventually cutting it down after a good few minutes of work. A while later and I had sharpened the base into a massive stake. Then I raised the earth ever so slightly so that I could easily roll it downhill into the river. 'Ok… Nice. Now. Let's try one more thing. The log will want to float if there is water down there, so… Uh… I'm really not that eccentric of a person am I? Hm… I looked down the waterfall and slowly swallowed. 'It is true that I'm not nearly as afraid of heights as before now that I have a fearless dragon inside of me… Maybe I am eccentric after all…' With a running start, I casually jumped onto the log and rode it ever closer to the fall, conjuring up my manna and letting my body heat up. Taking my time to flow each power through a different half of my body. As I started to fall I turned every drop of manna I had into massive spiraling flames that evaporated the basin, simultaneously flooding my soul around the pointed end of the tree and riding it right into the demon's massive body and skewering it.

It was just a giant bloby ooze, but it still screamed as it started to die. The momentum carried me face-first into its body as parts of it boiled like tar and it started swallowing me up like quicksand. Before I could recover different parts started sticking out and grabbing onto my arms to stop me from moving as I slowly sank deeper. The remaining water rushed in from both sides like crashing waves settling from the blast and uprooting the monster which thankfully seemed to float. I tried to freeze it, but I was spent, it was somehow blocking me from even enhancing my physical abilities, making me feel like I was struggling in vain.

As we floated down the river I became more and more angry. I was mad about the people who died, mad that Rafi wasn't around to help me when I needed her, and mad that I was so reckless as to waste all my manna in the opening attack… I was so mad my eyes turned orange. 'Wait… No, no this is good. I can't move my hands sure, but I don't need to…' I focused on my rage, and the dragon's blood inside me, soon feeling like I was about to vomit and feeling smoke build up in my lungs making me cough. I had only done it once before, but I still remembered exactly what it felt like. Fire spewed out of my mouth even hotter than last time, scorching everything around me and setting the tree on fire, stiffening and hardening my leather armor and turning the fleshy blob… Solid… For some reason. 

At any rate, I was able to finally break free, although barely. With what meager strength I had left I jumped off and landed in the river. 'I guess it's time to learn how to swim…' I took one last deep breath before going under, frantically whaling my arms and legs to no avail. 'I'm being weighed down… But at least I lost the demon… And it should die soon from those injuries… Fingers crossed… The tree hit its heart and I melted its second heart, so it should be fine…'

I slowly relaxed, looking around until I saw a large rock sticking up out of the river bed all the way above the current. I couldn't swim well enough to get to shore, but I could move an inch to the right at least and smack face-first into it to stop moving… Although… It hurt about as much as you might think, considering I was out of manna to reinforce my body.

I clung to the rock and wrapped my arms around it, holding myself above the water and catching my breath from the several minutes I had stayed under the rapids. 'This is awful… I didn't even get it's magic stone… It was way too big for me to force into the abyss… People are gonna lose it when the river turns black…' I groaned as my armor started to shrink in reaction to the water and rub against my skin, no doubt related to it being tanned from a 'water' panther. 

'Ok… What's next, I need to get to shore somehow, maybe a vine… Or more rocks further down the way?' pulled my hair out of my face with one hand and looked around seeing a rather large fisherman standing off to the side completely frozen still. 'Yeah… That's probably what I would look like too if I was watching that happen…' "HAehy–" I screamed, my voice cracking and my throat screaming at me in pain, making my eyes water. Thankfully I didn't need to make any words, just noise to snap the man out of his shock.

"Hold on!" He shouted, grabbing a long rope and throwing it across to me.

I grabbed on, but once I realized my arms were too weak to pull myself out, barely able to hold on. All I could do was wrap it around my hands and wait as he slowly tugged me back to shore. I was so exhausted I didn't even bother keeping my head above the water, and just before I was ready to let go he grabbed my hands and pulled me to dry land.

"Hey, hey little lady are you alright?"

All I could do was roll back and forth on the ground, my eyes watering from the pain as my throat seized up from the burning. I covered my insides with ice, but believe it or not that actually hurt more, giving me the most intense brain freeze of my life. The poor fisherman couldn't do anything but watch in a confused panic until I finally recovered enough manna to accelerate my healing to a point where it was bearable. Although I had been using that trick a lot, and I wasn't able to eat enough to keep up, so I was losing a noticeable amount of weight. Had it not been for my wider bones, I really would have looked like Mo.

Even breathing hurt so much that I just stopped 'Just a few minutes… I can take a break from breathing right?' I suddenly felt my chest feel lighter as my armor loosened. 'What?'

The man had unfastened the scorched plates and pushed down hard on my chest until it felt like my ribs snapped, making me cough the water out of my lungs out of reflex. I didn't even know I had inhaled any, but it felt surprisingly good to spit it all out, even though it hurt, the river water was cool against my internal burns. Though… I wouldn't say it was pleasant by any means…

"Wow, that chest compression stuff works fast."

'Not usually…' I groaned, holding a hand over my chest as I sat up and hunched over.

"Are you feeling alright now?"

All I could do was groan and give a thumbs-up. 'If things are going according to plan, then Isy should be riding on Fritz right now… If I can just call her I know she'll hear me… I can't speak… But maybe I can use my magic to simulate my voice… Like I was doing with Mo's.' I staggered to my feet, the fisherman keeping his hands ready in case I fell and helping me when I almost did. 'Come on…' "Fritz!" I shouted to the wind, before the echo faded my knees buckled underneath me and Everything went black 'Maybe… Using more manna was a bad idea…'