Story Idea: 'Takeover: Monster Soul' (Patreon)

AN: Haven't tried first person writing in a long time, so this was an interesting shot. 

Setting: Fairy Tail. OC. Set in Joya but will eventually join Fairy Tail. MC is a mercenary monster hunter mage. I wanted to explore more of Ishgar outside Fiore before switching over to the characters and places everyone knows at a later arc. 

Pairing: Cana, Mira, or OC. Unsure yet. I lean more towards Cana because I think she's awesome and has a lot of potential as a character. But Mira is a badass and I've never written her as a waifu before. The last option is to make someone new so I don't mess with the cast mechanics. 

STORY START

Chapter 1:

I wedged my pocket knife between the boards of the window, careful to avoid making any noise as I fiddled with the lock.

Biting my lip, I focused on my task until I heard the satisfying click of the lock unlatching and silently cheered.

Slowly pulling up the window, I let in the chilly morning air, rustling my shaggy black hair, and smiled triumphantly at the taste of freedom within my grasp.

“Hnn…Asher?” A blurry voice rang from behind and stilled my form. Turning around, I saw a small figure rise from the covers of his bed in the moonlight coming in through the open window. “Are you trying to sneak out again?”

“Shhh!” I tried to shush the boy and threw a nearby pillow at him. “Keep it down, would ya, Lu?”

The sleepy blonde haired boy rubbed some dirt out of his blue eyes and deadpanned at me. “Would you just go back to bed? I don’t wanna deal with fathers shouting in the morning.”

I rolled my grey eyes at the boys pessimistic attitude. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Lu. But deal with it, the old man’s not keeping me down this time.”

“You’ve been saying that for the last two years, Ash. Give it a rest.”

“This times different.”

“Uhu. I bet you don’t make it to the village gate this time.”

I shook my finger chidingly at my childhood friend. “So little faith. But this time I really mean it. The old man’s gonna have to let me go even if he catches me.”

Lu, or Luvan as was his name, narrowed his blue eyes on Asher’s young frame. “Why would he do that? The rule is you can only leave if you turn fourteen or…” Luvan’s eyes widened. “You didn’t!”

“SSHH!” I rushed over and slapped a hand over his mouth. “I did and keep it down! I don’t need the damn rugrats waking up and giving me the damn eyes again.”

Luvan smirked and pushed his hand away. “Why? Afraid little Mandy and Yuki will cry and make you stay?”

“Bah, little menaces the lot of em.”

“They’re six.”

“That makes it worse.”

Luvan chuckled and swung his legs over the beds edge as he looked at his strange friend. “Did you really do it?”

I nodded proudly. “Last month on my tenth birthday.”

“You didn’t say anything for a month?”

“I was trying to figure out what it did.”

Luvan’s eyes lit up excitedly. “What did you get?”

I gave him a cheeky grin and put a finger to my lips. “Secret.”

“Oh come on!” Luvan whisper shouted and slapped him with a pillow. “I’m your best friend.”

“You’re my only friend.”

“That automatically makes me your best friend.”

“You’re annoyingly smart for a ten year old.”

“Pot meet kettle.”

“Touche. I'll show you the circle but I’m not telling you what it does.” I held up my hand with a grin and channeled my newfound energy through me. Electricity flowed through my veins until a glowing dot of grey light appeared and grew into a plate wide magic circle.

Luvan sucked in a breath of air as he stared enchanted at the slowly rotating magic circle of grey light. “Wow…you really did it.”

I scoffed and cut off the flow of mana. “Have I ever lied to you?”

“Yes.” Came the immediate response.

“…have I ever lied to you about anything not related to food.”

“No.” Luvan reluctantly admitted. “Stupid glutton. Who’s going to eat your large portions at meal times if you leave.”

“I think you’ll manage to figure it out.” I shrugged and hopped off the bed. “For now, I gotta run. If I can avoid the old man, I will.”

Luvan chuckled and watched me grab my backpack off the ground. “You could leave in the morning, you know? Father won’t stop you now that you have magic.”

“Bah, it’s cooler to leave in the night.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.” I matched gazes with Luvan and we shared a low chuckle. “I’ll write you when I make it big.”

“Who needs words. Send money.” Luvan got up and gave me a brotherly hug. “Just don’t die, Ash.”

“I’ll do my best, Lu.” I returned the hug with a soft smile. “By the time I make it big, you better have awakened your own magic.”

“You know the odds.” Luvan whispered dejectedly.

“And I know my best friend.” I stepped back with my pack over my shoulders and bumped his shoulder with a fist. “You’ve four years left to awaken and meet me in Emerald Hills before I move on, you should hurry if you don’t want to get left behind too much, ya hear?”

Luvan sniffed and nodded his head. “I’ll be there, Asher. Wait for me.”

“Hell no.” I chuckled and swung my leg over the window sill. “Time waits for no man. Catch up, Lu.”

