“Ummm, a little help?” I asked Elendria as I stood on our foe’s decapitated neck. Without the ability to fly, plus all my other injuries, I had zero chance of avoiding the rapidly growing blood puddle. Walking down the remainder of the body was also out, as it was still twitching in death throes.

  “Fine.” She said with an exasperated huff, though I could still detect a good bit of amusement at my situation. Picking me up princess style, she flew off to one of the few areas clear of devastation. Looking around, I was surprised that there were still areas like this. While we had mostly stuck to single attacks, the snake was a good bit more indiscriminate. Rocks melted from his venom, clouds of poison gas stubbornly sticking together, mounds of dirt shoved aside from his body, not to mention the craters and crevices left from his Mesmer Eyes covered around a quarter mile area around the portal.

  As softly as she could, Elendria put me down, careful of my arm and my ankle. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t realize just how bad my ankle was and placed it down like normal. “AAAAAH!” I screamed in pain, immediately dropping down and looking at my foot. It was turned sideways, and the agony shooting through my leg distracted me from whatever Elendria was trying to say in the background. Half of my calf muscle had turned into a ball of agony just below my knee, the mother of all muscle cramps. The other half was tight, but the most uncomfortable feeling was the part trying to reconnect with the cramped part. Feeling the muscle trying to inchworm its way back to reconnecting with the torn part was a special kind of uncomfortable agony. To top it all off, I could somehow feel shapeshifting trying to fight with my natural healing to correct everything.

  “What can I do? Sean? SEAN!” Elendria’s frantic shaking of my shoulders finally broke through my distraction.

  “Straighten foot.” I gasped out, managing to roll onto my back and raise my foot a little bit into the air. Resisting the urge to roll side to side gave me a lovely distraction as I saw my foot flopping around uncontrollably. Then it was all white as Elendria grabbed my foot and forcefully twisted it back into position.

  Shudders brought me back to the real world, as I lay gasping on my back. I took a moment to check my body. Foot seemed normal, raised on something that was giving me a wonderful cooling sensation. I slowly twitched my foot upwards, hyper focused on my calf muscle. Ready to immediately stop at the first sign of muscle cramping. A soft sigh of relief escaped when I only felt a little tightness.

  “Feeling better?” I heard Elendria ask, and I opened my eyes to see her next to me with a gentle smile.

  “Much.”

  “Good.” She said, slowly standing. “I went ahead and set your arm as best I could while you were passed out, but I have zero idea how bad the damage is.”

  “Hopefully not too bad.” I said, noticing that I couldn’t feel the arm. Looking down at it, the numbness made sense. Elendria had made an ice splint. Cooling, pain reduction, and immobilization all in one. “Please tell me you have some milk in your storage.” I asked her as I sat up.

  “Milk? Why would I have that?” She asked, confused.

  “I got a feeling that I’m going to have to heal a lot of bones, and the less I have to heal with pure mana the better.”

  I saw her stare off into space for a bit as she accessed her storage ring, but she stayed that way for a bit too long. “You, uh. You might not want to use anything from my ring.” She said. “And probably check yours as well.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “She’s right you know.” A deep, smooth voice said from behind me. I spun as quickly as I could, grateful my leg held up without any twinges this time. Standing there calm as can be was something I never expected. Standing a bit over six feet tall with dark hair that had the slightest hint of a wave to it was a guy in an immaculately tailored blue suit, a bit darker than a sky blue. A red tie with a swirling blue pattern that complimented his suit with a matching pocket square. He didn’t radiate any threat, but I somehow felt that whoever this was, he was far beyond me at the moment.

  “Why?” I asked after my brain managed to reboot. “And how? Who?”

  “Eloquent.” He chuckled, pulling a comfortable looking captain’s chair from nowhere and sitting down, crossing a leg over his knee. “First, allow me to introduce myself. I’m this system’s avatar, you can call me Theo. As to why, perhaps she could take out something to show you while I check over a few things.”

