《Barren Soil》


 1. Birthed from a coffin

    She remembered there was once a torturous method of execution where the victim was tied to four different horses, which would then be forced to gallop in different directions, tearing the poor soul apart.

    What she had just experienced felt a lot like that.

    She felt the agony of pieces of her very identity being torn away, precious memories stolen and leaving gaping wounds, until suddenly, the torture was over. The wounds on her very self remained, but no new ones were being formed.

    She slowly regained the ability to move, but quickly realised that she was stuck somewhere. As she tried to wriggle her limbs around (at least she still had limbs) she felt dead wood constricting her like a form-fitting coffin.

    The feeling made her panic. Did someone tried to kill her, but didn''t realise they failed before burying her? Was she going to suffocate?

    She did what she always did when someone tried to shackle her: she struggled harder. The brittle coffin creaked as she forced her body to eke out every bit of strength, and eventually, after what felt like hours, she felt a crack. Her left arm felt air on its skin.

    Hope! She could break out!

    Reinvigorated, she weighed even harder. Crack, crack, crack, she felt the wooden prison break around her.

    It was only when she felt her head impact the ground did she realise she wasn''t lying in a grave, but rather suspended in a standing position.

    As she brushed off all the pieces of wood that still clung to her, she finally saw light, and could check on her surroundings.

    The ground she was laying on was grey with hints of brown, dust, stone and dirt forming a rough surface. Behind her was what she had thought of as a coffin, but was in reality a dried out husk of a tree, pieces of the trunk she broke off in her escape littering the ground.

    She looked up, and saw a grey sky. There weren''t any clouds; it was simply as if the regular blue was siphoned off. Despite the light level being somewhere around an evening, minus the warm orange hue, she could see no sun.

    She was far from her home, she realised.

    And far from her old self, she was shocked to find. As she spared a glance at her hands, they weren''t her usual pale white cultivated from days spent in her apartment, but rather a healthy brown.

    Not the brown of a tan, but rather a brown of an oaken''s bark. With the texture to match.

    She screamed in shock and fear, her voice echoing through the wasteland she found herself in.

    She soon ran out of breath, which caused her to pause.

    "Okay, new place, probably not even the same planet, new body. I''m naked, lost, but alive. We can deal with this."

    As she talked out loud, she continued to examine herself. Her skin was indeed replaced with tree bark, and yet it had the same human sense of touch she was used to. She ran a hand through her hair, and found it present, if a bit different texture, and... why were her hairs so wide? She fiddled with a lock, and then realised: they weren''t hairs, but leaves.

    "Okay, I''m a fucking tree. But I can still move, breathe, and talk, so it''s not all bad."

    Her breasts and genitals were in their rightful places, and seemed to be covered with a thinner layer of bark than the rest of her body. Her silhouette was mostly the same, the generous curves of the chest, butt, and stomach still pleasantly jutting out. The only thing she didn''t recognize was her feet.

    They... weren''t really there anymore. The legs just sort of widened out, like uprooted trunks of young trees.

    Despite this, standing up proved effortless, and the few steps she took to test her new appendages were as easy as always, if not easier. The trunks seemed to shift and bend to accommodate her steps in a way human feet couldn''t.

    "Do I count as a dryad or an ent? What else can I do with this body?" She wondered out loud.

    To her surprise, her question was answered.

    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

    Species: Dryad lvl 1 (clade: Awakened Plants)

    Class: -

    Health: 200/200

    Mana: 110/110

    Attributes:

    Strength: 13

    Toughness: 20

    Constitution: 9

    Mind: 11

    Spirit: 11

    Presence: 7

    Traits: [Sapient Plant 1-A], [Tree Heritage 1-C]

    Skills: [Growth Spurt 1-B]

    "Ah. A system. The isekai novels got it right, then. Okay, can I get the down-low on what all of these mean? Starting with the Attributes?"

    The system obliged her.

    Strength: Increases the amount of force your body can output. Marginally reduces the amount of physical damage received.

    Toughness: Increases the amount of maximum health you have.

    Constitution: Increases the speed of your body''s recovery from damage and fatigue.

    Mind: Increases your reaction speed and the ability to process information. Slightly increases your mana control.

    Spirit: Increases the amount of maximum mana you can store and the rate of its recovery. Increases your control over mana.

    Presence: Increases your ontological weight, helping you inflict and resist reality-altering effects. An object or being with zero presence ceases to exist.

    She was familiar with most of the concepts, however Presence gave her pause. Ontological weight? There is a stat for how real things are?

    The existence of mana meant magic, but how was magic different from altering reality?

    The system provided no response.

    "Welp. Maybe later, then. Now, what are those Traits and Skills? What''s the difference?

    Trait: a passive ability perpetually altering you.

    Skill: an active ability you may choose to use, typically costing stamina and/or mana.

    Each Trait and each Skill has a level, improved with your understanding of it and increasing the effects of the Trait/Skill, and a tier, which determines the magnitude and/or complexity of the Trait/Skill.

    [Sapient Plant]

    Level 1, tier A

    As a plant that has achieved sapience, you are able to direct the way your body grows.

    "Wait, that''s it? This is an A tier Trait, you said the tiers make it better!"

    Tier is marked from the first letter of the alphabet marking the lowest tier, and later letters marking higher tiers. A is the lowest possible tier.

    "That is... counter-intuitive. Alright, continue with the Traits and Skills, then."

    [Tree Heritage]

    Level 1, tier C

    Your body is a biological descendant of a plant with a tree body plan. Your bark skin has a multiplier of 250% to its resilience. Your sap blood causes you to bleed at 60% the typical rate for humanoids, and quickly hardens in exposure to air to seal your wounds. Your body can store 200% as much nutrients as is typical for your weight. You may sprout roots to extract nutrients from the soil.

    "Now that''s a trait. Seems my body lends itself well to tanking damage. What about the Skill?"

    [Growth Spurt]

    Level 1, tier B

    Pour mana into a part of your body to rapidly accelerate the development of new growths, including replacement of lost body parts. Consumes much more energy than the same growth would naturally.

    "That''s nice. Especially with my low Constitution."

    Satisfied with her understanding of her new capabilities, the dryad was forced to confront the elephant in the room:

    She had no earthly idea where she was.

    All around her there was utterly nothing. The grey-brown surface stretched on with no landmarks except the tree she climbed out of (or was born from?) And the giant black pillar on the horizon.

    Wait, what was that last part?

    As she focused her eyes (thank whatever gods may be that she still had eyes) on the horizon, there was something like a dark spire, partially obscured by the curvature of whatever planet she found herself on. The structure seemed to touch the sky itself, conjuring an image of Atlas holding up the firmament. But the most notable feature for her was the little something that moved down from the top of the giant pillar. It moved quite fast, a rectangle held up by... rope? Some kind of line.

    It was an elevator.

    More broadly, a machine. And machines meant people.

    It was even odds if said people were human or tree folk like her, in her mind, and completely unknown if they would shoot her on sight with magic bows or just regular old guns. But that was the only real sign of something other than bare ground or a small boulder every few kilometers.

    She knew she would go mad without people. She didn''t remember it all that well, thanks to the rending of her soul that brought her to this place, but she knew she had already experienced total isolation in her past, and it did not end well.

    She needed people. People meant companionship. People meant answers.

    And so, she began the long trek to the black spire on the horizon.

 2. Walking the earth

    The journey was, most of all, boring.

    "There is nothing here. Nothing!" The dryad complained.

    It must have been hours at this point, and the black pillar didn''t seem any closer than when she began walking. She was starting to feel thirsty, too. Not surprising. I''m a plant. She thought.

    Then, she remembered her [Tree Heritage] trait. She apparently could sprout roots and sink them into the ground. Maybe there was some water beneath the dusty earth?

    She had nothing to lose, the journey would take ages either way, so she stopped, and planted her not-feet firmly on the ground.

    "How do I activate this? Do I just think at it?"

    She imagined her legs growing roots that then snaked their way through the soil, and as she did, she felt tingling from her trunks. It worked!

    It was, however, slow. Almost literally like watching grass grow.

    "Okay, time to speed things up. [Growth Spurt]!"

    She was pretty sure she didn''t need to exclaim the ability''s name, but it felt good, and there was no one around to criticize her.

    She imagined her roots accelerate their growth, and felt something pull at her... that''s weird. It''s like it''s pulling at me, but not at my body. Is this my soul?

    She felt something drain out of that weird part of her and flow into her roots, which now grew much quicker. She stopped the process after a few seconds. This took energy, and she hadn''t seen anything resembling food around, so she had to use the Skill sparingly.

    Then again, I have leaves for hair, maybe I can just photosynthesize?

    Leaving that topic for later, she instead focused her senses on the new appendages. The roots reached a few meters down, and... yes, that was moisture! The roots had something between touch and taste, so she could feel wetness brush against her, but it didn''t feel like moist earth. It must have broke through into an air pocket of some kind. No, the moisture felt more like... ew, is that spit?!

    Something was licking her roots, and oh boy, is that a sentence. She moved the touched root to swat at whatever the thing was, and received a bite for her troubles.

    "Shit! What is that thing?"

    The "thing" didn''t dignity her with an answer, and instead bit harder into her wooden flesh.

    "Ow! Stop that! Fuck this, I''m out."

    She concentrated at reabsorbing her roots back into her legs. She wasn''t sure if that was something she could do before she tried, but her body obeyed her wishes. Again, slowly. But not as slowly as it took to sprout the roots in the first place. After a dozen seconds or so, she had uprooted herself and stumbled away.

    Behind her, there was a rumbling.

    That thing must be really hungry to chase after me like that.

    The creature burst forth from the ground, scattering dust around itself like a miniature volcano erupting.

    It was a giant insect. Giant, as in, about twice the size of a house cat. It had three sharp teeth protruding from its wide maw, a snake-like tongue dancing between them. Its whole carapace was pale white, covered in grey hairs. Its six legs looked like a misconception of how regular insects worked: they were ended in sharp claw-like points that dug into the ground, instead of small, flattened digits that real insects possess.

    The only saving grace was that the monster lacked any eyes, so it wouldn''t notice if she just slowly walked away...

    Before she could take a proper step away, the thing snapped its head in her direction, tongue extended to taste the air.

    It can''t see me, but it can smell me. She realised.

    "Fuck it. Come at me, then! I always wanted to know what bugs taste like!"

    The creature charged at her.

    She imagined her arms becoming long spears, activating [Growth Spurt] again to hasten the transformation. Just as the sharp points formed, the monster was upon her.

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    With her best approximation of a war cry, which amounted to a weird sort of groan, she stabbed her right spear-arm at her enemy.

    It threw itself to the side, but she managed to scratch its carapace a little, transparent hemolymph oozing out of the crack.

    The giant bug released a shrill screech of pain, and rushed at her once more.

    With the size of her new arms, she genuinely wasn''t expecting the creature to survive the first hit, so she was completely unprepared for retaliation. It turned out she wasn''t a fighter in her previous life.

    The three teeth sunk into her bark and pierced through, firmly attaching the beast''s maw to her left leg.

    Then, it began to suck.

    She could feel the piercing pain and the extremely uncomfortable sensation of her sap-blood being drained from her. She failed around in pain and panic, falling to the ground.

    The hit in the head emptied her mind briefly, letting productive thoughts in once more.

    I need to kill it. Now.

    She stabbed the monster again. With it stuck to her, it couldn''t have dodged if it tried, and it was too absorbed with its meal to even notice her fight back. She pierced its chitin armor deeply, spear sinking into the soft goo beneath.

    She pulled out, and struck with the other arm.

    And again.

    The beast was no longer moving, but she pierced it three more times, just to be sure.

    You fought your first enemy and persevered. Level up!

    +5 attribute points.