“We’re ten, Ash.” Luvan smiled sadly in exasperation and wiped away some tears.

I sent him a cocky smirk from the outside of the window. “Actions make us men, Lu. I’ll catch ya around.” I shut the window and left without looking back to hide my own tears.

Luvan was my first and only true friend in the world. All of the rest of the kids in the orphanage didn’t take life seriously enough to keep up with me. Only Luvan was smart enough to match. ‘And he says I’m weird. At least I have the memories of my past life in my head. How the hell is he so smart?’

I shook my head and jumped to the drain pipe, sliding down to the ground with a familiar ease and took off into the early morning streets of the sleepy village I found myself in for the last decade.

The memories of my past life didn’t just pop into my head all of a sudden, but rather they trickled in while I slept since I was six years old. Every night, I would dream of another world, another life, another place where everything felt so familiar, yet so alien.

It changed everything I thought I knew about my world and forced me to mentally grow far too quickly for my physical age as I saw various things a child shouldn’t be exposed to. Yet I was still me. The memories didn’t overwrite my identity, but rather blended into who I now was.

I was Asher Sage, an orphan born in the nation of Joya, on the peninsula named Ishgar, on the planet Earthland. A world I soon found out went by a different name in my memories. Fairy Tail, a fictional world from an animation I could faintly recall from so many years ago.

I didn’t know everything about the show, I couldn’t even be sure how much I actually watched of it. The memories were so distant that I could only recall some basic things about the world I ended up in, and even those little facts I was forced to take with a grain of salt, for a comedy anime with a focus on a single guild in a faraway country did not equate to the complexity of a world.

I wrote down everything I could recall and holed myself up in the small dusty village library for months in my search of knowledge, and everything I read only helped to prove my standpoint.

Forget Earthland, Ishgar, or even Fiore. I was in Joya, the central most country of Ishgar, and I hadn’t left a single village for the full decade I had been alive.

The village of Stonefell, a place filled with nothing but retired mercenaries in their elder years and orphaned kids innocent to reality was my home. It was all I knew and I was suffocating in it.

I was in a fantasy world. One with magic. One with adventure and exploration behind every corner and I wanted to see it! It didn’t help that the retired mercenaries throughout the town had nothing better to do than expound their life wisdom, telling fancy tales and grim realities about the adventures they survived through their lives to impressionable kids with starry eyes.

Even before my past life memories came in, all I wanted to do was be a hunter, and not just a hunter, but a monster hunter. A hunter of animals changed through magic into being forces of nature. Who needs mage guilds with piss poor jobs for lower rank mages, I wanted to hunt as I pleased and make as much money as I could with my own strength.

Racing through the dark streets of Stonefell, I moved as fast as my short legs could go with blood pumping in my ears. My adrenaline spiked at taking my first steps and I smiled wide on the way to village’s exit.

The early morning birds started chirping in tune with the slowly brightening sky when I heard a distinct snap from the gatehouse at the villages exit before a whistling sound split the air and I found myself pinned to the wall of a house by an arrow piercing the hoop of my backpack.

I knew that sound, and I knew who had that kind of bullshit aim with an arrow. “Damn it, Old Man! Let me go!”

The gatehouse door opened and the man who practically raised me since I could first remember stepped out. Grey hair fell over a tired and aged face atop a slender body filled with a wiry sort of strength as a man in his late forties stepped out with an exhale of smoke from the pipe held between his teeth. “Going for an early morning stroll, Asher?” He adjusted the color of his priest like robes as he walked closer. “And here I thought you gave up this game.”

Father Gato, the retired vet who ran the orphanage and watched over the kids left behind by the unfortunate. The man who could snipe a fly with an arrow from a hundred meters without a sweat. And the biggest obstacle between me and freedom.

I growled at the old man and gripped the arrow shaft, trying futily to pull it out of the solid concrete wall behind me. “You know exactly where I’m going, Old Man. Why can’t you quit getting in my way!”

The older man chuckled and rubbed his goatee in amusement as I kicked my legs in the air. “I think you’re mature enough to know why I ‘get in your way’ as you like to say, brat. You know the rules and I’m not gonna just watch you run off to die in a ditch somewhere. You’ve got four more years till I’ll let you do as you please.” He knocked some ash out of his pipe. “I thought I finally got that through your thick skull seeing as it’s been six weeks since your last attempt, but I guess I was wrong. Do you remember your last punishment?

I stopped struggling and flipped the man off. “You made me clean the horse stables for a week. Alone.”

A pipe smacked my head for my cheek as the old man nodded. “Correct. Now, what makes you think trying again was a good idea?”

My frown melted away as I gave him a cheeky smile. Electricity flowed through me as I pumped mana to my hand and revealed my new magic sigil. “Cuz I didn’t break your rules this time~.”

Gato’s relaxed gaze snapped onto the floating circle like a hawk, but rather than look relieved, the man seemed to instantly sag onto himself. “Of course it would be you.” The older man mumbled and ran a hand through his hair. “Why is it always you, Asher?”

