"Blegh…I-I….ble…sttttoo."

  Lillian flailed her arms as she struggled to catch a breath before she was submerged once again. She had awoken to a violent dunking and was struggling to get a word out as the crow continued to press her head into the water. She finally clenched her hands around a tuft of feathers and pulled with all her might. The bird shrieked as it flung her back to the shore, a look of betrayal in its eyes.

  She sputtered on the bank for a minute before sitting up and apologizing. "I'm sorry, buddy, that was terrifying. I couldn’t tell what direction was up, and I couldn’t breathe," she said to the bird as she let go of the crushed feathers between her fingers in shame. The crow had somehow dragged her to the water and washed the acidic slime off to save her life.

  Her panic bled out of her as she took in her surroundings. The river she was at looked like it stretched more than a mile across, and there were no ways across that she could see. The muddy water was calm near the shores, but she saw how deceptive that was when a floating branch whizzed through the center. Crossing was a death sentence even if she disregarded the possible denizens of the river.

  Lillian’s survival training kicked into high gear as she scrambled to find where she was. Luckily, they hadn't traveled too far from the bug battlefield. The disturbed mud and talon prints led straight back through the shrubs and tree line. She hoped to avoid the area as much as possible.

  Cleaning the mud off her face gave her a strange sense of normalcy as she examined herself in the reflection. She froze as she noticed the tattered rags that her clothes had become. The acidic slime had eaten holes through most of her shirt, and her work pants weren't doing much better. They hardly provided any protection from the elements at this point.

  Her skin on the other hand felt… great? The burning pain was long gone, and her skin had grown back once more. She felt around her head as she confirmed that her ears had indeed grown back. Even her lone functional eye was healed. Her dead eye had survived the debacle safely behind the eyepatch that had seen better days. Unlucky, the miraculous effects of the gems only returned her dead eye to form, not restoring its function in the least. Her hand wandered higher and reached for her hair, only to feel a bald head instead. The fuzz of new growth tickled her fingertips as she stared at her reflection on the surface of the muddy river.

  The wonder of her body’s changes was offset by the grumbling of her stomach. She felt a strange hollowness from within. The mana gems she had swallowed were missing. Lillian only remembered the first gem dissolving to heal her wounds. With how much damage the snails had done to her, it was no surprise that they had used up all their energy healing her.

  This new world was one of constant conflict. Renaxxus hadn’t lied when he told her that to survive, she would need to take as much as she could from as many as she could. She had already taken the mana gems and stingers from her fallen foes. There were so many benefits to conflict that friendships like the one she had with the bird were going to be a rarity in this harsh new world.

  Lillian finally turned her gaze to her feathered friend. The crow’s dark beak still had some small cracks and holes from the acidic fluids that had covered her body. The rest of its body had recovered from the battle, likely from the gems she had scavenged and left for it. The friendly look it had given her when it got between the adult crow and her was gone. The look of betrayal in its eyes nearly broke her.

  Everything had been shit from the moment she had face planted in the mud. The only good feelings she had for this swampy hellhole were for this overgrown baby bird. Lillian refused to allow a stupid misunderstanding to destroy their burgeoning friendship. Her hands rummaged through her surviving pockets and pulled out the small box containing the engagement ring. The dark blue felt was gone, but the box had protected its prize. She fished the golden band out and displayed it for the crow. It was a plain ring that had a fitting for a gemstone, but she hadn't had the money to finish furnishing it. The bird’s stormy look instantly disappeared as it hooted and stomped around her.

  I got played...

  The bird was much more intelligent than she had given it credit for.

  "Acting like that was a pretty fowl thing to do."

  The trees in the distance groaned while the bird perched its talon on her lap. He beckoned her to slip the ring on its talon for it. With a smile, she slid the band onto its smallest claw and felt no small amount of joy that her proposal worked out as planned this time. "You are mine forever now... Edgar?" she probed the bird as it danced around her. The name caused the bird to halt and glare at her. "Okay, okay, how about Poe?" the bird bellowed out with a screech of disapproval. I never read any of those old poems... I think he had a thing for ravens anyways. "How about Genius?" The bird began its happy dance once more, and it was decided.

  "Alright Genius, let me check my shitty bastard scroll really quick and then we can hunt for some food, I’m starving." The emptiness she felt was deeper than hunger, but a meal would go a long way.

