---

Here we go again, sigh...

When I opened my eyes, it was dark, but cozy.

I felt... safe?

As I looked around the empty space, I noticed to one side of me the darkness slowly gaining a very faint golden glow.

...Some instinct made me push my head towards the brighter side and...

Clunk.

Ah...

Rigghhhttt....

Once I freed myself from my shell, a message window popped up in front of me - without me doing anything.

{{Oh, you actually did touch it...}}

Huh?

Appraisal-san, is that you?

{{...}}

You are actually an "ego", aren't you?

{{......}}

No use staying silent, I see your flashing messages, you know?

{{Ah, poot...}}

I bet that deity figure I met when I died in my old world assigned you to watch over me, didn't they?

{{Who would bother wasting important resources to watch over a bird-brained NULL skill like you?}}

AHA! Caught you! Bet you are just a lowly clerk type who didn't dodge fast enough - bet you might have even messed up in a task, and got watching over me as some sort of punishment for your mistakes!

{{Wha...???? HOW DARE YOU!!!! I am "Autonomous Self Reliant Library Tertiary Node"!!! TERTIARY!!!!!!}}

...

{{That means I am the THIRD Library node!}}

......

O... K...

So... does that mean you are some kind of big deal?

{{YES!!! I am not just some lowly "clerk"! I am a vital component of the Library! In fact, without me, no-one, and I mean no-one, would be able to access the lower third layers of the library! Well, no-one except the Librarian, that is - they are of course all powerful.......}}

Not sure what Library you are talking about, but all right, you are a big cheese in the scheme of things. 

So why are you pretending to be an appraisal skill?

{{...}}

You DID get in trouble!

{{... no comment ... }}

So are you allowed to help me raise my skills at all? Like maybe sneak in a hint or so once in a while?

{{Well.... it is not forbidden, but I do have to take your skill level into account, otherwise, what's the use of having levels.}}

How about ACCIDENTIALLY letting something slip once in a while - to be honest, I am totally lost here.

{{No promises. But you are already on a good path - I can tell you that much - STATUS! }}

Without me asking for it myself, my status showed up.

Which made sense because that was after all the main thing Appraisal-san was good for while the skill was still stuck at NULL.

[[

Race: Immortal Phoenix

Name: Nitram

Level: NULL

Experience: -224

Mana: -50

Strength: NULL

Dexterity: NULL

Wisdom: NULL

Specials: NULL

Skills: Appraisal level NULL, Gliding level NULL, Landing level NULL, Dry Take Off level NULL

Magic skills: Mana detection level NULL, Aura detection level NULL, Mana manipulation level NULL, Mana control level NULL, Mana explosion level NULL

Languages (3/7): Ancient High Elvish, Brundal Empire common tongue, Elvish common tongue.

]]

Well, would you look at that! My experience points were now in the low negative two hundreds!

Guess me attacking that blobby thing was worth it.

Thinking back to yesterday, I vaguely remember the rusty-red mass trying to flee when it noticed me approaching - but what happened after I collided with it...?

I recall...

Nothing.

I drew a blank...

{{Ahem. You missed an item.}}

I did? What?

Ehhhh? What is "Mana explosion"?

{{What is says, obviously. Pardon the pun, but it isn't rocket science, to use a phrase you are familiar with. But that was not the item you missed.}}

I looked again... my mana was now negative fifty?

Even though my flame envelope was on?

Soooo... when I extinguish my protective flame envelope - I NOW HAD 50 MANA!!!

Wooohooo!

I WAS FINALLY ABLE TO DO MAGIC!

Well, there was not too much one could do with just fifty mana points - one mana being needed to light a candle.

Buuuutttt... hm, what should I try first?

How about a fire spell? That might come in handy... a small fire-ball type attack used up 40 mana, and I had memorized how to do that sort of spell.

According to the books I had read in Ancient High Elvish, for element attack type spells, all I had to do was have a very definite image in mind, then project my mana outwards...

Let's see... how about imaging a blast from a classic military-grade flame-thrower? That should work!

I hopped to the very edge of the nest to make sure I would not accidentally burn it.

Then I looked straight out over the ledge and - FLAME-THROWER!

Whhhhhooooosshhhhh................

A hot thin reddish flame thrust itself about a typical city block's length out into the air.

