it's not every day that you wake up laying in the ground staring at the grass. Usually only the best days end up that way. No matter how I looked at it though this way was far too strange to ignore.
I pushed myself off the ground breathing in the mana that hung in the air. A little thinly if you ask me. I took stock of my less than adequate musculature, and my incomplete form.
As a manavore, an entity that is made entirely of different forms of mana energy ai was unsurprised by how underdeveloped I looked at the moment. I happened to be in a low magic area so I would have some issues. I took a moment to look over my alabaster white skin and my scrawny arms to make sure I was not harmed anywhere. I then took a look around my environment.
I was in a clearing in front of a tree with seven large red apples hanging from its branches. The clearing itself was practically tended to with the way the grass was cut short and their was distinctive lines where the Grove ended and the forest began.
I exhaled man infused particulate in the area and watched the dust that I knew wouldn't be visible to anyone without a detect magic spell active. I watched it to see how it reacted to the ambient magic in the area.
To my trained eyes, the dust painted our a tapestry of interactions that told me about the world around me. Firstly the ambient mana in the area was low due to it being absorbed by the tree. The spellform that seemed tk be growing in the tree took in ambient mana and used it to feed and manage the apples that lie in its branches. Increasing their nutritional value and probably making them taste amazing.
I stood up, but my low mana form was too short. I was only about four foot eleven with noodle thin arms and low strength. luckily even when I was in my true form, I never weighed much. The mana energy that makes up my body doesn't have much mass. So I grasped onto the side of the tree and began to climb up it.
The delicious looking plump red apple had to be as big as my head. The tiny little branch that connected it to the tree was laughable. I reached my hand up and pulled it off the tree. I could feel the magic coursing just under the skin of the apple and I knew that it would fill my reserves quite adequately. I bit into the apple right there feeling the ambient mana trying to leave. I drew it into my body. Filling my reserves. As they filled my form changed. I grew taller more muscular. More defined. More like an adult and less like a preteen boy. I was probably lucky that my weight didn't really change.
I rested on the branch, and adult now but not in my true form yet. It was probably comical to see a grown man resting on a branch smaller than his own wrist.
I grabbed the next apple and consumed it. Which allowed me to regain my true form. I grew again another foot taller and my back changed. Two large pairs of wings sprouted from my shoulders. A second set of shoulder blades accompanying them. Then the flesh of my lower back scaled over and five large tendril buds formed. I could feel every single on as they stretched and moved around like the arms of an octopus. They filled and moved almost hydraulically. Almost because ai knew like the rest of my body there were no liquids in me. Just energy. Mana energy. * I flapped my wings and lifted off the brach. While large and impressive they didn't disturb much air as they flapped. Instead they mostly guided my light form silently around the tree as I grabbed ahold of the rest of the apples and took them to the ground.
There I consumed them as well relishing in their flavor. Each ones succulent mana seeped into my impressive mana reservoir filling it to a quarter full. The rest was filling slowly over time from the ambient mana as my mana circuits pulled it from the air.
I then formed the shapes and circuitry necessary to conjure some basic supplies from the carbon in the air.
The spell circle lit the air beneath me and created a black robe that would cover my torso and a pair of pants. I also created a long black staff with a large rough diamond imbedded into the end. I made sure that the diamond was configured to store and maintain any magics I allowed it to hold for me. Creating an arch staff.
I gathered the rest of the apples into a bag made of the carbon and decided to head east.