2 Working More on My Magic

The bear was a harsh reminder that I could die. I was having a fun time terrorizing the small bunnies and mice but I forgot that foxes have predators too. It seems natural to think about but spending 20 years not actually being hunted and never experienced anything like it it's really not enough to "stay aware". I really need to internalize fear of every little sound smell or sign of danger.

If the predators are anything like my old world some birds should still be able to kill me. At 3 months old I'm already 75% of the size of my parents. I know that sometimes eagles would even attempt to hunt full-grown foxes so I am squarely on the dinner plate, presuming this world works the same.

Well either way it wouldn't hurt me to try to figure out magic.

Based on the fantasy stories that I've read and the videogames I've played. Magic systems generally follow a pattern. Some use complex spells where incantations and hand signs are required. In this kinda thing it's either a basic law that has been there for centuries or Protag-kun finds a way to master chantless magic and is considered a genius for it. Time to channel my inner nerd or something. In reality, though I only watched a couple of isekais.

I was thinking about exactly how animals that aren't all that intelligent learn magic and the solution I came up with is surprisingly simple. Certain species have certain magic they can use at birth or it at least comes very naturally to them.

If anything this closely resembles the other magic that's in fantasies which are skills. Now I'm not going to totally discount this world having "skills" but there are a few reasons it's flimsy. 1 is that there is no voice of the world that usually makes a cameo in those stories. 2 is that the applications seem a little fluid. For example, making ice claws is an oddly specific skill if you think about it perhaps I can only try to use logic behind a logic system though.

Remnants from my time studying biology. Perhaps it would be better t think in a highly nonspeculative way i.e. "I saw that happen therefore it works" and not think too deeply on it. Besides, nothing good really ever comes from overanalyzing things in my experience.

If a bear and 2 foxes can figure it out it isn't intellectually challenging perhaps feeling closely connected to the magic makes it more powerful. In which case humans could have a hard time with our logic-driven brains. I was curious as to how they might be doing but there might be no humans at all.

If they do exist they might have some natural skills. Although in fantasy normally humans are a jack of all trades.

Perhaps this means I have the potential to be the strongest out here. Well, there could still be dragons and they'd f me up any day of the week. But there is something to having an animal body and a human brain.

The next day I was ready to start. I wanted to find some water that I could practice with. I already had a cool thing I wanted to try with water and since I'm not sure exactly what kind of magic I use to hide in shadows (it might be shadow, but it could also be dark or some type of invisibility). I chose ice because it is obviously ice magic which is also a part of water magic.

I didn't want to go to the same creek I was just spotted at yesterday though

Arriving at the pond I got right into practice. I went to the water and used the same method I did yesterday to make a spike of ice. I felt what seemed like the mana of this world come from around me and travel through me finally freezing an ice spike.

I felt that the energy didn't really come from me. the action definitely used more energy but I had to connect with something around me. interesting. I worked for a few hours mastering making all sorts of shapes including wide flat ice sheets.

Now I could finally implement my idea. I backed up 3 meters and ran at the water at a trot getting ready to focus on making the disks that I hoped to walk on. I made it 6 steps in before I lost my balance and took a plunge in. Doggy paddling out of the water I got out and shook myself off.

It was a cool idea but not the most practical, if it wasn't the summer warmth right now falling in would've probably been a death sentence. That's why I should master finer control a simple mistake is life or death in tougher environments. I had a better grasp on how my magic worked now though so I decided to try to make ice claws reminiscent of my moms' again. I tried to call up the same energy to form the shape and also focused on coalescing the energy around my front paws.

SUCCESS! Now I can bash my prey's head in with hunks of chunky ice that cling to the fur on my paws. I just need to start a fox boxing league where I can put these to use. These paws so fast and hard people'll be thinking Chris Brown got reincarnated instead.

In all seriousness, I was pretty excited about forming my own ice. Well relatively. It's hard to say if it's the same way my mom does it.

I should also point that it isn't water vapor that I coalesced near my hands but I used energy to draw in water vapor to form ice around my hands. I really thought it would be vapor but

That means I just have to manage how to shape the ice energy in the air I should be able to make it into any shape I need.

I spent 6 hours working on making shapes of different sizes and shapes on all my paws and my tails. In the end, I was able to make claws for each of my paws of the varying length's the longest was 15 centimeters though. And I could make Short spears that were about a foot long from my tails. I wanted to try to make a knife but it was too hard to make a hilt and differentiate it from the blade so they all ended up as stubby hilts or shards of ice.

Although this sounds impressive it's not. Ice is still ice. Sure the claws might give me a cleaner 1 hit kill on a mouse and the ice spear might actually be pretty good for hurling but they both break pretty easy and it's not easy to throw something with my tail.

I would need more counterbalance to the object I'm throwing. That's one thing that is definitely worse about changing species. I have to think about different ways of solving my problem. Maybe a sling would work although it would be hard to make and wouldn't do all that much damage. Maybe I should experiment more with shadow magic.

Regardless the sun was setting so I headed back to the den of my family.