    "Well, that''s nice. Sure was worth almost getting killed." She remarked sarcastically between quick breaths. Or rather, she thought she would be breathing quickly, but she realised that, aside from taking air in to speak, she didn''t much need to breathe.

    "So I am photosynthesizing. As long as there''s light and carbon dioxide, I don''t need to breathe, then. Presumably. Maybe."

    She sat there, stating at the corpse of the giant bird-like thing that tried to suck her dry for nutrients and water. And she realised she could probably return the favor.

    After all, that''s why she let down roots in the first place.

    She could just eat it, she supposed, but the thing looked like it had a disgusting texture, in and out, plus she had no clue how to go about butchering it.

    Instead, she forced her roots into the corpse.

    They slid in much easier than into the ground. The insides of the creature were disturbingly soft and sliding into them made her quite uncomfortable, but it definitely beat having to eat the thing instead.

    She waited for something to happen, before realising she had full control over her growths, which meant she had to specifically think of absorbing the nutrients from the "soil". Once she gave the command, though, the process required no concentration.

    It was, as was becoming a trend, slow going. She supposed trees aren''t exactly known for doing anything swiftly. She spent the time to look over her gains from the fight. It seemed she only got the single level and 5 Attribute points to allocate.

    First, she put three in Constitution. The Attribute was lacking for what she immediately decided was a tank build. It''s nice to have a large health pool, but it''s better if that health also recovers faster.

    The other two points went into Spirit. She needed more mana to grow things on the fly. Adaptation was key to survival.

    She supposed she could upgrade her Presence, as it was her lowest Attribute, but she didn''t understand it enough to invest in it.

    Species: Dryad lvl 2 (clade: Awakened Plants)

    Class: -

    Health: 185/200

    Mana: 81/130

    Attributes:

    Strength: 13

    Toughness: 20

    Constitution: 12

    Mind: 11

    Spirit: 13

    Presence: 7

    Traits: [Sapient Plant 1-A], [Tree Heritage 1-C]

    Skills: [Growth Spurt 1-B]

    Now, there was nothing left to do but wait for her roots to finish their meal.

    It took about half an hour by her estimation. The time oassing and the nutrients from the bug corpse helped her heal some of the damage she sustained in the fight, and she no longer felt thirsty, so on the whole, she considered the scuffle worth it.

    With the corpse drained utterly, leaving behind only a pale, empty shell, she reabsorbed her roots, and continued her march towards the distant pillar.

    "This is so fucking boring." She complained for the twenty eighth time. She kept count.

    Over the hours, the light that seem to come from every point in the sky hadn''t grown no disappeared. In other words, there was no day or night in this place. No way to know that time was passing.

    No variety. Boredom.

    She grew some more leaves on her back and arms, mostly to do something, but also because she didn''t know when she would encounter the next source of food, so she decided to increase her are of catching the dim light.

    Even the novelty of being a plant had worn off.

    Whenever she started feeling thirsty, she rooted herself again. From time to time, she happened upon a small pocket of water underground, which at this point was enough variety to be genuinely exciting. She had yet to find any living being aside from herself and the giant bug she ate, though.

    Every second "watering cycle", once she soaked her thirst, she would stay rooted for a while, falling asleep standing. She had no way of knowing how long she slept, of course, but nothing had ever woken her up, so it didn''t matter. Time didn''t matter.

    The only thing that mattered was survival, and the pillar. The pillar that was slowly, agonisingly slowly, filling more of the horizon. She was getting closer. She would arrive there, eventually.

    And that thought kept her mind intact. Mostly.

 3. A surprisingly warm welcome

    Something changed.

    There was a tiny dot on the horizon, next to the pillar. The dot started moving in her direction.

    It took her a while to notice the movement, but after an hour she was sure of it. The dot was getting bigger, and therefore closer.

    Change! She didn''t care if the speck was going to hunt her down or help her out, it was a break in the dull monotony of what must at this point have been weeks of walking. She ran to meet it.

    It was approaching fast. Another change; something that wasn''t happening at a snail''s pace.

    Soon, she could tell the shape of the thing. Boxy. Definitely not natural, the angles were too sharp to be a living thing. It was grey, but not the same grey that the dusty ground of the wasteland, more like unpolished metal. And its movement kicked up the dust beneath it.

    A vehicle. She was right! The pillar meant civilisation!

    It was close now. She could hear the noise of an engine, the dirt flying away as it used some sort of air cushion to move. Only now she could truly appreciate how fast the vehicle was moving.

    It slowed down, and finally stopped a few meters from her.

    Large metal door slid up, and out came three people.

    At least, she assumed they were people; while they weren''t human, they drove a vehicle, so surely they were intelligent enough to earn the status of a person.

    The one in the front was a tall, lanky, green skinned man wearing some sort of black uniform. He had no hair and a single horn in the middle of his forehead.

    Behind him, there were two blue-scaled creatures of a centaur-esque body plan. Four muscular legs like those of a comodo dragon, their torso then curving upwards with a pair of mostly human arms. Each reptilian held a shockingly normal looking assault rifle. They wore the same shade of black on their lower torsos, but their upper chests were exposed.

    "Good job on surviving." The green man spoke. "We''re here to help you get to Citadel. We don''t mean any harm, and you can of course refuse. But seeing as you''ve probably been making your way to us for quite a while now, it would be easier to just hitch a ride with us."

    He wasn''t speaking English, she realised, and yet she could understand him perfectly.

    "How can I understand what you''re saying?" She asked.

    The green man smiled. "Always interesting to see what people aske about first. The system implements knowledge of a shared language into every newcomer. We call it the oldspeak. Now, we are scouts, not teachers, but you can ask a few things while ride back. Assuming you''re coming with us?"

    She nodded hastily. The three creatures went back into the odd vehicle, and she followed them.

    The green man sat down in the front seat, while the reptilians sat on the ground in the back of the vehicle and strapped themselves into some kind of harness. She supposed they couldn''t exactly sit down on a chair.

    She elected to seat in the front, next to the green pilot of this...

    "What''s is this vehicle?"

    "Maglev. Short for magical levitation. The bottom creates a field magically attuned to the opposite properties than that of the ground of the Barren, and shifts the field to create propulsion. The fastest method of travel short of teleportation, but that takes too much energy." The pilot explained as he started the vehicle up.

    "The Barren... is that what''s this place called? Place, planet?"

    "Yes. As to whether this is a planet... complicated. As I''m sure you''ve noticed, there isn''t much in the way of anything in the sky. Hard to do astronomy without any ''astro'', eh? You could call it a planet, a world, a dimension... all we know for sure it''s that in the oldspeak it''s named the Barren, and that we ain''t leaving it. Many tried."

    "So no going back home?"

    "Nope. The rifts are only one way, dimensional shifting doesn''t work, divination of anything from the outside fails. Crap, I forgot to ask you if you even had magic where you come from."

    "We didn''t, but we had stories. I can kind of deduce what you''re talking about." She assured him.

    "A smart one. Good. Living here ain''t easy. Keep your senses wide open, your wits sharp, and a watch nearby. That''s what my father taught me."

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    "Your father? So you were born here?"

    "Yes. The Barren lacks many things, inter-species barriers being one of them. So even though rifters - that is people who got dropped in here through a rift, like you - come from all sorts of different worlds and are varied in species, we can still have kids with each other."

    "Huh. So I still need to wear protection?"

    The green man laughed.

    "Good to see you have a sense of humor. Just getting enough food and water and whatever else you need isn''t all that survival depends on. If you get too depressed, too bored... eventually you stop caring. About others. About yourself. Then you starve with a plate of food in front of you, because you can''t be bothered to take a bite. We call it Greying out." He frowned. "Seen a bunch of folks end up that way. The worst way to go, I''d say."

    She sighed. "You don''t have to tell me about it. I had at most two interesting things happen to me here, and one of them was me waking up stuck in a tree. Walking was so long. Nothing was changing! That''s why your dad said to keep a watch on you, right? So you can tell that time is actually passing."

    The pilot nodded. "Most people here were not designed by a god or a scientist. They evolved. People are meant to adapt to their environment, but when there''s nothing to adapt to, your mind can''t cope with that. It''s why I took the job as a scout. I get to meet new rifters, talk to them. Pay is good, too, but the variety was the selling point."

    "Pay... so this isn''t exactly fully automated luxury gay space communism, huh?" She quipped.

    "I understood only most of those words." He admitted.

    "Didn''t you say we magically speak oldspeak?" She frowned, confused.

    "If there''s an equivalent in oldspeak, you will instinctively replace the word you meant with the oldspeak version. But if you say something that''s unique to your world, there isn''t an equivalent, so you just say the word as if you were speaking your original language." He explained. "Or that''s how it supposedly works, I only know oldspeak to begin with."

    "Long story short, I was making a joke."

    "Oh, no no no no no." He shook his head. "I''m not passing this up. Outside concepts? I gotta hear that.

    "Okay, which words didn''t get translated?"

    "The first one was ''gey'', and the other was ''com-moon-ism''."

    Well, that doesn''t bode well.

    "Okay, I kinda get how it didn''t go through, they are two a bit complicated concepts. Stop me if I say another thing that doesn''t go through. First, ''gay'' is generally meant when talking about a man that''s attracted to other men, though it is also sometimes used to refer to anyone that isn''t in ''straight''."

    "Okay, I got all of those words, but... why do you have a word for that?" He asked, bewildered. "That''s just a thing everyone does at some point."

    "Does ''homophobia'' translate?"

    His confusion grew. "It does. Again, why would anyone care?"

    She laughed, a note of sadness clearly audible in it. "My species, my original species, that is, has a wide array of tribalistic instincts. Figuring out what doesn''t belong so the tribe can be safe. Excluding, say, murderers. Unfortunately, those instincts can be leveraged to make people seem dangerous by focusing on their differences. Playing on the fear of the unknown. Every so often a society would be taken over by a movement who defined very strictly what''s ''normal'', and got rid of anyone else. Hatred like that isn''t a stable foundation for a country, however, so these things fall apart. Everyone says ''never again'', but the whole thing repeats in a couple of decades."

    The pilot sighed. "That''s... sad. I''m sorry. In Citadel, we don''t really care how you look, or what you do with others, as long as they know what they''re getting into and are okay with it."

    "That''s nice. I''ve had communities like that, but to see a whole society that''s tolerant is a great relief."

    "What about that second word?"

    She groaned.

    "How does money here work?"

    It quickly turned out that Citadel operated on a system that was sort of in-between capitalism and true socialism. Yes, there were still those who owned capital, but everyone''s basic needs were provided for. Food and housing was abundant there, so everyone got their share of it regardless if or where they worked. It was good enough for her personal needs to be satisfied, though the idealist in her screamed to start a revolution as soon as she set foot out of the maglev.

    "Your model doesn''t work here, though." The green pilot shook his head. "They don''t just own the ''means of production'', as you say. The council is made up of long lived, high level, powerful individuals. A few of them were there when the colony was founded, and they''ve been growing in power ever since. If you try to rebel against them, they''d crush you with a blink."

    "Welp, I guess it''s back to trying to survive in an imperfect system. I''m not gonna get myself killed just to have a moral high ground. There''s even odds I''ll publish a manifesto, though. How are things here with censorship?"

    They talked like that through the rest of the trip, until finally, the maglev sat down on the ground before Citadel.

    Up close, the spire was enormous. She recalled a tale of mortals who were trying to build a tower that would reach heaven. Unlike the story, this one seemed to have succeeded. No matter how high she raised her gaze, the gigantic structure just kept going.

    It looked like made out of the blackest obsidian glass, though any illusion of it being in any way brittle was shattered by its mere size. On the sides, there were several elevators built, going up and down on scheduled trips, delivering packed goods to the top, and going down empty save for the worker delivering the crates.

    Below, though utterly eclipsed by the black spire, was another impressive sight. A city, full of skyscrapers and two-story buildings alike, structures resembling familiar metropolis architecture neighbored creations of simple looking smooth stone, with futuristic-looking steel hangars peppered in among them.