“Cuz I’m awesome. Now let me down.” I wiggled to get loose and the older man snorted as he removed the arrow.

“Don’t get cocky, Asher. Magic doesn’t make you invincible.”

“But it does buy my freedom.”

Gato rolled his eyes and waved a hand. “Stop sounding like a prisoner.” The man grumbled and led the way to the gatehouse. “Come over here, brat.”

“So I can leave, right?”

The older man grunted something unintelligible and gave me a side glance. “You got everything you need packed?”

“Yes.”

“Clothes?”

“Yes.”

“Dry rations?”

“Yes.”

“First aid kit?”

“Yes.”

“Sleeping bag?”

“Yes!” I huffed exasperatedly. “I got everything I need, Old Man.”

“Mhm.”

The village gates came closer and my excitement rose. The urge to run free built again and I had to visibly hold myself back from taking off. Gato gave me a side glance and snorted humorously. “It’s too early for this crap. Stay.” He stepped into the gatehouse, coming back a moment later with a bundled package and handed it over. “Here.”

“Whats this?”

“What you forgot to pack.”

I raised a brow at the leather wrapped roll and untied it, revealing a short bow, a sheathed knife, a full quiver, and a small leather sack tinkling with coins. My brows raised higher with eat item and I looked up at the old man with wide eyes. “I can’t take this.”

The orphanage wasn’t rich by any means, and with so many mouths to feed, there was never enough money to go around. The retired vets around the village all pitched in where they could, an unspoken rule of respect to their fallen brothers and sisters in arms, but it wasn’t anything luxurious. I already felt bad as I was eating slightly larger portions of food to keep up with my exercise routine.

Gato waved a hand airily and relit his pipe with a snap of his fingers. A worn ring on his finger glowing briefly with the action. “Don’t think too hard, Asher, it’s payment, not a gift. It’s from Tom, Lily, and Scales. They all said you more than earned it.”

My hand gripped the sack of coins as I thought about the village blacksmith, carpenter, and butcher. In my search of knowledge through the years, I’d go around the place offering to help where I could in exchange for tips and stories on the life of a mercenary. I didn’t only trust books but wanted to hear from their own mouths what worked and didn’t work. But I never did it for the money.

“But…”

A large, scarred hand shut me up and ruffled my hair. “Just take it.”

“You had this prepared.”

“I did. This day was long coming.”

I swallowed a lump and looked away from the fond look the old man sent me. I turned to the short bow. “This is your bow, Old Man.”

Gato smirked around his pipe. “Damn right it is, and I ain’t giving it to you as a gift. This is a loan. I expect it returned one day; you hear?”

My smaller hand closed around the worn leather grip and I took the words for what they were. “Yes sir.”

“Good lad.” Gato lowered his hand and gave me a good hard look. “You’ve had your nose buried in a book or your ears open wide for anything that could be said for years. You aren’t the youngest I’ve seen leave having awoken magic, and I’ve seen men twice your age leave with their heads stuck in the clouds, but you’re not delusional, are you, brat?”

I shook my head, letting my shaggy black hair shift separately from my head. “Hell no! I’ve wanted to be a monster hunter my whole life.”

The old man blew some smoke out from between with his lips with a hum. “So you have. And you never shied away from the ugly truth either. Ole Tom and Scales makes that clear in all their stories, don’t they?”

My eyes hardened as I nodded. Tom the Blacksmith was a rough old coot. With a face disfigured and a replaced leg with a prosthetic. Whenever a kid started going on about wanting to be a monster hunter, the villagers always pushed them to spend some time with either him or Scales the village butcher, who delighted in seeing kids run screaming while telling a gruesome tale as he butchered meat. It usually scared off most kids to pursue safer career options in life. But I never shied away from the truth. “I’m still going.”

“I know.” Gato huffed lowly and waved a hand in a gesture to follow as he moved through the village gate.

I quickly picked up the items given to me, slinging the bow and quiver over my shoulders, equipping the sheathed knife on my belt, and tucked away the coin pouch in my bag before stepping up silently next the old man. Nothing was said for a moment as Gato smoked and stared into the distance, leaving me to take in the view of rolling rocky hills and mounds in various colors, like a wave of earthen ocean going far into the distance before inclining into towering mountains.

The landscape was sparsely populated by tree’s, with next to no grass, making the colored earth stand out in all it’s rough nature.

Joya was a nation of sky piercing, snow-capped, mountains and trench deep ravines. Hardly any plant life existed in the land, being wiped away by the scorching summers, frigid winters, and hurricane like storms rolling off the inland sea to the east of the country.

The rough, rocky land made for tough people. I liked to jokingly call them a mix between Vikings and dwarves with how the culture is. Even the damn baker was likely to toss you through a window if you made any problems.