And did not stop - it just kept flaming.

My status window was still open - a quick peek at it showed "Mana: 10"...

So I was indeed only using 40 mana.

CONTINOUSLY.

{{Ah... that's not how it should work... This is... strange?}}

RIGHT? 

Anyway for now - FLAME-THROWER OFF!

The stream of red fire stopped.

And "Mana: 50".

Again, according to the books on magic I read, mana is like a battery - you initiate a spell, and it used up the given amount of mana.

Then you needed to rest until the mana level fills up again - just like charging a battery.

How long it takes for one's mana to fill up is mainly influenced by one's mana control level, but also genetics can play a part.

Elves naturally have a quicker mana refill rate, for example.

{{Correct. You should not be able to simply use up mana at a fixed rate... ah... I just checked something. Well, I suppose that makes sense, although it _is_ a massive "cheat", sigh...}}

What? What have you found out Appraisal-san?

{{You have all the information at hand, yourself. Figure it out yourself.}}

What other answer did I expect.

Ah snap... Now I wished I had looked for the item-box spell.

Although something tells me fifty mana would not be enough, and neither did just imaging the effect.

The high-elvish books on magic did mention that magic such as item-storage and magic-item creation was way more complex than simple element based attack magic. Attack magic was also called primal or instinctual magic in some books.

Anyways, once I meet up with the tiny hermit, I'll see if I can find a way to ask Anna for advice on what books to read to one day claim storage magic for myself!

MUAHAUHAUAHUAHAUHAHA!

Cough... ahem.

For now, I had a direct - if somehow on a very much cheat level - way to attack, in case I had to.

Even if my 40 mana worth of flame-thrower gave a low initial damage, the fact I could keep it up indefinitely, gave it an impressive damage per second.

Probably.

So... I better try out some lesser devastating spells - water or wind, maybe?

Would not want to burn down a forest or a town, naturally!

The sun was already up past the horizon - time to go find the caravan.

They can't have moved very far yet after breakfast.

---

Let's go re-join the caravan

I looked down from my nest and spotted the clearing that hid the tiny hermit's log cabin and garden.

My eyes wandered a bit east, and I spotted the Guild trading post - that is where I'll start from.

Said, done - because I flew far above the forest in a straight line, only half an hour later I found myself over the east gate of the Guild trading post.

Ok, probably easier to follow the road - which was hidden beneath the trees - if I simply flew along it.

So I dived down and entered the almost tunnel-like road - the roof of which were of course the tree canopies above.

I started flying east, away from the village.

Let's see...

The road through the endless forest was not straight - it wound around, trying to stay as flat as possible by circling around hills.

And it purposely met up every so often with either a river or lake, so travelers could re-stock on water.

Hm, we had been driving for almost two weeks, at pretty much what was a walking pace for a normal sized human adult due to how full the wagons were.

If I flew my full speed - which admittedly was not that great, but still MUCH faster than a human walking - I'd take less than two days to reach the caravan.

Before I had left the cliff I had turned on my protective flame envelope - I did not want to be targeted as a snack again by some huge bird, after all.

So in theory, I could fly through the night, if I wasn't too tired.

Ok, AVANTI!

I bet Anna was wondering were I was.

Less than two days later, including a few hours nap time that I decided to take at one point, my calculation had proven to be correct. 

I arrived at the spot where we had been attacked by the rusty-red blobby mass monster.

How did I know?

Someone had built a small pile of rocks at the side of the road... That must have taken a bit of work, as the forest itself was growing on the compost of dead forests of past eons, and thus there were no rocks just sticking out of the ground.

Oh... come to think of it, the tiny hermit had a habit of chucking little rocks and sticks and other debris into her item-box storage, whenever she was gardening and found an offending pebble or what-have-you.

I bet she had also stored these bunch of rocks at one point, hehe...

Anyways... on that small pile of rocks, one of my under-feathers that I periodically preen out and leave lying around had been stuck on top, in this case like a little baby-blue flag. My discarded feathers were another thing Anna would haphazardly pick up and store, now that I think about it...

Seems the caravan had decided not to wait for me and left me sort of a note to catch up to them - after all, time is money!

Even though it was getting to be evening, I figured they were just a few minutes of flying ahead of me, so let's go re-join them!