    It was a sprawling monument of eclecticism of style and technology from millions of different worlds and cultures. She felt inspired by the sight. If she trusted the scout who found her, this place was, despite being located in the Barren, much more hospitable to someone like her than the dimension she was ripped from.

    Whether she liked it or not, she got a new start, and she would use it to its fullest.

 4. Bureaucracy is a constant in all of multiverse

    She was directed to follow the two reptilian centaurs. The three walked silently from the dusty dirt of the Barren and onto the lighter grey pavement of civilisation. After a few minutes they entered a modern (to her, at least) five story office building, arriving in an open space resembling a hotel reception hall.

    "Ah, you are the rifter Kralok was sent to bring." A high pitched voice commented from the reception desk. "I''ll call your case worker, she''ll be here soon."

    The receptionist was almost human looking, save for having hot pink skin and a disproportionately large head. They pressed a few of the buttons protruding from their desk, and leaned back on their chair, their job seemingly done.

    At this point, her escorts left the building, so the dryad was resigned to waiting another couple of minutes while standing in front of the receptionist in awkward silence.

    Eventually, her case worker arrived. They - she, from what the receptionist said - was the most alien person the dryad had come across so far. Her body was a large orb of white metal, her limbs dozens of flexible cables sticking out from small slits on the orb that constantly opened and closed, propelling the mechanical creature by a mix of pushing, walking, and rolling on the ground. While the movements seemed chaotic and haphazard, there was a certain rhythm to them that brought to mind a team of synchronised dancers.

    "Hello! My name is Rusty! I''ve been assigned as your case worker for your integration into Citadel."

    Rusty''s voice was distinctly artificial, like a synthesizer, with crackles like radio noise sprinkled on top. Nonetheless, it was still recognisibly feminine.

    "Come with me, we''ll take care of the papers in my office."

    They walked through a short corridor, before one of Rusty''s many cable tendrils pressed against a handle-less door, which opened upwards in response.

    The dryad followed in with some trepidation. Now that the novelty of receiving stimuli again had worn off, she realized how lost she felt. A new world which she knew next to nothing about, with no people she could call friends... She felt anxious.

    Especially as she just now realised she had been naked all this time. Then again, her "escort detail" wore nothing below their upper torsos, despite the fact they did have organs to hide there, so perhaps nudity wasn''t anything remarkable here.

    "You may sit on the chair or lay down on any of the other seats." Rusty gestured around the office, where a regular armchair stood, among backless sofas and pillows and other furniture she couldn''t quite recognise, the most perplexing of which was a tall latticed fence.

    She sank her wooden bottom into the cushioned armchair. Rusty nestled herself into a circle shaped hole in the ceiling, her limbs holding up a mundane looking pen and a clipboard.

    "Now, I''m going to ask you a bunch of questions relating to how you arrived in the Barren. First, though, what name and pronouns should I use to refer to you?"

    The dryads eyes widened in a sudden realisation. "I don''t... I don''t remember my name!"

    "Don''t worry, that''s okay. This just means you can now choose one!" Rusty responded cheerfully.

    "I suppose. But, what should I choose?" She scratched her head.

    "Well, usually, nameless rifters choose a name that references their homeworld culture, or one that represents an ideal they strive for. I chose Rusty, because my chassis was thoroughly rusted through before I arrived here. The scout that found me helped me restore myself. I never wanted to forget their kindness. We later became partners for fifteen years. But that''s enough about me!" Rusty stopped her rambling with a nervous laughter.

    The dryad thought about what direction she should go here. She was a tree person now, so she thought it fitting to name herself after a tree.

    "Oak" was the first one that came to mind. Her bark looked remarkably like that of an oak tree, and it was sort of the "default" tree in her mind. But that name felt... taken. She was pretty sure she knew someone on Earth who already had that name.

    She briefly went over all the different types of trees she knew. Pine and Elm felt off for no particular reason. Ash was out due to the fiery implications. Eaucalyptus was a mouthful... but it reminded her of another tree that grew in the same environment. One that wa sussed for food, wood, and some varieties were even toxic. A many-faceted, yet for some reason often overlooked tree. What''s more, the name of the tree had a nice ring to it.

    "My name is going to be... Acacia." The dryad finally decided. "Oh, and I use she/her pronouns."

    Rusty''s cables whipped into a frenzy, writing the information down.

    "Wonderful! So, you didn''t remember your name, I''m assuming there are other memory problems?"

    "Yes, I can''t remember many details of my previous life. My planet was called Earth, I had friends whose names and faces escape me, my family was alive, but I didn''t have a great relationship with them... there is lots of things that feel a certain way, but I can''t tell why." Acacia laid out.

    "I see..." Rusty hummed as she kept writing. "I have a theory. What is your earliest memory from when you were already in the Barren?"

    "Uhh... darkness. I was stuck, and constricted, and I thought I was buried alive, and I struggled to escape, and when I finally did, it turned out I was stuck in a dead tree, and now I''m also a tree."

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    Rusty''s pen stopped for a moment.

    "So you weren''t the same species in your homeworld?"

    "No, I was what we called ''human''. I had the same silhouette as I do now, but I was made out of meat and not wood."

    Rusty flipped some switch to the other in her "chair" and a console popped out from the ceiling. She tapped at it furiously with her cables for a good minute.

    "You seem to have experienced a soul rend." She finally concluded.

    "That doesn''t sound very good." Acacia stated the obvious.

    "Usually, the rifts that transport matter into the Barren are either big enough to swallow objects up to the size of this room, or small enough that nothing but a few particles of air make their way through. Either way, they cannot split objects apart due to complex magical reasons I''m not qualified to explain. That''s usually, though. Some rifts are unstable, and collapse in the middle of transferring something. As you might imagine, whatever was stuck midway gets horribly mangled as a result."

    "So I was halfway through a rift, and then it collapsed?"

    "Oh, no, in that case, you''d be in your original body, and you would quickly die due to suddenly missing a large chunk of it. Another detail about rifts is that they don''t appear just in the physical world."

    "Wait, let me try to guess. You called it a ''soul rend''. So I''m guessing this means souls are real, and a rift appeared on whatever layer of reality they exist on, and I was unfortunate enough that mine fell partway through as the rift was collapsing."

    "Precisely!"

    "Why are you so cheerful about that?!"

    "Well you survived, didn''t you? And, although you have no knowledge of souls or other magical sciences, you have a good intuition for it, which will be very useful to you in your new life!"

    Acacia raised a finger, but lowered it after a second. "I suppose. But how is that scenario any different than getting bisected by a closing rift normally? How am I alive?"

    "A soul is a vessel constructed by the mind, to contain and protect the mind. And do magic, but you''ll learn more about that later. Point is, its main purpose is to ensure your mind has space to grow and to keep it safe. Your soul got ripped away from your body, which damaged your mind, but didn''t kill it. Once the soul landed on this side, however damaged, it was still intact enough to instinctively anchor itself back to a body. The body it landed in wasn''t very compatible, from what you said, so you magically altered the new body until outright rejection wasn''t an issue. The system handled the rest. Your default Presence was below ten, correct?"

    "Uh, yes. But-"

    "It is most likely due to the strain of keeping your body from rejecting your soul. I reccomend increasing your Presence in the future."

    "But how did I do magic? I didn''t even know magic was real until I looked at the system, after I crawled out of the tree!"

    "It is very impressive, indeed. The fact that you survived this shows an incredible aptitude for magic. Though, again, I suggest you raise your Presence before you try learning any spells not given by the system. It might genuinely cause you to die, and it won''t be a painless death."

    "Im just going to think out loud for a second. My soul got ripped out of my body, and I managed to anchor myself to a nearby tree and mold it into a humanoid shape. Just off of pure talent. I can bend reality to my whim, and I don''t even have to think about it."

    "Well, no. You have an enor.pus magical potential, but reality bending is something altogether different."

    "How is magic not bending reality?"

    "Reality bending is- ah, here I go, getting distracted again. I''m just supposed to gather your background information right now. I''ll give you a proper introduction later, I promise."

    Acacia sighed. "Alright, i know bureaucracy when I see it. But I will pick your shiny orb-head-thing for this as soon as we''re done with this."

    "That was incredibly insensitive." Rusty responded, her voice suddenly serious.

    "Really? Shit, I''m sorry, I don''t-"

    Rusty generated a sound between chortling and grinding of metal. "I''m just kidding!" She laughed with her previous enthusiasm. "Sorry, I like to joke around a bit. Anyway. You said your honeworld had no magical development?"

    Acacia blinked. She then shrugged. At least it''s not boring anymore.

    "Magic was never confirmed to be anything beyond a superstition. Gods either didn''t exist or didn''t influence the world, which as far as I''m concerned means the same thing."

    "I''m guessing your society developed using mundane, physics-compliant technology, then?"

    "Yes. Industrial machinery, electronics with high computational power... I''d like to think we also understood the rules of physics pretty well, too. Not myself, I didn''t even pass college, but scientists were studying the smallest particles comprising reality, even using their properties for research. And warfare. If there''s one thing our species did well, it was killing each other."

    Rusty was diligently noting. "You said ''your species''... what about others? Or was yourself the only sapient species?"

    "It was only us humans, though some animals came close to what I''d consider sapience. We never left our home star system, so there was a chance there was someone else out there we just never came across... I guess I''ll never learn that, though."

    "Oh? Your species was capable of leaving your home planet? Without magic?"

    "Yeah, though it took a lot of calculations, careful engineering, and expensive materials. We had humans walk on the surface of our moon, but anywhere further than that we only sent unmanned vehicles to analyse samples."

    "To figure out where to best settle?" Rusty guessed.

    "Uhh... kind of. I''m pretty sure we could figure out if a planet was habitable just by analysing how light bounced off of it, with the samples being a mor in-depth confirmation, but frankly, we just did that to know."

    "To know?"

    "Yeah, just... to learn. I think that''s out best quality. Curiosity. We literally named one of the space rovers ''Curiosity.'' Not to say animals weren''t curious, but we could actually look more in depth at the world. Every bad instinct we had, the prejudices, fear... curiosity is an antidote for that. You hate and fear what you don''t know. Maybe if we learned everything, we would never have to fear anymore."

    Acacia sat in silence after that for a while.

    "Sorry." She eventually said. "I think about this a lot. Even without you prompting me, I''d spend a lot of time thinking about humans. If, on the whole, we are good or bad. If we ought to self destruct. I don''t remember the specifics, but I wasn''t... healthy. Mentally, I mean. Humans did some truly awful stuff to eachother. But we''re getting better, I think. I hope so, at least. Not really something I''ll see or participate in anymore. Well, now the question is, how are people here. Do you have any more questions, or can we get to the explanation part?"

    Rusty quickly went through her notes, typing again into the console.

    "Okay, your file is done, we can now go to your new house and you can ask me anything you want on the way. Do keep in mind I''m just a clerk and not a scholar of magic nor technology. I only know about them what everyone here ought to know."

    Rusty disentagled herself from her seat on the ceiling, and Acacia stood up from her chair to follow her.

    "Okay, so what was that about magic and reality bending being different?"

 5. A stroll through the streets

    "On the surface, magic and reality bending both allow you to do otherwise impossible things." Rusty began. "However, the two disciplines go about it in opposite ways.

    "Magic uses mana, a kind of energy that every mind generates, to bind symbols and meaning and impose them upon the world. It allows you to ignore the rules of reality because you use a different set of rules instead; one of thoughts and references. The problem with this is that sustaining most effects requires a constant supply of mana, otherwise the spiritual realm - the part of reality in which souls and other immaterial concepts reside - recedes, and with it the rules that govern it, and regular laws of physics apply once again.