Joyans were a rough, free, brutal at times, oddly kind in a silent way, warrior like people who encouraged bravery and despised cowardly actions. And I loved them for it.

But not even Joyans would welcome children running into danger. Gato’s rule was fourteen at a minimum because that’s when Joyans started working full time. Fourteen was the cut off point for someone awakening as a mage or not. And for the majority who didn’t have the potential, they usually became apprentices for various types of trades like carpentry and so on, but that was also the age when anyone was free to wander wherever they wanted.

The only exception was for mages. Mages were rare, especially in native Joyans.

The idea that some people were born with mana cores and others weren’t was a well-known hoax. Ethernano flows through everything and everyone. The truth is that from the time of birth to the age of fourteen, each person has the potential to form a mana core, it's just that the odds for one forming are 1 in 10. And in the rarer case of having an affinity to a specific element of ethernano awakened as Caster magic, the odds were barely 20% per each mana core formed. If one doesn't form a core at all before their fourteen birthday, they likely never would without extreme methods.

Due to this, a bare estimate of forty thousand potential mages existed in all of Ishgar. With an estimated eight thousand Caster mages. And Joya barely had a recorded five hundred mages, the majority of which were earth based Caster and Holder mages.

‘According to most of the basic theory books I could find, the environment one grows up in plays a large part in if you form a mana core, and that goes doubly so for an affinity to Caster magic.’

It wasn’t known why exactly Joya had such a small population of native mages, but magic changed everything, and no matter where you went in Ishgar, mages as young as eight were never stopped from wandering due to the sheer utility and power they held. 'I remember Grey was something like eight years old when he traveled from Iceberg to Fiore to get to Fairy Tail.'

It didn’t seem like much in my memories, but that was a travel distance of four countries apart. Earthland simply didn't run on the same logic as my past life, and while crazy to think about for people back on Earth, it was just a commonly accepted aspect of the culture here.

Gato and I stood there as the sun rose over the horizon in a peaceful harmony until his hand dropped on my shoulder. I turned to look at him but he kept looking straight ahead. “I knew you would be a mage someday, Asher. I hoped you wouldn’t be, but you’re far too intelligent to not be one. You absorbed all my lessons the fastest, I didn’t have to do much raising you like I did with the others, and I know you’re going to go far or die trying.” He grunted and squeezed my shoulder tightly. “Just don’t be too quick to die trying, eh?”

At his slight smile, I returned the look and reached over to give him a hug. “I’ll be careful, Old Man. I wouldn’t want to give you a heart attack.”

“I’m not that old, brat.” Gato scoffed and swatted my head gently but didn’t push me away. “Now get going, the suns up.”

I stepped back and gave him a wave. “Mn. I’ll see you around, Old Man.”

“Stick to the roads, the path to Emerald Hills is clearly marked. Don’t wander off it.” Gato strictly commanded and I rolled my eyes at the age old lesson.

“Yeah, yeah. Do me a favor and tell Luvan you didn’t find me this time.”

Gato grunted with a small smile as I left, walking with my head held high until the first bend of the road a minute later where I knew he couldn’t see me from anymore.

I waited till I was out of sight before my excitement bloomed. “I’m free!” I threw my hands up and cheered into the early morning air, getting a distant growl from some kind of animal in return that had me shut up and hurry along.

With the energy of a newly graduated Pokemon trainer stepping onto route 1 for the first time, I rushed ahead as fast I could at a steady walk, taking in the scenery all around me with wide eyes.

However, an hour in and the unchanging scenery cooled my excitement. ‘Huh, travel time isn’t as fun as I thought.’

The sun soon ascended into the sky as the day heated up and the rocks along the path absorbed heat to radiate outward. It was currently the late summer season, and the days could get ridiculously hot thanks to lack of tree cover.

My village, Stonefell, was near the south of Joya, close to the desert territory of Desierto. A wild land that was much harsher, and far crueler without any form of government directing it. It was populated by outlaws, patriarchal clans of wandering nomads, and assassin type raiders called sand riders. Occasionally, bands of raiders would come north to Joya to pilfer supplies and enslave Joyans, and it led to a very close knit mentality for Joya. Joyan’s watched out for each other against external threats and weren’t afraid to pick up an axe and jump into danger. Mage or non-mage, Joyan’s were warriors at heart.

It was one of the main reasons Joya had the least amount of Dark Guilds in all of Ishgar. Even Pengrande to the north east with their massive armies had more Dark Guilds to deal with, albeit, they also had the largest amount of land and non-mage population.

I stopped by a small stream to splash some water in my face and refill my canteen as my eyes traced the riverbed to its source at a snowcapped mountain. Joya had very sparse above ground water sources from the run off from icebergs up high, leading to wells being the prime source of water year round.

Joya was the smallest nation, excluding Midi who were a bunch of religious nutjobs, but that was just in comparison to the rest of the countries. It took my breath away when I realized the sheer scope of the size of Ishgar.

