Reincarnated as a mana core

Rewards, Quests and Achievements

The quests and achievements are created from mana and one's subconsciousness, motivating mortals to discover new knowledge and to better oneself. Be that good or bad, mana does not judge.

Rewards are created from surrounding natural mana, lowering the mana density. Additional rewards such as knowledge or skills may be awarded by the archives.

 

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Argul woke up at first light. She yawned and slowly stood up, making Alyra yelp in indignation as she was thrown off of Argul’s back. Argul ignored her daughter and stretched like a cat. She had no idea that sleeping underneath a random tree would feel that good.

Argul shook herself, trying to get rid of the last remnants of sleep and yawned again. “Morning Aly.”

Alyra mumbled something back, but Argul couldn’t understand it.

She blinked. Right today was the day, but she wanted to do it in her human form. Argul dug a small hole and filled it with water so she could take a look at herself after changing. Digging was refreshingly easy with her paws.

Once that was done she activated her subskill and her form lit up for a second. Changing her body felt super weird and while it was not a pleasant feeling it wasn’t too bad either.

Argul looked at her reflection in the puddle. She had silver hair that was a bit longer than shoulder length. Her animal ears had stayed, but were likely a bit smaller than before. She had a diamond shaped face with absolutely no blemishes, making her look like she had walked straight out of an anime.

Argul had a bit deeper set light blue eyes that, complimented by her eyebrows, gave her a fierce look without her even trying to do so.

Her nose was rather small and delicate and she had thin lips of a light pink color that angled a bit downward, as if she was unhappy with something. 

All in all it looked attractive in a dangerous kind of way and Argul was quite happy with that, even if she didn’t consider herself dangerous.

She looked down at her body and the first thing that came into her view were her breasts. Now she had no idea about cup-sizes of women, but would guess it was D. Argul had never bothered to learn these things, he didn’t have any female friends back then anyways.

She touched them with her hands and fondled them a bit. Argul had to admit it felt nice, especially because they were still somewhat firm despite their size. She might have become aroused because of her own body, which in turn activated a member she had not expected.

Above her vagina Argul’s penis slowly rose to a full erection and reached a length of about 20 cm.

Alyra cleared her throat. “While it surely feels nice to fondle your breasts while shaking your hips seductively and making weird slapping sounds with your erected penis, you might want to come out of your own world before you do something unnecessary in front of your daughter.”

Argul was suddenly very aware of her daughter's presence and what she had been about to do. She blushed, hard and looked at Alyra, who was sitting where they had slept and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

Argul immediately looked away again and ran behind the tree standing next to Alyra to hide. There was no way she could think coherently about anything in an embarrassing situation like this.

Argul didn’t quite notice the slime that was behind the tree and how she took it and hugged it desperately while mumbling excuses again and again. Alyra was laughing hard on the other side of the tree and enjoyed the situation thoroughly.

After 10 minutes of intensive slime hugging Argul calmed down a bit and took notice of what she was hugging. Embarrassed again, she sat the slime back down to the ground. Much to her surprise it immediately jumped back against her chest. Argul could understand, she liked it too.

The slime fell back down and she didn’t have to think long about deciding to take it with them as long as it wanted. She named the slime Aina to distract herself from reality.

Thinking back on the situation of before, Argul could really only slap herself. Of course she would be naked and of course she would find her own damn body attractive. This was not good, because she didn’t like being narcissistic. She also couldn’t talk to the universe naked.

Argul changed back to her normal form and looked down at the slime. She lowered herself on the ground hoping the slime would understand and lo and behold it actually jumped on her back.

Argul stood back up and walked around the tree again, not that she had been hidden behind it in her fox-form. She pointedly avoided looking at her daughter and an embarrassing silence ensued.

Alyra was the first to break the awkward atmosphere between them. “So, when are you going to contact the universe?”

Argul breathed in and out a bit, trying to get back her dignity and calming herself down. “Right about now.”

Then with the presence and grace only a four meter tall fox with a slime on its back could have ,she activated her ability. “Uhhh… Hello?” 

Why couldn’t she be an ostrich?

