I couldn't stay in the village much longer, so I left, without saying a word to anyone, I had this feeling Dragan wasn't exactly on the verge of wanting to come to look for me. So it was just me, and the Grimalkin's massive backyard. After passing through the fields outside the village, I was able to exit into the grasslands. The Grimalkins had a massive forest surrounding their village and farmlands.
If I wasn't mistaken, I think it was called Sunnet Forest, named after Sol the sun god, and Sonnet, the goddess of music, supposedly if you come across a foggy area, you're supposed to follow the tune of Sonnet or else you will be driven in circles.
I wasn't about to go look for foggy patches of musical fog.
I wanted to be left alone, to wallow in my pity.
Why had Dragan acted like that? We were so good together, and I don't care about the Dragonkin thing, I just wanted to be together with him.
I managed to get pretty deep into the forest and came upon a hill where I converted back to slime form, at least this way if anyone came looking for me they would think I was just another slime.
I had cried all the way here, and now I think my saltwater had dried out.
I used to love camping in my old world, staying bunkered up for days is bad for your health, I would go camping with friends, but only day camping, we would never stay overnight.
The crisp air of morning dew was setting in, and the little drops of spring rainwater were twinkling in the green.
Surrounded by so much nature, I was able to find my peace. Nothing but green as far as the eye can see, I had almost forgotten our world in the past - or is it the future? Had those force-field bubbles around its biomes.
I should give some thought to how things went down with Dragan. Maybe I should think things through, maybe I should try and see things from his perspective.
Maybe I could get some answers from some heavenly guides?
"Hey Sibyl, could I get some explanation of how mana works in this world?"
>Understood
>Booting start program M.A.N.A
>Complete
Sibyl pulled out all of the theatrics for this one, and projected herself in front of me, using the cliff as a reference point, the magic circle looked cool against the still lingering night sky, dawn was breaking on the horizon, just a tad.
>What you refer to as 'mana' is simply the essence of matter.
"What now? I'm not sure I follow…" I said, the essence of matter? What exactly does she mean?
>In laminas terms, mana is the building blocks of matter, mana is the superposition between a state of being and a state of not, mana is the 1 and 0 of matter, and mana is the powerhouse of the cell.
>Mana is a molecule far smaller than an atom but can appear and disappear at will, mana is a quantum fluctuation between a state of real and unreal.
"That sounds complicated, far beyond human understanding,"
>Affirmative
>Many studies have been published by scientists all across the galaxy.
"In other planets?" I asked. Sibyl knows all the answers, you just have to ask the right questions.
>Correct.
>However their inability to interact due to insufficient forms of FTL travel suggests different cultures will have different explanations for the true nature of mana.
"Makes sense, that's why some will may assume mana is more of a divine blessing that they don't need to seek or explain where it comes from, while others might want to explain it to the last detail,"
>Mana is a quantum fluctuation within space-time, it holds its nature in the world through the souls of living beings. The soul is directly connected to a beating heart.
"Oh! So you mean to say anything with a beating heart has access to mana?"
>Affirmative; however one planet is excluded from accessing mana.
"And that is?"
>You're home planet, earth. Humans of Earth were deemed unworthy of carrying mana, and the whole planet was sealed off from ever being able to touch the source.
"That sort of sucks."
"So wait - Dragan has a soul, right? Dragonkins have a beating heart?"
>I have deemed that logic error-free.
>My database suggests Dragonkin live up to 300 years or more, depending on how they decide to undergo a ritual that transforms them permanently into their dragon form.
"So why can't he access mana, why do other people have to give it to him; As he puts it?"
>Dragonkin are unable to access mana due to their familial taboo.
"I've never really understood taboo. How does it work?"
>Committing forbidden acts will increase your taboo level.
"Okay - so tell me, what are the forbidden acts?"
>Every action you've ever done in one of the free world gets judged by one of the words of the world program, then assigned action points by our servers.
>AP can be negative or positive, and it's constantly changing.
>Stay too far below the negative line and your actions start accumulating taboo.