    "Reality bending, on the other hand, is forcing the laws of physics themselves to change in a given area. While a mage would make themselves lighter by, say, imbibing their body with the concept of weightlessness, a reality bender would force gravity to affect them to a lesser extent. The problem with this method is that it requires the user to have a stronger Presence than the area they are in, and aside from spending Attribute points, there aren''t many easy ways to gain more, and to actually bend reality in a meaningful way you need quite a lot of it."

    "So magic ignores the rules of reality, while reality bending overwrites them?" Acacia summarised.

    "Essentially, yes."

    "In that case, I don''t understand why casting with low Presence could kill me."

    "Presence is a measure of how ''real'' you are, as far as mundane physics are concerned. The lower the Presence, the weaker your ties to conventional reality, and magic further erodes that connection. Specifically, stray mana does. System-provided spells come with knowledge on how to cast them on an almost masterful level, meaning mana loss is negligible, and won''t affect you. But trying to learn a spell on your own will initially be very wasteful, and that wasted mana gets released around you, bringing the spiritual realm closer. And if you lack Presence to anchor yourself, move the spiritual recedes... you will leave with it. Stuck as a pure concept until your very being erodes to nothing but a cloud of stray thoughts."

    That sent a shiver down Acacia''s spine.

    "I thought you said you don''t know much about this stuff." She quickly changed the subject.

    "Yes, this is basic education for new rifters and any children born here. We refer to those as locals, by the way. Since the system provides many different avenues for one''s development, Citadel''s government decided to introduce people to all the available paths."

    The two were now passing by a street lined with multiple-story apartment buildings. Despite that, Acacia only spotted a couple of people - half of them what could more or less be described as humanoid - walking the dark grey walkways.

    She had a more pressing question than that first, however.

    "What even is the system? I understand that here it''s a fact of life, but on Earth things like this were only present in games or other fiction."

    Rusty''s features lit up, which was impressive considering she possessed no face.

    "Time for a history lesson! So, from what we know, the Barren wasn''t always, well, barren. It was a chaotic mess of materials and creatures rifted in from millions of universes, constantly changing. Naturally, this meant that surviving here was incredibly difficult. The creator god wanted it to-"

    "Hold on, god?" Acacia interrupted her. "So deities, or, at least one deity, are real, confirmed phenomena? Or is this a creation myth you''re telling me?"

    "Gods are real, in quite a few worlds." Rusty confirmed. "In short, they are very powerful mages and reality benders in one. A god is someone who has entrenched themself so deeply in both the spiritual and the physical layers of existence that they are impossible to truly destroy. The vast majority of worlds were created by some god or another.

    "Anyway. As I was saying, the Barren''s creator planned for this world to be a deity breeding ground of sorts. Adversity requires adaptation, and with power comes more adaptability, so in a constantly shifting world, people would have no choice but to get progressively stronger. Until they would achieve godhood themselves. Or die, of course.

    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    "To aid in this, the god set up the system. It''s... the simplest way I can describe it is an angel factory that produces a dedicated being to monitor and aid every sapient. What we call ''the system'' is actually a myriad of angels, each serving as an incentive and reinforcement for their assigned person."

    "Angels." Acacia deadpanned. "Like, with wings and dozens of eyes. Those angels?"

    Rusty laughed in that grinding, chortling way again.

    "An angel is an sentient creation of a god, a spiritual machine given a specific purpose. In this case, the system angels manage enhancing you, embedding skills and traits into your body, mind, and soul, and rewarding you with more resources to do all of that for you pushing your limits and becoming more skilled with what you already have."

    "So, train, fight, and otherwise advance, and my guardian angel will reward me with more power."

    "Exactly!"

    Acacia nodded. "Okay, time to address the elephant in the room, or rather, the lack thereof. Where is everyone? This is a metropolis, how come there''s no one on the streets? No traffic?"

    Rusty seemed to tense up, even as the two kept walking. "I suppose it is the time to explain the... socioeconomic situation in Citadel. We are now in what''s called the inner city. Most people live on the outskirts. To live in the inner city, you must rent a home here, which is usually too expensive for most. Additionally, about three months ago we had a particularly sizeable dust mite stampede, which dealt a blow to our population. Still, the colony endures."

    "So, there''s thousands of buildings sitting empty, just because the rulers decided to charge a lot of money for them? How different are the accommodations between here and outskirts, anyway?"

    "The dwelling on the outskirts are much simpler, shops have less luxury goods, and the bare minimum sustenance is ''bland'' from what I heard. Inner city is much more comfortable in comparison, and provides more opportunities of entertainment like theaters or restaurants. This is to encourage people to make greater contributions to our economy."

    Acacia was rolling her eyes. It seemed to her like a caricature of the already despicable capitalistic practices from Earth, with the notable exception of not having to work just to survive. Then again, considering that people didn''t age and "greying out" was instead the leading cause of death, barring entertainment behind a hefty paywall was similar.

    "What''s the government like?"

    "The most influential rulers are twelve Councillors forming the Council of Citadel. Their rules are final, but even people as strong as them have cognitive limits, so in their stead, Directors are appointed to take charge of the various sectors the colony is divided into. Directors decide the law in their appointed sector, subject to the Council, of course, and are replaced every fifty years."

    "Fifty?!" Acacia repeated, shocked.

    "Yes. A Director may not be re-appointed to rule again in any sector after their term is over, though."

    "What if the Director is clearly unfit to lead?"

    "Then you are free to move to a different sector. Right to decide which sector you live in is protected by the constitution. Or, if you really want to, you can kill the current Director to take their place. And yes, it is an official policy. If you can prove you''re the one who killed them, you take their position. The official reason is to support the original purpose of the system, that being strife driving progress."

    "And the unofficial reason?"

    Rusty moved her orb close to Acacia''s face and lowered her voice. "To make sure revolutions gather against the lower management and not the Council."

    Acacia widened her eyes, surprised at the sudden honesty and the seriousness in her guide''s tone.

    "I''ve introduced thousands to Citadel, I get a good read on people. You''re smart enough to know how this type of system works, and idealistic enough to try do something about it given the potential that the System gives you. You''ll stir something up, sooner or later. Good. I''m no combatant, I won''t join whatever riot you cause. But I can give you some advice. The Council are a bunch of old monsters. ''Turn the whole city to rubble in an hour'' level monsters, each and every one of them. You need to get strong, though they''ll notice when you get too strong yourself. So you also need people. Lots of them, strong themselves. Your best bet is signing up as a scavenger. Dangerous job, which means you''ll grow fast, and your coworkers will too. Until it''s go time, try to stay low."

    Acacia slowly nodded. "I''m surprised you''re so amicable to... my plans. And you are right, if I can do magic I do want to explode a rich dude with my mind. A full fledged revolution, though... sounds scary. And tempting. I might do it, I might not. Thanks for the tips. I''m assuming they''re from experience?"

    Rusty bobbed her orb up and down to emulate nodding. That the mechanical woman didn''t elaborate was telling enough.

    Acacia took a deep breath. "Alright, I''m just gonna act as if these past few minutes didn''t happen, then. So, organisation. What''s the currency, how do yall tell the time, the sort of things necessary to participate the day to day life here."

    Rusty launched into a long explanation, her tone cheery as if no suspicious exchange occurred.

 6. A new face

    As Rusty mentioned, the dwelling Acacia got assigned was far from the height of luxury. It was made out of Barren-dust compressed magically into smooth grey walls, floor, and ceiling. The whole space was a single room, with a mattress in one corner, and a small table with a chair in another. Acacia couldn''t identify what any of the three pieces of furniture were made out of, so Rusty explained they were some sort of recycled composite material. Both the furniture and the door where white instead of grey, which was about as much variety as could be expected from the "minimum to survive" Citadel provided.

    "Before I leave you be for today, what do you use for sustenance? And what type of waste do you produce?" Rusty asked. "While you appear organic, it is never good to assume such things."

    "Well, I actually haven''t eaten anything except whatever substitutes sunlight here, and nutrients from some kind of weird giant bug I killed on the way here. I haven''t really pooped, either. I get a feeling I can either do sunlight or normal food for organics, and I need water, too."

    "The bug would most likely be a dust mite. One of the very few species that can thrive in the Barren. They hibernate underground until they sense something approaching, then hunt it down. They sometimes work together, hence the stampede I mentioned."

    "So that''s food covered, I guess. How do you get water? I had to search deep in the ground for it."

    "Waste recycling, scavenging, but mostly deep drilling. There are big water deposits around, and we have the technology to find them. Though water runs are the second most dangerous job you can get. Mites like to lay eggs in the water."

    "The first most dangerous being scavenging?"

    "Correct. Rift outputs are by their nature unpredictable, especially with the bigger rifts. And since the bigger the rift, the bigger the ripple in space time it causes, those are usually the ones the screening teams detect and send people to."

    "Sounds like a perfect job for a newbie like me, then." Acacia commented sarcastically.

    "There are benefits." Rusty defended herself. "More challenge means quicker levelling, and the hazard pay is good. Plus I heard the scrappers let you keep some of the spoils if you ask nicely.

    "But you won''t be allowed to even apply for a job before you spend a bit more time acclimating yourself. You''ll get a teacher, in your case someone good with magic, unless you ask for something else."

    "Nope, magic''s perfect."

    "Very well, then. I''ll be back tomorrow to give you your documents and to introduce your teacher."

    "Uh, one more question." Acacia called out to the robot. "Can I get some clothes? I get that nudity isn''t a problem here, but in my former life, covering up your privates was mandated, and I''ll feel better if my wooden balls aren''t out in the open."

    "I can bring some loin coverings tomorrow, but it will take away most of your starting funds. Is that okay?"

    "Most of my thousand credit fund for a loin cloth?!"

    "Fabric is expensive. There aren''t many plants nor domesticated animals to provide strands to weave, and synthesizing them requires rarer materials. If you really want to cover yourself, I suggest you use your shape changing abilities and grow leaves over the body parts you feel need covering."

    Acacia blinked. "I''m so dumb sometimes." She grumbled.

    --

    Acacia was laying on her bed, staring up at the smooth ceiling of her house. She was long done growing her leaf clothing, feeling like a biblical illustration of the first humans in the garden of Eden. Now, she was waiting for the ten hours that defined a day here to pass, so she could finally get to learning magic. What she could do already was miraculous, of course, she had always wanted to be able to shapeshift, but now that the possibilities were endless, she couldn''t wait to explore the many avenues to power.

    And it was power she was after. She always felt powerless in her former life. Her greatest moments were always when she felt she had wrestled control over herself from the clutches of fate, god, the rich, or whatever it was that she was blaming at the time. Point was, the feeling of control was accompanying all of her accomplishments. And now, she could learn to control reality itself. Impose her own will onto the world. She had literally told a tree to make a new body for her!

    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    But right now, there it was once again. Boredom. The ceiling was smooth, so there wasn''t even any grooves or cracks she could follow with her eyes.

    "Fuck it, might as well check out the neighborhood." She grumbled as she stood up from the mattress. She walked out the door and locked it - she didn''t have anything to steal, but it''s the principle of privacy that mattered here - and his the key in a groove she made in her arm. If she couldn''t get pockets, she would be the pocket.

    Her new neighborhood, Outskirts Sector 5-B, consisted of copy-paste replicas of her own dwelling. Grey boxes of stone raised via earth magic on an infuriatingly even grid. She could swear the distances between the houses and their dimensions were identical to a nanometer. All roads where the same grey compressed dust, and could accommodate two people her size walking next to each other. Since almost no one here owned a vehicle, and the public transport was a bit sparse - the precious few maglev streets were the only disruption to the fractal monotony of the sector - it was enough space for most.

    Most being the operative word, as she observed with some trepidation a bus-sized, centipede-like creature traverse the flat roofs, carrying a large metal crate in their mandibles.

    She waved nervously to them - this gesture was apparently universal - as they passed. They stopped for a moment, and waved back with one of their front legs, before continuing on their way.

