A Jaded Life

As I was studying the rabbit Luna and I were experimenting on, I was whistling softly to myself. These last few days since leaving the Dryad commune had been fairly interesting, filled with travel, exploration and, most importantly, experimentation as Luna and I were continuing to work on our latest project, namely to infuse other living beings with magical power, altering them to make them into something special.

The grass we had worked with before, near the Charland, had been an interesting and fascinating proof of concept but now, we wanted to get something bigger. Now, we wanted to alter a complex animal, while the ultimate goal was to understand how sapient beings like humans could wield magic, how affinities worked and maybe even bestow them upon others. Theoretically, granting affinities was possible, I was living proof that the system could increase the affinity one had for certain types of magic, or even for all types of magic, but whether we could create a similar effect ourselves was questionable.

But before we should even consider working on humans, we wanted to make things work with less complex beings. Both basic animals and complex plants were on our list, with both options presenting their own difficulties we had to overcome. For animals, the biggest problem I expected was within their minds, that the powers we wanted to bestow upon them had to link into it without disrupting things. Sure, we could fill an animal's Soul with power, and even keep it somewhat stabilised with Luna’s Life Magic, but, so far, we hadn’t been able to keep things stable. Our best result had been a stabilisation for a little over a minute before the magic we had infused into our test-squirrel had destabilised with… explosive effects, turning the critter inside-out. Or rather, insides everywhere, as the poor thing exploded.

Alas, such a setback wasn’t enough to stop us and now, we had yet another experimental subject, namely the rabbit I was currently studying.

“Maybe we should try a different way,” Luna suggested, making me raise an eyebrow in question, uncertain what exactly she had in mind, “You told me that you could alter what types of Astral Power a being connected to the Astral River draws from it, right? What if we use that, you fill their bodies with one type of power and I keep things stable with my Life Magic? Maybe that’d allow their minds and bodies to adjust to the power within, even after I don’t keep them contained,” she reasoned, making me shrug as I wasn’t sure it would work as she hoped it would. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t, but it certainly was worth the experiment.

“Why don’t we try it like this? First, you use your Life Magic and infuse the rabbit’s soul, then I’ll try and see if I can even find the silly thing in the Astral. So far, I’ve been unsuccessful with that part of things, I can find some critter, somewhere but I haven’t been able to find one that I could correlate to things in reality. But maybe it’ll work if the thing is right in front of me and you use your Life Magic to make it stand out, so to speak,” I suggested before continuing. “If that works out, I can infuse the critter with one type of Astral Power, before dropping out of the Astral River and trying to adjust the critter’s soul so it is compatible with the type of Astral Power that’s already running through its body;” I finished, even as I considered if trying to do things the opposite way around wouldn’t maybe work better.

Adjusting the soul first and then infusing the body but the problem was, we had already tried to adust the soul, it was all we had done so far, but the experiments had never worked. Maybe Luna could keep them stable to give me enough time to infuse their body before things destabilised to the point that the experiment ended, but I wasn’t sure if that would work. We’d have to try and see, likely trying both ways, if only to see what difference the order made.

Our test started just as planned, with Luna carefully infusing the Life Magic into the rabbit’s soul. It was a step we had performed a few times already, though it had never stabilised satisfactorily, leaving us with quite a few dead critters, all of which had died when the magic we used unravelled, leaving their bodies unable to cope with the influx of foreign power. Even pure Life Magic, without any additional elemental bias, was too much for them. We had done a few experiments, simply to see if they could cope if we kept the influx of power at a minuscule level but so far, we hadn’t found any way to keep things stable.

But maybe this would work, letting the body adjust first before altering the Soul. After closing my eyes, I let myself dip into the Astral River, my mind searching for that peculiar sensation of something drawing power from the Astral River. It wasn’t something that stood out, not even with my fairly high Intuition, but I knew that something was there and was hoping that I’d be able to detect the draw I was looking for.

Sadly, I quickly realised that my idea was far more difficult than I had been hoping for, the Astral River wasn’t placid enough to let me perceive my surroundings easily, instead, I had to try and keep myself from getting swept away as I was delving into its depths. I couldn’t even find Luna, despite her presence being many times more powerful than that of the rabbit, leaving me at a loss. If I couldn’t find the rabbit within the river, I couldn’t even try to infuse its body.

So, I pulled myself back into my own body, considering an alternative way to approach the problem. I had been able to pull my students into the Astral River with Mind Magic, hopefully, I’d be able to do something similar to the rabbit. Then, it would be right with me, within the reference frame I was projecting into the Astral River, and finding it should be trivial.

Nodding to myself, I did just that, opening my eyes and staring at the rabbit, reaching out with my Mind Magic and pulling at its frantic thoughts. Given that the rabbit was frozen in fear, and had been for quite some time, it was strange to realise that its mind was going a mile a minute, even as its body did nothing but quiver. A part of me felt just a little bad for the critter but at the end of the day, its fate had been sealed once we caught it, its destiny had been to either end up as our dinner or as part of this experiment. And maybe becoming dinner afterwards.

Still, even with its panic, or maybe especially because of its panic, I could easily guide its mind towards the Astral River. I only had to project the impression of an escape and it eagerly took that path, delving into the river without hesitation, though also without any understanding.

Following after, I was immediately met with a complex of primal instincts, where I’d normally meet the mind of the one I pulled under. There was little organisation within the instinct-driven mind of the rabbit, what thoughts there were completely dominated by the need to flee from the predators that had cornered it. This pure, panic-driven need made things a little harder though it could be much worse. At least the rabbit was stuck in flight-mode, if it was another animal, or one that was more inclined to fight, I might have to defend myself, not something I had experience with, at least not within the Astral River.

But in this case, I could use the need to flee and infuse the concept of running and escaping into Wind Astral Power before funnelling it towards the rabbit, feeling the power infuse the rabbit’s body and mind.

As it did, I let myself drift out of the Astral River, using my Soul Sight to observe the rabbit for a moment before infusing its Soul with the same Wind Magic, working slowly and gently, keeping the intensity consciously low. I didn’t want the rabbit to be overwhelmed by the power I was adding to its being, it would only backfire. But a gentle stream of Wind to infuse its weary soul was quite useful and seemed to work out quite well.

Nearby, Luna was watching, looking elated as she made sure the rabbit wasn’t torn apart by the power we infused into it. Nodding to myself, I moved back into the Astral River, noticing that the rabbit was now drawing power by itself, so it was hopefully stabilising. With a gentle tug, I pulled the rabbit’s simple mind back out of the Astral River, so it could focus back on the world around us. For a moment, the rabbit did just that but as I was studying how the magic we had infused into its body and soul was moving through it, I got a surprise. Suddenly, the rabbit managed to leap through the bars of the cage we used in a swirl of Wind Magic, before dashing off into the undergrowth with speed that none of us would be able to match.

“I guess that worked a little too well,” I muttered, glancing over to Luna who grinned happy about our success. A look into my notifications told me that I had gained a point in Wind Magic, alongside two points in Mind Magic and a point in Enchanting, bringing them to thirty-five, sixty-two and twenty-four respectively.

Lastly, there was a notification I was incredibly pleased with. I had gained a single level in a new skill, namely Soul Magic.

One more step towards my goal was completed.