The forest floor came alive.

  Alex watched as Hiro disappeared back into the trees. The act felt wrong, like a betrayal, although Alex understood why. Hiro was only here to help if things went south. This was their fight, their challenge, and Hiro was supposed to stay off camera as much as possible.

  Alex pushed the thought aside and focused on the clearing around him. Millipedes—some larger than the one Danny had killed, at least two stretching over six feet—exploded out from under leaf litter and decaying wood, mandibles clacking, bodies rippling as they surged around the clearing. They were agitated, but didn’t attack right away. Instead they were curling around themselves and hissing at the group. Clacking their mandibles. Was it a warning to back off? Or an attack display?

  Rae raced away from the armoured bodies, quickly picking her way around several as they twisted over and around each other.

  “I’m not sure they can see me,” she said as she stepped in line beside Sarah.

  “Later!” Alex snapped. He sent a quick message to Jay via his HUD:

  >> ETA?

  >> One minute. I can see you all on my mini-map now.

  “Millipedes? I thought millipedes ate plants?” Mel asked from the back of the group.

  “I really don’t think we can use Earth knowledge to judge things here, It may look like a giant millipede, but that’s it,” Danny answered as he knocked an arrow.

  The two smallest millipedes lunged closer and Sarah stepped forward, in front of the group, holding her shield up to discourage the attack. Alex cursed and stepped up beside her, summoning the buckler on his left arm.

  The first creature shot straight at them and slammed into Sarah’s shield. She backpedalled a couple of steps to prevent being knocked over.

  Alex swung down hard with his left fist. His buckler skated across the hard plates of the creature's head until reaching the knobby protrusion where its antenna connected. The shell shattered, tearing the antenna off as the buckler bit deep. Alex shot a round of Dragon Breath as his buckler jammed into the crack and phosphorous sparks exploded around the creature's head, bouncing around all three of them.

  Sarah yelled and instinctively covered her face.

  The injured millipede reared back on its back third, hissing into the air as the dragon's breath ate into its shell wherever it had stuck.

  An arrow hissed through the air above them and slammed into its face, finishing the burning millipede off just as the second came in from the side, clamping its mandibles down on Sarah’s raised forearm.

  With a brutal squealing sound that Alex felt in his molars, the reinforced plates of her armor deflected the bite. The millipede’s thick mandibles couldn’t find any purchase and slid down her armoured arm.

  Sarah didn’t waste the moment and lunged in, hacking downward as the creature pulled away. Her blade bit deep into the creature’s face but didn’t kill it. Instead it spun backwards in a long, fast, corkscrew motion as it hissed at them.

  Rae threw a dagger as it fled but the blade bounced off the plates down the creature's side.

  “The armour’s too thick!” she yelled.

  Alex looked at the creatures facing them. There were 6 still standing, including the one Sarah had hit, oozing a green-orange ichor from its head. He took a deep breath and looked over the creatures. Why were some of them holding back? Was there a hierarchy? They were just insects. Mega insects maybe, but insects.

  He could see the mana swirling around the clearing and wished he had spent more time trying to understand what he could do with it. It was hard to believe that it hadn’t even been two weeks since all this started.

  He wondered if he could gloam the mana around the face or legs of one of the millipedes like he had done around his hand. Would that hurt it or help it? He needed more time to just sit and experiment.

  He thought about how he could see the mana fading from the first one that Danny had killed and wondered if mana was just a part of the creatures here. Did they use it, or was it just something that empowered them to grow bigger than normal. Of course, there had been a mega fauna period back on earth too and no mana had been involved, so that probably wasn’t the answer.

  He could see a faint aura around each of the millipedes. It was different from the one he had seen around those locals in the Silver Gate Inn last week, but it was active. He could see it pulsing lightly around them. One of the middle-sized millipedes shot forward and Alex could see the mana circulate around the aura and focus around the creature's legs just before the rush. Were they using the mana to improve their physical actions?