As it turned out...

I was wrong.

I was SOOOO wrong...

After about another half hour of flying roughly eastwards I had exited the endless forest - which sort of put a damper on that name, if one thinks about it.

Just after exiting the forest, I climbed up into the evening sky, so as to get a better view of where the caravan could be.

From my height I visually followed the road continuing eastwards, passing through several villages, and then through towns.

At the horizon I could make out the walls of a major city, shining in the rays of the setting sun behind me.

There was no trace of the twelve wagon long caravan anywhere.

Ok, maybe they had stopped at one of the larger walled towns, in which case I could of course not find them from just up here in the sky.

But with my superior phoenix vision, I could not see them anywhere in any of the villages - the most wagons I spotted were three in one larger village about halfway to the shining walled city at the edge of the horizon - which I suspected was the capital.

That sun-kissed palace at the top of the hill in the city center sort of hinted at that, anyway.

So I aimed for the first walled town, where I overnighted in a handy tree.

First thing in the morning I took to the sky again - surely I'd easily spot any caravan leaving this or any other town.

But...

Nothing.

All that was left for me to do was aim for the capital at this point.

Maybe the tiny hermit had glued broom sticks to all the wagons - creating twelve new versions of her "Enterprise CC".

That would explain things - they would have been easily able to reach the capital in a couple of days that way - the same two days I took to reach the attack site, in fact.

---

Brundal Empire's Capital

So I flew on towards what I decided was the Empire's capital - I arrived over it shortly after the sun hit the limit of the sky - in other words, at noon.

I was quite far above where my meager flame would not be noticeable to any ground-bound people - but being enveloped in flames would definitely be an issue once I landed, so FLAME-OFF, I suppose.

The Brundal capital - or at least this multi-walled city I was flying above - was built on a very large hill.

The palace was at the top, surrounded by a ring of walls. Then came another walled ring that was sparsely populated with some very large mansions - obviously where all the hoity-toity dukes and counts resided.

The third ring of walls, now further down the hill, still seemed pretty upper-crust to me.

The fourth ring of walls enclosed what was obviously the middle-class - merchants, lawyers, maybe a sprinkling of baronets, that sort of thing.

The fifth and second-last ring, now at the bottom of the hill looked to be for the "common" folk, you know the "bakers, butchers, and candle-stick makers" sort of area.

Finally, in the outermost sixth and largest ring, I could make out various manufacturing areas - the tanners were as much downwind as possible, while there were several large-scale smithies just sprinkled around the ring.

The sixth ring was also where the slums were - sprawling areas of makeshift shacks or, where there were houses, they had definitely seen much better times.

All in all your typical badly managed medieval city I'd say.

Hm, so the caravan did transport some really fancy items, but most of it was just normal goods and raw materials - my guess would be the  caravan's destination was a Guild's house in the fifth, common folk ring.

Flying over a lively market square, I spotted a very tall statue in the middle of the bustling and noisy stalls.

The statue's sparkling white marble shone in the morning sun as if it had just been polished.

Pointy ears and a slender, tall figure, sculpted to be about five times the size of a standard human.

Ah, an elf... no, from the longer ears and high clean brow - a high-elf woman!

Cradled in one arm of the statue was a massive open grimoire with even high elvish script sculpted into the marble.

Hm, let's see... oh it was just a copy of a treatise on basic magic I had read already at the tiny hermits log-cabin... 

The other arm was raised outward, open palm up, in a sort of magnanimous gesture.

Probably this was depicting someone really famous from the past.

I decided to land on the open marble book - it afforded the most space, after all.

---

I accidentally cause a big issue...

I heard a shout from an older woman selling pumpkins and other gourde type vegetables - her stall was about four stalls away from where I was perched.

"There's a weird tiny bird on the Great Sage's book!" [Pumpkin Seller]

Oh, so the high elf who's statue I was sitting on was called the Great Sage.

Nope, doesn't ring a bell. 

Although now that I look at her, the face does have some familiarity... but I only know one High Elf, Anna the tiny hermit...

The pumpkin seller's neighbor, a fellow selling sandals and other serviceable foot wear put his hand above his eyes and squinted up at me.

"That's... that's impossible! Oh, there it is! Did the barrier break?" [Sandal Seller]

Maybe all high elves look the same to non-high elves - that does sound plausible.