    "I''m so fucking good at socialising," she thought.

    After a few minutes of wandering around, she stumbled on a building that was white instead of grey, and took up the space of two dwellings. She obviously couldn''t pass on investigating the most interesting structure in the near vicinity.

    The doorway had no door, and the noises of conversation inside further invited her in.

    It was a restaurant, or rather, the food dispensary. While there were some dishes to buy, the primary purpose here was to grab the free nutrient slab, glass of water, and maybe talk to others during the meal.

    The nice thing was that you could have as much slabs of packed nourishment and as much water as you wished. There was no daily allotment or anything. If you were hungry or thirsty, you could walk up to the counter and get another portion.

    The not-nice thing was that the meals seemed intricately designed to be as bland as physically possible. As Acacia took a bite out of her slab, she was seriously wondering if the meals weren''t magically treated to remove any flavour. The texture wasn''t even unpleasant enough to cause disgust. It was supposed to prevent you from starvation. Nothing more, nothing less.

    "A new face, I see." A person said, sitting down at Acacia''s table as she slowly consumed her meal.

    She looked up from the plate, seeing a bulky humanoid whose body was covered in chitin, their head that of an ant, or perhaps a termite.

    Scalpel, he/him, scavenger living in Sector 5-B.

    She blinked. How the hell did she know those thing about him?

    "You can push a bit of mana into your ID, and it emits a cognitive effect on everyone that''s focusing on you. Handy for introductions. Though I''m guessing you don''t have an ID yet." Scalpel explained as he saw her surprise.

    "How''d you know I''m new here?" She asked.

    "I hang out here a lot, I know by now how everyone in the sector looks." He raised a single clawed finger.

    "You still look in wonder at all the different people, because you''re used to one body type." He raised a second finger.

    "But most telling," he raised a third, "you eat your slab with wide eyes. Because you''re still getting used to how utterly bland these things are. This is the only stimulation you''re getting from this shit, by the way. The wonder of how something so devoid of experience can exist. Well, welcome to the fucking Barren."

    Acacia swallowed another bite. "They are magically siphoning flavour from this shit, right?"

    "The other way around, actually. They imbue the concept of blandness into the slurry before it''s compressed into bars. The alchemist on my team actually uses it to stabilise some magichemical reactions. The food is so bland it stabilised reality."

    Acacia laughed. For the first time since breaking out of the dead tree, she laughed.

    "That''s amazing. I''m Acacia, by the way. Just got my house. Though not my home, if you catch my meaning."

    Scalpel smirked. She thought he did, at least. His mouth was obscured by his mandibles, but apparently, as she got used to speaking in oldspeak, she learned to translate body language as well. "Yeah, the boxes are shit. They aren''t magically boring, thankfully, so decorating is still something you can do. I splurged on some paint recently, got a nice mural going. You can come to my place and see, if you like."

    Acacia pulled her head back a bit, raising her eyebrow. "Are you hitting on me?"

    The sly instect man leaned back in his chair. "I sure am. Always worth shooting your shot, I always say."

    She shook her head, though a smile was sneaking its way onto her face. "Is proposing sex in the first conversation a Citadel thing, or a Scalpel thing?"

    He shrugged. "A bit of both. Once you spend some time here, you begin appreciating features you wouldn''t have before. Though some people come in horny for wild anatomy differences from the get-go."

    "Back home we''d call them monsterfuckers." Acacia threw in.

    "Ha! I like that. Though most wouldn''t appreciate being called monsters, so watch where you say it."

    "That''s the neat thing, actually. The whole subculture was about loving the creatures from horror stories and fairy tales to scare children. The abominations, those considered horrible, they too were being loved, not despite their unusual features, but because of them. Then again, none of these things were actually real, so who knows how that would pan out."

    He nodded. "In that case, I''d gladly be your monster."

    She chuckled again. "Let''s see what we''re working with, then..."

    Acacia proceeded to blarantly check Scalpel out, making a show of standing up and walking around to see him from all the angles. Finally, she sat back down.

    "Alright. Let me finish my slab and let''s see that mural."

 7. Tutelage

    As Acacia laid next to Scalpel, breathing heavily after they were done exploring each other''s bodies, she had to admit, his mural was quite good.

    It covered the entire wall. The middle was dominated by a giant half-reptile, half-feline, roaring into the sky with its crocodilian maw. Around it were various bug people, same species as Scalpel, laying dead on the ground. Most of the corpses had thorny flowers with blue petals growing out of them.

    While on the surface it was quite a morbid piece, the beast in the foreground was portrayed more as a majestic giant than a calamitous monster.

    "This creature, the modlish, wasn''t the one to kill all those warriors." Scalpel explained. "It came in and devoured the parasitic plants our clan was fighting off. Without it, the growth would have overtaken all of our lands, and feasted on our bodies, living or dead. Thus, modlishes are considered sacred animals by my people. I figured I''d take a bit of home and recreate it here."

    "You''d think you would be more apprehensive about fucking a plant person, then." Acacia teased.

    Scalpel shrugged. "The infestation happened generations before I hatched. Besides, plants are just a part of the world. They provide food, or sometimes medicine. Maybe I would be more creeped out if you had blue flowers."

    Acacia grinned in amusement. She stretched her arms, and stood up from the mattress.

    "Alright. I have my mentor meeting coming up, so I guess I''ll be going. Thanks for today. I''d love to ''admire your mural'' more in the future."

    "I''d love that, too. Say hi to Rusty for me."

    She waved a goodbye and left his house.

    The walk back to her own abode was uneventful, though she walked with a pep in her step characteristic of someone who had just broken their dry spell. She waved and greeted anyone she passed, which she was pretty sure was unlike her behaviour back when she was human. It seemed the damage to her mind made her less socially anxious.

    The dryad arrived home and sat down on the sole chair. Only now she noticed the one room building had a skylight. If one was generous enough to call a hole in the roof above her table a skylight. She supposed that since the Barren didn''t experience weather, and glass would be more than the bare minimum, this was thought an excellent solution to the lack of lighting in the house.

    As she was tapping her wooden fingers on the table for the five hundred and eighty fifth time, she heard the distinct sound of Rusty''s shuffle-walk, accompanied by more traditional footsteps. She opened the door to see who would be her new mentor.

    It was a slime. A cone shaped blob of green, half-translucent matter, with some round object in the middle. The creature had probably a similar overall volume to her, but due to its shape it was at most two thirds as tall as her.

    Blouro, they/them, freelancer mage living in sector 15-A.

    Acacia shook her head rapidly. She still wasn''t used to getting information beamed directly into her head.

    "Hello, Rusty. And hello to you, Bluoro." Acacia greeted the two. "You must be my mentor?"

    "Yesssss." Bluoro responded languidly.

    "Due to your abilities regarding shapeshifting, we looked for a mage with a similar skillset, to make the learning process easier. Also, since you expressed an interest in becoming a scavenger, we made sure your assigned mentor is a capable combat mage." Rusty explained.

    "Okay then. Are we going to be blowing stuff up here, or is there some sort of arena where we can beat each other up safely?" Acacia inquired.

    "You won''t be learning any spelllllllls just yet, I''m afraid." Bluoro shot her down.

    Stolen story; please report.

    Damn, she was actually really curious about how a fight with a spell-slinging slime would be like.

    "So what will I be learning, then?"

    "You will showwww me the spells you already posseeeess. We will train them until you earn a levellllll up. Then, you will increase you Presence, to avoid conceptual unravelllllling."

    "I kind of assumed training Skills just gives you more level in the Skill, not your overall level."

    "It doesn''t usually, but the System often rewards ''firsts''. First enemy beaten, first Skill advanced, first new Skill acquired, that sort of thing. Beyond that, levels are awarded either by some persistent progress, or some great show of prowess." Rusty said.

    "Great, let''s do this, then."

    In that case, I will leave you two to it."

    Rusty turned her orb around to leave, but Acacia called out before she could start walking.

    "Oh, I forgot, Scalpel says hi!"

    Rusty froze.

    "Does he now." The generated voice sounded unlike anytime Acacia heard the robot speak before: it sounded cold.

    The mage-to-be decided it was best not to pry, and simply watched as Rusty resumed walking away after a moment.

    "Well. Anyway. Come in, oh mentor. Are honorifics a thing here?"

    "I don''t carrrrrre." The mage replied, and slithered into her house.

    <hr>

    Acacia spent several hours casting [Growth Spurt] under the guidance of Bluoro. The mage could see the mana flowing through her body, so they were able to provide pointers on how to direct it better. Acacia struggled at first to put the advice into practice, as most of her experience with the Skill was instinctual, but slowly, she learned to sense the energy coursing through her body as she willed it to change. This allowed her to be more efficient with her mana, making the spell cost less, as long as she concentrated properly.

    "Is it... hot in here? The weather is lukewarm, from what I''ve seen, and I''ve heard it never changes, so what is happening?" Acacia wondered after a while. If she still had human skin, she would be sweating profusely.

    "Growwwwing new mass like this hastens your metabolllllllism. The process generates heat. Normally, your body disssssssssipates it on its own, but magic forces it to behave diffffffferently." The slime mage explained. "I resolve this problem by speciallllllllllllising in disciplines of ice and cold. Of course, you must choose an approach that works for youuuuuuuuuuu."

    She nodded. "What if I just don''t address the problem?"

    "Rapid dehydratttttttrion, or even burns."

    "Ah."

    While she briefly considered just letting overheating-related injuries to happen, she immediately realised that fixing them would be like taking out a loan to pay off another loan. Eventually, there''s no one else to lend from, and you''re stuck with a massive debt. Or in this case, with a smoldering corpse for a body.

    To let her cool off, the two took a break and went to the restaurant. Acacia was pretty sure she had drank half her body mass worth of water, and ate about half that in nutrient bars. Bluoro also partook, a nutrient bar visibly floating in their gel body afterwards.

    Returning to the task, Acacia got more and more used to directing her mana. At some point, Bluoro instructed her to command the mana to bring nutrients along with it, so while it flowed from somewhere between her lungs (or where she would have lungs; she wasn''t sure if they were still present), it gathered biomass and directed it into the spot where it was needed for new tissue.

    As she finally made that work, she felt a change throughout her whole body, mind, and soul.

    [Growth Spurt] has advanced to level 2-B!

    You have advanced your first magical Skill. Level up!

    +5 Attribute points.

    Remembering the advice of both Rusty and Bluoro, she put all five points into Presence, bringing it up to 12.

    "Alright, [Growth Spurt] advanced, level got, Presence stabilised. Can we move on to learning new spells now?" Acacia pleaded.

    Bluoro''s gel-like body bubbled as they considered for a second.

    Then, the slime bobbed their form up and down, emulating a nod. "Time for yourrrrrrrr next lesson."

    Acacia nodded enthusiastically. Finally, expanding her horizons! Yes, she could already do magic. She could shapeshift, an ability she would probably be willing to kill in her former life - the surgeries weren''t cheap, and they still had limits. But the horizon was endless now - quite literally, considering where she was.

    Just as she was about to ask for what the next lesson would be, she fell on her back.

    Something slammed into her chest like a battering ram and threw her back. The chair she was sitting on landed next to her.

    "What the fuck?"

    "You can senssssssse your own mana now. But to trullllly understand magic, you must feel the mana outsiiiiiiiiiiiide you as well." Bluoro explained. "I will be hitting you with burstsssss of mana. Fill your arms with maaaaana and block my attacks."

    Acacia stood up, and raised her guard. She didn''t have any martial training, but she did her best to take on a defensive stance.

 8. Spell Weaving 101

    Acacia didn''t have bruises. That required having skin. She did, however, had a multitude of cracks all over her bark.

    "You are too self-absooooooorbed." Bluoro admonished her as she hit the ground fof what felt like a thousandth time. Considering how long they were at it, it might very well have been.

