Chapter 17: Chapter 16

Argul does age, but his core regeneration continuously repairs any damage, even aging damage. It would take several thousand years in a mana less environment without any of his generation for Argul to die of old age.

Excerpt out of Alyra’s book Useless Knowledge

 

—

 

The group started their rather small journey in silence. They had set a brisk pace to have some time to search for the place, as no one had an idea where exactly the settlement would be.

 

The forest looked a lot like a forest. There were mainly three different kinds of trees or there had been before mana came. Now nearly every tree was special in some small way that you might now even see. Argul thought the forest was rather full of undergrowth, but what did she know of forests not being overrun by german hikers. She had never understood what people liked about hiking. Sure it was nice to go on a walk outside and the view could be awesome, but in her experience you had to walk through nothing but boring forest for hours to get there. Maybe her problem had been that she hadn’t liked having time to think about her life, but Argul didn’t know.

 

Argul sped up to walk beside Arthur and broke the silence by asking him the,  in her opinion, important things. She had also already forgotten that they wanted to hide that they knew more than they should. Argul didn’t want to hide things anymore, so that plan had been doomed to fail from the beginning anyways.

 

“Soo, have you already checked out the system? Do you have any skills? Can you fight? What are you good at?” Her tail wagged in excitement behind her.

Arthur eyed the tail, maybe also Argul’s ass and then managed to look her in the face. He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe one question at a time, but no I did not have the time to check out this system. I am able to defend myself if the need arises.” He said the last part a bit louder to make sure the other two heard it too.

Alyra barked a short laugh. “That’s good. Means I don’t have to be the one to defend the two beauty queens.” Two of her tails pointed at Argul and and one at Fia, to make sure Arthur knew that he wasn’t meant.

Arthur noticed and rolled his eyes. This fox just couldn’t stop messing with people. 

 

Argul though looked indignant at Alyra. “You know full well that I am capable of fighting myself. I know karate!” Argul said and instead of doing something martial artsy she pointed at a random tree. A magic missile formed in the blink of an eye and then punched straight through the tree, leaving behind a fist sized hole in the trunk. Fia looked questioningly at Alyra who gave her a ‘no, that is not supposed to be the power of a normal magic missile’ look instead.

Arthur stopped walking and gaped at the tree. “What the hell!” He had just seen magic for the first time so he didn’t know that Argul was in a very true way just built differently.

 

Argul put her hands on her hips and looked at the others who had all stopped walking to look at the hole in the tree. Luckily she did not know what that view of her body did to Arthurs mind, who had to try really hard to not think of anything lewd or he would need to hide the hard.

“What? That was perfectly normal magic!” Argul proclaimed.

“No it was definitely not.” Alyra sighed, “Fia give it a try”.

Fia, with Argul’s sense mana and her teaching, had had a rather easy time unlocking mana manipulation. Her formation of magic missile took a bit longer than Argul’s. She shot the projectile at a tree a meter to the left of the one Argul had shot and it left a small dent behind. It would still hurt a lot being shot by it and might even break a bone. It still was nothing to Argul’s magic missile that went more like ‘quak, quak. There is something in my way? I don’t give a fuck!’.

 

Arthur had learned a lot during these five minutes. First, magic was cool as hell. Second, the three didn’t really care to hide all their secrets, though he still didn’t know their identities. Third, they didn’t have the need to care or fear him because the harmless looking goddess could just punch a hole through his head whenever she felt like it. And fourth, their first lie was the greatest bullshit! They had no need to run from anyone and they knew a lot, so he decided to listen more carefully if they spoke about the system.

 

Arthur looked at his status and noticed a few changes. “So you get stats and skills from quests. Is there any other way to gain those?”

Argul looked at him unbelieving. “Well of course! Have you never played video games back on earth? Did you live under a rock? You can gain stats through level ups, maybe even through other methods such as pills or potions, I’m not sure about these. As for skills you can just learn them, but most likely you would create new ones right now. All the skills I have seem to be new, I even got an achievement for creating them.”

“I have survived on the streets by means of thievery since I was eight.” Arthur said nonchalantly, having learnt some important things from Argul.

 

Argul grinned, “Now your appearance makes a lot of sense!”. Alyra chuckled to that, while Fia and Arthur had no idea what was so funny. Alyra noticed and decided to enlighten the uncivilized.

“You are a halfling. They are depicted as rogues and thieves in a lot of the fantasy games Argul and I played on earth. Never save to have your money around them or anything else valuable.”

Arthur got a bit mad at that. “So mana changed me into a halfling just because I was a thief?”

Alyra shook her head. “The system influences the evolution process only to ensure that the entity stays itself and the evolution is something positive in a way. That you became a halfling is mana expressing the things you enjoy, how you view the world and how you view yourself. In a way it changed your body to suit you more.”

Arthur had no idea how she would know these things, but it calmed his rage knowing that his changes were most likely his fault. “That’s why Fia, Argul and I look a bit weird.” Alyra hastily added, trying to cover her mistake in giving away that knowledge.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever suits you best Arthur thought not believing Alyra in the slightest. The trio was special, but he would not pry as long as it wasn’t dangerous for him.

