One With Nature

BACK ON EARTH, a common saying was that you should go outside and touch some grass. After all, if you’ve been stuck all day in front of a computer screen, getting a breath of fresh air is supposed to be a good change of pace.

Now in the new world, well… I guess touching grass is the new norm. After all, I’ve spent the past several days roaming the forest almost in the nude, living the life of a hunter-gatherer. I swear, if my distant ancestors saw me, they would feel so proud.

Mind you, I’m not trying to make my best impression of a neanderthal here. On the contrary, I’m trying to figure out how to avoid acting and looking like one.

You see, back when I escaped the temple, the first thing I did was to scout for civilization using scrying magic. Following the river paid in spades, and I managed to find several villages, some towns, and even a huge city.

Thanks to this little spying operation of mine, I managed to learn some things about this world. For starters, the people here seem to live in a medieval style of society, with little in the way of advanced technology. They don’t appear to have electricity, computers, or even large-scale industry.

What they do have, however, is magic.

I learned how to use magic myself, of course, so seeing other spellcasters isn’t a surprise. What did catch my attention was how deeply intertwined the use of magic is with the local population.

Magic isn’t so rare here. About one in a hundred people is a spellcaster, judging by their mana signature, and every town and village I found has at least a mage or two to their name.

In the smaller settlements, the spellcasters help out with the crops, and act as the local healers. I saw a few of them create water out of thin air, and another patched up a kid after falling and scraping his knee.

However, in the large city, magic is way more ubiquitous. Armed spellcasters patrol the streets, many of them with matching uniforms. I suppose they’re part of the local military, maybe a knightly order or something.

Furthermore, the open markets are bustling with magical tools and implements, both for civilian and military use. From what I could appraise on my own, one could purchase mundane stuff like magic lanterns or food preservation scrolls, all the way to military hardware like weapons and potions.

In other words, this world I landed into isn’t made up of chumps.

To the locals, magic isn’t a supernatural mystery. On the contrary, it’s a pillar of their everyday life, and the military seems perfectly capable of handling themselves even if a powerful spellcaster shows up.

And then there’s me.

I’m a complete stranger to this land. Nobody knows me, and I’ve got no clothes, no money, no papers, or even a basic notion of the language spoken here. If I show up to the city like this, or even to a small town, I’ll draw all kinds of attention to myself.

That’s bad news, because the last thing I want at the moment is attention. Given how I got my magic, there’s a high chance I’m a wanted man, either by the military or by another unknown faction.

So, I can’t just stroll into the city and expect a warm welcome. I need some tools and resources to blend in, and more importantly, I need knowledge. At minimum, I have to learn the language and the basics of the local customs, and get myself some clothes.

Alas, that’s easier said than done.

One thing I’ve learned through observation is that every spellcaster has a mana signature, and mine in particular is freaking massive. I haven’t figured out a way to conceal it, so if I show up anywhere like this, I’m essentially screaming HELLO, NICE TO MEET YOU, I’M VERY POWERFUL.

That’s a surefire way to get the guards called on me, right? Especially considering how out of place I look. Even in a small village, I doubt I’d be able to escape being scrutinized by the authorities.

So I’ve been wracking my brains for the past few days, to address the most pressing question: how can I learn the language, without having anyone to teach me?

After a few experiments, I could only come to a single answer: memory transfer.

The first thing I tried was to use telepathy, but it didn’t work. I used long-range telepathy to commune with a random villager, but his mental voice also spoke the local language. I could understand his general intent and emotions, but holding a proper conversation was impossible.

The poor sod was scared shitless by my telepathic visit, and he ran off to the priest in the middle of the night. Hopefully they won’t send someone looking for me.

But oh well. After that mishap, I decided to leave the villagers in peace, and settled for animal experimentation instead. Or are they called monsters? The forest is teeming with creatures I’d never seen before, and boy they’re hostile.

Some of them look like Earthly equivalents, like oversized wolves and bears, but others are completely alien. The other day I was attacked by some twisted abomination with claws and tentacles, and it took an ungodly amount of magic to kill.

Either way, the time I was jumped by a bear, I managed to subdue it without killing it. This gave me the chance to meddle with its mind, and in my attempt to read its thoughts more thoroughly, I ended up plundering them instead.

Though it was by accident, I absorbed the bear’s memories: how it hunted, how it marked its territory, how it looked for mates, that kind of stuff. Even though the bear’s memories weren’t mine, they blended with my own nonetheless, and I had to make a conscious effort to remind myself I’m not an animal.

Thankfully, I figured out how to suppress the bear’s instincts and natural drive by concentrating them into a form of alter ego. In practice, I can polymorph into a bear too, and I repeated the trick with a wolf and a raven.

By now, I’ve learned how to plunder memories without the risk of going insane. In other words, if I do this to a human, I’d be able to learn everything I need about the new world: its language, its norms, its inner workings, everything that the target knows.

Unfortunately, the memory plunder doesn’t come for free.

You see, I’m calling it plunder for a reason. The spell doesn’t copy memories; it steals them. So if I use this spell on a person, they’d be left as a hollow shell, their mind taken from them.

That wouldn’t be a nice thing to do, right?

After eating the dragon, it’s hard to call myself human anymore, but I have no intention of letting myself turn into a monster. So, even though this spell could be my ticket to civilization, I will not use it on a human. Not yet.

With more refinement, I should be able to perfect the technique, and turn its function into a copy-paste mechanism, rather than the cut-paste it currently does.

How long will it take me to achieve that?

Hell if I know.

But one thing is certain: I will not use other people as a stepping stone. Until the day comes that I can peacefully blend in with the locals, this forest will be my home.