Reincarnated as a mana core

Argul sat together with her daughter in the chilling area. It was in the middle of the night, so except for Argul’s light sphere hovering above the small table and the area around it everything was dark.

She picked up her cards and looked at them. A diamond 2 and a spade 7, normally one of the worst combinations of numbers you could get, but for her it was perfect right now.

Argul looked up from her cards and at Alyra. “So…”

Alyra checked and Argul followed her lead. Her daughter also looked up. “Yeah?”

Argul ‘burned’ the top card of the stack and put the second one openly on the table, a club 5. She watched Alyra out of the corner of her eye. They weren’t exactly playing the game right and only followed some of the rules for the feeling, but Argul had to guess at the end whom of the two was the winner.

She tapped her finger on the table. “Do you mind telling me about the people that entered my domain after receiving a quest?”

A good 100 people had come through her portal to the sixth floor. They all had changed a certain amount towards some kind of lizard-kin. Some of them were fully scaled, had tails and even had the mouth of a lizard.

Argul put down another two cards, this time a heart jack and a diamond 10. Alyra scratched her cheek and put down her cards. “Well, they had to flee.”

Argul raised an eyebrow. “And?”

Her daughter put her elbow on the table and supported her head with the same arm. “And I sent them to your domain. Why wait for them to discover your portal when a group of perfect test subjects is just around.”

Argul put down her own cards. “You know you can openly say that you just wanted to save them.”

Alyra took a random card out of the stack and layed it face down on the table. Her goal this round was to make Argul win and because of her nature she knew where which card was. “Why would you think I wanted to save them?”

Argul took a random card out of the lower half of the card stack and burned it. “I don’t know? Maybe because you have a thing for scaled creatures.”

Alyra looked offendedly at her. “I do not prefer scaled creatures over others.”

Argul took a random card and a small glint went through the eyes of her daughter. She laid the card openly on the table, a spade 6. “Sorry, then maybe it had something to do with the people who followed them?”

Alyra laid down another concealed card. “The neo christians?”

Argul nodded. “ Yes, I mean them.”

She leaned forward in interest. “I actually wanted to know what that is about too.”

Alyra leaned back. “The two things are actually kinda connected.”

She let out a deep sigh. “About two and a half months ago to the east there had been a large massacre. A town had been overtaken by an of-shoot of christianity that were called the neo christians by the others.”

Alyra looked a bit troubled. “Through the town led a river that originates in the birch forest.”

Argul frowned deeply. “Let me guess. Someone mutated and they killed him. Afterwards they integrated everyone else and killed all those that became something they didn’t like?”

Alyra slightly avoided eye contact. “You are not wrong, but not entirely right either.”

Her shoulders fell a bit. “There were only three different kinds of changes. Some didn’t change at all, some became feral bat-kin, some bat-kin and some became angels.”

She met Argul's eyes. “And I mean angels in the way most people imagined them, beautiful humans with snow white wings.”

Argul winced a bit. That made things worse. There was one thing she wondered about though. “Where there no feral angels?”

Alyra looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. “In a way there were, but they were still sapient. Instead of becoming animalistic, they became fully different people and let me tell you the true personality of an angel is not beautiful.” Well, it’s not as if Argul had thought they would be nice people anyway.

Going by the things Alyra had told her the neo christians had likely not stopped with killing all the bat-kin. Otherwise the fight inside of her domain wouldn’t make sense. 

She could only shake her head. Argul had never understood why people strive for power and especially for power over others. It was a system made by nature, a system a sapient being should be able to escape to a certain degree and a system that by its own nature led to conflicts like the one this evening.

8 people had died there because of stupid reasons, though at least 6 of them belonged to the neo christians. Those fools had taken stupidity to a whole nother level and should get an achievement for that.

They would likely clash again with the small community in her domain, because the leader of the neo christians had been able to flee together with 3 others. Hopefully the lizard-kin would be stronger once the time came.

Well, just by being on her 6th floor they would get stronger by at least 15 stat points.

Actually Argul really wanted to know something concerning that. “Say Aly, you told me that stats are an improvement of the body done by mana.”

Alyra looked at her a bit puzzled, but nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

Argul tapped her chin with her index finger. “So, I am going to assume that this means that the higher the stat is, the more mana is needed for the upgrade.”

She looked at Alyra for confirmation and proceeded when her daughter nodded. “Does that mean that in theory someone level 1 can raise his stats a lot faster in say a level 10 zone than in the actual level 1 zone?”

Alyra nodded again. “Yes, they would get stupidly easy quests in the beginning until their stats are in the low level 9 reaches. When you first created the avatar the same happened for you, but I changed the function a bit.”

That intrigued Argul, as of now Alyra had always come up with interesting balancing factors. “How so?”

Alyra closed her eyes. “Now the type of quests you get with your avatar depends on the region it is in. In a way the system now just looks at the two bodies of the person as two independent entities when it comes to quests.” That was actually quite reasonable.

She opened her eyes and smiled at Argul. “This is also why your growth should have stopped some time ago, but I am creating a few quests personally for you now and then.”

Argul smiled, got up and went over to Aly. There she sat down and leaned against her daughter. “You can be so sweet sometimes, you know?”

Alyra began to scratch Argul behind her ears and smiled back softly. “And you can be overly complicated at times.”

Argul sighed and began to play with the soft fur of her daughter absentmindedly. “Do you think Trevor is okay?”

Alyra stopped and answered in a teasing tone. “Don’t tell me you have feelings for that guy?”

Argul playfully punched Alyra’s shoulder. “Of course not!”

Then she sighed deeply. “But he is one of the only people I know?”

She closed her eyes, trying to suppress some old memories. “I want to learn how to care more, Aly.”

Alyra took Argul by her shoulders and pulled her down to her lap until her head rested on it. “Is it not enough for you to care about only a few people?”

She leaned down to Argul. “It makes it that much more special to be the one receiving your worry, you know?”

Argul made herself a bit more comfortable. “Rationally yes, but emotionally I still fear ending up alone.”

Alyra began to caress Argul’s head again. “Do they still hunt you, all these thoughts?”

It was silent for a few minutes.

A lone tear rolled down Argul’s cheek and she whispered back. “It is better, but sometimes, when nobody is around, they come back.”

Alyra looked into her mother’s eyes. “You know, I am always there for you.”

Argul smiled, sat up and hugged her daughter. “Yes, thank you dear.”

She put her forehead against Alyra’s and stayed like that for some time. Then she smiled and laid down on her daughter's lap again. “I win.”

Alyra sighed and began to caress her ears again. “Yes, you win. Good night mother.”

Argul hugged herself with her tail. “Have a good night too, daughter.”

Alyra looked down on her lap and snorted. As if!

Then she took control of Argul’s light spell and dispelled it, returning the room back to darkness.