Then she could have at least put her head in the ground, trying to escape her inability in doing people things. There had been so many good opportunities for a good and epic entrance wasted there and Argul really wanted to not be there at the moment.

The situation got worse as Alyra looked at him, completely baffled. “Really mom, that's how you start this conversation?” 

Alyra stared at her mother, who pointedly avoided looking at her and her tone got more composed and serious. “You are aware that this is also going to be a negotiation and you kind of destroyed your image of a serious threat a moment ago.”

Argul could only look down in shame. She was not good at people things like negotiations and after her first embarrassment today she kind of wanted to cry right now, but managed to hold that in.

A mighty female voice came from everywhere. “The little one is quite right, as far as first impressions go that one was one of the worst I ever had the joy to have, even for a conversation that should be all but impossible.”

Why did they have to rub salt in her open wounds? Hasn't it been enough already? 

Alyra immediately snapped to attention, while Argul desperately tried to hold back her tears. It was silent for a moment and you could only hear Argul forcefully trying to calm herself by breathing more slowly..

Once she got a grip of her feelings again she cleared her throat awkwardly. “Right, hello again I assume Miss Universe. My name is Argul Agren and I am the mana core you decided to imprison some time ago.” 

She concentrated only on the words she had planned beforehand and tried to ignore everything else. “Now, if I am dangerous to you I can forgive being imprisoned in self defense. As you might know though, being imprisoned isn’t really all that nice, which is why I want to propose a hopefully possible solution for us two to coexist.” 

Argul breathed in and out heavily, trying to calm down a bit more. “I don’t know what being a universe means, so it might not be possible.” 

Argul had failed to get the superior position in this negotiation and she honestly didn’t care all that much as long as she got what she wanted and her offer was a pretty good one.

Silence reigned for a bit of time, until the universe decided to answer. “My name is Fia Lotusriver.” 

The voice continued haughtily. “As far as I’m concerned you and your energy are safely locked away for eternity and yet you come and offer coexistence as if it weren’t so. You have to be mighty confident in that offer of yours.”

Argul sighed and turned a lot more serious than before. “You are wrong Miss Lotusriver. Firstly, to call it locked away safely stretches the implication of safety so far that it will rip, just because I would do everything to give my daughter freedom.” Argul really hated political games and all the acting that came with it.

She continued, a lot more confident now. “Secondly, your containment will fail. I didn’t just bring the energy with me, I generate it and will do so for all of eternity.” 

She raised her head and looked at the sky with a serious expression. “Mana as I call it, already eats away at the plane you created as my prison and will destroy it someday. Going by your instincts that day will likely be your last one.”

Then Argul sighed and got a bit softer. “Don’t understand me wrong. Before this meeting I never wished you ill or wanted to harm you, but depending on how this negotiation goes this might change in a way you won’t enjoy.”

She was not going to let the freedom of her daughter be taken away. She would do what she could for her, even if it meant killing another person. Do not understand her wrong, if Alyra does wrong she is going to be punished, but she wanted her to have the ability to even do wrong in the first place.

Argul waited patiently until he got an answer, only this time it came a lot less confident. “That is indeed concerning.”

A second pause set in before the universe continued. “Please let me apologize. I haven't talked with anyone since the death of my own universe and didn’t even think it was possible. I acted how I did, because from what I know about other universes I wouldn’t trust them to move the length of an atom without throwing something deadly at you.”

That piqued Argul’s interest. There was a way to become a universe so maybe she would have become one if she had killed Fia, not that she wanted to be one. “So you haven’t always been a universe, that’s interesting and makes us somewhat similar as I haven't always been a mana core. Would you mind telling me and my daughter a bit about universes?” 

Argul was truthfully curious and while the same did count for Alyra, she let her mother have this conversation as it would be important for her plan.

She got her answers, but only the barest of information. A universe was normally a beast like entity, but if one should be killed and an inhabitant had somehow gotten a quarter of the kill participation, said figure would become a new universe.

The moment a universe decided to grow bigger was the moment it began to age and they had a limited age. There was a way around that as you could steal the lifespan of another universe. Because of this the multiverse was in a constant state of war.