For example, Russia had a landmass at just over 6.6 million square miles. Ishgar, in comparison, was 15 million square miles in size. And Russia had a population of near a hundred fifty million citizens compared to Ishgar's four hundred thousand.

That was a clear indicator of just how deadly the world could be to a weaker race like humanity. Hell, humanity was just as deadly to itself as everything else was.

And that was just a portion of the actual continent, for Pengrande to the north east cut off the peninsula from the main continent, also known as the Lost Continent.

The history books were quite clear to point out the wars of ancient, long forgotten, empires of mages who invented weapons of apocalyptic scales and warred across the land to the point that centuries later, long after they were gone, their weapons still ran rampant. Magic was twisted and monsters roamed rampant in endless waves, turning the entire continent into an area hostile to human life.

Even now, Pengrande’s north eastern walls were pounded by monster waves that came each year. Thankfully, those walls hadn’t been breached in over a century, leading to an era of general peace for Ishgar.

‘If you ignored the banned mage guild wars, foreign continental enemies, the doom dragon that can wipe out a town with a sneeze, insane cults of demon worshipers, bandits, raiders, slavers, regular dark guilds, and the odd dark guild looking to shape the world in their image, it’s a relatively peaceful era anyway.’

I snorted in dark humor at the thought. ‘That’s why I can’t take things from the anime seriously. This place is way more dangerous than it really explained for anyone less than a B-class mage at the least.’

Fairy Tail was a family of strong mages that stuck together through everything. Something I honestly respected and wouldn’t mind joining one day, but I’d have to see what Makarov’s stance on taking lives was for me to make a real choice. ‘It’s not like I’m a sociopath, but when some people cast away morality, they shouldn’t expect morality to apply to them.’

Shaking off those dark thoughts, I hurried along the path until I hit a crossroad and turned toward Emerald Hills. A town of mercenaries where I would take my first true steps in the world.

Joyan culture was naturally inclined to the mercenary way of life, and it was one of two things Joya was renowned for in Ishgar.

The first was animal husbandry. With the rough landscape making agriculture impossible, the first generations of Joyan’s turned to raising animals. Sheep and goats mostly. No one knew how to grill a lamb shank like a Joyan. Over the years, careful breeding led to the highest quality meat coming from Joyan farms and became a luxury item for the economy.

The second, however, was the true source of the nation’s exporting power. Mineral ores and monster parts, specifically monster cores, were outsourced from Jaya to most of the peninsula.

And the reason for that was the same reason I was heading to Emerald Hills.

Danger Zones.

Areas throughout the known world where magic creates unique natural phenomena and mutates animals into unthinking magical beasts, commonly referred to as simply monsters.

These pockets appeared wherever the natural magic of the world gathered in large quantities, creating zones that nations graded between F- rank all the way up to SS+ rank. Not all of them take up large pieces of land, and thankfully, monsters that live in them usually stay within.

I read a line once that stated how monsters prefer living in high ethernano rich areas, and leaving the danger zones would be like starving for them.

It didn’t mean monsters couldn’t be born elsewhere, as was the case with various types of Vulcans, giant all male ape monsters who used Takeover magic to take over the bodies of humans and try to forcibly sleep with females of all races, but it was never in the quantities that Danger Zones supplied.

That wasn’t to say that magical races other than humans didn’t exist, because they did, but they held a level of intelligence that marked them as their own race who could live peacefully with humans.

But monsters were called such because they didn’t have true intelligence, could not co-exist in peace, and had bodies full of valuable materials for various industries that fed the economy.

Monster parts were used for a variety of things, from weapons and armor crafting, to medicines, to clothing lines, the food industry, and more.

And more than that, Monsters had mana cores of various attributes. A prime material in the creation of Lacrima. Lacrima were enchanted crystals of various elements that could be used for thousands of things. From a basic stove fire source to coolant for a fridge, to communication devices, to projectors, and all the way up to a giant space orbital canon.

Lacrima were the source of the world’s economy, and that made monster hunting a highly lucrative industry. Further leading to Danger Zones being as lucrative as they were dangerous.

Many nations left Danger Zones alone for the most part, not wanting to poke a hornets nest and simply made roads around them, but others like Joya relied on them for their economy and culture of warrior like people.

Ishgar was home to some thirty Danger Zones, and Joya was home to half a dozen known ones. With the sky piercing mountains, deep trenches, and dark caves, it was hard to tell how many the land actually had, but Joya had marked out six areas around the country where mercenaries flocked to, building towns around them like Emerald Hills did.

Emerald Hills was built around the entrance of the Misty Caverns, a D- rank Danger Zone. An old abandoned mine that warped into a monster filled labyrinth of moving walls and thick fog. And it was the perfect place for me to start my journey.

I had no plans to be instantly strong, nor any expectations of becoming filthy rich overnight. I knew it was all uphill from here, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t dream and make a plan to be a badass one day.