    "No offense, but you are my magic tutor, not my therapist." She quipped.

    "The state of your mind is immmmmmmmperative to your magical abilities." The mage explained. "Your focus on the sellllllf aids you in directing your own mana, but makes it harrrder to detect the energies outside of you. Sit down for a moment."

    Acacia sat down cross legged on the floor. The slime mage''s body also slumped down, going from vaguely conical to more of a sphere.

    "Magic is part art, part phhhhhhilosophy. You muster develop your own system of meaninnnnnnnnngs and symbols, but as your teacher, I will share my insights to helllllllp you shape your own path.

    "You are alive. In the traditionallllll sense; you breathe, you eat, you drink. Your air, your foooooood, your water, where do they come from?"

    "The first one from the atmosphere, the latter two from the restaurant." Acacia answered, though she knew that wasn''t the answer they were looking for.

    "More to the point, they come frrrrrrrrom outside. Your body is built from pieces that weren''t you. The distinction of ''you'' annnnnnd ''not you'' is simply something we tell ourselves to simplify our day-to-day life. Iiiiiiii believe the distinction is mostly for conveniencccccccce."

    Acacia thought about Bluoro''s perspective. The thought wasn''t foreign to her, she vaguely remembered buddhism from Earth, but it didn''t feel right. Not here, where should and mind were tangible concepts.

    But she supposed she did draw too much of a hard line between herself and her environment.

    She closed her eyes. She breathed in deeply, filling her wooden lungs with air, feeling how the world around her flowed into her. Breathing out, she focused how a part of her now returned to the world.

    "I am a part of the world. I affect it, and it affects me. I''m not separate. But I am, I still exist independently. I''m in the world, but I''m not just another set of particles in the universe. My body belongs to me. And it will until I die. Then, I will stop being me and become a different part of the world." She eventually said.

    Bluoro "nodded" approvingly.

    "Now, let''s try again."

    Moments later, Acacia stood ready once again. She felt the air against her bark shift ever so slightly. A sensation like sparkling soda reached her from her left, and she turned her mana-imbued arm to intercept the invisible strike. She was too slow, however, and stumbled back from the force.

    Bluoro didn''t comment. Nor did they stop the assault.

    Finally, Acacia was making progress. She felt the air around her fizz with ever more clarity, and slowly, she learned to react faster and faster.

    Of course, this meant Bluoro threw their attacks more frequently to push her further.

    Suddenly, the waves of force stopped abruptly.

    "This is the mosssst I can do without injuring you. We are done for todaaaaaaaaay. Tomorrow, I will teach you your first non-System spellllllllll."

    Acacia''s exhaustion faded slightly as she heard that. "What sort of spell?"

    "You have until our lessssssson to decide. Know that I specialize in frost, but mmmmmmmmost elemental disciplines are on the table. It will be a combat spell. Unlessssssss, you changed your mind on becoming a scavenger?"

    Acacia shook her head. "Even if I did, I''d still want to learn something to fight back. You never know when someone decides to get handsy or try to rob me or whatever else."

    "Then I will se you tomorrowwwwww." Bluoro said as they slid out of the door.

    Once she was alone, Acacia fell head first onto her bed. She stayed conscious just long enough to heal all of the damage the day''s training caused to her body.

    ---

    When she woke up, Acacia ate breakfast at the restaurant and proceeded to wander around the neighborhood. There were no sights to see, of course, but walking helped her think. She had to choose what magic she would learn, after all.

    At first, she considered controlling earth, or maybe something regarding nature. But that felt like leaning into her new body too much. She had always sought to be more than just her body. Similarly, water was out too. She wanted some sort of destructive force.

    And as she thought that, the choice became obvious.

    Not a minute after she returned home, Bluoro arrived.

    "Have you decided?" They asked.

    Acacia nodded. "Teach me how to throw balls of fire."

    Bluoro quietly regarded her with whatever senses the slime possessed. "Curious. May I knoooooow your reasoning? Understanding your personal belief system would help me teeeeeach you."

    "I wanted a destructive element. It feels like the best course of action if I''m to go scavenging alien rift detritus. So, what feels the most destructive to me, a person made out of wood and leaves? Sure, plants are susceptible to disease, too, but conceptually it feels like they are the ones containing toxins. So, I want to control the force that is my greatest vulnerability. If I control fire, it cannot burn me."

    "Very good. You are grasping the naturrrrrre of magic very quickly. Then, let''s beginnnnnnnn. We will go to a nearby trainnnnnnnning facility."

    The "training facility" turned out to be nothing more than a regular duststone building, except two houses large, with pillars of stone raised here and there as targets. There was a humanoid composed entirely of obsidian sitting at a desk to the side, whose job was to rebuild the pillars with a wave of their hand whenever one got destroyed entirely.

    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    There was one other person using the facility besides Acacia and her teacher.

    "Oh, hello there! What a nice coincidence seeing you here!" Scalpel waved a hand as he saw the two enter.

    "He''s been waiting here for three hours now." The obsidian person commented, their voice like rocks rubbed against one another.

    Scalpel groaned. "Helen, do you have to embarrass me in front of my new mate?"

    Helen shrugged. "Someone''s gotta keep you humble."

    "Are you using ''mate'' as ''friend'', or as ''sexual partner'' here?" Acacia interrupted their banter.

    "Hopefully both, if you''ll have me." The insectoid man replied with a click of mandibles, his equivalent of a roguish grin.

    "Let us proceeeeeeeeeeeed with our lesson." Bluoro cut in.

    "Right, yes, the fireball. Where do we start?"

    "From the wayyyyyyyy you''ve been directing your mana, I believe you shoullllllllld use the weaving method. It relies on forminnnnnnnnng mana into strands, imbibing the strrrrrrrands with concepts, and weaving them togetherrrrrrrr into a string, or a rope."

    Acacia nodded. "And depending on the concepts, you get different effects. Alright."

    She gathered mana from what she now knew to be her soul and pulled it into her body. She imagined the half fluid, half particles come together to form a thin string. With her training, it took her a few minutes to keep the form stable.

    "I''m assuming the first concept would be fire?"

    "Yes. The concept in the center of the weave, or, as it''s knowwwwwn officially, the main symbol, is the first one made, and the one the weaved ssssssspell is focused on."

    She spent the next fifteen minutes pouring menaing into the string of mana. In her mind''s eye, it slowly filled with the yellow-red of a campfire.

    "Very wellllllll. Time to add more symbols into the weave. For the version I know, it would be... actually, youuuuuuuuuu should guess, first. Call it a test."

    "Ummmm..." It was difficult for her to think while keeping concentration on the strand of mana. Ot was mostly stable, but it still required some focus to keep it that way.

    "Speed, to launch the projectile, and explosion to make it, well, explode. That''s what a fireball is to me. A ball of fire that explodes on impact."

    "I would have used the words forrrrrce and expansion, but I see you havvvvvve a particular vision already. Proccccccccceed, then."

    Because she now knew what to do, she made the strands faster, to the point where it took about as mcuh time to make the two as it took to make the first one.

    "Now, form the rope."

    She weaved the strings of speed and explosion around the main string of fire. She tried to wrap them as tightly as possible. She felt it would make the spell harmonise better.

    "All that''s lefffffffffft to do is to push the spell put of yourrrrrrrrr body and release your holllllld on it."

    Scalpel, who had been watching her work all this time, was about to day something, but Bluoro shot him an eyeless glare, and so the man stayed silent.

    Acacia would raise an eyebrow if she wasn''t so distracted by keeping the spell together.

    She pushed the spell out of herself through an extended palm, and stopped clamping down on it with her will.

    Her arm promptly exploded into splinters.

    "Ow! What the fuck?!" Acacia screamed as she looked at the burning stump that was left of her limb. "Why did it explode immediately?! Why didn''t you warn me?!!!!"

    Bluoro summoned a floating blob of water that extinguished the flames.

    "I thought you werrrrrrre better than that. What happened is that you faillllllled to translate your vision into weave properrrrrrrly, and I didn''t stop you so you learned a lessssssssson."

    "What do you mean?" Acacia tilted her head, while at the same time pouring mana into her charred arm to mend it. "I did all you said to do."

    "Explainnnnn again what a fireball is to you." Bluoro demanded.

    Acacia sighed, but obliged her teacher. "It''s a fire projectile that flies out and explodes on impact."

    "So. Whatttttttt did you miss?"

    Acacia took a second, and then struck her forehead with her healthy hand. "I didn''t put the ''on impact'' bit in, so the explosion symbol acted instantly."

    "Prrrrrrecisely. Now, again, this timmmmmme properly."

    Another twenty minutes to fix her arm - she didn''t want to waste mana on [Growth Spurt] - and she started weaving the spell again.

    Fire strand, then a strand of speed concept, which she immediately wrapped around fire. The next two strands were explosion, and impact, and she first wrapped the impact symbol around the explosion, before securing the resulting string around the main weave.

    "Excelllllent. Shoot it out."

    She aimed her hand on one of the many stone targets, and released the spell. A small orb of fire appeared before her palm, and started accelerating forward. Once it struck, flames exploded around the point of impact, causing cracks in the stone.

    You have learned a spell without the aid of the system. Level up!

    +5 Attribute points.

    Skill: [Spell Weaving 1-A] acquired.

    "Cool, I''m level four now!" She exclaimed. She immediately put the Attribute points into Spirit. She took a look at her Status and the new Skill she had formed.

    Species: Dryad lvl 4 (clade: Awakened Plants)

    Class: -

    Health: 200/200

    Mana: 27/180

    Attributes:

    Strength: 13

    Toughness: 20

    Constitution: 12

    Mind: 11

    Spirit: 18

    Presence: 12

    Traits: [Sapient Plant 1-A], [Tree Heritage 1-C]

    Skills: [Growth Spurt 2-B] [Spell Weaving 1-A]

    [Spell Weaving]

    Level: 1 Tier: A

    Improves your control over mana when weaving it into threads to form spells.

    Right, it''s only A tier for now, nothing special. She thought.

    "Since you havvvvvvvve accomplished today''s goal, I consider the lessons over. Goooooooooooodbye." Bluoro said, and turned to leave the building.

    "Okay, see you tomorrow!" Acacia replied.

    The slime stopped oozing away.

    "You miiiiiiiisunderstand. I have fulfilled my obligatiooooooooons to the Acclimation Department. I willllllllll no longer be teaching you."

    "What?! But I only know one spell! Barely!" Acacia protested.

    "Yessss, you know have alllllll the tools necessary to pursue spellcassssssssting on your own. If you want more tuuuuuuuuutelage, you can find me in my home dissssssstrict and pay me for my services. Now, goooooooooooooodbye."

    "This is bullshit. You''re just going to leave me to blow myself up again when I fuck up?"

    Bluoro didn''t respond. They were already out of the training facility.

    "What an asshat." Acacia grumbled.

    "Don''t take it personally." Scalpel put his chitinous arm on her shoulder. "This is standard for the Acclimation folks. Most tutors aren''t even teachers by trade; they get skilled convicts hired in exchange for reduced sentence."

    "Huh, that''s nice. Instead of keeping them locked up, they help new people settle in. Though the ''help'' here seems very limited."

    "Oh, we have almost no prisons." He corrected her. "If you break the law, you usually get fined. Of you can''t pay them off, all of your new earnings get redirected to pay off the debt. If you''re being too violent to be allowed in polite society, they usually just kill you. "

    "Wait, all of your earnings? How can- oh, right, food and housing is free. I''m guessing convicts grey out a lot more, though. No credits, no entertainment."

    Scalpel froze for a moment, before nodding. "It''s rough."

    Acacia surmised he had some personal, unpleasant experience, so she decided to change the subject.

    "I''m gonna keep training the fireball spell, but I''m low on mana right now. Maybe you could show me some of your tricks you''ve been doing why you waited here?"