  She pulled out "The Body" and wrenched it open. The scroll’s text was gone, and the symbol had updated again. This time it was asking for a drop of her blood. Reluctantly, she pricked her finger with a stinger and let a crimson drop fall to the page. The blood sank into the scroll and faded away as the myriad elemental bubbles popped until there was only one remaining.

  "Poison?"

  The display on the page scrolled through all the changes her mana signature had gone through since the last time she had touched the scroll. The snails had chosen her path for her, with a not so small helping from the hornet venom. Tempering her skin with the snails’ slime had made her more resilient to the multitude of poisons found throughout the world. Lillian felt some lingering regret that she hadn’t used fire but was also glad not to have experienced the smell of her own flesh cooking. The scroll displayed a popup that would allow her to end this phase of her journey and send her straight to the mining colony if she pressed it. There would be no return trip and would be the end of her cultivation journey. Her status in the mining colony would be higher than that of a normal slave, but her fate would be the same as if she had never agreed to cultivate in the first place.

  "The faster I grow in strength, the safer I will be... but what is the point of doing things halfway and ending up weak? I refuse to pass up on an opportunity to grow here. The only thing holding me back is my willpower."

  "The Body" flickered as she made her decision, and the method for tempering her constitution flooded the page. She would need to pull the malady inside herself while it destroyed her from the inside out. This time there was even a hint recommending the use of beast cores to aid in the healing process. Mana gems were clearly the cores mentioned. She had luckily stumbled upon the hint on her own in advance. Without the accelerated healing of the cores, she would have joined the hornets in their muddy grave.

  Grumble

  Lillian's stomach began protesting louder, which roused her from her reading. She examined the river again and decided that fish would make a fine meal. Her first instinct was to attempt to fish, so she took one of the stingers and applied pressure to it, but it was too firm. They wouldn't make for a good hook if she couldn’t force them into shape. Instead, she gathered a pile of fallen branches and spun a stinger with her palms upon a dry stick. The small amount of tinder that she had gathered eventually lit, creating a small fire. Learning how to build fires and the different ways to start them had taken her a full week back in the mindscape. Lillian figured starting a fire in advance would be helpful; she refused to eat anything raw if it wasn’t an absolute emergency. She could only imagine how large and deadly the parasites and viruses would be here. A genuine smile spread on her face as the tinder lit up. T. Rex’s training wasn’t a waste of time.

  Genius seemed to disdain sitting on the sandy bank. He began dragging branches out of the woods and made a small nest before squatting on it like a mother hen. The bird had discarded some sticks that were too long and straight for its purposes and left them by the fire Lillian was tending. "You're a Genius!" she laughed as she looked for a plant that would make an acceptable string. The bird cooed and bobbed its head as she made a spear out of the gathered detritus and one of her stingers. She couldn’t tell if he understood her or just enjoyed mimicking her.

  Once she was happy with her improved arsenal, she began the tedious process of weaving a simple garb to cover her important bits. Even her pockets, which had survived the battle, were integrated. Her stomach protested the delay as she soldiered on and managed to complete a very basic covering made from the reeds and grasses of the riverbank. She even added in some of the pulled feathers that still littered the ground. Genius seemed to approve and pulled out some larger feathers from his back to add to her creation.

  GRUMBLE!!!

  "Fine." Lillian growled as her stomach's protests grew louder and louder. She had woven a sturdy rope that she fixed onto the tail end of her spear, but she needed one more ingredient for her plan before she could start cooking.

  The final ingredient for her hunt was bait. Lillian returned to the hornet graveyard and scavenged several of the meatier chunks before scurrying back to the fire. She kept her gaze away from the bloody snail corpse as much as possible. Unfortunately, there were several bugs she didn't recognize feasting on the many corpses. With much of the surface claimed, she was forced to dig in the muck for her prize. Some spare body parts had already been swallowed and hidden by the muddy ground.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  With her makeshift spear at the ready, she chummed the waters with bug meat and stilled herself as much as she could. The wait was short, as a flash of gray flickered on the surface and the chunks disappeared. Lillian flung her spear with all her might and braced as the spear sailed off course and splashed into the water. The failure meant little to her. Depth perception had always been a weakness of hers.

  The afternoon passed as Lillian continued to chum the waters and miss her targets. The fish grew bolder as the feeding continued, approaching closer to the bank each time. One foolish fish attacked the bait a little too aggressively and came into the shallows, where it floundered and tried to flop back to safety. Lillian capitalized on the mistake, skewering the catfish that had fallen for her trap. She dug her heels in and heaved with all her might, barely holding the large fish at the shoreline. Genius watched with curiosity as she put forth all her strength and dragged the heavy fish out of the water. When its fin touched the sand, the fish redoubled its efforts and squirmed with all its might, causing her foot to slip out from under her. She dropped onto her butt as the wounded fish tried to escape. The rope tightened in her hands as she was dragged back towards the water.