Joya was different from the more mage populated countries like Fiore or Seven. Rather than mage guilds, Joya had Mercenary Guilds. A place where you went to get jobs, trade in materials, and find groups to join. 'It's kinda like an Adventurers guild in some of the other stories I had read.'

And magic or not, nothing was stopping Joyans from making a profit through a life of combat and adventure. It was in our blood, or so they liked to say.

F rank monsters could be fought even without magic, and E rank only needed a group of non-mages to handle. But even non-mages could use F rank enchanted gear. Just like Father Gato had a ring that could let him make small flames for lighting his pipe, other weapons and gear could have light effects.

Ethernano flowed through everything in the world, and even if non-mages couldn’t collect it to generate mana, they could still slightly use it to work F rank enchantments. E- rank enchantments were the absolute maximum a non-mage could utilize, as even that would drain all the natural ethernano in them, leaving them exhausted and vulnerable.

D- rank monsters and up, however, was mage only territory. You would have to throw hundreds of people at D rank monsters to finish off just one, and even then they would need to be armed with cannons and other siege weaponry.

But I wasn’t looking to fight E or D rank monsters just yet. I was barely F rank myself.

Holding up my hand, I willed a screen only I could see into the world.

[Magic: Takeover: Monster Soul Available Forms: 0Available Slots: 3Mana Level: F- Mana Control: F+Soul Strength: D]

A small holographic rectangle, almost like an ID card, floated above the back of my hand.

A month ago, on my tenth birthday, the dream memories of my past life came to an end with a strange scene. My past self was floating in a void, seemingly arguing with something, when a gong rang out and the dreams cut out.

All I had was the faint memory of a desire to be able to visually track my progress as a mage. A minor wish all things considered, but it was greatly appreciated now when I had no idea what I was doing.

Takeover magic was, from what little I could tell, both complex and simple.

Letting a magic circle float over my palm as I walked, I thought back to everything I knew as I stared at the strange grey sigil.

Joya’s small mage population equaled very little interest or sources of magical knowledge among it’s villages, and the tiny public library of a few bookcases my village had didn’t have any specific books on Takeover magic. Most were theory books on various kinds of earth based magic, just theory rather than a valuable holder magic grimoire, but there was one book describing a general overview of various branches of magic, including a small passage on Takeover magic that I read dozens of times to make sure it stuck.

[Takeover magic is a branch of magic beneath the larger Soul Magic tree and is the other side of the coin from Possession magic.

Each caster is limited to an extent by their natural affinity, but what that affinity may be can vary widely. Some may find an affinity for demons, angels, elementals, monsters, or more. The affinity itself will always be born of the natural attunement of the casters soul.

This branch of magic is about turning the users soul into a pocket of sorts, taking over the souls of the target, absorbing all that they are into that pocket, and being able to harness of abilities, instincts, and forms of the being they have essentially taken over.

The stronger the mage, the larger the soul space, leading to a Takeover mage being capable of storing varied forms to call upon.

Calling upon these taken over souls allows the caster to harness their physical and magical abilities, both in the form of the target taken over, or through a humanoid form for more advanced users.

Attempts have been made by scholars to replicate Takeover magic through grimoires to create a branches, but the results never matched up to the quality of the natural Caster mages. An example is how the magic Takeover: Angel Soul, had been lowered to a magic requiring the mage to compensate with their lifespan to use the abilities of an angel they have taken over. Safer examples exist such as Takeover: Animal soul, but they can never match up to the might of the natural caster magic it was intended to copy.

Warning: Those who practice Takeover magic should be cautious, for attempting to take over a target too far above ones level or while in a weakened state may result in the caster losing their body and mind to their intended target. For this reason, Takeover magic is considered a double edged sword.]

That was the only entry I ever found on takeover magic in specific. But without other sources, I was stuck with what I could discover myself, and what little I could recall from the show.

'And that last one isn't great. I mostly remember Mirajane for her...distinctive character, but even then I only really remember her being a super model, Fairy Tails barmaid, and her using the caster magic Takeover: Demon Soul. Her siblings also used Takeover, but I'm pretty sure it was lower branches learned from grimoires. However, that knowledge doesn't really help me.'

My spotty memories from the show were just as much a curse as a boon. Somethings might be accurate, while others were way off the mark. 'I can't just assume what worked for them would work for me.'

The youngest sister wasn't ever a powerhouse, and the brother had his moments but struggled with the magic a lot. It was only Mirajane, a natural Caster mage, who excelled with her control of demonic forms.

'I need to learn the ins and outs of my magic through experience.'

It was for that reason, among others, that I was so excited to rush off and leave my village. There was no monsters for me to test my magic on, leaving me with a month of practicing Mana Control. 'Which honestly isn't a bad thing.'

The moment I awakened my magic, I gained an instinctive understanding of how to activate it, like rediscovering how to move a limb, but that limb was atrophied and I had to rebuild the muscle to control it properly. With too much force, I overpower the limb, lose energy, and can potentially injure myself. With too little force, the limb is useless. And trying to hold it in the middle ground is like walking a tight rope blindfolded.

