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  Through my [Manima Sense] skill, I could see how my mana film started to unravel.

  I need to move!

  I headed in a random direction, using my full speed. Ended bodies passed under me by the hundreds, not a single one moving. I had to choose the new host carefully, as any mistake would lead to my end.

  Then it came…

  I had some memories from Kamos, bad ones; it was pain. Unimaginable pain hit me, making me halt my movement.

  Ahhhh! I shouted, something I had never done before, but it didn’t alleviate the pain.

  The Mana film was now very thin, then… even that dispersed.

  I tried to struggle through the pain and move again, but I couldn’t, only to remember that I had been moving through manipulating my mana film.

  Another pain wave made me think that this was my end. That I had escaped an end only to reach another a few moments later. But then, something from deep within beckoned me; it called and said…

  I’m all for one, and all is for me!

  I gripped! Through my [Soul Manipulation] skill, I took hold of my deforming soul, reshaping it into the sphere it had been, succeeding partially. Then, with a twirl of might, I threw the ball forward… it soared.

  Soul Manipulation has reached Lv. 2

  Pain waves kept coming, but less than before. The new skill upgrade allowed me to hold the ball’s shape better. Although I could still see thin streams of my soul dispersing into the air that I couldn’t hold, no matter what.

  I continued my search; the battlefield stretched for hundreds of Kamos’s body size, but I didn’t see a single moving human.

  My soul ball continued to shrink, hitting me with waves of pain that I only endured through telling myself the only truth I knew…

  I’m all for one, and all is for me!

  Then, at the periphery of my vision, I saw a moving object, no, not an object, but a weird creature.

  Kamos once had one of these. What did he call it… Cat!

  This cat was eating the flesh of a fallen soldier. It struggled to tear the skin, but didn’t seem to mind.

  Ahhh!

  Another pain wave hit, this one the strongest. My vision went white for a second, and I lost something of myself—Kamos’s memories, I lost some of them.

  I’m all for one, and all is for me!

  I shot towards the cat, who didn’t seem to notice me. I reached it, and without hesitation, I entered its brain.

  My vision swam. I could only describe it as moving from seeing large objects to now only seeing—what did the voice call them… cells.

  I approached a familiar cell, then, through instincts, entered the small sphere in its midst.

  Host found.

  Would you like to start integration?

  Yes.

  Then deep slumber took me; this was the first time I slept, and I really enjoyed it!

  ***

  I awoke to a tentacle cell asking for my resume. I quickly gave it to her before everything hit me at once. Kamos’s end, the voice talking to me, escape, pain, then finding the cat.

  I had survived!

  I did nothing for a second, happy to exist and live, then I remembered my motto and decided that the first thing to do was to look at my soul. It had grown back to full size, but its colour looked paler than before, and there was a constant ache coming from it, although it was barely noticeable.

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  A thin Mana film had formed around my soul, and I could see it visibly regenerate, taking Mana from somewhere and adding it to itself.

  The three components of myself are finally stable, know…

  I looked at the sister cells surrounding me. They all looked fine, so I extended a hand to a random one before…

  What if I end this cat as I had done with Kamos?

  That thought stopped my advances. I had to think things through before taking further action.

  But… Was I who ended Kamos?

  Before Kamos’s end, there were many warnings in his red liquid: from water to power, and many others. There was another thing; I didn’t know how long it took him to end because I didn’t have that good a perception of time; it was mostly measured through enduring.

  But when I saw him lying on his stomach, he was covered in his red liquid… blood.

  If it had escaped Kamos’s body, then that could explain the need for power. Although I had asked for more blood to help my deficient sisters, that couldn’t have caused his blood to escape.

  I wasn’t the one who had ended Kamos, but I had helped in it, I concluded.

  And to correct this mistake. This time, I decided not to add any dying cells—to choose only the healthy ones. I also wasn’t going to inhibit the flashes from moving through me, nor send contradicting messages, nor create toxins in the blood.

  But first, I’m going to wait until my Mana is fully restored and my soul is back to normal.

  Hence, I waited, and waited. Doing what a normal brain cell would. My soul slowly gained its colour back, but I felt it was missing something—probably the lost memories. My Mana film was faster to regenerate, taking a fraction of what my soul had needed.

  At this time, I tried to digest Kamos’s memories and experimented a bit with my skills.

  Kamos, from what I could gather, was living on a farm, growing crops and waiting to reach adulthood so he could get his farmer class at the creststone. He had wanted to marry a neighbouring girl, copulate, and live with her until time ended them.

  But then… this part was missing. I didn’t know if it was missing because I didn’t manage to fully obtain Kamos’s memories, or if it was gone after my soul dispersed. Either way, his memories were still a bit messy, and I still wasn’t sure if I was seeing them correctly.

  After that, Kamos was sent to a training camp where a lot of bad memories were formed. There, he was given, more like forced to take, the [Foot Soldier] class before being thrown into war.

  I couldn’t figure out how he had died, but the human didn’t show any signs of having a headache.

  I’m pretty certain that he was ended on the battlefield.

  My skill experiments revolved around trying to manipulate my Mana film. I tried to take hold of the Mana string feeding the film, but it always slipped out of my hold for some reason. I had wanted to increase the rate of regeneration, but it didn’t work. I also tried to compact it. Mana looked like infinitely thin strings, so I thought that if I could fit more of them inside the build of the film, I could increase its durability.