>Dragonkins have been in the red for more than two millennia.
>Dragan's soul and the soul of his children and the soul of his children's children will be 97% blocked from ever accessing mana.
That was incredibly harsh to hear. "Can races as a whole share AP points?"
>Affirmative; Individual and collective AP exist.
Oh man, that is harsh, so it's basically like a family curse, something he was born into. And mana is required to sustain matter.
"So Dragan can only live when other people give him mana, is that right? And if he runs out, he dies?"
>Correct; Mana can be transferred from one individual to another; However, Dragonkin has obtained a bad reputation as the vampires of mana.
Now it was all starting to make sense.
"Oh one more question before you go, how come no one is dying left and right on earth if mana is needed to sustain matter?"
The spinning rainbow was back for a second, then it went away.
>Void
"Huh?!" That's weird, did she mean a void in space or voiding a warranty?
"Can you answer my question please?"
>Null
I'm guessing it was the latter.
"So you can't answer my question."
The spinning rainbow was back.
>Mod privilege required to retrieve that information.
>Sending ticket.
>Complete
"What the hell! Why did you send a ticket?!"
>My system is designed to do so whenever I run into a Void. You will be hearing from the mods shortly.
I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be scared or completely thrilled that I was possibly going to be face-to-face with one of the mods, aka god.
Suddenly Sibyl got all weird, and flashing red lights and alarms started sounding.
>Hostile presence detected.
>Initiating Battle Mode.
I quickly turned myself back into a human and placed my hands in front of my face.
From the thick bushes and bare forest came out a shadow, only being illuminated by the morning dusk. He was big muscular and threatening. He was in a position to attack. He looked animal-like. Then when his figure was finally revealed.
I saw a familiar face.
It was Neso with a spear in his hands.
"Little one!" he exclaimed with a sweet smile, behind it his fangs. He was cute when he smiled.
Sybil returned to normal and disappeared in the blink of an eye behind me.
"Neso!" I said letting out a sigh of relief. "It's you, I thought you were a killer or something,"
"Sorry - did I scare you?" why was I only noticing now that he had somewhat of an accent?
"A little yeah - "
"Oh, it's just I was hearing someone talking, and thought it best to take precautions,"
"Oh yeah I was, -" I couldn't tell him I was talking with Sybil. "Just talking to myself, I do that sometimes when I need to process heavy emotional stuff." I laughed awkwardly, hopefully, he bought that. His ears flopped like he was swatting away flies. He looked at me with incredulous eyes.
"Nothing wrong with that!" he said walking towards me, climbing the cliff like it was nothing.
"Where you looking for me?" I asked. He stood next to me now atop the cliff, he didn't even have his breath taken away from that climb. He was like a big cat on two feet after all.
"Yeah, the Grimalkin elder talked to Dragan, and we figured you might have gone into Sonnet, the whole village can't stop talking about your breakup, the nurses saw everything by the way," he said smiling. I immediately went red from embarrassment.
"That- That wasn't me, I lost control," I said hiding my face away.
"Hey no worries - we all have our hard times, the village just wants to make sure you're safe, you are our guest of honor after all," he said placing one of his paws on my shoulder, he could easily grab my whole body with one hand. The bottom of his paw was soft and squishy. It was a friendly touch, like one of the brothers on a battlefield.
He was so much taller than me, only now noticing since he was standing next to me.
Beast-folk sure are impressive.
"Should we head back?" he said pointing in the general direction of the village with his thumb.
"I-I don't think I want to go back," I said hiding my face again, almost on the verge of tears.
He got serious for a moment. Then stooped to my level, on his knees. His feet planted perfectly on the ground. He wasn't wearing any shoes. He wore armor that hung from his shoulder, his chest bare, and harem pants with belts.
"Well then, how about accompanying me on a little adventure, just for today though, we don't need to tell Dragan, I'll tell the village chief it took all day to find you; It'll be our little secret, okay little one?" he said most nonchalantly. A friendly smile on his face. Was he trying to cheer me up, because it was working well.
I nodded in agreement.
My smile was coming back.