  That gave him another idea though.

  “Legs!” Alex shouted. “Go for the legs!”

  In the back Alex could see another of the millipedes, one of the two biggest creatures, focus its mana towards its legs as well. A charge from one of the big ones would be impossible to block, they were just too big. He pointed his staff at it and launched a round of magic missiles. Sarah was going to have to deal with the smaller one.

  With a soft thump, a jet of blue light shot out of the staff and, splitting into three smaller projectiles, screeched through the air towards the biggest millipede. The impact tore basketball sized chunks out of its carapace. It hissed, a low bass sounded more like a growl, and corkscrewed backwards. Mana released from its torso to circulate back up into its general aura. Alex checked his HUD quickly to see the power setting for the magic missiles, he had just fired at their default setting without checking.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  >> Magic Missile 60%

  He smiled and mentally turned them up to 100%. Aiming carefully, he fired on the same millipede once more. Three missiles screamed across the clearing and smashed into the creature's exposed underbelly. This time there was a much louder boom as the missiles struck and the top third of the creature spun off the rest of the body which continued to spiral and twitch on the forest floor.

  Beside him Sarah had engaged the smaller millipede. It was lunging repeatedly towards her as she blocked with shield and sword.

  Mel ran past her and swung her sword down the creature's side. Spindly red legs flew off into the forest litter. The millipede immediately listed to the side and half rolled over after losing so much support. Sarah plunged her sword down at the exposed underbelly at the base of the head just as an arrow appeared in its face, between the mandibles. It quickly stopped thrashing.

  Alex turned back to the remaining millipedes, ready to shoot at the next biggest one, just in time to see Jay burst through the multihued ferns at the back of the clearing. Without a pause, Jay jumped onto the largest millipede and, running along its round back, swung his massive battle axe down in an overhand strike that clove through the creature's head, splitting it down the middle for several feet.

  With barely any pause, Jay rolled off the back of the dead millipede and brought his axe around in a brutal sweep that severed half the legs off the next creature. It collapsed sideways, flailing.

  One more lunge brought Jay in close as he drove his fist forward onto the creature's head. Alex could see the mana flare across Jay’s new bracer as the punch landed with a concussive crack, the charged impact snapping the millipede’s head back and sending it rolling onto its side, twitching violently.

  In the back, Danny had found his rhythm. Arrows thudding into the joints and faces of the remaining two creatures with mechanical precision, keeping them spiraling around in place.

  Alex inhaled, the scent of sap a strong chlorophyll-like odor filled his lungs.

  Mana shimmered everywhere, threads and currents woven through the forest like an invisible web. He reached for it instinctively—

  —and stopped.

  Not like before.

  He didn’t want to grab at it.

  Instead he tried to feel it.

  The ring on his finger felt like ice as he focused, bringing the ambient mana into sharper relief. He could see how it flowed, how it pooled beneath the creatures as they moved, how it thickened around their bodies, reinforcing plates and joints.

  It wasn’t random. It was shaped by the creature's will - even if it was an unconscious action. This was so much different than what he had done previously that it became clear to him that Mana was just a thing to be used. A tool. And apparently there was no ‘right’ way.

  He extended his hand but didn’t pull. Instead, he tried to shape. He could almost feel the mana. He pulled on it, but not towards himself, just to a point near him.

  The mana responded, coalescing in the air before him, not into a blunt mass like the mallet he had formed in his fight with Connor. But into a flat, curved plane.

  A shield formed in the air in front of them. It was 12 feet across and thin enough to see through. It looked like a light fog sitting in front of them.

  With Danny’s arrows blocked, one of the millipedes lunged towards them, only to bounce off the shield. Alex smiled. Defensive magic. He needed something else though and imagined the shield falling over the millipede. Crushing it. Shrinking. Breaking into smaller sharper pieces, like broken glass.

  Alex could feel the pressure roil up his arm and into his chest as the millipede burst open in a dozen places, ichor spraying across the clearing.

