A common question posed by academics was this: ‘How do animals, without the intelligence of sentient creatures, interact with the system or pick Traits?’ A common question posed by many of my contemporaries was this: Why in the hell did a bunch of wolves all pick fire-related Traits when I burned them out of their cave one time?’

As some of the more astute of you may have noticed, these questions are related but still both ask the same question: what process goes into an animal picking their Traits?

Fortunately, a good friend of mine had the same revelation and decided to do some research on the issue. Here’s what he found: animals, manabeasts, and any other naturally occurring creature do not and cannot choose their Traits manually, their Traits are chosen for them when they have an unconscious desire. 

A wolf shot by an arrow will unconsciously desire not to be so vulnerable to arrows in the future. Through that, the system will oblige their desire and give them pierce-resistant fur or the like. This, however, means that animals usually do not have spiritual Traits; there aren’t many spiritual Traits that animals find useful in day-to-day survival. 

There are cases where this can change, however. It is unknown what causes an animal to gain intelligence-based Traits, but we call such things “Uplifting Cases,” and it’s the bane of a trapper’s existence. Ask someone else how uplifting comes to pass, but there are plenty of things to watch out for when you are a trapper.

-The Wait, By Avalas Vinik

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Another arrow struck the spiked bonebeast, digging into its rib cage again. Sprawling cracks already present grew, and it seemed as though the bonebeast was on its last legs. Mori peered up through the crossing bones and saw the creature reach for another arrow. She growled and tried once more to connect her gatling to the power cell in her chest, but an arrow narrowly missing her hand ended such ideas. “You alright, Fara?” Mori asked, flinching when another arrow dug into the bonebeast’s skull.

“Yeah. Pretty good. You?” she replied. Mori only growled once more, “Alright, makes sense. It’ll be over soon; no hunter brings more than twenty arrows on a single trip. Just wait and…” Just as Fara spoke, the arrows ceased. The creature emitted a low howl and dropped its bow to the side. It glared at them, anger blazing in its eyes through Mori’s enhanced vision, and began to climb down the wall. 

The bonebeast threw itself off of Fara and circled in front of the two like a mother bear protecting her cubs. Taking the opportunity, Mori finally connected her gatling gun to the power cell and aimed it up at the creature. Bullets began flying, sending the creature scrambling back up the side of the cliff. The unwieldy machine was both heavy and inaccurate, but a few shots still landed. The malnourished-looking creature yelped when the few bullets it was not able to dodge struck its body, but still climbed over the top of the cliff before Mori was able to kill it, leaving a small trail of blood as it escaped. 

Mori sighed and turned her gun off, returning the mesa to silence. Fara was finally able to bring her rifle to bear, but just missed a chance to take a shot. She clenched her fist, a gesture that did not go unnoticed by Mori, and shook her head, “So, what are the odds that it’s going to stay up there until we chase it down?” she asked. Mori, realizing that they would have to, in all likelihood, chase it down, growled again. Without another word, she picked up one of the arrows shot down at them and threw it up in anger.

Seething, Mori nodded, “Yeah. That’s probably what’s going to happen,” she admitted, voice deepening with every word, “Do you know a way up there?”

Fara, put off by Mori’s change in voice, meekly shook her head, “N-No… I don’t…”

Realizing Fara’s discomfort, Mori calmed herself down and sighed, “S-Sorry…” she stuttered, “I didn’t realize I was getting so angry… Whoops…”

Fara took a moment to think and nodded, “It’s alright. I’m a bit angry at it as well, but that’s what happens when one of them becomes uplifted,” she agreed.

Mori took notice of the unfamiliar word, “Uplift? Is it when an animal gains intelligence and becomes like a person or something?” she asked.

Nodding, Fara motioned for Mori to follow as she began to walk around the base of the mesa, “Pretty much. Somehow, animals choose the right Traits to gain sentience or something. It’s nowhere near my niche, but I do know some of the basics: an animal wants something from the system and the system gives it to them. If what they want is intelligence, which it usually isn’t because of the increased food cost of having a bigger brain, they get intelligence. They also usually get a new Species, but that’s just an official notice to them that they became intelligent enough to be something different,” she explained. Mori was focusing on her with rapt attention, almost forgetting her previous anger in the process. 

Just as she was about to ask a question, something large and heavy slammed into her upper body. She was thrown to the ground and a few of her ribs were crushed in the impact. Pain coursed through the shattered stumps of her ribs, but she had long gotten used to pain, so she was unaffected. What did affect her, however, was the fact that her gatling gun contraption was almost entirely ruined from the impact. She stared at the shattered components for a moment before she had enough wits to look around and understand what happened to her. A large log was rolling away from her, bits of crushed bone falling off as it became dust. 

