Ardwin had briefly tried practicing his mana manipulation before they attempted to bury Hank. He quickly found that his new memories had only taught him how to interact with the mana found in plants, but leaving all practical applications up to him to figure out. While the potential experimentation and discovery excited him to no end, that meant he’d have to fight the hawk in basically the same condition as the first. At least James had his sword.

  He explained this to James, who nodded. About two hours had probably passed since they had first woken up.

  Cautiously, they left the safety of the tree and walked to where the hawk had been. It was perched to the side of Hank’s body, beak bloody. It had stopped eating, probably long since overfull but unwilling to abandon its kill yet. They marched together at it, James taking the vanguard while Ardwin scanned the sky in case of any opportunists. However, upon nearing the grisly scene, the waist-tall hawk simply shrieked at them and took off. Apparently Hank wasn’t worth fighting off two people.

  Ardwin sighed. That meant they had to figure out how to dispose of a human corpse. Someone they had known. Up till now he had avoided looking at the body outside of his peripheral vision. Taking a look at Hank’s half-eaten body, he knew it would live on in his nightmares for a while. He didn’t freeze up like people did in books a lot. Maybe because he knew he was still in a survival scenario.

  After a brief attempt at digging with their hands, then James’ sword, Ardwin had the idea to build a cairn. They had passed several larger rocks within the meadows. One by one, they gathered the rocks and covered Hank’s body, but never straying more than 3 meters from each other. To Ardwin the slow process and physical labor felt right. Making an effort helped him let go of the shock and survivor’s guilt he had been feeling.

  Finally upon placing the final rock upon the pile, they stood in silence. Neither of them had known Hank, just passing him in the halls really. With no one there but themselves, they both simply said goodbye to Hank, and returned to the tree.

  Unfortunately, the time and work spent on Hank’s impromptu funeral had highlighted two major problems. They were both thirsty and hungry, and the sun was nearing the horizon. They had woken up somewhere near noon, and night was only a couple hours away.

  “Any ideas?” James asked hopefully

  “C’mon man, this is literally life or death, sit down and brainstorm for once in your life.” Ardwin replied, completely unwilling to take sole responsibility for their survival. They both sat and thought for a second, James fidgeting with the grass as they did.

  “Wait, I’m pretty sure I remember how to make a fire drill! That at least will let us cook the bird and see for a while at night. Two summer camps in Boy Scouts is actually paying off!” James said excitedly, untying his shoe. Huh, Ard hadn’t known James had been in Boy Scouts. He watched for a second as James began searching around for a suitable stick.

  “Anything I can do to help?” He prompted.

  “Oh no, probably not.” James replied, focused on his task.

  Well that meant he could start practicing mana manipulation. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the thirst and burgeoning hunger, and focused on the oak tree behind him with his newfound mana sense. In his mind an image of glowing streams of energy appeared, flowing in a loose approximation of the shape of the tree in the real world. Peripherally he could see hundreds of tiny tendrils making up the grass of the meadow.

  He also got the weakest sense that there was free mana flowing through the air, but couldn’t even properly see that it was there. Tentatively, he created an alternative conduit through mental imagery and siphoned a tiny portion of the tree’s mana into thin air. Opening his eyes with anticipation, he was met with…nothing. No fireballs, no thunder crashes. Focusing back with his mana sense, he saw the flow simply dissipate into thin air.

  Well that was clearly a dead end. Undeterred, he tried a second theory. He created another conduit, but this time he connected the other end to a small blade of grass. Being longer and having a more precise endpoint, this one was much harder to properly summon. He immediately got the feeling that without any points in Processing this would have been near impossible. But he managed it with very minor difficulty.

  This time as he opened his eyes he watched in wonder as the stalk of grass grew several inches, and finally split into grass’ version of a flower. It was like an instant time lapse. He looked to the origin point of the conduit, and watched a few leaves wither and die on the branch. He let the conduit fade, and sat there in wonder. He had just done that. Magic, pure in its impossibility. In spite of everything he felt like giggling like a toddler. And this was literally just the beginning, his first discoveries. He felt his phone buzz, and looked down.

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  New Spell learned! Experience gained!