  Then it was over. Alex released his hold on the mana projection.

  Jay and Mel had finished off the last millipede. Everyone else was staring at him.

  Alex took a deep breath.

  Marcus broke into the clearing at that moment, face red and panting. “Damn it Jay, how do you move so fast…” His voice trailed off when he saw that everyone else was staring at Alex.

  Sarah walked over to the carcass of the millipede that Alex had magicked and poked at it with her sword tip. The carapace indented with each push of the sword. It had become soft.

  “What the hell was that?” Rae asked, looking from Alex to the crushed millipede corpse.

  “Not sure. I’m just sort of… making it up as I go along.” Alex shrugged and, reaching into the pouch at his waist, grabbed two of the magic missile cartridges to reload his staff.

  “Yes but, what is it you are figuring out?”

  Alex looked around the clearing, at the faces of his new friends. He smiled and reached back out to the mana. He didn’t really know how to explain it, better to show them.

  It felt a little easier this time. Either practice greases the wheels, or it was just easier to do when there wasn’t a creature trying to eat him.

  He didn’t really have a plan, he just wanted to show everyone what he was working on. He pushed the mana together into a long rod, like a spear, visualizing the simple form. At first there was nothing. Alex could see the mana rushing into the space until finally a black spear appeared, floating in the air. It was twelve feet long and pointed down at one of the millipede bodies.

  He could feel the strain of holding it together. He could feel it in all of his muscles, almost like he was physically holding it up. His arm trembled. When he wasn’t sure he could handle it anymore, he thrust the spear down into the carcass of the forest floor with a single hand motion. It drove through and deep into the ground below, then started melting away until it was gone.

  Alex looked around at his friends. Danny’s mouth was wide open. Marcus’s eyes were wide. “Magic.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Magic, as practiced in the Western Kingdoms, is not a thing to be taken inside oneself, nor mastered by force of flesh like an animal in the forest. That way lies madness, mutation, and the sort of enlightenment that leaves no one behind to explain it.

  Power exists in the world in abundance. Our task is not to consume it, but to negotiate with it. Mana moves as water does: it follows gradients, seeks paths, obeys pressure and release. A mage does not create magic any more than a miller creates a river. He builds the wheel, sets the sluice, and steps back before the current tears him apart.

  Those who insist on internalizing power confuse proximity with control. The wiser path is to keep the energy of the world away from one's own soul. External—shaping, diverting, and constraining the energy without inviting it to rewrite the machinery of the self. The body is a poor container and a worse filter. Stone, sigil, geometry, and distance are far more reliable allies.

  Remember this, apprentice: the greatest spells ever cast were not held within a single soul. They were systems of rules crafted in the world.

  Excerpt from On the Proper Conduct of Power,

  Archmagus Theren Valcyr,

  Seventh Chair of the Aurelian Conclave

  Everyone dies, but I get to live again. And again. And again.

  When I died, my soul followed the usual cycle of reincarnation… until I was caught by higher dimensional pirates. Fortunately, I was saved before anything came of that, and along the way I picked up a special skill that made me immune to the usual loss of memories between lives. It also let me keep my stats and my skills—the elements of my new System—which I would gain in each life, carrying them into the next.

  So what’s a guy to do when he’s reborn as a baby in a new world? Learn the local magic, for starters. Navigate how my System works, and learn how to pick up stats and skills to help me survive and thrive in my new life, and all the lives that will follow. Maybe, along the way, figure out how to find some meaning in all of this, setting goals for myself in each life and trying to find fulfillment and happiness across the vast collection of worlds in the multiverse.

  This is my life—or rather, these are my infinite, endless, serial lives. And I’ll keep living them… as long as I don’t get soul-killed or encounter some other disaster I can’t even comprehend yet. Hopefully, I can live them right.

  A slow-burn, slice-of-lives serial reincarnation LitRPG about the journey of living through multiple isekai fantasies.