  I shrugged, then looked at Elendria who already had a potion in her hand. Instead of a solid color, it was a swirling psychedelic rainbow that hurt my eyes to look at.

  “What’s with these numbers? Of course, its her system.” I heard the avatar mumble.

  “Oh.”

  “Oh indeed.” He replied, looking up. “You both crossed through the void in a protected tunnel, but you took absolutely zero precautions. I’m honestly surprised you aren’t cancerous lumps on the ground right now. Anyway, before we can go over too much I have an offer for you.”

  “We’re listening.” Elendria respectfully said.

  “Excellent. I’m willing to take everything in your storage items and convert them to something equivalent from this system. I’ll do this while your bodies are switching over to the Beatha system. I’ve got a quick patch that will work while you deal with those guys over there, but I’ll have to go hands on for a few things. Looks like She updated a few things and it isn’t playing well.” While he was explaining, he made a half-hearted gesture to the side. As I was turning, I noticed our storage rings levitating while strangely colored lights emerged from them and did a complicated dance in the air before merging in the space between the rings.

  “Guys?” Finishing my turn, I saw three people leaving the tree line about a half mile away. One had simple green robes, one had a bit nicer green robes with a bit of gold trim, and the last had a snakeskin pattern in gold on his robes. Behind them was a rickety cart hauling iron cages with five people.

  “Here. Quick patch. Good luck!” The avatar snickered as two orbs of light shot into our foreheads, and I felt a tingle shoot through my body. Shaking off the effects, I started walking with Elendria towards the newcomers.

  “Servants of Apophis?” I asked.

  “Almost certainly.” She agreed. “Probably here to feed the snake with some malcontents.”

  “Leave the plain robe alive if we can.” I said back.

  “Why?” She asked, giving me a strange look.

  “He’s going to spread rumors for us. Build up our story so that people lose faith.” I answered with a dark smile. While we were talking, the three leading the cart had started moving forward at an accelerated pace, leaving the cart behind. “Oh look, they minimized collateral damage for us. How thoughtful.”

  “Tum kaun ho? Paharedaar kyon so raha hai?”

  “So many questions without even introducing yourself. How rude.” I scoffed.

  He glared at me while taking a deep breath. “Maar daalo.”

  “Fireball.” I calmly replied, aiming at the one on the left, that had the middle amount of ornamentation. Instead of flaming death, however, a small sphere of light shot out and did absolutely nothing to his clothes. He flailed his arms defensively, not expecting the speed of the attack. We both looked on in confusion as he patted his body, finding to damage.

  “Weird. Air blade.” I made a slash with my hand, concentrating on the spell. Instead of a perfectly compressed blade of air flying forward and bisecting him, a thin slab of rock dropped at my feet and shattered.

  “Performance issues?” Elendria asked, and I could hear the grin in her question. Before I could answer, all three lifted their hands and shot out a spray of green liquid.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Barrier.” I reflexively cast as Elendria mirrored my actions with an Ice wall. Both went off without a hitch, and easily stopped the liquid.

  “Ice lance.” Elendria shifted her wall to a massive spike, keeping the slightly melted portion towards the tip as she sent the attack right back to the senders.

  “Apophis ka paimaana.” The ornate one replied, and a green scale easily took the hit, though it did crack a bit. The shattered ice did cause the youngest to stumble backwards, obviously not as used to battle as the other two. Ignoring the obviously expendable initiate, the green scale shifted and became a half plate chest guard.

  “Ice spear.” I tried using ice like Elendria did, wondering if it was just an elemental issue. Instead a lightning bolt blasted forward, blinding and deafening everyone.

  “Damnit Sean!” Elendria’s yell was muffled and distorted by the ringing in my ears, and I felt more than saw as she stumbled away from me. I moved as well, knowing the reflexive strikes would hit where I originally was.