  And it worked… partially.

  The film’s density increased with more mana, but when I stopped focusing on keeping the built intact, most of the extra strings dispersed. But after trial and error, I noticed that some strings got stuck. It was a tiny amount, but in the long run, it’d add up, and the skill level increase told me I was heading in the right direction.

  Mana Manipulation has reached Lv. 2

  I also experimented with my [Biomancy skill], and found lots of uses for it.

  I was happy.

  ***

  I didn’t know how much time had passed, as keeping track inside a cell was hard, but I decided to make my move as my soul had fully regenerated, from what I could tell.

  I knew that following the same path as last time would take too much time, but I didn’t have to, as there was a better way.

  I took hold of a mana string, then, through my will, I led it towards the neighbouring cell. The string connected us, then I used my [Biomancy skill]. The skill, unlike the other two manipulation ones, needed Mana to work. I thought of what I wanted the skill to achieve, and then it started to work. Three Mana strings shot from the film, twisting and intertwining along the length of the first string, forming a simple braid.

  The braid’s colours started to change, going from the green of Mana to red, then the translucence of legs and hands. A small part of my soul left me and headed towards the leg. It shone with a faint red light before the connection was complete.

  Biomancy has reached Lv. 2

  Amazing…

  This process was way faster than using the building blocks inside the blood. It was also safer as no tentacles would come to investigate.

  And I have lots of these strings.

  I immediately got to work, connecting to many cells before stopping due to Mana exhaustion. My film was thin now.

  My plan was simple. I was going to preserve as many cells as I could. If I were to convert one by one, the body might notice, which would cause a war. So, I’d spread my connections with every cell possible, only taking control of a sporadic few, as getting that many connections to connect to my original cell would be impossible. From those few controlled cells, I’d spread until I connected to most cells, then the deception would begin.

  It took me a lot of time to connect to all the cells. Approximately, three hundred Mana film recharges. I still hadn’t connected to every cell, but I had probably more than the cat. Although my work had got faster due to all the level-ups.

  Mana Manipulation has reached Lv. 3, 4, 5

  Soul Manipulation has reached Lv. 3

  Biomancy has reached Lv. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

  Soul Mind has reached Lv. 2

  Manima Senses has reached Lv. 2

  My [Soul Mind] and [Manima Senses] skills upgraded after I had experimented with them. It was when I was wondering what the cat was doing outside and tried to focus on my perception skill. It expanded momentarily, allowing me to see the small insides of the brain cat and the world outside at the same time. Unfortunately, that had been too burdensome on my mind, and I blacked out. When I awoke again, the skills had gained a level, but I had a horrible headache.

  I redid the experiment, and thankfully, this time I didn’t pass out. Although I could only do it for a heartbeat, a headache still followed. I found out that the cat had left the battlefield behind. It was now running around in a thing I recognised from Kamos’s memories as a jungle.

  I also improved my Mana film. From all the draining, and my forcful adding of strings, my Mana film now was thicker, and looked more… green?

  But the most impressive improvement had happened when I was trying to regenerate the strings faster.

  It took me a lot of time to figure out where the Mana strings that regenerated my film came from, but I found it—if by accident. Inside all cells, there was a small factory that took building materials and power, and then turned them into more power.

  I wasn’t sure how it worked, but there was a by-product that got produced from this process—extremely tiny translucent floating balls. It took all my skill and zooming ability to see them, and then I could barely. These balls, when they touched the cat’s cells, turned green and then flowed aimlessly; some flew outside of its body. I expanded my vision, which strained me, but I managed to follow a ball outside. It floated in the air… aimlessly, too.

  Then my vision had darkened—I blacked out, again.

  After experimenting a bit with the balls, I found out that I could manipulate them only if their colour was translucent. When they touched the cat’s cells and turned green, controlling them was impossible.

  I took hold of a translucent ball that was released from a random cell I controlled, then I brought it towards my original cell. It moved across various cells, but for some reason, when I controlled it, its colour didn’t change, even if it touched a cell. Once it reached my Mana film, I made it join it. The ball dissolved in my film, and I didn’t feel anything, but the voice disagreed…

  Skill created, [Forced Mana Regeneration] (Unique)

  Mana regeneration had eluded mages for millennia. Unable to unattribute Mana, mages believed Mana regeneration was impossible. Some ambitious minds had tried, forcing Attributed Mana in their cores, but that ended miserably—their cores got tainted.

  [Forced Mana Regeneration]: Through finding one of the sources of Mana, the Metacondria, the Monoform was able to harness Mana in its purest form.

  Would you like to acquire the skill [Forced Mana Regeneration]?

  Yes!

  I called on my status, like Kamos had done many times before.

  Status.

  Species: Manima Monoform.

  Species-specific skills:

  -Mana manipulation Lv.5

  -Soul manipulation Lv.3

  -Biomancy Lv.8

  -Soul mind Lv.2

  -Manima senses Lv.2 (Unique)

  Class unavailable

  General skills (1/10):

  -Forced mana regeneration Lv.1 (Unique)

  Now, it’s time to take control of the cat…