Transmigrate to another world

- Core upgrade progress: 0%.

"What, it\'s restarted, all that work wasted!"

Starting over is really frustrating, but I guess I have no choice. But when I try to draw mana into me to work on my core, I find that I can\'t do it. The mana doesn\'t enter my body.

I try to think of something else to do with the mana, and as I rack my brain, the spell starts to unravel. I start drawing more mana to keep the spell from going haywire, to buy some time I feed it into the forge to improve the existing enchantments. But that won\'t last long, if I try to feed the forge too much, it will explode.

I give Ruby some mana, but she\'s at full capacity, so I can\'t overload her too much. This is starting to feel very familiar, it\'s almost the same as when the ice broke. Wait, that\'s right! When the ice broke I channeled a lot of the mana into Blitz!

I quickly push the mana I have into Blitz, and it instantly disappears. I start pulling mana out of the time spell as fast as I can and I pass it all on to Blitz. I manage to undo the whole spell without any explosions, and Blitz absorbs it all.

I felt like I was pouring buckets of water into a dry lake bed. It makes me wonder what I did when I created Blitz. Anyway, it worked, that\'s what matters. I come out of my meditation and see Drog staring at me a few inches away.

"Hey, back off! What\'s wrong with you?"

Drog says "What did you just do? The sword has gone crazy."

"I put some mana in it, what do you mean it went crazy?"

Drog says "It glowed and buzzed. I\'m glad I manifested, I don\'t want to know what it would have felt like!".

I push Drog away, stand up and stretch. Ruby stares at me as I approach the forge and utter the word of command. Instantly, the forge shrinks to the size of a toy. I pick it up and it fits in the palm of my hand.

Ruby says, "I see it worked."

"Yes, it looks like it did."

Ruby says "Were there any problems?"

"Only a minor one. There was some leftover mana that I had to quickly remove."

Ruby looks at me as if she doesn\'t believe me but lets it go. I stuff the shrunken forge into my bag along with the metal ingots I had left here. Then I go back to camp to finish cleaning up, then catch some fish for dinner, and after eating I crawl into my hammock to get some sleep.

When I wake up I dismantle the hammock and put it in my pack, then fish for some breakfast. After lunch I clean everything up and put it in the backpack. Now all I have to do is go for a swim.

"Frog? Drog!"

After a minute I see him come running towards me and jump the river. If he\'s going to get away, I should set some rules.

"Drog, can you swim?"

Drog looks at the river and says "I can, but no thanks."

"Very well, then you will have to return to the sword for the outward journey. But first I have some rules for you to follow."

Drog says "What rules?"

"You are only allowed to attack my enemies unless I say otherwise. You must not kill innocents no matter what."

Drog says "Aww, but innocents taste better!"

"Are you able to fight in that form?"

Drog says "Yes, master. It may not look like it, but my fighting skills aren\'t much less now than when I fought you."

"Well, in that case you\'ll have plenty of opportunities to kill without going after innocents. So obey my rules."

Drog says "Yes, master."

As his physical form fades away I walk towards the river. If all goes as planned I will never see this place again and I don\'t regret it at all. Without a second thought I jump into the river.

I take a deep breath, dive into the water and start swimming with the current. I hope not to take more than an hour to get out, I can hold my breath almost four times as long. Unless something goes really wrong, nothing will happen to me.

I let the current do most of the work, I just swim to keep myself under control and avoid the rocks. The new armor doesn\'t weigh me down at all, it even seems to make swimming easier. Although I suppose that makes sense, since it\'s made from an aquatic creature.

The miles pass fairly quickly, but only half an hour has passed when I see a light above the water. I quickly swim to the side and grab onto the rocks to look around. I\'m disappointed to see that it\'s just another cavern illuminated by glowing crystals.

I am about to dive back in and resume my journey when a straight line catches my eye. I rise to get a better look and see carved stone. Underground, worked stone, my first thought is dwarves.

So I climb out of the river and take a good look. There are four tunnels leading out of the cavern and they appear to be the ruins of several buildings. I head towards the ruins for a closer look, but stop when I smell something familiar.

The smell is something I will never forget, the bird was too delicious to forget. It must be from here, but the smell is not ancient. So there must be another one here, and if I can smell it then it\'s close.

My hand is on Blitz\'s hilt as I look around. When I see the creature, it\'s already charging at me, so I draw Blitz and turn to face it. For some reason, it doesn\'t seem as fast as the first one. But as it leaps into the air, I see two more behind it.

This is going to be a problem, Ruby was no match for her speed and Drog takes too long to manifest. It looks like it\'s going to be a three-on-one. As the first one flies towards me, I squeeze Blitz and wait until the last second before moving.