Basically, mana control was a difficult challenge, and if I wanted to use my magic without expending my entire pool of mana in one go and hurting myself, then I had to practice control. I did that for the month I spent since my tenth birthday. Trying to imagine mana flowing through my limbs like an electric current, going where I wanted it to go, and following patterns I consciously drew.

It wasn’t easy, and every time I drained my core I would get painful headaches and occasionally faint, forcing me to stop or risk damaging my newly formed fragile core.

But in that month of relentless practice, I got my control up to F+, and I felt I was ready to attempt my first Takeover.

‘Now I just have to find something I can take down with a bow and arrow.’

I didn’t expect it to be easy, but I was excited for the hunt. How hard could it be to find a small monster?

00000

Hunting is aggravating.

It took me three days to learn that lesson.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t ever hunted before. I grew up in a village of retired mercs, I had been shown how to hunt and trap small game since I was five, alongside every other kid in the village. As harsh as Joya was, it did have an abundant number of small birds and burrowing creatures to hunt. The small population of humans compared to the size of the land meant there was never any fear of overhunting.

So it wasn’t hunting small game that was my issue. No, it was the discovery that ‘Animal’ did not qualify as ‘Monster’.

Looking down at the foot long lizard I managed to skewer with my bow, I grunted in annoyance and cracked it’s neck to put it out of its misery. ‘Species doesn’t seem to matter either. Reptile, Avian, Mammal, none of them worked so far.’

I sighed and got to work dismantling the lizard for meat and buried the rest. An hour later I sat by my campfire frowning at the slowly roasting meat. ‘I thought that Takeover: Monster included regular animals, but I guess I was wrong.’ Idly flipping the roasting stick, I considered where the proverbial line was drawn. ‘I guess it’s mana. Regular animals have natural ethernano flowing through them, just as normal humans do, but they have no mana core. Monsters have mana cores, perhaps that’s why my magic didn’t activate?’

I had tried it on my recent catches, keeping them alive long enough to give myself a window to activate the spell, but it didn’t work. ‘I know instinctively that my targets have to be alive for my magic to work, perhaps their essence or soul vanishes with death? That theory book did say it’s soul based magic, so it would make sense in a way. But does the creature I want to take over need to have a mana core? Is that where the line between Monster and Animal is drawn? Or is it something else?’

Dozens of questions flowed through my mind, there was so much to consider and wonder, but until I got my first Takeover, it was all hypotheses without conclusions.

‘Not to mention, I still have no idea what Soul Strength is supposed to mean.’

[Soul Strength: D]

That was the last line on my ID card. ‘Is D rank strong? Weak? Does it change? What does it effect?’ It was another area the confused me, but it was only the last question that I had a decent guess on. ‘I have 3 available slots, and my Soul Strength is D rank. Is it just a coincidence? Or something more direct? I need more information.’

Grunting at my lack of information sources, I pulled out my notebook from my pack, making sure to jot down all the questions flowing through my head and letting my tangents guide me as night settled and the sounds of the fire crackling echoed in my ears.

A cool mountain breeze blew down the nearby mountainside I had gotten close to during my journey, bringing a chill to the recently heated air as the sun descended over the horizon, painting the sky in a mix of orange and red hues.

Sitting back against a sheltered boulder, watching that sight with my pencil tapping the page of my notebook, I couldn’t help but feel at peace.

The annoyance with my magic, the fear and paranoia of the world I lived in, the concern for being alone in the wild for only the third day in my life, all of it faded to the back of my mind like dust being pushed aside by a sweep of a broom.

In this moment, I felt it was all worth it. This is what I wanted. This sense of freedom, with naught but a single weight on my young shoulders.

There was no responsibility, no familial worries, no direct threats hovering over me, no concern for health issues. It was just me and nature in harmony, and it was everything I strove for.

The sight, the atmosphere, the warmth of the fire, the full stomach of fresh meat, it all worked to lull me to a peaceful slumber, only to be awoken hours later as a curious sound echoed in my ears.

“Ji.”

“Ji.”

“Ji.”

My eyes snapped open in alertness, adrenaline flooding my veins, my fingers gripping the short knife with a death grip, and for a moment I thought I was under attack, but then my eyes took in the sight before me and all my alertness fled to be replaced with excitement.

A trio of floating snow colored fuzzy puff balls hovered around my burnt out fire pit, poking and prodding at the hot coals with grass thin tiny arms. Their eyes were flat lines that curved up or down depending on their mood, and they had no mouths yet still were capable of making sound.

‘Lunar Puffins.’ My brain registered their appearance to a monster encyclopedia I damn near memorized. ‘F rank monsters, mainly F- rank. Typically harmless in small numbers, but capable of widespread destruction in large numbers. Simple creatures that float on the wind, traveling far and wide yet living short two week lifespans. They drain heat sources and covert the heat to mana to eat, often swarming travelers for their body heat during the night. Mostly harmless creatures with no self-preservation habits.’