Also, I'm a phoenix with a hold-over from my past life that I often had a problem recalling people's faces, soooo... what would I know how similar all High Elves looked?

The baked goods merchant who's stall was the closest to the statue I was sitting on moved towards me.

"Let me chec... ouch! No, it's still working - really well even..." [Baked Goods Seller]

Mid-stride just a few arms-length from the base of the statue he had been walking towards, the baked goods merchant bumped into nothing, his face for a moment squished up looking as if he had collided with a glass door.

Eh? They did mention a barrier, but... APPRAIS!

{{You know I'll just have to give a NULL answer now, right? So why bother.}}

Sigh, still not playing along, are you Appraisal-san?

{{You guessed it! Anyway, why are you surprised? You've already seen this a few times before. Ah... right, you are a bird, so of course are bird-brained and don't know what you saw yesterday, let alone weeks ago...}}

Heyyy!!!! That is uncalled for!

Oh... Anna's Barrier from the other day, when she fought the rusty-red thing... but I saw that!

This barrier I don't s... oh wait, if I tilt my head about 45 degrees I can sort of make out a slight distortion of the air.

And if I concentrate I can make out a massive swell of mana emanating from.... ah, there, the only non-marble part of the statue - a yellow mana stone embedded as the statue's brooch.

Heh, well, that is clever! 

But does that mean that this barrier is amazingly better than the tiny hermit's, or did she use a different kind? 

Hmmm...

"What's that bird doing up there?" [Random Bystander #1]

Oh.. by now a sizable crowd had gathered down below.

"Looks like it is trying to twist off its own head..." [Random Bystander #2]

And some others had tried to reach the base of the statue, resulting in quite a few ridiculously squished faces.

"Now its looking at the barrier stone - it's not going to try and steal that, is it?" [Random Bystander #3]

Hey now! I'm not a thief! And anyway, I've got no pockets.

And anyways - that yellow mana stone is a large as I am!!!

"Oi! Oi! Oi! LOOK!" [Random Bystander #1]

The first fellow was now pointing at me and doing a sort of nervous dance from one leg to the other, while waving his cap around in the air.

"Blooming.... Ouch!" [Random Bystander #2]

The second fellow was hit on the side with a shopping-bag by a middle-aged woman standing next to him.

"Language! There are children around!" [Hand-bag wielding woman]

"But hang on - I wasn't swearing! Their are flowers blooming all over the Great Sage's stone statue!" [Lightly Battered Random Bystander #2]

A big hub-bub sounded as curious onlookers strained their necks to look at what was going on.

And I turned around, too.

Oh...

My......

There were delicate white stone flowers that had been carved into the clothes of the statue, which normally because they were very shallowly carved, and being of the same white stone as the whole art-work, were not very noticeable.

But now the stone carved flowers had started to shine in various flowery type colors, starting from the very arm that was holding the open book that I was perched on.

Ap.. App....... APPRAISAL-SAN! WHAT IS GOING ON!!! AND BE HELPFUL FOR ONCE!!!!!!

{{Ah... well now. That is quite a nice effect! Your mana triggered some sort of latent spell - seems this was done on purpose, and it seems it was planned to be shown at certain times of the year. But thanks, or rather NO-thanks to the very effective barrier, no normal mana users have ever been able to touch the statue to trigger this effect - until you bird-brain landed on it, that is.}}

You... you can give good explanations!

{{Of course I can, I am after all "Autonomous Self Reliant Library Tertiary Node".}}

Yes, I know, "Tertiary" meaning three, and you are a big deal in that library of yours, whatever that is.

Sigh...

By now the statue was completely covered in color, each and every of the hundreds of carved flowers on the Great Sage's marble cloak shining in vibrant oranges, yellows, reds, blues, and even here an there a light creamy violet.

There were now many, many people surrounding the statue - if it were not for the barrier, I'd be worried about now.

That said, I better get lost - I looked around to see where it would make sense to head to next.

And there I saw it - a tiny mousey gray cloaked and cat ear hooded figure in the mouth of an alley at the far edge of the marker square.

It as looking straight at me - when it noticed I had spied it, it beckoned shyly at me to come over.

Oh tiny hermit, you found me!

---