You are reading story Reincarnated as a mana core at novel35.com

 

“I will let you know that you are the only one who looks weird, daughter!” Argul shouted and threw Aina on Alyra’s back. Alyra let out a weird surprised sound. “Says the one who is cursed to harmlessness and arousing beauty!” She shot back and ran away. Argul shot after her to give her daughter the tickling punishment she deserved for being cheeky! Both of their tails were wagging excited and they started to laugh while hunting each other.

 

Arthur looked conflicted and searched for help on Fia’s face. Fia just sighed and said, “Get used to it, it’s just who they are.”, while shaking her head.

That had not been Arthur's problem though. “She is cursed?” He asked.

“Ahh that’s what troubles you. There are curse skills and Argul has two of them. You could say that casting magic, is putting intent into mana and making it move in a specific way. Curse skills put, depending on their strength, intent into the mana that surrounds the cursed person. For Argul it creates small illusions that you won’t notice, to make her look harmless and arousingly beautiful. I guess they are named curses because you can’t actively control them, which might be bad sometimes.” Fia explained.

“So she normally doesn’t look like the goddess of needy women?” Arthur thought out loud. “I heard that!” Argul shouted, but Fia and Arthur ignored her.

“Don’t understand me wrong. Right now she looks like she wants to get laid and beautiful even without the curse, the curse will just strengthen that look right now. With our current clothes she just has no other option than to look horny or naked.” Fia whispered to make sure only Arthur heard.

 

During her second explanation Arthur had started to cry. Not because he wanted, mind you, but because Agul needed to punish the blasphemer! Arthur tried really hard to make it stop, but nothing worked and he slowly got frustrated. It was really embarrassing for him to cry in front of Fia, so he turned away from her. Fia just chuckled having seen the spell Argul had cast. “It will likely stop if you apologize to her.” Arthur hmphed and soldiered on, which put another smile on Fia’s face.

 

They had to catch up with Argul and Alyra, who had been caught and could be heard laughing while she desperately tried to beg for Argul to stop. They really had their moments.

 

Once Arthur and Fia reached the pair Argul took Aina again and let Alyra off the hook. Alyra sighed and stayed laying on the ground for a few seconds before she heaved herself up. “Now you will have to clean me. All the dirt and leaves are in my nice fur.” Alyra demanded, even though it would only take her a few minutes to do it herself.

 

“Sure, sure.” Argul said before she focused and moved her mana to encapsule Alyra. Every time she noticed something she could do better she changed the spell and she did that a lot in the next 5 minutes. She then moved the mana in a set pattern around Alyra with the intent to clean everything she thought had to be cleaned and wasn’t something that Alyra would not like being cleaned away, such as her fur. Dirt and leaves started to fall out of Alyra’s fur followed by something else that looked like dust. Argul didn’t want to really know so she ignored it.

 

It was not that pleasant for Alyra. Not because it felt weird that all the grime left her. That felt rather nice. No, it felt weird, because there was something to be cleaned inside her and now it wanted out. She growled, gave Argul a stink eye and ran into the woods to relieve herself.

 

Argul changed that small part of the spell and used it on herself with an innocent look on her face as if she hadn’t just forced her daughter to feel what it was like to have something want to come out of you desperately.

 

You created the skill: perfect clean

Other people have to clean everything by hand. You thought that beneath you and can now clean most things perfectly using your mana.

 

“If Arthur could have seen what you just did he would be surprised how wide he can open his mouth. Creating a clean spell is one thing, but creating a perfect clean spell on the spot is something you just don’t normally do Argul.” Fia had watched as Argul had changed her spell while she was casting it and she couldn’t even understand a quarter of it. Just changing the spell during the casting is incredibly difficult and here Argul just did it to clean herself and her daughter.

 

“So you just created a super advanced spell to clean things” Arthur asked, having even more questions about the trio than before.”

“Yup!” Argul replied uncaringly while she broke off a branch from a tree and fed it to Aina as a reward for being a cute slime.

“Do you have any other attack spells other than magic missile?” Arthur wanted to know so he wouldn’t be surprised all the time later on.

“Nope. My spells are all spurs of the moment and fighting is not something I have really done before.” Arthur and Fia had pretty much the same thoughts. Why was she a genius in all things concerning mana, but just didn’t care about it. It was a lot of wasted potential. While Fia knew that Argul was immortal, she didn’t share her sentiment of just having fun most of the time. Argul though didn’t know what else you would do with all that time if not enjoy it.

 

Alyra came back from having a not so fun time. She didn’t waste time on feeling resentment towards her mother though, it was just their way and they both knew that Argul would get her pay back some other time. She sniffed the air and could already smell the village. It did not smell good.

Alyra pointed in a for the others seemingly random direction with her paw. “The village is that way, I can already smell them. Let’s find a good hiding place near them and stay low for the next hour until the mana zone reaches here.”

They all nodded and this time Arthur took the lead as he was the best of them at locating hideouts and staying unnoticed. He was still crying.

 

You can find story with these keywords: Reincarnated as a mana core, Read Reincarnated as a mana core, Reincarnated as a mana core novel, Reincarnated as a mana core book, Reincarnated as a mana core story, Reincarnated as a mana core full, Reincarnated as a mana core Latest Chapter