Aster appeared back in the dungeon, standing with her back against the wall. All around her she could sense that same strange thickness in the air.

  Mana.

  That was the first thing she sensed, but not the first she felt. She felt… whole. There was a weight to herself that hadn’t been there moments ago. She took a step, then another. Things… things were different. Her body was whole again, and then some!

  Her spear clattered to the floor before she ran her hands over her body. She felt her hair, holding it in front of her face and lighting it with her bracers. It was redder than what she remembered before and… was that light? She couldn’t be certain, but the thought the tips of her hair were brighter, even in the light. With a thought, the light from her bracers dissipated, confirming for her that her hair did, in fact, emit some small amount of light. And not only her hair, as she saw light catching on the back of her hand from somewhere. She waved her hand back and forth and… was it coming from her face? Her eyes? What the fuck?

  Aster relit her bracers and held them a ways from herself, looking down at… boobs! She had boobs again! She had… Those are definitely bigger than before, right? And they definitely didn’t… uh…

  Her freckles emitted light of some sort, with the concentrated smattering of freckles she had running across her chest being the biggest culprit. But that didn’t really matter at the moment, BECAUSE SHE HAD HER BODY BACK!

  Tears poured from Aster’s eyes as she ran her hands over her figure. Muscles that had atrophied away now stood proudly beneath her skin. Curves that had deflated along with her as the cancer ate away had come back to her.

  Aster jumped. Aster spun. Aster posed. Aster felt.

  And when Aster was done, not knowing how much time had passed, she took another good look down at the glowing freckles along her skin. Had this been part of that race evolution? She wasn’t… not human anymore, though, right? Did humans glow like this in Magic Land? That didn’t make any sense.

  And then she remembered the last notification she’d gotten:

  *Bloodline Awakened*: [Bloodline of the Genesis Flame (Bloodline Ability - Unique)] -Dormant power lies in the very essence of your being. A unique, innate ability awakened in the Bloodline of the newly initiated human, Aster Rose. Enhances awareness of nature. Enhances relationships with nature. Enables the consumption and processing of natural treasures. The fire burns within you.

  It was located under the Abilities tab of her Status Menu. The Bloodline. It said that “the fire” burnt within her. That had to be the source of this light, right?

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  Something else stood out to her about all of this: This was the first time the System had acknowledged her by name in one of these skills. Was it a skill? Aster wasn’t certain.

  She was still overwhelmed by everything that had just happened, so it took her a minute to try and get back into the headspace she needed to properly deconstruct this message.

  “First things first,” she said to herself. “’Dormant power’ definitely suggests this was something that was already a part of me prior to the System.” That made sense, assuming the System message wasn’t lying to her— but why would it? So far as Aster could tell, the System was a neutral entity, if it was an entity at all. It could almost be described as somehow both the UI and OS of this new reality, all warped into one.

  “Second,” she continued, finally picking herself up and continuing down the next hall. “It mentions me by name. That’s already unique.”

  This talking to herself continued as Aster practically skipped down the dank, crowded corridor of the death maze she was currently in.

  “Enhances awareness of and relationships with nature… okay?” Wasn’t that something her Profession already let her do? One thing she knew her Profession didn’t do was suggest she could “consume and process natural treasures.” What did that even mean? Let's break it down.

  Natural: found in nature.

  Treasures: valuable items.

  Valuable items found in nature… Cool? She thought. I guess I can eat a neat rock if I find one?

  That seemed to be something she would have to figure out later, once she’d exited this dungeon. For now, she was more concerned about the last portion: The fire burns within you.

  Now Aster could admit she was still in school, so maybe she was missing something, but if her extensive education in biology had taught her anything, it was that fire did not belong within anybody. Fire + body = bad. She was pretty sure she’d read that somewhere.

  Was this “fire” going to burn her up from the inside? She didn’t feel hot, outside of being fucking sexy as hell because she had her body back!

  But that aside, she felt fine. In fact, she felt better than ever! She felt like she could run for days. She felt like she could do a strut that would put any other woman to shame. She felt…

  She felt a creature ahead?

  That was not normal.

  It was like… it was almost like Aster could see it. Not in a physical, line of sight sense, but in a different way.

  She perceived it almost like seeing a red dot on a minimap otherwise clouded by a fog of war, though she lacked the nerdiness to put it into those specific words. She did, however, know that it was another ROUS, though how she knew that and how she knew that she knew that were both mysteries to her.

  This just got a whole lot more interesting, Aster thought. She could tell where the creature was, and what it was, and instinctively knew the directionality of the ability was in three dimensions.

  She closed her eyes and thought, picturing the fork ahead of her and attempting to get a better picture of the layout. It came to her, slowly, but it came to her. Aster took deep breaths, relishing the feeling of her moving body, as she steadied herself.

  So far, these rats had had either the element of surprise or had been fast enough to lose her around corners and with their fucky space magic.

  “Not anymore,” Aster whispered to herself, brushing a strand of hair out of her face.

  She was back. And if she was scary before?

  Those rodents didn’t stand a chance.