Light danced through the forest, flitting across the foliage as the afternoon sun filtered through gaps in the canopy overhead. Thane's breath caught in his throat as he stepped beneath the trees — it felt like crossing a threshold into another realm. From the outside, the violet canopies crowning the slender trunks had been beautiful. From within, bathed in shifting shades of purple light, the world had transformed into something otherworldly.
A breeze stirred the canopy, sending motes of light swirling — tiny flickers that darted between the underbrush like fey sprites at play. He stood still, entranced, letting the moment wash over him.
Then a branch snapped.
The crack echoed through the hush like a gunshot. Distant birdsong ceased. Thane froze, scanning the trees for movement. Nothing. He lifted a hand above his head on instinct, just in case something was about to swoop down and remove his face.
Still nothing.
His eyes dropped to the forest floor — and there it was: a broken branch beneath his own boot. His body relaxed slightly. He let out a shaky chuckle.
"Wow," he muttered. "I'm really tense."
The laughter died in his throat as something answered — laughter echoing back at him, from multiple directions. It had a strange, dreamlike quality, warped as it bounced between trees.
Thane resumed walking. He tried, truly tried, to move with some measure of grace. But each step sounded impossibly loud in the hush, twigs snapping and leaves crunching beneath his feet like he was doing it on purpose.
"So much for subtlety," he muttered. He hadn't expected to be a ghost in the woods, but he hadn't expected to sound like a possessed marionette having a seizure.
And the echoing doesn't help, he sighed inwardly. Every snapped twig gets an encore.
"Well. Guess I'll just keep an eye out and cross my fingers," he said aloud, only half joking.
Resigned, he abandoned all pretense of stealth and trudged onward.
Might as well check my status screen. Maybe there's a miracle waiting for me in the EXP department.
EXP LOG: (+38.25%) → (-544.75%)
(50% boost Level One Boss) +2.00% → +3.00% exp level 4 Feral Stone Goblin killed
(50% boost Level One Boss) +2.00% → +3.00% exp level 4 Feral Stone Goblin killed
(50% boost Level One Boss) +2.00% → +3.00% exp level 4 Feral Stone Goblin killed
(50% boost Level One Boss) +2.00% → +3.00% exp level 4 Feral Stone Goblin killed
(50% boost Level One Boss) +2.00% → +3.00% exp level 4 Feral Stone Goblin killed
(50% boost Level One Boss) +2.00% → +3.00% exp level 4 Feral Stone Goblin killed
(50% boost Level One Boss) +2.50% → +3.75% exp level 5 Feral Stone Goblin killed
(50% boost Level One Boss) +2.50% → +3.75% exp level 5 Feral Stone Goblin killed
(50% boost Level One Boss) +2.50% → +3.75% exp level 5 Feral Stone Goblin killed
(50% boost Level One Boss) +3.00% → +4.50% exp level 6 Feral Stone Goblin killed
(50% boost Level One Boss) +3.00% → +4.50% exp level 6 Feral Stone Goblin killed
Thane stared at the numbers, frowning.
That can't be right… looks like I get half a percent EXP per goblin level, and that's before the bonus. So anyone killing level one goblins would need to kill… two hundred goblins just to hit level two?
He rubbed his forehead. "No. No freaking way."
There had to be something else going on. Some hidden modifiers. The region boss he'd killed was level 150. No way that ratio of EXP was enough to create momentum magic.
The system was stingy. Unreasonably so. He doubted it spent big on him.
"Yeah, I'm not checking that log again unless something insane happens. That's just… a whole new flavor of depressing." He frowned. "Is everyone just walking around at level two or three? That can't be right… can it?"
Getting to level ten was starting to feel like a pipe dream.
His reverie was cut short as his toe caught a root. He pitched forward and slammed face-first into the forest floor.
"Insult to injury," he growled, spitting leaves. "Screw you too, tree."
It wasn't rational, but he didn't care. He pushed himself up to a crouch and scanned the trees, just in case something had been watching.
If anything had eyes on me… I'd probably be dead already.
He sighed. "Probably not the smartest move to read while walking."
Just before he closed the screen, his gaze snagged on a familiar phrase.
Physical Momentum
He stared at it for a moment. "I wonder…"
It was probably about time to start experimenting. Subtlety was already off the table — he might as well lean into the chaos.