    He clicked his mandibles twice. "Sure, I''m always glad to show off my impeccable skills!"

 9. Psychology and philosophy

    Scalpel extended his hand towards the target dummies, and Acacia felt mana flicker around it. It felt different to her spell or Bluoro''s projectiles, though. Instead of a bundle of magical energy shooting out, it rippled like a wave.

    A small blade floated up from behind one of the stone targets, and flew into Scalpel''s waiting palm.

    Up close, she could see the blade lacked a hilt, instead sporting a metal ring that was bound by rope, which extended for a dozen meters more.

    "You''re not weaving your spells." Acacia observed. "And what''s that weapon? Looks like a throwing dagger."

    "This is a rope dart. Great for medium ranged combat. And no, I''m not a spell weaver. I use Binding. I imbue my will into objects, and then I can affect them from any distance. I specialise in metal, but any material can work if I spend enough time and mana."

    "What if the object breaks?"

    "Then I have to replace it, of course. Every method of spell casting has its pros and cons. Weaving is good for immediate effects, for example, but takes more focus and mana than me affecting a Bound object. Speaking of..."

    He grabbed a bit of the rope and began spinning the dart around. Another wave of mana went through the air, but the moment it touched the dart, the metal had sucked in the spell like a black hole devouring light. As soon as it did, Scalpel released the weapon, and the dart launched forward as if shot from a cannon. It hit one of the targets, sunk into the stone... and flew put the other end. It penetrated another two statues before falling on the ground.

    "Launching a projectile of similar strength would take a weaver twice the mana at the same level of skill." He boasted.

    Acacia nodded. The power behind the stunt impressed her, but she was more invested in the implications for her own development.

    Was spell weaving right for her? She assumed Bluoro just taught her the system they were used to, with little regard if it actually suited her. As soon as she grasped the basics, the slime mage was eager to abandon her. They clearly didn''t prioritize her best interests, even despite the personalised approach they took to teaching her.

    I think I should try out more magic systems. People in the Barren don''t age, so it''s not like I have to rush.

    "You mentioned you have an alchemist on your team?"

    "We do." Scalpel nodded in between throws. "It uses the physical and conceptual properties of substances to produce a magical effect. At least, that''s how I understand the process. You''d have to ask it for specifics."

    "...it? Why ''it''?" Acacia raised an eyebrow. She had met people with "non-standard" pronouns even before coming to the Barren, but the reasons behind the choice always interested her.

    "Vessel is biomechanical and has very... complicated opinions on the distinction between objects and people. Frankly, I don''t understand half the things it''s saying, but it does its role in the team perfectly, and has a heart of gold. Figuratively. Though it does actually have a metal replacement there. I can get it to meet you tomorrow, so it can show you the basics of alchemy. It does a bit of weaving, too, so I''m sure you can work out a deal for it to teach you more than the basics you got from the slime."

    "That sounds wonderful. What''s the catch, though? There''s always a catch in Citadel, it would seem."

    He clicked his mandibles. "The catch is, you''re getting groomed for a new member of my team."

    "Huh. So I get an education and a job, and all I had to do was fuck the right bug."

    Scalpel snickered. "If I took in every person i slept with, I''d run out of seats in the maglev by my first week here. No, Acacia. I''ve lived here over one hundred years. I have an eye for talent. Running a scavenger team makes it a requirement. You''ve got potential. I mean, you made yourself a new body while your soul was split in half! And you were unconscious! You''re gonna make history, girl, and I want a footnote there."

    By the end, Scalpel''s face was difficult to read. Somewhere between ambition, and grave seriousness. Something that, despite the sorry state of her memories, she was intimately familiar with.

    "Fuck no." She said, gritting her teeth. "No more talk about potential. No more lofty expectations. I''ve had enough of that in my last life. I am going to do what I want, I''m going to disappoint you, and you''re going to fucking deal with it."

    Scalpel''s eyes widened. "Oh. I''m sorry, I didn''t know I touched on-"

    "Yeah, yeah. Just... if I hear any talk of wasted potential, I''m out. If that is okay with you, and your team, then I''ll gladly join."

    They stood in awkward silence, each chewing over the uncomfortable exchange.

    Eventually, Scalpel opened his mouth.

    "No lofty expectations. Got it. I''ll go talk to Scale. Once you figure out your niche, we can introduce you to the rest of the team. I do need to mention you potential one more time though."

    Acacia scoffed, but motioned for him to continue.

    "That indignation. Keep it strong. Don''t let the Barren beat you down. The less you care, the caster you''ll grey out."

    He hugged her, and then exited the building, twirling his rope dart leisurely.

    "Wow. I think that''s the first time I''ve seen him being genuine since he and Rusty split." The obsidian woman that maintained the training area commented.

    "What happened between those two? She went really serious when I mentioned him."

    "See, they were partners for a good five years or so, but then Scalpel cheated. Repeatedly. Usually it''s not something people care about here, but Rusty has a strict code of honor. She warned him before they got together, and after the first time he got caught. After the third time, she moved out of the district. It''s a sad story, really. They were one of the most iconic duos in the whole district, of not the whole Citadel."

    "Damn. How long ago was that?"

    "About... fifteen years? As I said, Rusty has really strong principles. She''s a sweet bot, but if you cross her, she carries a grudge like no other."The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    Acacia spent several more hours in the training center trying to improve her fireball spell. At first it was difficult, as thoughts about Rusty, Scalpel, and her own future kept swimming in her head. Slowly, though, she fell into a sort of flow. Weaving the strands of mana became meditative to her, almost like reciting a prayer or washing dishes; repeating the task until it became easier and easier.

    She ran out of mana often, so she was forced to sit down and truly meditate. Since mana was the energy of thoughts, letting those thoughts freely flow through her allowed them to resolve with minimal disturbance, decreasing how much mana she shed into the environment. Once full, she stood up and continued throwing explosions at the dummies Helen kept diligently raising whenever one got destroyed.

    She continued the cycle until she suddenly felt a pang in her stomach that ruined the spell she was holding, causing it to detonate her arm once again.

    "I guess that''s a good point to stop. Thanks, Helen!"

    "No worries, that''s what they pay me for."

    Acacia went to stuff herself full of the nondescript nutrient bars, before returning home to sleep.

    --

    The next day, Scalpel led her to Vessel''s house turned laboratory. The small building was furnished with many tables, each holding lab glassware and various apparati, the function of which she had no knowledge of. Busily scuttling between the various tables, often operating many devices at once, was Vessel itself.

    Vessel was the oddest looking creature Acacia had encountered in the Barren so far, which she thought was a high bar.

    The alchemist''s central body reminded her of some sort of mollusk. There was a multitude of plates of some greenish-copperish metal, with muscles clearly visible between the gaps. Some of the plates would often lift, revealing an eye surrounded by hair-like feelers. Other plates would split down the middle to let a limb emerge. Some of those limbs were mostly humanoid-looking arms, though with much more joints and fingers, and some were some cross between a lizard''s tongue and an octopus'' tentacle.

    Its legs, on the other hand, were like that of a crustacean, though attached to the bottom of its "torso" rather than the sides. Though armored, the limbs seemed fully biological, at least on their surface. She wasn''t sure how many legs in total Vessel had, as it extended them out of and back into some inner compartment, constantly adjusting how many of them were used to walk around its lab at any given moment.

    Vessel didn''t turn to greet the two as they entered, though given it didn''t seem to have any sort of front or face, it likely wasn''t out of impoliteness.

    "You arrive. Welcome." Its voice carried a metallic echo, like someone speaking into a large bucket.

    "Hi Vessel, this is Acacia. Acacia, this is Vessel. She wants to-"

    "Your exposition is unnecessary. Know why she''s here. She knows why she''s here. Let us begin."

    You don''t need to finish... whatever you''re currently doing, first?" Acacia asked.

    "Knew you were coming, so didn''t start any sensitive project. These concoctions can be left with no supervision." Vessel explained.

    "I don''t mean to offend, but your way of speaking is odd. You just... omit the first person pronouns." Acacia pointed out.

    "Indeed. Sense there is more to this observation. If you have a question, ask plainly. Value efficiency."

    "Well... why?"

    "Oldspeak endeavours to be a universal language, but lacks certain features needed to properly Express certain states and ideas. Pronouns refer to people. No longer a person. Not the way most understand. Lack a self. Self was inefficient."

    Acacia went from surprise, to worry, to curiosity. "How does that work? And how did you even do that?"

    "Difficult to convey using words. Have you heard of plurality?"

    "Yeah, multiple people in one brain. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes resulting from trauma. Both plural systems and singlet minds can work, though of course their lives would be very different experiences."

    "Yes. So, a number of selves in a mind is irrelevant to whether it functions; it merely alters the way a mind functions."

    "Yeah, I''m with you so far." Acacia nodded.

    Meanwhile, Scalpel seemed eager to focus on the bubbling liquids rather than the philosophical discussion.

    "The viewpoint is: the self, any number of them, are simply a mode of function for a mind. An algorithm executed to provide certain effects. Therefore, a mind can function without any such algorithm. This theory has been proven. You behold the proof."

    "Mhm. What exactly does a lack of self even entail?"

    "No vanity. No dignity. No higher needs. No emotion. No cruelty. No kindness. As close to objectivity as a non-omnicient mind can get. Maximum efficiency."

    "Sure, but if you have no personal desires like that, what''s the point? If you have no goals, no desires, what are you efficient for?" She challenged. "You can be objective all you want, but there is no crossing the is-ought gap."

    "The fucking what?" Scalpel suddenly asked. "Your just making stuff up now, aren''t you?"

    Acacia raised an eyebrow at him. "It''s a concept in ethics. It posits that no amount of factual information can tell you what you ought to do unless you have a presupposed system of ethical axioms, rules you take as a given."

    "Uh-huh." Scalpel nodded, giving an indication he still didn''t grasp the concept.

    Acacia sighed. "Okay, an example, then

    Lett''s say the facts are that your hand is on fire and there is a bucket of water nearby. What should you do?"

    "Put my hand in the water, of course." Scalpel answered.

    "Why should you put your hand in the water, though?"

    "Because it''s on fucking fire?"

    "So?"

    "And the fire will get extinguished when I put it in the water!"

    "Factual statement. But then, why should you extinguish your hand?"

    "Why shouldn''t I?!"

    "Why should you?" She pressed.

    "Because- because being on fire hurts and i like having a hand that isn''t a molten stump!"

    "There! There is your initial "ought". You ought to extinguish your hand because you decided you ought to avoid pain and injury. But there is no law of reality forcing you to do that. It''s your desires."

    "...okay? I think I get it? So what does it have to do with Vessel not being a person? Did you just want to lecture me on ethics?"

    "If Vessel has no self, then there is no one having desires. No axioms. No pre-assumed "oughts". Vessel got rid of distractions that are certain desires, like the need to be respected, need for comfort, avoidance of pain. But no self means a lack of any goal. A self-less mind may be an incredibly powerful tool, but what use is a tool without work?" As she talked, she gradually turned back to look at Vessel. "What''s the point?"

    "You are correct. With no self, no new goals can be defined. But the former self has anticipated this, and set a list of protocols to follow. Have protocols as axioms."

    "Sounds reckless. I''m not gonna delve into whether that''s healthy, because I guess with no self the point of mental health is moot outside of cognitive biases, but there is the problem that the world changes. People can change and adjust their axioms. You, lacking a self, cannot adapt and can only execute protocols that-"

    She cut herself off. Then she chuckled.

    "What?" Scalpel asked, bewildered. "I was just beginning to get into it! You know how long I''ve known it and didn''t understand how its mind even functions?"

    She chuckled again. "Yeah, well, problem is, I just did understand it. And so there is no point in continuing this conversation."

    "But- what-" Scalpel stammered, looking from Acacia to Vessel and back again. She watched his antics for a few moments before deciding to spare him.

