I felt breathless, everything turned into tiny smudges constantly shimmering with light. I couldn’t feel neither my body nor my starpower… Was I dead? As quickly as I asked the question, everything returned into focus.

  I wiped off the dirt from my hands and stood up. The singing of birds and the constant fluttering of leaves rang out through the dungeon. It was a jungle – with trees as high as skyscrapers, made out of thousands of twisting vines coming together to create a whole trunk. Crowning the alien trees were massive caps, putting the jungle in an atmospheric darkness, broken by the blue glowing grass, from which spike-like ferns grew.

  “Are you alright?” Steel put a hand on my shoulder.

  “I’m fine…” I mumbled, but inside my hands were shaking. The constant noises, the flickering just in the corner of my vision, the deep sounds of breathing. It all combined into drilling pressure at the back of my skull, and the constant whispers that this can’t be real didn’t help me.

  “Let’s get the Fleshsire!” Steel shouted, raising her hands high.

  A branch snapped somewhere in the distance, making my back shiver. “Be quiet.” I grabbed her hand. “We need to be as silent as possible,” I whispered, hoping that whatever hunted in here wasn’t an enemy. I made a detection form, scanning the dense surroundings in barely contained panic.

  “What are you, afraid? We can easily crush all ene-”

  I sensed it. Like lightning, something was falling on Steel. Flooding my body with strengthening starpower, I pushed her. Steel fell on grass, and right where she was standing, something landed with a bang.

  “Weak! We-ak!” Staring at me was a monster… With the body of a monkey, it had six long, spindly, segmented bone spikes coming from its sides, piercing the ground. Instead of a head, it had a maw full of clacking teeth and boiling spit. And it was shouting at me, “We-ak Me-at!”

  Weack Geist

  Species: Geist

  Standing Emissions: 10

  Affinity: Emerald

  Note: They jump from the tree trunks, piercing their prey. They have poison in their spit. They hunt in packs.

  Before I could recover from shock, Steel growled, her body growing bigger. Frenzied, she jumped right on the weack, grabbing its arms. “We-ack!” The geist yelped and its body started cracking. Steel was ripping apart its legs, while it powerlessly struggled against her.

  I spread out my detection field, feeling more similar signatures on the trees. They were moving towards us. “More are coming! Don’t stay still!” I warned her, but the dragon girl didn’t listen. She grabbed the geist’s head and neck, trying to rip it out.

  There was only one way to protect us. With several twitches of my face, I activated mind acceleration. I practiced for this – absorption form was complex enough to require two hands; despite that, it was included in fundamental forms. I twirled my fingers, interlacing them, and made the starpower circle around them, coiling the energy into a knot and then into two, and then repeating endlessly.

  Just like that, the absorption form was completed, and within my fingers appeared a greedy fractal which wasted a lot of starpower. I wasn’t going to give it that opportunity. More weacks were converging on our position. I pulled the fractal into my left hand while making a force form with my right.

  As the annoying construct was momentarily frozen by the form, I started solidifying a barrier above myself, channeling as much starpower as I could. With a ring and a splash of sparks, the shield appeared above me.

  In that moment, Steel ripped out the head of the monster, sending it flying. “Who wants more!” She roared, shaking the spiked-ferns. The head and the body of the geist turned into light, coalescing into a green gem.

  “Come here!” I shouted, making force forms with my hands and pulling her to me.

  Steel stumbled forward, just in time to avoid the landing of another weack. “What was that for?”

  “The monkeys are falling from the sky!”

  “What’s a monkey- Aaa!” She cried out as a weack jumped on her back, trying to stab her everywhere. It failed to break through the VITA.

  “We-ak! You are!” Its mouth clattered loudly as it shouted happily and bit into Steel’s shoulder. Unlike its hand-spikes, the bite pierced.

  “I’ll crush you!” With recklessness befitting of a giant, she smashed the monster with her fist, making its head crack immediately, despite that more teeth pierced her. She hit again, turning its head into a mush, and its existence into a core.

  “S-see… Phew. No problem.” She smiled at me, uncaring about the pain.

  “Come under the shield-”

  A splintering snap resounded through the forest as a geist landed on my shield. Its sharp leg-spikes stuck inside the shield, but it couldn’t pierce through. Slowly, the barrier started encasing the monkey, constantly thickening and growing. The monster giggled, struggling to break out, and with each twitch, the shield grew.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “You want to protect me. Should’ve said so from the beginning.” The crazy girl finally came under the shield, looking at the panicking monster trapped in the slowly expanding shield. “I think my head is spinning. Do you have one of…” Her eyes rolled back, and she dropped to the ground.

  “Steel! Fucking hell, why didn’t she listen?” I grabbed her quickly, force-feeding her a pill. I looked over the wound. The skin around her neck was bubbling and swelling.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I knew this was a mistake.” Then more weacks dropped from the sky all around me. “I don’t want to fucking die.”

  Four snaps resounded through the jungle. More geists surrounded me, pointing their spikes at me and laughing, laughing constantly. “You are!” “We-ak!” “Me-at!” “Me-at!” They chanted crazily, mocking me, mocking Steel.

  Purple glow surrounded me. My starpower burned bright, brighter than ever. The world became so slow, I could count each blade of grass and still have time to kill those things. I couldn’t stop myself from growling in rage.

