Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

The cage I was in was made out of metal and had a weird lock that I couldn't make head or tails of it. I tried to break it and the cage itself but got no luck, it was just too sturdy for me to break it with my fangs or claws and the lock was too alien for me to attempt to lockpick it, even though I know absolutely nothing about lockpicking with the exception that a Master Lock can be opened with a Master Lock. I snickered at myself at my lame joke before looking back at the camp.

It has been around thirty minutes since I woke up in this cage on the encampment and from what I've been able to hear, I don't know anything that's happening and the main reason is that I didn't understand the language. I tried using [Knowledge Library] to see if it was able to do anything about it, but the only thing I got in response was:

[Downloading]

And that was it. It doesn't give me the percentage, the download speed or the time remaining. Just that it's downloading. And I know it is because I felt a pull on my magicules, and at the same time the field around me got stronger and now the tingling sensation, that was only on my skin, is now a few centimeters deep inside me, all around my body, and with all honestly it's a unpleasant sensation that is almost making me puke, if I had eaten something in at least a day now and my stomach made itself known to me by making grunting noises and hurting. I needed to get out of the cage and eat something soon rather than later. On top of all that, the tension I felt was still rising all around me, like when you're going up on a rollercoaster.

I look at my skills again, trying to see if any could help me.

So, [Moonlight Absorber] isn't doing much right now, mostly because the moon isn't visible anymore as the sun rises and shines through the canopy of trees, even though I feel like it should at least do something, but this anti-magic field in the cage is blocking it. [Elemental Breath] and [Dragon Scales] aren't available while I'm transformed as a Lunaspectra Wolf and I don't trust [Genetic Dysphoria] won't be affected by the anti-magic while I'm transforming, and considering how the transformation is, I don't want to get trapped unable to move my own body. [Knowledge Library] is doing its thing, [Appraisal] is useless at the moment. So, the only three skills I could use are [Spell Planner] and [Magicule Detection] and [Magicule Manipulation].

[Spell Planner] I already used it, multiple times in fact, but the other two I never actually used them consciously and I had them the moment I was reincarnated in this world so I don't even know how exactly they work, so I needed to test it before. I closed my eyes and started to think about my skills, the moment I thought of the they were there and I knew I could use them instinctually, not just [Magicule Detection] and [Magicule Manipulation] but all of them, even [Elemental Breath] and [Dragon Scales] were there, but it was like there was a chasm between me and them. They were still a part of me, but at the same time, disconnected from me at the moment by [Genetic Dysphoria]. [Moonlight Absorber] was there as well, but instead of being by itself like every other skill I could feel, it had a faint presence almost like it was a ghost image of the skill, and there was a connection to [Genetic Dysphoria] that made it possible to exist in this state.

I knew I had already tested them during my time in the kobold village, but after my encounter with that wolf my skills felt weird, as if they were more connected to me in a way that was hard to describe. I knew they were acting differently from how they were yesterday, but I couldn't quite put how, so I needed to test them again.

I focused on the two skills I wanted and they were there. I wasn't actually seeing my skills, it was more like a sensation. The first thing I did when I concentrated on both of them was to turn them off, which was as easy as flipping a mental switch. The moment the skills were off, it was like I was blinded from the world around me and the tingling sensation I had on my skin vanished like it was never there. First I was relieved as that bothersome sensation was finally over, but then I noticed the differences.

The first thing I noticed was that there was an empty feeling where once I felt my magicules being used for various stuff, including [Knowledge Library], but now I felt nothing, even around me I noticed it. I hadn't noticed it before, but now it felt like the world around me lost half of its colors and felt somehow muted. The inscriptions in the cage, for example, were much harder to see as before it was almost like black ink on paper, now it felt like black ink on black paper. I could still see it, but it was much more arduous without the skill. I wasn't sure if the lack of the tingling sensation was worth the muted world I was seeing and feeling now. It was as if everything was weightless, just an image on a screen.

I couldn't bear how depressing how it all felt and activated [Magicule Detection] again, and immediately the world regained its colors and weight, even the tingling sensation was back. I thought if this sensation was like a drug, but on further thought it is more like if a human suddenly lost their vision or hearing. The world was still there, but with something essential missing, and it was depressing. Sure, if you were born that way then nothing would change, but you don't see blind people regaining their vision and crying for no reason at all.

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[Magicule Manipulation] was still off and it didn't have any effect, at least initially. I didn't really know how to test what it did, because up until this point I hadn't really used magicules without skills, and after a quick [Appraisal], which came as nonsense, I knew skills didn't use it but I wasn't sure what did use it. Toggling it on and off quickly, trying to feel the difference, resulted in nothing.