My magic stirred like a hungry wolf, almost like a waking instinct, and suddenly I knew that these creatures before me were on the menu.

I rose from my perch and crouched low, leaning forward to snatch one of the floating softball sized Puffins.

“Ji.” The little thing turned to look at me, blinked, and then looked down at my hand and made a pleased expression. “Ji.”

Immediately, I felt my hand begin growing cold and quickly covered my hand with a cloth, cutting off the heat drain and making the floating puff ball supremely confused.

‘Sorry little buddy.’

Mana flowed through my veins, my grey magic sigil flared, and I suddenly felt a soul deep vibration of pleasure stir through my being. The Lunar Puffin glowed in a white light that was promptly absorbed into my skin, flowing back through my veins like a hook being reeled in back to my core.

There was a half of second of curious resistance before it was wiped away and the Puffin surrendered.

A groan of ecstatic release left my lips as my minds eye flashed to a large circular platform surrounded by grey mist, divided into three parts like slices, and saw the Lunar Puffin take shape in one slice. For a flash of a moment, I saw a surreal and ethereal sight I had never seen before, yet it felt right and proper, and I was back in the world as quickly as it came.

The other two Puffins gave me curious looks before turning back to feasting on the coals of my fire without a care in the world.

I flexed my hands, feeling a surge of energy deep inside me, and couldn’t stop myself from reflexively pulling on it without consciously thinking about what I was doing. My mana flared, my body glowed, and before I truly understood what was happening, my world fundamentally changed.

“Ji.”

I was me, but I wasn’t.

I wasn’t human any longer, but a Lunar Puffin.

I had no legs, I floated off the ground, and all I could think of with a laser like focus was the heat I could sense coming off the coals of my fire. There was nothing else that mattered, there was nothing else to care about, I needed that heat, I would have that heat.

“Ji.”

My new fuzzy softball sized form floated over to feast, and for the next hour that’s all I did. I floated there alongside the other two Puffins, absorbing the heat and converting it to mana to sustain myself without thinking about anything else.

It was only when the heat vanished and my source of mana stopped refueling me that my mana pool bottomed out and I turned back automatically.

My head rung like a bell and felt like it was filled with cotton. ‘Mana exhaustion.’ My hazy brain put together, having experienced it plenty of times over the last month.

Sadly, there was nothing to be done but rest, and in the last moments of being lucid, I just barely managed to pull myself back into the spot I fell asleep in earlier and throw my blanket over my head before the blackness overtook me.

I slept till noon the next day before my brain was functioning enough to think properly.

‘That wasn’t cool.’

I pushed myself up, did my morning routine before sitting back down in the shade with my water canteen, taking deep gulps and fighting through my nausea. ‘What the hell happened to me?’ I tried to process the memories. ‘It was like…I became a Lunar Puffin. Why though? I thought it was supposed to be partial transformation like my arm or leg or something.’

I had been assuming the first step to Takeover magic was Partial Transformation, just altering a limb or such. That’s what Elfman did in the show, and what Mirajane started out with.

‘My assumptions can get me killed.’ My face scrunched up in annoyance. ‘I know not to assume things from the show are accurate, this was my mistake.’

With a click of my tongue, I focused elsewhere and summoned my ID card to check for changes.

[Magic: Takeover: Monster Soul Available Forms: 1Available Slots: 2Mana Level: F Mana Control: FSoul Strength: D]

Three things changed from my last look. ‘My Mana Level went up, but Mana Control went down. And it’s showing a slot taken now.’

The number next to Available Forms was flashing, so I clicked on it and a drop down screen extended.

[Available Forms:

- Lunar Puffin ]

I clicked on it further and the drop down screen changed.

[Form: Lunar PuffinRank: FProficiency: Novice Ability: Drain heat sources to recover mana.Evolution: Gather 10 E rank fire monster cores.]

My eyebrows rose at the new information presented.

‘Proficiency? Evolution? Even the natural ability of the monster is listed. Just how much more is there to learn about my magic style?’

Each time I felt like I got a handle on everything, more factors were added to the equation.

Closing out the screens, I sat there and let my thoughts run for a bit before tapping my cheeks lightly to wake up. ‘Enough wasting time, I can think as I walk.’

My small mana pool may lead to quick mana exhaustion, which sucked no matter how many times it happened, but it also meant I recovered in a few hours of waking up as well.

And frankly, my brain was a bit overheated and I needed to move to let out some energy. ‘I’ll figure shit out as I go. I’ll start by filling out the other two slots.’

Chapter end.

AN: Just a heads up for this story idea. Asher will gain 1 extra monster slot every time his soul level upgrades. That means at S-class, he will have 7 total slots. So expect to see him trade out monsters as the story goes.