Chapter 8 - Memories from times that will come to pass

"To make it short: It all started with a certain country developing too much. Other superpowers disliked the idea of a new competitor. To stop that ascension, they made money flow to all kinds of disruptive groups, the idea was a hybrid war instead of a confrontation. It backfired hard, some missiles went here and there until someone had the brightest idea of using a nuclear weapon to show who had the bigger dick."

[Oh, did it stop the war?]

"Stop the war? Heh, you wish, that was a colossal backfire, who would guess that everyone else was trigger-happy with their own nuclear weapons? All they needed was an excuse. They got that, alright."

[Holy shit?! Did it become a nuclear war? What happened next?]

"Death happened next, and a LOT of it. The north of the planet became a fallout graveyard."

[Oh my, so which countries were destroyed?]

"Europe as a whole, it became a cradle of radiation, its enemies had the same destiny too.

[Wow.]

"It was a stupid war with pointless destruction."

Something is really weird here, in MY world we didn't have those things happening.

[Hey, I wonder, which year that happened?]

"2036."

[What? That doesn't make sense, before I woke up here it was 2021.]

At that moment, Yoshi stopped feasting.

"What? How can that be, I wasn't even born yet."

[Wait, WHAT?! Now that makes even less sense. Do you remember the year, you know… you died?]

Yoshi was silent for a minute.

"I died in 2122".

FUCK. That means she is from the future?! I am from the past? My death was already accounted for?

We stayed on that topic for some time. Yoshi revealed that she was a historian in her past life, she really was interested about life in my timeline. The first time, she wasn't aggressive towards me.

"Tell me more, how were the cities that age? You really didn't have to wear masks?"

[Well, we did use masks, there was a pandemic, like, many people died and so.]

"Oh yes, that thing, heh. You calling that a pandemic is almost laughable. The future got things that made you use REAL masks, like anti-poison and bio warfare kind."

Gzus Christ, how terrible did the world become?

[Damn, the future looks dark! So, the atomic bombing wasn't the only shit going on, right?]

"It was the pinnacle of it, but for sure not the worse."

I wouldn't be surprised, really. I did notice she was talking about masks to ward off bioweapons?

[So, the future became quite fucked up, huh. So… any good shit going on?]

"Hmmmm… people really gave up on nuclear weapons, I guess? That went down hill with the destruction and contamination of such large areas."

[Well, at least something good of out-]

"Now all conflicts are done with bio and chem weapons, they just throw them at the enemies' population to exterminate them. South America got most of them, they had a lot of untouched areas, but far too many subjects, guess that people with fucked up lands does not ask nicely for new places to live. "

[PLEASE, stop talking, I don't even wanna know anymore…]

"Well, some countries did better, Brazil did survive the "Great Taking" because most of their population had really mixed up DNA. Killing them with race targeting engineered biological weapons was way harder."

God, I need to make her stop!

[You know, if I am from the past and you keep telling me, there is a chance I may end up changing the future.]

"Heh, you can't even walk by yourself and you think to go back? I don't think we are ever leaving here."

[Oh, common, have some faith!]

"I died before waking up here, you probably did too."

God, I hate this old hag.

Well, back to my magic grinding then, I feel it would be better not to hear more about how the future shall become a shitshow. What surprises me is how Yoshi is so adapted to all of this, like, I hate being a parasite, but she doesn't seem to mind becoming a lizard.

Anyway, I got another level of Magic Manipulation after that unusual move I pulled out, so I am at level 7 right now. I don't know if those levels are that relevant, but I am getting the hang of it pretty quick.

I am constantly running mana along the blood flow, so if we get attacked by that coyote thing, we'll have a countermeasure ready. Yoshi did stop complaining about how weird it felt to been able to "feel" her own blood, guess that charging it does produce some effects, perhaps it was potentialized because I am doing it 24/7. When these mere 10 mp are spent I am careful to make it get wasted to a minimum, all the while I am waiting for the core to fill up again and use that mana as well. Supercharged blood, baby!

[Mana manipulation reached level 8]

[Mana manipulation reached level 9]

[Mana manipulation reached level 10]

[Congratulations! Mana Manipulation (I) has evolved to Mana Shaping (II)]

Oh!

"Heh, you did something again. I didn't know skills could evolve as well."

[Now you will have to give me some respect, damn lizard!]

"You wish. You are using my brain and MY core to do it. That skill is mine, not even yours".

[…]

I am the one leveling the magics here and she is doing nothing and reaping benefits, I wonder who is the parasite after all.

"I can hear your thoughts, you know."

I can't even disconnect the Connected Cortex if I want to have access to mana and skills. How pathetic I am, huh.

[Connected Cortex has reached level 2.]

Okay, is the system mocking me right now?

So, back to Mana Shaping, I can make it have shapes, right? So, I try doing that, which fails miserably.

"Parasite, explain to me why I feel my stomach stuffed right now."

Who would know that you need actual space to mold mana into shapes.

[Who knows? Yoshi could you help and, like, open your mouth?]

Reluctant, Yoshi opened her maw and so did I, took the small mana sphere I was doing inside her.

Through my host's eyes, I could see the small blueish ball of energy escaping our mouth and being held in the air by small strands of mana flowing from us to feed energy to that construct.

How interesting, so it's still connected to our core.

[Mana Shaping has reached level 2]

What? How did this level up? I literally used it for the first time! It can't be that easy to grind levels. But, what's the catch?

"That is awkward. I have a glowing egg exiting my mouth and flying right in front of me."

[Now that you mentioned, it is a bit ovoid.]

"A bit? Christ, were you trying another shape at all? Take a good look, it's identical to a chicken egg."

[Everybody's a critic.]

I tried again to change the mana into a ball, it was surprisingly harder than I thought.

"Hmm, looks like this magic shenanigans are closer to water than to clay."

Yoshi commented that when she saw how I struggled to maintain the spherical shape. It just didn't stay there, it did really "flow" like water, a fixed form was not possible at all.

[Mana Shaping has reached level 3]

"Look, you made it level up again. I think I got the gist of it".

Really? I have been doing all the magic training since day 1 and she gets to understand how it works? Preposterous!

"This system is rewarding your understanding of the process, every time you guess and develop the right assumptions it levels up."

…

[That actually makes sense.]

The process of Mana Shaping is obviously how to shape something akin to water running from a tap. So, if I understand how to make thing works it'll make this system thing give me levels which will make it easier to do.

The thing is that mana is not solid, nor liquid or gaseous, it disperses if no "motion" is given to it, therefore that I do. I make the flow of mana swirl in one direction until it becomes a ring of blueish energy.

[Mana Shaping has reached level 4]

YES! Yoshi is right, applied understanding makes it evolve faster. After the mana ring I try to make another, one will flow horizontally and the other vertically.

When I try two shapes at the same time, the structure crumbles. Doing both is quite taxing, both mentally and mana wise. Perhaps I will need to grind a bit before more complex structures.

While I am doing all that, Yoshi's mana eventually went dry, and god if that hag loved to complain how tiring it was for her.