What We Do to Survive

The lesson was interesting, but I had trouble focusing on what Professor Yana was saying. We were discussing the initial exercises necessary to form a shapeshifter’s foundations. Some people were naturally born with one, they were called natural shapeshifters, but it was perfectly possible to modify your body in the proper way through spells and exercise.

It was something we’d been building up to for the last eight weeks or so, learning enough about biology and the necessary mana circulations to keep us safe during the process.

It was absolutely not a lesson I could ignore, yet my mind kept wandering to other things. Between my upcoming meeting with Janna, and boy had that come out of left field, my backlog of work, and the entire situation with Mistletoe, I was stretched very thin. That did not even begin to edge on my other research, something I’d had to put aside to focus on the very immediate new ‘project’ I’d decided to pick up.

Everything would calm down eventually, but for now life was busier than I would prefer.

“Now then, Mr. Hunter, can you tell me why it is unwise to attempt self-modification without first establishing a shifter’s foundation?” Though I’d been somewhat distracted, I was still following along and this was something we’d covered briefly at the start of term.

“Yes Professor. Without a shifter’s foundation, it is very easy to cause irreparable or highly lethal damage to yourself. Since unlike with a hostile transformation spell, your soul will not resist changes to your body caused by your own magic, it does not keep a blueprint of your natural state. Thus it is impossible to ‘revert’ to that prior state. You must be prepared to use manual transformation to undo the magic, which is sometimes impossible.”

She clapped her hands together excitedly and pointed at me. “Exactly that. Remember, when a polymorph spell fades, you return to your natural state. When an eagle eye potion runs out of mana, your eyes revert. When an enchanted garment changes the structure of your jaw or alters your skin color, your soul remembers who you are!”

She dashed across the room and grabbed a vase from her desk. With a bright smile, she dashed it against the ground. Ceramic shattered and glaze cracked, sending bits of pottery every which way. Then, in an instant, the mess vanished, collapsing into the form of a small piglet.

“As you can see, the polymorphed creature is perfectly fine, despite the destruction of its earlier form!”

She paused for a moment to scoop up the piglet, nestling the creature in the crook of one arm. “Here I will note that this is not always the desired effect, but that is not what we are discussing today. For that, please consult with Professor Fasil or one of the other members of his department.

Now, back to our lesson. As your classmate pointed out, a shapeshifting foundation is required for your soul to remember changes made to it by your own mana. After all, mana is generated by the soul, and is thus uniquely attuned to it. Thus, any interested in self alteration go through this process to manually enable this record.”

A young man at the center of the room raised his hand and the professor pointed to him. “Yes Mr. Leeson?”

“Thank you professor, I just wanted to ask. What if, once the foundation is established, you want to make a permanent change? We are discussing organ transplants in Professor Igor’s class but I am unsure how such things interact.”

“Very good question! I’m not surprised Franklin would not cover such a thing in his own class, that is very much like him. He’s always much preferred the manual approach to body modification.

To answer your question, there is a process that you can go through that will add something to your soul’s perception of self. It will happen on its own eventually, typically 2-6 years after a procedure, but this is of course not always ideal. Stay after class and I can direct you to the relevant texts.

Beyond that, if you want to say, make a permanent alteration to your body, say your skin color or how your hair grows, it is perfectly doable even with a shapeshifter’s body. You must simply make the change and then redo the last step of forming your body. This is a thoroughly simple process, as the main work involved is in the preceding steps.”

She paused to look around the class, meeting each of our eyes in turn one after another. “Still, this is not something I will encourage you to attempt. If you do plan to proceed with such foolishness after my class, ensure you are well prepared and have a capable healer at the ready. Such changes are very, very dangerous.”

It was honestly a relief to know that some of our teachers really did care about our health and safety. After meeting Professors like Meadows, Igor, Volkshwag, and so many others, I was half convinced that all of them were murderous lunatics.

“Despite my warnings, I am certain that at least one of you plans to do so regardless, probably far earlier than you should be attempting such magic. Fine. Be like that, but at the very least try not to damage your corpse too badly! It’s always so interesting to see what you children come up with!”

Ah, there it was. Well, at least she cared. Somewhat.

From there, the lesson proceeded as usual. As always, the final half hour of class was dedicated to practical applications. This was typically my favorite part of the lesson, and today proved no exception.

One by one, Professor Yana had us drink a ‘giant’s liver’ potion, and then used her own magic to guide us in examining the altered organ. Her mana was a feather light touch against mine, gently showing me how to properly analyze the temporary change in my body.

Once everyone was ready, she briefly touched on our souls, showing how a sort of wrapper had been placed over a portion of it, causing our bodies to reflect that change in the physical world. It was an absolutely fascinating experience and I couldn’t wait until I was skilled enough to do it myself.