With a sigh I turned to [Spell Planner]. Activating the skill brought the normal interface to my mind as usual, and to try it out I made a simple fireball and tried to cast it. I felt my skill pulling from my magicules deep inside me, going somewhere I couldn't sense and coming back as what I only could describe as a magic package. The package then came out of my paw and I watched it as it opened up and started to create the magic circuit I developed in the skill, only to see it being torn apart like it was inside a blender, dissipating the spell before it activated…

I stopped as two things clicked inside my mind. The first one was the nature of the tingling sensation I was feeling and the anti-magic this cage is probably generating. I saw as my spell was torn apart as if it was in a blender, being torn apart in various places moving through different directions. The tingling feeling was the blender, meaning that the anti-magic field was just making the magicules in the air around me move erratically and crash into everything, even other magicules, tearing spells apart and, as I can feel my own magicules stronger than the ones around me, feel it trying to disrupt my own magicules inside my body. I knew that the tingling was the anti-magic but didn't know what exactly it was doing, but now I knew.

The second thing that clicked was how [Magicule Manipulation] worked. If anti-magic was just moving magicules erratically and disrupting the flow of spells and stuff, what's stopping me from doing the same? Honestly I felt a little dumb to only realize it now after being with the skill for over a week. Shaking my head I felt the skill again, let it guide my mind over my own magicules and felt as it allowed me to wrap my will over it and take control of the flow. It's the first time I actually felt the flow of my magicules, how it flowed from different parts of my body, coming from the same distant place I feel my skills from, coming together in a spot close to my chest and then circulating around my body like blood flowing through my veins.

The only part where the flow was interrupted was close to my skin, where it became erratic, like a glitching video-game character. I focused my mind on my paw, feeling the movements of my haywire magicules in it and trying to make it all to just stop. It's hard, it's like trying to stop flowing water with my bare hands.

I continue to try to stop the movement of my magicules when I began to hear a commotion outside of the cage in the camp

"Kalah! Mikana ko lih rana ma ta! Ganora moshi tá jô garota ganhare je porwredna!" A young voice shouted in a language I didn't understand, but apparently the person shouting was important enough that the guards patrolling the perimeter rushed towards the source of the sound. I knew that this was it, it was my only chance to escape. I needed to get out of the cage somehow and I needed to do it now.

I tried to throw myself at the bars, but they were too sturdy to break and the cage was too heavy for my weight to move it by much. I needed more firepower. I tried to cast a few more fireballs, but they broke apart before coming into existence. I heard screaming coming from the direction the guards came, my time was running out and I was out of ideas.

I looked at my skill list again and sighed. I didn't want to deactivate the skill while inside the anti-magic but I saw no choice. Preparing myself for the worst, I deactivated [Genetic Dysphoria] and immediately fell to the ground as I lost control of all my muscles, except instead of everything turning into a goo like substance, I saw that the outermost layer of skin, the one being affected by the anti-magic, wasn't melting like when I first used the skill. My body began to change and I saw patches of furless skin appearing in some places as the skin itself stretched, because the skill wasn't supposed to be used inside an anti-magic field.

Eventually I felt my wings growing and, what I can only describe as, being trapped inside my own skin, even my muzzle was a little deformed. I probably looked like a failed hybrid experiment from a mad scientist, but I got what I wanted. I felt the connection of my dragon skills, with the exception of dragon scales, for obvious reasons, being restored. I concentrated on a single skill that could give me enough firepower to break this cage, the one dragons were known for, [Elemental Breath].

I felt where my magicules were gathered in the base of my throat, as opposed to near my heart when I was transformed as a wolf, and sensed that I just needed to open the metaphorical floodgates for the skill to take effect, so that's what I did.

I felt as my magicules rushed from the base of my throat to my mouth like a flood, and I aimed at the bars. Green flames burst out of my mouth like a tidal wave and wrapped around the metal bars. The energy I was releasing was enough for [Magicule Detection] to register it as a solid wall of green energy and I couldn't see what was happening inside it. Just to be sure I aimed a little higher up and the flames started touching the frame of the cage, where the inscriptions for the anti-magic field were. I felt the tingling sensation getting weaker and weaker, confirming that it was actually the anti-magic field, and [Genetic Dysphoria] took advantage of the weakened field and transformed me completely back to normal, melting only the skin and changing it to my white scales.

As I ran out of breath and magicules, I almost collapsed on the ground, but I held and looked at the bars to see them rusted beyond recognition and the wooden frame the cage was made had a hole where I aimed my breath attack at. I didn't think twice and jumped out of the cage, just in time as the moment my feet touched the ground a few meters from the cage, a guard came flying from a wall and collided with it.

For a moment I thought the guard came to catch me, but I noticed it was knocked out. Thanking my luck, I ran towards the forest when I suddenly crashed into a pair of legs that appeared in front of me in the blink of an eye.

"Took, Milahka thoji nah. Hoof thern lo ni, Ma gah la na? Kah ni go Amity. Dei, pora tah jogi ternio ga?" A feminine voice sounded in my ears and before I could take a proper look at the figure that appeared, something was shoved right in front of my eyes.

It was a card, with a strange character written on it. The card itself looked like someone had googled "nebula background" and printed it, but I knew it wasn't just a design choice as the images in the card moved slightly, like an animated background on a computer.

"Go? Giah la. Treno gahji matora bo. Gatu!" The voice said before vanishing again, leaving me confused as heck.

Only a grunting sound from behind me made me remember where I was, and then I darted out of the encampment into the forest