‘Actually, why is it becoming dust?’ she thought. It was not only the bone, but also the metal that had shattered off of her arm. She looked up for a moment and saw the creature standing on the cliff, wounded by bullets, holding a large log above its head as if it were a trophy. It threw the log off of the cliff, aiming it at Mori once more. She took only a moment to stand and dived to the side. The log crashed down into the dirt, kicking up dry soil as it rolled away. Mori growled and glanced to the impaled head, a vicious thought taking root in her mind. She conjured her deathbolt spell and increased the speed to as high as possible. With a flick of the wrist, the bolt surged from her hand and up the cliff, disappearing over the top.

The creature dodged the bolt, but did not need to as the bolt had another target in mind. Mori had no clue what the bolt found, but she chuckled when she received the system message. 

[You have created a basic undead with a spell made from your natural death mana. Experience has been awarded.]

Seeing that the spell worked, she looked around to check up on Fara and her undead. The bonebeast was unfortunately crushed under a log, its bones shattered on the ground. Fara was standing behind a short tree, aiming her rifle at the cliff just as the creature. Seeing the creature run, she clicked her tongue and clenched her fists. Mori sighed and walked up to the woman, patting her on the back. Fara perked up a bit, looking up with hate-filled eyes at the cliff edge. Sounds of a battle rang out, the creature having trouble putting down whatever was up there. She quickly checked her Minion Page and found what the creature was.

[Flesh-heap: A pseudo-undead created through a necromancer’s power and a combination of many corpses. While nowhere near as powerful as a purpose made patchwork undead, it can consume corpses to grow or heal itself. While weak in physical power, it is incredibly hard to kill. Like all undead, it requires occasional mana to fuel its soul.]

Mori found nothing of immediate use in the message apart from the fact that the undead would be able to buy them some much-needed time. Turning to Fara, she motioned forward, “Come on. The thing I raised up there should keep it busy for a while while we find another way up.” Fara nodded, following behind as she ran around the base of the mesa. Before the sounds of battle ended, they found a steep slope that snaked its way up the mesa wall.

Just before they began to climb, Fara tapped Mori on the shoulder, “You okay? Also, how is your arm-thing perfectly fine after that?” she asked.

Mori looked down at her arm and was startled to find that the mechanism had miraculously repaired itself, looking exactly the same as it did when she created it. Not wanting to think about it, Mori shrugged, “Magic. Now, let’s go.” Mori and Fara began to climb up the slope with hurried steps, pushing themselves to go faster. After a few minutes of running, they reached the top where the sounds of battle had stopped. They found the creature standing over the eviscerated corpse of a flesh-heap, eating a piece of flesh from its body. 

The two wasted no time in letting their bullets fly. Mori’s gatling gun pumped bullets en masse, peppering the area in front of her. Fara, on the other hand, tried to line up a shot on the beast. Just as the bullets flew, the creature dodged to the side and outran the hail of gunfire. It circled around them, forcing Mori to stop shooting to avoid hitting Fara. Seeing the window of opportunity, the beast ran straight towards Fara while making no efforts to dodge. 

Mori moved to stop the beast, but her help was unneeded. A single shot rang from Fara’s rifle as runes lit up across the gun’s surface. The bullet flew straight into the beast’s eye, sending it tumbling and screeching in pain. With the speed it had built up, it flew off of the edge of the cliff. It landed with a sickening crunch that both Mori and Fara heard all the way from the top of the cliff. They both winced at the sound and peered over the edge. At the bottom, they saw the bleeding form of the creature, arms broken and skull cracked open. 

They sighed in relief and sat down. Looking around, all they found at the top of the cliff was the flesh-heap and the head of a poor hunter who wandered in unprepared. “I know that guy,” Fara said, “He was a hunter from Thick Sand. Kind of a bastard as well, but that’s another story.”

“Huh. So that’s where the thing got the bow and arrows,” Mori remarked, “Well, that was hectic. Nice shot, by the way. I think I should try to replace my gatling with a more precise weapon. Or have something that isn’t so inaccurate. Either way, I need to do some work on this thing…” 

“Hell yeah you do,” Fara replied with a laugh, “Do you know how much I want that gatling of yours? I could put it on my skiff and use it alongside my thumper.”

“Thumper?” Mori asked.

“This air cannon that shoots heavy slugs of stone. I only have one shot in it, but it’s not hard or expensive to find a stone slug, so I only have one,” she replied. 

Mori laughed, “Nice. Anyway, should we check on our friend down there?” she asked as she leaned over the edge. “DAMMIT!” she shouted when she looked down, “The bastard got away! How!?”

Fara stood in shock at the development, but thought for a moment, “Maybe it has to do with one of its traits. There are some that accelerate regeneration after eating and it did just eat.”

“So you’re telling me that it survived a bullet to the eye and a fifty foot drop just because it ate some meat?” Mori asked in disbelief. Fara nodded grimly, to which Mori groaned, “Great. Now we have to track the damn thing again. Just fabulous.”

Fara patted Mori’s shoulder, “Hey at least there’s a trail of blood telling us where it went. Worst case scenario, we will have to shoot its other eye out,” she comforted.

“I know, but… It still sucks.”

“I agree. So, let’s show the thing our displeasure personally, yeah?”

“Agreed.”