  By the time I had blinked the spots out of my vision, things had drastically changed from the standoff. The initiate had an ice spike through his calf, leaving him on the ground. Elendria was trying to sending a flurry of blows at the highest priest with an ice rapier, that he was deftly deflecting with a pair of bone daggers that looked an awful lot like snake fangs. While she couldn’t get a hit in, she was easily keeping distance and was under no threat. The third priest was moaning on the ground, his right hand looking like a charred tree branch.

  I took a second to center myself, thinking about what went wrong. The only spell that hadn’t gone awry was the barrier, which used neutral mana. The spells formed properly, I just couldn’t use the right elemental mana. I wondered if the avatar had done something to me on purpose, but couldn’t dwell on it.

  “Mana bullet.” I said quietly, focusing on making sure I used neutral mana. The spell formed properly, firing and smashing through a green scaled barrier that tried to form over the priest’s chest. I turned to check on Elendria. “Need a hand?”

  “I got this.” She said, thrusting straight at the center of the priest’s chest. A cross slash with each dagger managed to dig in to the ice of her blade. Not quite breaking it, but digging in deep enough that her blade was well and truly bound.

  “Ab tum mere haath lag gae.” He said with a smile.

  “Extend.” She retorted quietly, and his smile disappeared as the end of her sword shot forward and pierced through a crack in the shield spell he had cast earlier along with his sternum. He blinked a few times, looking down and trying to form words that would never come. “What should we do with that one?”

  “Krpaya mujhe mat maaro.” He kept mumbling, trying to scramble backward but hindered by the injury to his leg.

  I walked closer, kneeling in front of the terrified teenager’s face. By the time I got there, tears had cleared a path through the dirt on his cheeks. “He knows he can’t hurt us. Let him run and start spreading fear to the clergy.”

  “Good.” She agreed, shrinking the ice spike a bit before pulling it out to prevent further injury.

  “Where’d you get the bandages?” I asked, confused as she started cleaning the kid’s wound.

  “Storage bag from the priest you killed.” She said, and I turned to see that she had already pulled the belts off the two corpses.

  “Anything good in there?”

  “Couple of potions. Some coins I plan on keeping.”

  “Shoo.” I looked straight at the initiate and made a shooing motion with my hands before turning and walking with Elendria towards Theo. Whatever he was working on had taken a golden glow that hurt to stare directly at, but I could see what was left of the storage rings slowly breaking down and being drawn into the glow as if it were a black hole. Gold hole?

  “So what was that?” I asked, flopping down onto the ground.

  “Hmmm? What was what?”

  “How can Elendria cast spells, but all of a sudden I can’t?”

  “One moment, almost done here.” He said, refusing to look away from whatever he was doing. I sat there through a few impatient minutes before I felt Elendria’s hands slowly kneading my shoulders, draining tension that I hadn’t realized was building up. It felt so good that I lost track of time for a bit.

  “Ok, this just needs a few minutes to finish cooking. While we wait for it, let me give you a quick rundown of the Beatha system and why your spells suck. First, it takes actual skill to use instead of the sandbox system you’ve been using up ‘til now.” I started to object to his characterization of things, but he simply held up a finger and I found I couldn’t speak. “Ah, ah. No interruptions.”

  “You’ve been depending on the system to do the heavy lifting of your spellcraft so far. Yeah, you’ve got a lot of synergies and stuff but your knowledge of the actual spell is superficial at best. You don’t know the mana paths, the ratios, anything like that. Heck, your ability to select mana is mediocre at best. How many different affinities and spell schools have you unlocked and ‘mastered’?” He actually put mastered in air quotes. “No wonder you couldn’t get spells to work right. Trying to launch an air blade with earth mana? That’s just ignorant. Simply casting a spell a few times with the system assistance doesn’t’ count for mastery in my book.”

  Turning, he smiled at Elendria. “Now, take Elendria here. She’s got ice and neutral mana. Spent years casting the same spells over and over. Feeling how the system molds everything, the flow rate of the mana. It hardly took her a full cast to take control of most of the aspects of the spell. You’ll do great in my system.”