The cause for their aging was that the universe stretched its own space to grow which would cause it to collapse after it stretched itself too far out. Once the process had started it sadly wasn’t stoppable.

Argul thought mana would be a nice way to solve that problem. Instead of stretching yourself you could just create new space.

The Lotusriver universe had as of yet not grown and the only extraterrestrial objects in it were trash dumped there by other universes. 

Argul couldn’t quite believe it as that meant nearly a galaxy worth of stars and their systems had been dumped into Fia’s domain. Why would anyone do such a thing?

“So what do you want to propose to let us coexist?” Fia asked after she finished.

Argul had been deep in thought and exclaimed surprisedly. “Ahh I nearly forgot, sorry!” 

She cleared her throat. “Let me give you an overview about mana. It changes the laws of existence a bit, maybe a lot. Anyway, using your intent with mana lets you do things that should be impossible and mana will create things you thought of as impossible.” 

Argul paused for a moment to give Fia time to think about it before she continued. “Using mana I should be able to create a pact that will force you to integrate mana without dying. Mana should also allow you to grow your universe without aging by the way. Back to the pact, with what I had in mind it might also force our behavior if there are clauses concerning said behavior.” 

Algur was really excited. She would need to use the connection created by uniphone to create the pact and it would be a lot harder than creating the materialization spell.

“You are aware that what you just said sounds really ominous, yes?” Fia answered warily.

Argul flicked her ears in embarrassment. “Let me tell you the short version of what I had in mind, then you will understand.”

Argul sat down on his hind legs and started speaking slowly and clearly. “Firstly, Fia Lotusriver will become a mana universe enabling her to use mana and live with it.

Secondly, Fia Lotusriver will be allowed to use all mana that the containment plane of Argul Agren can’t hold, to grow her universe. This includes matter creation, invading other universes or management such as deciding on a natural mana density.

Thirdly, Fia Lotusriver will have no control over Argul and Alyra Agren. This clause applies vice versa and will cause Fia Lotusriver to lose control over Argul Agren’s plane.

Fourth, Fia Lotusriver, Argul Agren and Alyra Agren can take no actions against each other with the intent of the other's death, no matter how much in the future said death would be.

Fifth, all organisms and matter are able to traverse between the universe and Argul Agren’s plane through portals based on the rules set by Argul Agren. There has to be at least one portal active at each time.

Sixth, Fia Lotusriver, Argul Agren and Alyra Agren are of equal standing. This clause will not stop them from acting in relationships such as mother and daughter or friends.”

Argul breathed out. The real pact was a lot longer and she had thought about it a long time to avoid any loopholes. “And that should be about it. I will not be able to hide the true nature of the pact and you will be able to decline it should you want. I might need a few tries to create it, because it is really difficult to do so.”

Argul thought the universe had nothing to lose. It would gain the ability to grow without aging and control over an energy that no other universe had. The only thing she had to give was Argul’s and Alyra’s freedom and the control of Argul’s plane.

The pact would also not stop them from working against each other as long as there was not one shred of killing intent behind it.

It took more than an hour before Argul got an answer. “Alright let's see if you have told the truth about me being able to decline, then I will consider accepting.”

Argul got to work and sent her mana along the connection of ‘uniphone’ to create the pact. She failed 28 times, before she managed to build a stable connection. It took Argul another five tries to create a pact and then had to try three more times to get the pact right. The last one she only had to do because Fia tried to decline, to confirm that Argul had told the truth.

After 5 hours of going through the contents of the pact and changing some minor detail two times the universe finally accepted, much to the relief of Argul. She really didn’t want to kill somebody she did not know.

Argul got a weird feeling and was suddenly painfully aware of all the contents of the pact.  Argul grimaced.  It was really invasive and she felt as if futures just collapsed.

It took five long minutes before the feeling went away. Argul breathed a heavy breath, she had done it!

Fia’s voice filled the air again. “So now that your mana is outside your domain and under my influence what will happen to invaders under the influence of other universes?”

Argul looked at Alyra and Alyra looked at Argul. A realization dawned them both at the same time. “Fuck!”

Fia cut the connection, that had seemingly been enough information for her.