  Then, he did laugh out loud.

  James stopped tying his shoelace to the rudimentary fire bow he was forming.

  “O-okay buddy that’s enough time talking to the voices in your head.” James said, only half sarcastic.

  “Har-de-har-har. I just figured out something with my magic that is beyond awesome. I mean, magic. Real magic.” Ardwin would’ve explained, but he knew James wouldn’t appreciate a long discussion of theory crafting.

  “Sure buddy. Just let me know if any of those split personalities are less of a stick in the mud.” James replied, relaxed now in his jibes. “Anyway I’m almost done with the drill and bow, broke some sticks for fire wood too, but we both have no tinder and the sticks are all fresh and green from the tree.”

  Rather than cause alarm, the problem excited Ard.

  “I might actually be able to fix that. Lemme see.”

  Come to think of it, when he had siphoned mana from the tree, the leaves that had died didn’t just fall off still green. They had shriveled and died as if the life was being sucked out of them. The mana transfer must transfer hydration and nutrients. He looked at the sticks with his mana sight. Fortunately since the very fact that the sticks were still green and alive meant that mana inside was still moving, allowing him to make a conduit.

  He made another conduit simply leading into thin air but this time watched the mana after it flowed out. He could keep track of it, but only for about 10 feet as it flowed rather quickly somewhere. He changed the direction of the conduit but the direction the mana flowed after leaving was consistently downwards. Interesting. Perhaps attracted to the core of the planet? He shook himself and dispelled the mana sight, letting him see normally.

  The sticks and various tree limbs were dry as a bone. He just got magic and it was already helping him survive. He handed them to James who grumbled about not being able to practice his sword while Ard made the fire. Ard just rolled his eyes and they worked together to assemble the fire.

  While James started the long process of breaking twigs into tinder and then creating a spark with the bow, Ardwin realized he should’ve began butchering the bird in some way.

  “James, can you hand me your sword? I should get started on skinning the bird.”

  “Oh yeah, forgot about that. You know how? I don’t.” He replied

  “No, me neither but we probably can’t digest the feathers. Guess I’ll do my best.” He’d gutted fish before but doubted that translated very well.

  Right before beginning to cut into the bird, he thought about their lack of water. Maybe they should be drinking the blood. But with no clear way to extract it and not yet desperate, he decided that if worse came to worst they could hunt another bird. After briefly attempting to skin the bird with no experience and a massively oversized knife, he gave up and simply tried to cut out anything that looked like meat.

  It was rather disgusting, but something about his hunger and the survival situation numbed the feeling. He ended up with various bloody flesh gobbets. He looked over at James who was sitting next to the now roaring fire with a grimace of morbid curiosity.

  “Remind me not to get on your bad side.” James teased, as Ard was covered in blood.

  “Hyuk hyuk. Seriously though, that was miserable. Let’s skewer what we can and roast these.”

  They quickly found some eligible sticks, although the tree was beginning to look a little bare at this point. Feeling bad, particularly since he was now some sort of Druid, Ard transferred a bunch of mana from the surrounding grass into the tree as they ate. The meat was…inordinately good, considering it was from a predator, unseasoned, and cooked inexpertly.

  It even quenched their thirst a little somehow. Upon finishing the meal though, both of their phones buzzed. James simply ignored his, rolled over on his side, and went to sleep. Ard picked his phone up. A flashing exclamation mark appeared in the corner of the screens He opened the window;

  Alert: Consuming Magical Biomass has given level experience to the bacteria in your digestive system. While raising their level will result in increased nutrient gain, if they ever outlevel you they will quickly overmultiply and kill you. This alert is provided as a courtesy at the first time it becomes relevant, and ascertaining the level and health of your gut bacteria requires a medical practitioner.

  Ard sat there, dumbfounded for what felt like the thousandth time in the last couple hours. Bacteria could level? That meant plagues would be making a comeback in a big way. Great. Well that would be a problem if they ever found a city, for now though apparently they had to either limit their consumption of the birds, or rapidly level in order to have a safety margin. He began making plans about ways to level and alternative food sources before his brain slowly shut off and he drifted into nothingness.