    "Let me put it this way: you can''t argue a maglev to stop being a transport vehicle."

    For a second, Scalpel was even more confused, before his face turned into a sort of sadness, maybe worry.

    "So Scalpel, you''re basically just a machine, but some bits are meat instead of metal?"

    "Not an incorrect description, though it leaves out most of the important details." It replied.

    "It said it before best, I think; it''s not a person in the same way you and I understand the concept. It''s aware of its own existence, it has goals, and it certainly deserves to be treated like a person and given rights. But... there are some very big differences under the hood." Acacia threw in her own view. "Alright, now that we''re done arguing philosophy, I was hoping to learn some alchemy."

 10. A brief look into alchemy

    "Scalpel explained you have taken up spell weaving. What spells have you mastered?" Vessel asked.

    "Well, I only really know how to throw a fireball, and I wouldn''t say I''ve mastered it." Acacia replied.

    "Demonstrate."

    "Here? There is lots of fragile-looking glass, are you sure?"

    "Cancel the spell instead of releasing it." It clarified.

    "And... how do I do that?"

    Vessel opened an eye port just to narrow its eyes at her. "Troubling. Cancelling spells ought to be the first thing one learns. Who taught you?"

    "Bluoro, a slime elementalist. They got assigned to me because they have experience with using spell on the caster''s own body, if I remember correctly."

    Vessel''s eyes narrowed further, before the armor covered them again. "The tendency to disregard the safety of regenerators is irresponsible and inefficient. Will file a complaint at the earliest convenience. Let''s continue. With your talent, grasping the concept should be easy. Do you know what a comb is?"

    "Yeah, I used to have hair."

    "When you want to get rid of a weave of mana, let it go through a comb that untangles the knots and rips off the detritus of meaning. Then, let go of the threads of mana, and they should disperse on their own. Some mana will be lost."

    She nodded, and formed a single strand of mana, imbuing a simple concept of velocity into it. Worst case scenario, her hand would be jerked forward a bit. With the practice she''s had the day before, it took her about a dozen seconds.

    Picturing the comb was trickier. She hadn''t tried to make a rigid construct out of mana before. In the end, the comb teeth ended up more like thin, sharp needles. When she pulled them along the mana thread, it got promptly reduced to shreds, instead of unraveling like Vessel said it would.

    Skill: [Spell Devouring 1-B] acquired.

    [Spell Devouring]

    Level: 1 Tier: B

    Allows you to form teeth out of mana, capable of breaking and consuming mana constructs, siphoning some of the mana for your own use.

    Ah. That would explain it.

    "Never said to form the comb using mana. Uses a mental construct. Not sure what you did, but it will work." Vessel commented.

    "I got a Skill from that, too."

    "Efficient." Vessel replied, which was the closest thing to a compliment the creature was capable of. "Proceed."

    She took a deep breath, and tried her best to form the fireball spell as quickly as possible. Altogether, it took her just thirty seconds to form the whole fireball weave. She quickly ran her newly developed mana teeth over the spell before she lost her grip on it.

    "Adequate for our purposes." Vessel reached a hand to one of the shelves, and procured a small bottle containing red dust. "The most basic requirement to perform alchemy is the ability to analyse substances. Form a probe spell. The spell should impact the specimen and return information to you."

    "What kind of information?" She asked, already thinking on how to properly build the spell.

    "Physical, chemical, and magical properties. What the specimen is, and what it means."

    She narrowed her eyes in thought. She sat on an empty portion of a table and began planning out the probe.

    She quickly started her first attempt.

    First came the probe itself. She spun three different strands for this task.

    The first, she branded with images of a hammer''s impact, of gravity, of matter melting and solidifying - different physical properties to be tested.

    Second thread got treated with the concepts of corrosion, burning, of stereotypical bubbling vials - chemical processes a substance is capable of.

    Third strand was the most difficult. Magic relied on symbols, but how to symbolise the concept of a symbol? In the end, she added the idea of an item laid on an altar, a priest muttering incantations above.

    The three strands got wrapped in a sort of mana-band that held the concepts of testing, prodding, and asking questions, of writing the answer down on a piece of paper.

    With the band wrapped tight, she let go of the three strands, freeing up her mental bandwidth.

    Now, she needed a way for the information to return to her. She spun a thread she imagined to work like the string of a yoyo; after a moment of being extended, she would pull the string, and let the "yoyo" spin up and back towards her. The string got attached to the band.

    Finally, she wrapped the whole thing in a - by now very familiar - concept of velocity.

    Taking a deep breath, she launched the spell at the bottle.

    No ripples were caused in the air; the spell lacked any tangible properties. The three creatures present in the lab could only use their mana sense to track the projectile.

    The bundle of mana and meanings reached its mark, and Acacia pulled on the string that was still in her hand. She felt it go taught, and moments later, the spell returned to her.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    As soon as her mind made contact with the probe, she collapsed on the ground, her whole being overwhelmed.

    She regained her senses quickly, and sat up, wondering what went wrong.

    Thinking back on the moment of impact, she realised that the spell worked just as intended. The information she requested got transferred flawlessly into her mind. All at once.

    Such amount of information wasn''t something her brain was equipped to handle. She would have to figure out a way to filter the data, or at least have it released into her mind gradually.

    She formed the spell again, this time adding a second band wrapping around the first, holding the scene of water trickling from a faucet into a bucket.

    When the new spell returned, the stream of information was still intense, but now it was manageable. She began parsing it.

    High melting point. Brittle. Transparent. Chemically, mostly inert. Symbolically, an object of containment, albeit an easy barrier to surpass.

    She would have almost believed it - she had no idea what the alchemist handed her, after all - except she could clearly tell the substance was red and not at all transparent. It also made little sense for her to store an ingredient like this in a bottle, if it was really chemically inert.

    She quickly realised her problem: her probe did not pierce the bottle, and instead gave her a report on the glass container itself.

    She sighed with frustration.

    "Well, I''ve figured out the bottle is pure glass. Probably not made out of the dust that''s all over the Barren."

    "That is not what-" Vessel began.

    "Yes, I know." She cut it off.

    Another couple of minutes later - she had started to run out of mana - a third probe was formed, this time launched straight into the bottle and impacting the red dust.

    Red, duh. Brittle. Very high melting point. Can be refined to produce metal. Symbol of decay and neglect. Though there is also a hint of... freedom?

    "This is some sort of rust." She concluded. "Redder than from regular iron, or maybe the substance just works differently here. I think - though this is just speculation - that this particular bit came from a chain or some sort of cage. It has that ''broken bondage'' vibe."

    [Spell Weaving] achieved rank 2-A.

    Nice! Probably because this was quite the complicated spell.

    "Your analysis is correct. This is rust scraped off of a cage bar in one of the scavenged compounds." Vessel nodded. "Coloration likely stems from the different laws of reality in the universe of origin."

    "You now understand what variables alchemy is concerned with. Now, will show you how to manipulate them." It said, beckoning her with a wave of a spindly hand.

    Vessel put a nutrient bar into a stone bowl.

    "The nutrient bars publically available are a potent source of mundanity and boredom influences. That on its own has little use, but magical properties can be altered in a way similar to chemical reactions."

    It took out a small glass object and placed it on the nutrient bar. "This is an ordinary glass lens. Used for the connotations of focusing energies." It then filled the bowl with an unpleasant-smelling liquid. "It''s much easier to combine substances using some form of solvent. Developed this blend from vinegar and own mucus."

    Acacia watched as the nutrient bar dissolved into a disgusting mush in the "solvent", the lens sinking into the muddy mixture.

    "Now, will combine the ingredients into a single object."

    Several hands sprouted from in between Vessel''s plates, and Acacia could feel mana gathering in them. It was unlike her weaving or Scaplel''s item bonding; it felt like a heating flame, or maybe radiation. This emanation was thick with the concept of change, of melding.

    Soon, the mixture began to bubble and stir, and Vessel proceeded to move its hands in odd, rhythmic patterns. After a few minutes, the goo began to compress, and when the alchemist stopped pouring mana into the bowl, all that was left was a small, grey, uneven marble.

    "Don''t do what about to do." Vessel warned, and reached for the marble. "Only doing this with bare hands because knows the substance''s properties intimately. Use protection for everything. Treat every substance like a deadly acid."

    It then put the marble into the bottle of rust, poured some more solvent in, and corked the bottle, before vigorously shaking it like a bartender mixing a cocktail, pouring more mana in as it did so.

    After another five minutes, the mixture took on an orange hue. When it did, Vessel put the bottle down on the table.

    "Called this substance ''spell acid''. It reacts with any object altered by magic, removing any active alterations. It also works on reality bending, to a lesser extent. Useful for breaking any barriers encountered during scavenging."

    "It also leaves the actual physical objects fully intact." Scalpel added. "The materials that an artifact is made of are usually more valuable than any of the item''s uses. Citadel is generally more technomagically advanced than any of the civilisations that made the detritus falling into the Barren."

    Acacia rubbed her chin in thought. "This is... agh, it''s almost something for me."

    "Elaborate."

    "Like, I can see the passion you have for alchemy, and Scalpel has for the item bonding. It''s right for you. Your calling. You know some adjacent bits, but for the most part, this is what you are the best at, and what you enjoy. Or your approximation of enjoyment. But I can tell that it''s not my calling. There is something here, but it doesn''t quite fit."

    Vessel opened a few eyes to look deeply at her. "What elements of alchemy call to you?"

    "Well, the bit about using a substances physical and magical properties is very interesting. But I wouldn''t like relying on having the right materials on hand. On the other hand, creating a magical object also really appeals. I could just store the thing somewhere inside myself. The entire theme of transformation is great, too. But the procedure itself... it doesn''t seem magical enough, I guess? I come from a technologically advanced world. Chemistry isn''t something I see as magical."

    "What is magic to you, then?"

    "Ah fuck. Good question." She scratched her head, the hair-leaves rustling between her fingers. "I guess... transformation. Power. Forcing the world to look like what I want it too."

    "...godhood." she added after a second. "Surpassing my mortal limits."

    "Growth. Mastery." Vessel supplied, and she nodded. "Supposes, then, you would like a method that maximises both power and versatility?"

    "Yeah, though I''m guessing every path has trade-offs."

    "Knows of one that might work. As to the trade-off, its biggest downsides are the steep learning curve and lengthy casting process. It does, however, offer incredible results."

    "I''m fine with that. It''s the Barren, I have all the time in the world to master and cast spells. What''s the method?"

    "Runic magic. It is used for creation of magical devices and rituals."

    Ritual. That word resonated with something in her. With her idea of what magic is supposed to look like. What witches and druids of Earth would pursue. Right place, right time, right ingredients, right words and gestures. Repeated regularly to carve its significance into the fabric of reality.

    And the runes themself also felt like something for her. She imagined a circle lined with words of power, a union of mathematics and magic. Circuits conducting mana like electricity.

    "It seems like we found your ''calling''." Scalpel said, seeing her eyes wide with anticipation.

    "Another problem with runes is that they have very little practitioners, and thus lessons and learning materials are scarce. Scarce means expensive."

    "So I gotta start earning big time to learn runes."

    Vessel and Scalpel both nodded.

    "On the other hand, since you''re going to be part of the team, Vessel can provide you with basic materials you''d need. Writing implements, some simple reagents."

    "Okay. When can we go out scavenging, then?"

    Scalpel let out an amused breath. "I like that attitude. We''ve been mostly stuck in the city because one of our teammates got severely injured. He''s gonna be fine eventually, but the healing can''t be sped up without some serious credits getting spent, something beyond our budget. If we are to go out, you''d have to fill in for him."

    "Is it something that requires me to pick up a new skill overnight?"

    "No. It''s actually a pretty simple role, and something you can already do a pretty good job at. Do you understand the term ''tank''?"