  "NO!" cried Lillian and her stomach in unison.

  Lillian stamped her feet into the mud and pulled with all her might. She wrestled with the line for several long minutes before the creature tired and she finally wrenched it to shore. The catfish would have made any fisherman proud and weighed at least 30 lbs. She wrapped the rope around her arm as she approached the beached fish. Once she was in range, she pulled one of her stingers and stabbed the fish through the head, killing it. Genius swooped down and Lillian was sure she could see him drooling as she batted him away while hoisting the fish on her shoulder. "You should have helped me pull it in if you wanted a bite," she teased as she fashioned a simplistic spit and roasted the fish over the fire.

  The oils dripped and sizzled on the branches below while her grumbling stomach grew louder. What I wouldn’t do for a knife. She dug her hands into the fish and scarfed it down, the grease coating her face as she devoured every morsel. The fish was delicious, but the amount of mana inside the flesh was outstanding. She figured there was almost as much mana in the fish's body as there was in the core that she had dug out. Her body took in the mana as if it had been dying of thirst, and the hollowness she felt faded away. She gave Genius a smirk and tossed him the largest part of the fish. The goofy bird was still pouting that he wasn't allowed a bite. The bird's eyes closed as it enjoyed the cooked meal. It had probably never tasted anything cooked before. He scarfed down the remains of the fish, bones and all. The bird's stomach distended comically, and it could barely stand with all the extra weight. It cawed at her several times and waddled back through the trees.

  Lillian smothered the fire and followed after Genius. She was curious about their destination, but she placed a high amount of trust in the bird. They were friends forged in the fires of battle... or she was terrified of being alone in this dangerous new world.

  They trekked through the underbrush for half an hour before the forest opened and Lillian froze like a deer in the headlights. Renaxxus had been telling the truth after all. Not only was she still on Earth, but she was also still in New Louis. The sign for Grandma’s Deli still stood amongst the ruins of the buildings. The remains of downtown New Louis stood before them. Most of the buildings were broken down and dilapidated, but they still checkered the landscape. The concrete jungle was quickly losing a battle with the forest that had sprung up around the city.

  There were remnants of humanity standing against this changed world. Small fortifications that were smashed to splinters. A moldy skeleton that was crushed beneath a large stone. All signs of short, failed struggle.

  Lillian slowed her pace as she searched the fallen landscape for the critters of the old city. The vermin used to run rampant through the streets, yet she had only run into bugs and birds so far. Her fears ended up being unfounded as she passed through the ruins unharmed.

  The location was further confirmed when she saw the shining metal arch that still stood. Its mirror-like surface was covered in creeping vines and mud. She could feel the gazes of many birds locked on her as they entered the clearing, but a few squawks from Genius calmed the wary avians. They didn’t attack her at least. Genius seemed to have enough clout for both of them.

  The clearing around the arch was littered with nests of all kinds. The various birds of the area had come under one banner and stuck together to survive. The nests closer to the arch were larger, and the birds that owned them were larger as well. The mud nests on the monument itself housed the army of crows and at the very top of the arch, she saw a mess of trees that had been uprooted and piled in an almost log cabin-like fashion. A mix mash of telephone poles and cable lines spun around the metal monument, anchoring the nest high above the rest. The bird that was able to build that nest would have to be massive.

  Genius waddled under the gateway to the west and plopped down in a nest of twigs and mud that was directly underneath the massive nest on the arch. Lillian approached, but the bird flapped its wings when she tried to enter, a weak attempt at blocking her from looking into the nest. He hastily gathered up many of the... undesirable branches before it flew out of the nest and dumped them in the river. He was embarrassed to show me his messy room. Crows were always an intelligent variety of bird, but the intelligence Genius displayed was making her rethink the difficulty of surviving. If every animal gained intelligence like Genius, there wouldn't be much hope for humanity’s survival. Genius returned with a bundle of new sticks and dove into renovations while Lillian patiently waited. He had already lost almost half of the girth he gained from the meal and seemed to be returning to his original size as he worked.