  “Thank you.” She said with an embarrassed nod of her head.

  “Of course. It generally takes nearly a year of intense study to learn a spell, and can take decades of trial and error to master just one. You, Sean, are going to have a very hard time just sorting out your mana types. Oh? What’s this?”

  “What’s what?” I asked as he frowned heavily while staring at my chest.

  “No, no. We can’t have this.”

  “Can’t have what?” I practically shouted, rapidly losing patience.

  “She pushed as hard against the limits as she could, but you’ve had some exceptional luck. It’s burned through a good portion of your karma, so I’m going to have to turn it back toward the negative side.”

  “Negative luck?”

  “Yep.” He nodded. “I’ll try not to take too much pleasure from seeing your struggles, but. Well. I am going to be watching. Anyhow, you’ve been warned about that and how much harder spellcasting is going to be. The only other thing we need to go over is items.”

  “What? You can’t just gloss over things like that!” I shouted, standing back up. “And what’s with the Beatha system? I thought we had progressed to a higher system called the demigod system?”

  “Can, will, did.” He said. “And you still need to be compatible with the world’s base system. Which is the Beatha system. Now, items. You should at least be familiar with this. I took a peek through some of your memories, thought it would go great in the system. Items, monsters, humanoids. All get grades F through A, then S, SS, and SSS. To welcome you properly, I’ve created your first S ranked item! It’s even a throwback to something from your original world, aren’t you excited?” Smiling, he handed over a cloth pouch. As soon as I touched it, knowledge flowed into my head.

  “A bag?” I asked, confused at what I was holding in my hands. “Why a bag? I liked my ring.”

  “Of course you did. But storage rings don’t make any sense. Where do you put it in? Why is there no size limit? Rings don’t store things, they look pretty on fingers.” He stopped is rant, and took a calming breath. “Sorry, we’ve gone round and round with this argument before. She’s got a need to quantify everything, and I have a system rooted in reality with a lot less hand holding. But that’s not your fault, so I’ll try not to hold it against you. Anyhow, we’re in my system now, so my rules. Storage items have to be containers, actual containers. And you can’t put anything in that doesn’t fit through the opening. Gotta reach your hand in as well to remove stuff, but you can choose what side your hand will enter from.”

  “While we are on storage items, I can at least tell you about the progressions through ranks. Each rank doubles the length of each side of the previous storage rank, so you get an 8x increase in actual capacity. The opening of bags will also double in diameter. Time dilation for F rank bags is 2:1. For every hour inside the bag, two hours pass outside. No living things allowed in bags.”

  “Ok, that’s great and all but why does the Bag of Bags only store other bags? It’s basically useless.”

  He looked at me, eyebrow raised for an uncomfortable amount of time. “Useless.” He muttered. “Do you know how hard it is to create an unlimited, stable space that completely negates gravity? Once you get that, go ahead and make it so your space can hold other subspaces within it. Just that bit there will take a barely evolved primate like you nearly 10,000 years of constant work to create. Then you can spend ten times that figuring out how to harness the myriad void energies so that they prove beneficial without overloading whatever you’ve put in there. Hell, it might take you 100 or even 1,000 times as long to get that right without causing every third bag to explode.”

  “Apologies Theo, Sean chose his words poorly.” Elendria tried to interject, only to become the focus of Theo’s anger.

  “Poorly? He sounds like a petulant child deprived of his favorite toy. I have neither the time nor the inclination to hold his hand through the rest of this. You don’t have to worry about advancing your grade, and most of your traits carried over without issue. You know why you can’t cast spells, the rest of the system issues are patched.” He flicked his fingers towards us, and two spots of light shot out once again and entered our foreheads. This felt a lot rougher, like several small shocks were being set off through our muscles at random intervals and locations. Luckily it only took a few seconds before it stopped, but when it did we were alone.