I’d never really thought much about soul magic, and had certainly not expected to be learning about it in this class of all places, but I was suddenly very keen on learning everything I could about the discipline. That moment, looking at my soul, touching it… It had been truly magical.

I was in high spirits as I left the classroom, a bounce in my step as I made my way to the cafeteria. Janna had left before me, saying she needed to retrieve some papers from her room, and I wasn't in much of a hurry. I was absolutely not ready for what I saw when I turned the corner.

The hallway leading to the cafeteria had become a charnel house, the bleached bones of a dozen bodies scattered and shattered along the marble floor. Viscera stained the walls, splatters of blood and other fluids staining the walls a mottled red.

One person remained standing at the center of the hallway, a tall boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. He was panting heavily, but not a drop of blood stained his immaculate white robe.

I stopped in my tracks, bringing my mental and physical enhancements out of their passive state and filling my body with the comforting thrum of magic. I didn’t want to fight, not against someone who could do that, but aggressive self defense was sometimes necessary.

Two others joined me in the following moments as I observed the carnage from the edge of the splatterzone. They too froze and my burgeoning mana sense could feel them preparing spells of their own.

The boy turned around slowly, eyes staring unblinkingly forward. He seemed surprised to see us, but his face remained an impassive mask. The tiny wisps of pale hair above his lip really detracted from the entire effect, but I certainly wasn’t going to say anything about it.

“Move.” The boy’s command was almost pleading, but there was an undercurrent of ice in his tone.

Not taking my eyes off him, I stepped to the edge of the hallway. The others who had slowly gathered at the end of the hallway, it was a pretty busy hallway intersection, slowly did the same. All except one that is.

Jack Baretree was a battlemage, plain and simple. He had little interest in the deeper mysteries, not unless they would help him kill things harder or faster. He was also something of a stubborn ass with a reputation for needless violence.

Jack Baretree did not move aside. Instead he stepped forward, bone crunching loudly under his boot. His hands were at his sides, but flickers of volatile mana ran up and down his arms like snakes.

I surreptitiously formed the spell matrix for my favorite heavy duty shield spell, holding the delicate spell matrix in my mind without casting.

“I like what you’ve done here, very impressive. Still, Avalon trains bigger fish than you.”

Mana flickered along his skin as he radiated a heavy aura of barely contained violence.

The boy stepped forward to meet him, teeth clenched and eyes narrowed. His aura was more restrained, but I could taste the roiling ocean of power just beneath his skin.

I closed my eyes for a moment, releasing a barely audible sigh. This was why I hated traveling through busy parts of the Academy.

I let the spell matrix I was holding collapse, quickly weaving the same threads of mana into a different sort of protective spell. Once it was ready, I wasted no time in releasing the spell, a carefully shaped veil of mana shielding my casting from basic detection.

Still leaning against the wall, I carefully inched away from the rapidly brewing fight. For all that I’d studied the field religiously, I was not a particularly good battlemage.

I had excellent mana manipulation skills, but I lacked the enormous mana reserves and combat skills of a proper walking natural disaster like Jack was rapidly growing into.

I had barely made it around the corner when I felt the air quake, a wave of horrible heat flooding down the hallway I had just left.

I let my spell of concealment fade and bolted, pouring additional mana into my circulation then was strictly proper to overcharge the physical enhancement. Screams echoed behind me as I ran, and several other sets of footsteps quickly joined mine.

I only slowed down once I was certain I was outside the blast radius of even something like a hellfire field. Getting between two testy combat specialists, or even in their general vicinity, was an excellent way to become a statistic.

With a quick glance around to ascertain where I was, I began the long trek to one of the cafeteria’s three other entrances, mumbling curses under my breath as I went. At this rate, the girl was going to beat me there and I had wanted to select where we would be sitting.

To my surprise, we arrived together, almost running into each other at an intersection a few meters from the entrance. We made the rest of the trip in guarded silence, keeping several feet of space between us and each watching the other for subterfuge.

She had changed dresses since we’d last seen each other, still pink and frilly but with a slightly different cut and pattern. This one left one shoulder bare and hugged her figure, lending the childish girl a more serious air than I was used to.

I smiled as we crossed into the cafeteria proper, letting the soothing aura of the place wash over me and calm my racing mind. Being in the cafeteria always lent me an air of safety that no other space on campus could. Here I was protected not just by rules and consequences but by actual divine might.

Gods could not stray from their domains, they were more fundamental force than sentient being. The protection in this room would never waver so long as the divinity enforcing it continued to exist.

