Lillian rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she stumbled through a doorway. Clutched in her hands was a sealed bag that held her clothes and the scroll that T. Rex had given her.

  The sterile air of her small storage pod was replaced by a warm rush of moisture as the exit door opened.

  The humid air had a strange, foreign tang to it that she couldn’t quite place. As her eye focused, she found a sprawling green forest with lush trees that shot into the sky; the verdant canopy was miles above. She felt a sense of wonder as she tried to step back into the real world. The massive woods dwarfed any forest she had seen before.

  The moment she stepped through the threshold, the doorway vanished, and her lead foot immediately sank into the mud that was hidden beneath the massive black and brown leaves. She cursed as the suction of the mud gripped her foot tightly, causing her to tumble face first into the muck.

  Her angry scream rose through the mud in bubbles. The calm, Zen state she had achieved in her mindscape evaporated as she pushed herself back to her feet. The suction of the mud made every step a chore as she trudged towards the exposed root system of a nearby tree.

  The behemoth was over 100 feet in diameter. Each tree was larger than the tallest of the redwoods of California. Out of breath, Lillian sat down in the detritus, her back against the cool bark. Her fingers fumbled and shook as she unfurled the scroll, marveling at the glowing page that was illuminated even in the shade. The excitement of cultivation overshadowed the dull burning sensation she felt on the surface of her skin and in her lungs.

  How long had she toiled under Renaxxus’s harsh methods all for this moment? The days of survival training ran together in her head to the point where she was unsure how long she had been under her teacher’s tutelage. All her efforts were in preparation for this moment. It was finally time to become a cultivator.

  “The Body” was a short document that briefly explained how to temper her body into one that could thrive in a mana rich environment. The center of the scroll had a visual diagram of a person utilizing what the cultivators called a breathing technique. Lillian mimicked the posture shown and followed the tempo described in the scroll. The strange cadence of the technique stirred the air around her. She could feel a foreign substance in the air coalesce as it was drawn to her like a magnet.

  Her lungs began to feel uncomfortable as she practiced the breathing technique. The air was becoming thick in her lungs. She desperately wanted to release the held breath, but the instructions were clear: to advance, she needed to do this.

  The pressure peaked and then released, sending the accumulated substance through her lungs and into her blood. The moment that the mysterious substance entered her bloodstream, it began a chain reaction in her body. Her pores opened, forcing a mess of black sludge from within her skin that coated her from head to toe. Ignoring the putrid smell emanating from the sludge, she continued the breathing technique as if in a trance. The cleansing of her body continued as she pulled the mana from the air and saturated her body. The impurities that she expelled were remnants of her life back on Earth. All the micro-plastics and excess chemicals found in the foods she ate were forcefully expelled from her body. As this cleansing continued, she felt the mana flowing into her at a faster rate. Every time the mana ran through her, it forced a little more of the putrid gunk from her body.

  Lillian was focused on the singular line of text that accompanied the diagram as her body continued to purify itself. "Breathe deeply and shed your mortal skin." At first glance, she took the text as a metaphor, but as she continued to breathe the mana in, she realized to her horror that there was no hidden metaphor. The instructions for this initial phase were disheartening and painfully simple.

  The burning sensation on her skin began to crescendo as flakes began to break off and drift to the ground. Her hyperventilating seemed to accelerate the process as her lungs drew in more of the invisible energy with every breath. Now that the process had begun in full, there was no stopping in until it was complete. Her bloody fingers tried to pry the scroll farther open in hopes of finding a hidden note that would release her from the torture, but the scroll was already fully opened. Lillian stifled a scream as her fingernails fell out one by one, followed by her black hair. The very air was an acid that ate away at her. Her skin split at her fingertips and peeled down to her toes, revealing the raw musculature below. She managed to maintain her silence through the nails and hair, but desperate howls escaped from her throat when her skin split at the nape of her neck and peeled away from her. The pain was all encompassing. Every breath was another shot of venom that swam happily through her veins. After what felt like hours, the burn began to cool. Lillian squirmed her way out of her old skin like a cicada re-entering the world. The air continued to eat at her as new skin began growing and stretching across her frame.

  The resolve she had found in the mindscape and that ember of rage she had nestled in her heart kept her lucid as the process continued. The sect could have done so much to ease this pain, to allow her a modicum of safety. Instead, they let her experience this in the wilderness. Her training had made it clear that the wildlife would be less than hospitable, and now she was stuck, writhing in pain on the ground. Her new flesh squirmed and spread as her frail frame was covered once more. After what felt like hours, she sat up and pulled the cursed scroll out of the mud. Her ghostly pale fingers clenched the scroll as her anger peaked. In a fit of frustration, she launched the scroll into the mud, burying it completely with a loud thwack. Lillian stood frozen as she stared at the hole in the mud. Was I always this strong? The hole was slowly filling back in, so she reluctantly dug her arms back into the muck, eventually fishing out the scroll after submerging her arm to her shoulder.

  The demonic scroll's text changed as her new flesh gripped the parchment. A congratulatory banner appeared at the top of the page. Lillian’s grip tightened on the bindings of the scroll as the survival rate of that initial tempering flickered into view.

  “Congratulations for surviving! Current survival rate for the initial tempering is 80%.” The scroll acted like a computer tablet. The paper acted as a touchscreen as the words scrolled on the page.

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  A fifth of us will die just from this. Three billion lives lost. The reality of the loss of life weighed heavily on her shoulders. Lillian buried the thought of those who were lost deeply, adding it into the furnace that drove her forward.

  All of this could have been prevented.