  "Caw"

  The call broke her out of her thoughts as the bird seemed to welcome her into its nest. The hasty renovations were lost on Lillian, but the thought behind them warmed her heart. She had been lackadaisical about survival and was playing things by ear. What was her plan for when night fell? She wasn’t even sure what season it was, and New Louis was known for its extreme weather shifts. The environmental concerns were secondary to the many beasts that would be active at night. Any mutated owl could pick her off and whisk her away without her even knowing what hit her. She was thankful for the small blessing of returning to Earth during the day.

  Genius invited her in and hunkered down at the mouth of the nest. Any intruders would find him before they found her. Something about having walls and a roof above her head gave her comfort, and the drowsiness Lillian had suppressed overwhelmed her, and she drifted off to sleep.

  Her rest was interrupted during the night as Genius tickled her with his feathers as he slept. The sky was mesmerizing without the light pollution. Billions of stars shone, lighting up the landscape. She thought about the future as she admired the majestic green aurora that danced in the atmosphere. Such a sight was common in the far north of the continent, but now it stretched all the way to the Midwest. She watched the stars turn for hours before returning to sleep. The sky wasn't going anywhere, and she needed to get as much rest as she could before she waged the war against nature that she had planned. She had decided on using poison for her next tempering too. She was in a struggle against nature, and poison was too common. There were no hospitals or anti-venom to save her if she got bitten by something. The dread of securing a reliable source of venom stayed with her as she drifted back to sleep.

  Lillian awoke to the rustling of branches not far from Genius’s nest. The bird had gathered quite a pile and even cleared out a small pit. His intentions were obvious to Lillian as she went to work, starting another fire. It went much quicker this time, and she was able to get the tinder lit after a few short minutes. Genius puffed out its chest and paraded himself around the growing flames before taking off towards the river. She once more felt the piercing gazes of the other birds as she tended the fire alone. The birds felt trepidation about her, but the fire was something new. Their curiosity was building as they slowly started to approach.

  After several uneasy minutes, Genius returned and dropped a large fish at her feet. The bird waved his wings at her as if to say, "Hurry up!" Lillian glared at the bird, who jittered in anticipation of another cooked meal. She relented and roasted the fish for him. If he was willing to bring the fish in, it would save her a lot of effort in the long run. She did her best to cook the fish to perfection. Luckily, barbecuing was a skill she had learned during her tenure under Renaxxus. Like before, she took a small piece for herself before handing the steaming fish back over to the bird, who immediately dug in. Many of the birds who had been on guard against her approached during Genius’s feast. They swarmed the hatchling, stealing nibbles off the fish before he beat them back and swallowed the remaining carcass whole. Genius was larger compared to many of the species, even though he was still growing. Those that were larger than him seemed wary of approaching the fire and instead sent their young to test the waters. The birds that got a taste of the roasted meat flew off towards the river and returned with prey of their own. She kept the fire going for hours and did her best to accommodate the flock. After the fourth fish, she started collecting a small fee for her services. I’ll cook, but the cores are mine. The birds seemed indifferent to her embezzlement, and she wound up spending most of her morning slaving away at the firepit. Genius wound up eating several meals over the day, his stomach seemed bottomless.

  Her gains were not limited to cores alone. The more entrepreneurial birds brought back creatures from the forest instead. She had the displeasure of cooking several varieties of spider and snake. She had never been afraid of bugs, but there had always been a degree of separation before. Touching them was much worse than just looking at them.

  Lillian was able to pilfer the venomous parts of the gathered prey before they too went on spits. Her grand plan of burning the forest faded from her mind.

  Why put in so much effort if the bird brains will do all the hard work for me?

  The forest was full of critters that were unfamiliar to her, things that were not native to the area in the past. The scorpion she processed had been the biggest surprise.

  Lillian looked over the collection of venom sacs she had saved over the day. There was no way for her to discern how dangerous any of the venoms she collected were, so she decided to wait before using them. She carefully stored the poison sacs and glands in Genius’s nest. The birds that brought back the venomous prey seemed to hesitate to eat until they saw Genius take a bite from one particularly evil looking spider. He attempted to continue his free meal until the poor hunter got between them and carried the spider off into one of the distant nests. The ravenous flock had long over-hunted the city and instead braved the forest for the more exotic prey.

  The time passed quickly in the clearing. The tenuous relationship Lillian had with the flock had improved, and she was now hounded constantly by the larger birds, who brought their kills to her for cooking. Some of the bolder pigeons even tried to pull her into their nests, but Genius always hunted them down and pulled out their tail feathers in response. The kidnapping attempts finally stopped after he took an eye from one overeager cardinal whom Lillian called Big Red.