Sure, gods could die, and in fact Avalon contained more confirmed cases of deicide than any other places in the world, but that was still better protection than anywhere else I could access. It also helped that being in the cafeteria just felt… good. Like a warm hug and a hot drink on a cold evening.

Knowing neither could act against the other now, the two of us continued together towards one of the long food counters that lined the place’s walls. Food from around the world was served buffet style, catering to the tastes and dietary restrictions of the Academy’s varied denizens.

As we walked, I questioned her about what exactly she’d tried so far. It was about what I’d expected and I was honestly somewhat surprised she hadn’t found her answer with the number of books she’d consulted.

Honestly, she should have just asked one of the mana manipulation professors, they could have helped her and wouldn’t demand any cost like a fellow student would. Still, I understood why she didn’t.

Students were allowed five faculty meetings per semester, and if you had a lot of questions that just wasn’t very many. This only related to professors you weren’t directly studying with at the time of course, but it was a pretty harsh restriction. If she was working on a specific project that required another instructor’s expertise, she wouldn’t want to waste one on something someone else could help her with.

It was definitely an issue I’d run into before, but thankfully my current professors had always been able to help me themselves. I was down to only two more meetings this semester after my talk with Professor Igor the day before.

Once we had our food, a rich beef stew with steamed vegetables and rice for me and a plate of chicken and greens for her, we found a table we could both agree on and got to work hashing out an agreement.

We both wanted a geas, a magically binding compulsion that would ensure both sides honored their agreement. It was a pretty standard way of doing business among students, and I’d been taught the relevant spells only a few weeks into my first semester at the Academy.

The tricky part was getting a wording that we could both agree on. We both wanted the contract to favor ourselves, yet knew the other knew that that was what we wanted. Thus we went back and forth, changing the wording and arguing over various phrases of the oath for much of a half hour.

Eventually however we were in agreement. We clasped arms and together recited the words of the oath, spell matrices at the ready. As we spoke, phantom bands of mana wrapped around our wrists, binding our bodies and minds to the letter of our mutual promise.

In essence, we agreed not to work against one another, attempt to sabotage each other, or share any secrets we discovered while we were working together on her issue. In exchange for my help in getting her circulation working, she would provide me with certain quantities of the plants I requested, to be paid in full within two weeks time. I was slightly surprised by how generous she was being with the time frame. I’d expected her to ask for a month or more to get the plants I needed, but I certainly wasn’t going to protest.

Once that was out of the way, I immediately began to outline what I thought the issue was.

“It's because you are so short, if you take a look at that section of the mana flow, it doesn’t really account for how tightly packed some of your internal organs are.”

She looked vaguely offended by my statement, but once I elaborated, fell into quiet contemplation.

“You really think that's the issue? It’s never come up with any of the other circulations I’ve studied.”

I nodded seriously. “I could check of course, but that would require some invasive mana scanning. I’m pretty confident in my assessment however.”

“Well then, how would I go about getting it to work regardless? You have an idea, else you wouldn’t have sworn to help me with this.”

“I think it's mainly a matter of mana control. I can feel that you are decently good at it already, but I have a few specific exercises I will show you to practice. This isn’t typically an issue with a basic circulation like this, but that's because it's easy to make the mana flow that way when you have a lot of room to work with. For you, you’ll need to control the mana with much more precision. If it brushes against your intestines, the circulation will collapse so you have to be really delicate in that area of your torso.”

“Oh, I think I understand. The mana interference is more severe for me than it would be for someone larger, but I don’t have the skill to compensate?”

“Exactly. You could brute force the issue I think, just practicing for hours until you can do it on instinct, but that would take a long time. We can meet in one of the practice rooms and I will demonstrate a few exercises and also take a closer look as you practice the circulation.”

“That should work. Tomorrow then?”

I nodded, considering my schedule and the work I still had left to do.. “I will be free in the late afternoon or before lunch, either works.”

“I think the afternoon will be better. Can you reserve a room for us? I’ve hit my limit for the week already.”

I was slightly surprised by the admission, wondering how she’d already reserved twenty hours of time by Tuesday morning, but resisted the urge to ask. Maybe she would tell me, maybe she wouldn’t. It really wasn’t my business and the oath ensured it couldn’t be something hostile towards me. Not for the next two weeks at least.

“Yeah I can do that, I still have a few hours left.” In fact, I hadn’t reserved a room at all this week, nor the last, so I had a lot of hours saved up.

“Perfect. I will meet you there then. Five pm works for you?”

I nodded again, mouth full of my rapidly cooling food.

She gave me a smile and a nod, then grabbed her empty plate and disappeared into the crowd. I waited for a time, wondering if she was coming back. When she didn’t, I shrugged and got seconds. The food was really good today.