  The celebratory balloons faded away and a new diagram surfaced in the center of the scroll. It depicted a body surrounded by thousands of small bubbles. Lillian’s finger pressed one of the bubbles and it quickly morphed into a small flame. Warmth radiated off the page like magic.

  The single line of text had morphed too.

  “To continue tempering your body, Destroy it from the outside.”

  Lillian contemplated burying the damned scroll in the mud. What kind of masochistic group was she trying to join?

  She skimmed through some of the bubbles, displaying a wide variety of things. Some were traditional elements like water and earth. Others were stranger, like weapons and armors. Some of the bubbles were so esoteric that even with the scroll providing an example, she had no clue to what they represented.

  Reluctantly, she peeled off the remnants of her breakthrough and unsealed her clothes. Renaxxus made sure to drill into her head that any protection from the elements should be taken advantage of. Lillian let out a small gasp as she felt the familiar clothes cover her. The dingy material felt strange, as if the thick denim jeans were thin and weightless. The tempering had done more than the scroll had let on.

  Lillian brushed aside the changes to her body. For the time being, she needed to find shelter and water. She looked up into the branches, half-expecting to see the condescending visage of her teacher. She rubbed her bald head in irritation while planning out her path through the forest.

  Finding a source of water is my highest priority. With all this moisture in the air, there must be a water source nearby.

  After donning her old clothes, Lillian trudged through the mud as she looked for a source of the life-giving liquid. She searched the mud for tracks on the way to get an idea of the wildlife, but the mud was very fresh from a recent rain. It was an hour before she was able to catch a hint of moving water in the distance. She cupped a hand over her ear, trying to isolate the direction of the water.

  Plop

  A searing pain shot through her forearm. A glob of slimy mucus had fallen from above and started dissolving her skin.

  Lillian almost followed her instinct to wipe it off but stopped herself before she spread it further. Instead, she used the scroll to scrape off the mucus and flung it to the side. Crouching down at the base of the tree, she searched the canopy above. The lurching movements of a snail sliding its way down the trunk in her direction caught her eye.

  A brown shell bobbed up and down ominously as the snail continued its slow descent, leaving a trail of exposed wood where the bark had melted in its wake. The reddish mushrooms growing on the bark above the snail all showed signs of being nibbled on. Apparently, Lillian was more appetizing than the poisonous mushrooms. The mollusk was making a beeline for her, but it was still a snail. She had plenty of time before it would make it to the undergrowth where she was.

  As adrenaline filled her with nervous energy, Lillian couldn’t help but marvel at how the mana had already changed her. Her skin was burning, but she could feel the invisible mana in the air travel through her lungs with each breath. The mana seemed to thicken in her lungs before being pumped towards the damaged area. The pain receded and she could almost feel the itch of a healing wound already. What would have been a several week-long affair would likely only last a day at most.

  Lillian’s mind raced as the snail descended. The panic began to fade as her training took over. She had faced creatures far worse than a bug and survived. The snail would never catch her, but she didn’t want a death snail to follow her for the rest of her life either. She could have crushed a snail with ease before, but this gastropod was as large as a corgi.

  Her hands quested below the leaves, searching for something to hit the snail with from afar.

  “Fuck!”

  She jerked her hand out from under the leaves as another snail made itself known.

  They are hiding in the mud.

  The sensation of the slime on her fingertips reminded her of touching a hot stove top. The pain shot to her elbow and towards her shoulder before dulling. Instinctively, Lillian took a deep breath and gasped. The mana she frantically sucked in quickly traveled through her body before coagulating on the new wounds her hand sported.

  The snail that was slowly emerging from below was smaller than the one descending the tree; it was only as large as a house cat. The stalks on its slimy head held two purple beads that undulated as it lumbered towards her.

  Lillian raised her foot and violently smashed her heel into the top of the snail's shell. It shattered, cutting up her pant leg and filling her sock with burning slime. The purple hue faded from its eyes as it perished.

  At least that one is dead.

  The leaves around her rustled as more snails began their ambush.

  The mud was slowing her down as she scrambled away. Some of the snails seemed content to feast on their fallen brethren, but eight of the malicious bugs chose her instead, gliding slowly atop the mud in her direction. Those that joined the hunt all had the purple glint in their eyes as they skated over the wet mud in silence, only maneuvering around the tree stumps and boulders that lay in their path.

  Every step sent a wave of pain up her leg as the acidic slime ate its way into her foot. Her frantic breathing wasn’t pulling enough mana in to handle the damage she had accrued.

  She steadied her breath, trying to get back into the rhythm of the breathing technique, but it was too much, too soon. The larger snail finally reached the ground and led the slow charge of the mollusks as more of their brethren erupted from the ground.

  Lillian limped away from the slowly approaching herd. Even with a limp, she was slightly faster than the slow-moving armored slugs.

  The ground in front of her began to ripple as more of the gastropods surfaced. They had her surrounded. The snails were legion, over a hundred of the carnivorous mollusks had joined in on the hunt.

  For the first time in her life, Lillian felt the fear of death. The bomb had been too sudden, too surreal. She knew that they would have killed her, but death never felt real before now. Just as she began to resign herself to her fate, a black blur smashed into the alpha snail. The overgrown crow gripped the shell with its talons and took it above the trees. She felt the shockwave as it crashed into the ground. The bastard thing’s shell was unable to handle the stress and shattered upon impact. The crow swooped down and dug its talon through the corpse. The contingent of lesser snails quickly burrowed below the surface as the black bird preened. The giant bird swallowed a sparkling gem it found inside before turning to look at Lillian. The bird seemed indifferent to the burning slime but disdained eating the rest of its kill; instead, it turned to her and stared her down, as if it was assessing whether she was food or not.