  Using a condensation form on the mountain of starpower pouring from my soul, I solidified it into a spear, extending my strengthening to it.

  “I don’t like violence,” I said calmly, making the monsters shut up. “But this is a lie, I can’t stop telling myself. I like violence. I like destroying things, just not the ones I love.” I raised my spear, watching for any opening. “And you gave me an opportunity for slaughter, geists.”

  They laughed. They laughed at me, pointing their stubs, circling around me, calling me weak. Mocking without stopping, without even trying to attack me.

  “What did I expect from this?” I shook my head, staring at the closest weack.

  My legs tensed, and I dashed towards the monster, aiming the spear at its head. The thing didn’t have enough time to move when my spear pierced through its skull. I shifted my center of balance and lifted the monkey into the air; it was easier than I expected.

  Stepping forward, I slammed the body at the second weack. With my other hand, I made a force form and used it to push the corpse of my spear. Third weack lunged at me, screaming wildly, before it could reach me, I dumped it on the ground with a force form, and stabbed it again and again.

  The fourth weack tried jumping at me from the side, but I was well aware of its existence. Easily side-stepping its leap, I smacked its side with my spear, making the monster grunt. Before it could recover, I smashed its head with another strike, crushing its pathetic skull into pieces.

  Breathing heavily, I stared at their corpses. In but a moment, all of them turned to light, becoming but simple gems, but I didn’t really care about that. Quickly, I made two overlapping O’s with my hands, spreading the detection field.

  Aside from one last weack stuck in a block of starpower, there were none nearby. Only some weird one-eyed birds that didn’t dare approach us. Dropping the spear to the ground, I rushed towards Steel; her eyes were still unfocused.

  “Steel! Steel, are you alive! Say something!” I shook her body, looking closely at the wound on her shoulder. It was nearly gone.

  “M’kay…I’m kay…” She mumbled, sticking out her tongue and blowing a raspberry.

  “You stupid, idiot!” I made a freezing form with one of my hands and a compression with the other, making the cold flow more concentrated. Then I touched her cheek.

  She squealed as her eyes immediately focused, and she grabbed my arms. “I said, I’m okay! Brrr…”

  “Listen here, Steel. I’m happy you’re not dead, but for the love of everything – listen to my orders!” I clenched my fists so hard, it hurt.

  She gave a fast, almost frantic shake. “Y-yes.” She breathed out, finally looking away from me. “What is that?” She pointed at my shield… Or well.

  The shield turned into a purple prison, the weack within constantly gurgled and spasmed, as the solid starpower grew within its mouth, piercing through its arms and body like crystals.

  My eyes widened. “This is a great idea, Steel. A new technique waiting to be used.” I smiled, making a detection form. The absorption fractal nearly unwound itself, and soon the barrier would disappear. I should’ve learned the unravelling form. But before I could do anything, the geist within turned to light and disappeared, and mere moments after that, the prison disappeared.

  “I didn’t know you could make growing prisons. That’s a cool technique.”

  I sighed. “First order: we have to be very quiet, I don’t know if there are more of these things. Second order: help me gather the cores.”

  “Right!” Her face scrunched, and she added, whispering. “Right… Cores, I almost forgot.”

  “You can’t forget anything.” I took several deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. I couldn’t stop shaking from stress. The jungle remained just as unsettling. Danger could be everywhere, and we had to find the Fleshsire.

  Steel nodded and started picking up cores. I joined her, utilizing force form to pick them up quicker.

  Your SE has increased by 1. From 25 to 26!

  Your mastery of Solidification Form has reached Adept!

  Loot acquired!

  - Actualized Potential 11 SE x1

  - Actualized Potential 10 SE x3

  - Actualized Potential 9 SE x3

  We gathered a fistful of gems, which the dragon-girl quickly stashed into her pouch.

  “Now what?” She asked me quietly, looking around weirdly.

  “Let me try something.” I intersected two detection forms, directing the field of perception around us. Unlike the subtle tubes of starpower within the station, the jungle was bursting with various constructs, constantly wildly flowing. The grass had tiny light forms within itself, the trees seemed to have tens of forms intersecting within them, and even the spike ferns had some weird structures.

  Underneath the ground, I felt something much weirder. A massive shining river of starpower, flowing towards… “There.” I pointed in the direction. “We go there.”

  “Okay!” Steel smiled, stretching her back.

  So long as we avoided the spiky ferns and the pillar-like trees, it was easy to jog through the place. I kept the detection form constantly active, looking for anything unusual. And I found it.

  Like a beating heart, some sort of massive cancerous growth lay on the ground, and somehow I nearly missed it amidst the spikes. “Look.” Steel turned to witness the boulder of flesh. It pulsed and wriggled as if it were alive, letting out squelching noises that were drowned out by the sounds of life.

  Sired Flesh

  Species: Geist

  Standing Emissions: 21

  Affinity: Emerald

  Note: The patterns tell me nothing. I’m not even sure this thing is alive. I feel as if it’s looking at me, or maybe I’m looking at it.

  “This is it! The Fleshsire.” Steel shouted, making me want to crawl underground. Her body had already started growing.

  “It isn’t, and don’t come near that thing.” I looked carefully at it, scanning the cancerous growth with the field of perception.

  The scouter was right; I couldn’t tell anything from what I was seeing. Then the growth split apart – a massive eye filled with tiny holes stared at me and Steel…