Thane squinted up at the sky through the purple canopy, breathing in the still, alien quiet of the forest. He cracked his neck, stretched his arms, and shook out his legs like he was warming up for a run he had no business attempting.
"Alright," he muttered. "Momentum magic."
He bent his knees and breathed deep, steadying his thoughts. No sarcasm, no jokes—just quiet. The forest around him faded into background noise as he reached inward.
Momentum is mass times velocity.
He didn't need a textbook understanding. He needed to feel it.
So he focused—not on velocity, but on mass. He found a strange weave beneath his skin, magical threads humming like an electric fence.
The sensation began near the center of his chest, like the very core of him had exhaled. Not his lungs. Something deeper. Denser. He imagined the tight-packed essence of himself unraveling, not vanishing, but diffusing outward. A controlled surrender. The weight of his being was bleeding in every direction like mist unraveling in the sun's first light.
The wave moved outward, even and smooth, brushing through his ribs, his arms, his legs, until it reached the tips of his fingers and toes. For a moment, he couldn't tell if anything had changed.
Then gravity let go.
It wasn't dramatic. The wind shifted and he drifted forward—just a whisper of motion, maybe half an inch—but it was enough. The world had moved him without permission. External proof. The magic was real.
Thane's eyes widened.
He crouched down—careful, focused—but his knees bent too fast. His feet peeled away from the earth, like gravity had let go just for a second. He sank gently back down, eyes wide in awe. The system didn't say a word. It didn't need to.
He tried a light hop—flexing of his calves.
It was a mistake.
The world dropped away. Air whipped past his ears as he soared, threading like a needle between narrow branches before—
CRACK!
His right shoulder slammed into a thick limb fifteen feet up. The hit spun him like a top. He flailed once, and the magic unraveled in an instant. For a heartbeat, he hung suspended—weightless, breathless—then gravity slammed the door shut and yanked him down like a dropped stone.
Branches slapped him all the way to the forest floor—each one yanking at some limb, thudding against parts of him he'd prefer remained unsmashed. He hit the ground flat on his back, breath gone. A moment later, the shattered remnants of a dozen twigs and two full branches landed on top of him in a rain of broken nature.
He stared up at the canopy.
"…Ow," he whispered.
He sat up slowly, brushing bits of bark out of his hair. His ribs ached. Possibly all of them.
Okay. Too little mass, not enough control. Let's... scale that back.
This time, he dialed it way down—just a whisper of decreased density, barely enough to tickle gravity. He crouched, launched gently... and didn't so much lift as lurch. His boots scraped forward an inch, maybe two, before one toe caught a rock. He tipped sideways mid-hop like a drunk duck trying ballet, clipped his foot, and spun into a graceless cartwheel that ended shoulder-first in a fern.
He didn't bother getting up right away.
From the safety of the fern, he whispered to the trees, "We're just... not gonna talk about that one."
A beat of silence passed.
"That's enough flying into vegetation," he muttered, pushing upright with a wince. "Let's see what increasing mass can do."
He closed his eyes and reached inward, searching for that subtle, thrumming weave just beneath his skin—the invisible tapestry that hummed like a live wire. Before, when he lightened himself, it had felt like coaxing something outward, a soft exhale through the fabric of his being.
Now, he reversed that instinct.
The hum deepened.
The threads didn't vibrate faster—they thickened. Grew heavy. Denser. The space between them pulled tighter until it felt like his whole body was drawing inward. Not shrinking, just… concentrating. Like he was being compressed under pressure from all sides, but without pain. Like standing at the bottom of an ocean trench, gravity folding around him from every direction.
His boots sank a hair deeper into the soil.
Then something yanked sideways.
There was no warning—just a sudden, off-balance lurch as his right shoulder dragged him down. A crack split the air as both he and the flail he always carried slammed into the forest floor, leaving two shallow craters in their wake.
He groaned and rolled halfway onto his side. "What the heck…"
And then he noticed it. The flail—his flail—was heavier. Not just in his hand, but in the same way he was. Like it had followed the same command.
He stared at it.
It hadn't even crossed his mind he was still holding it. The thing might as well have been another limb. Comfortable. Natural. Invisible until noticed.
He reached back into the weave, trying to trace the lines of magic again. And this time… he saw them. Threads extended not just through his body, but out—into the flail. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of them. Some pulsing faintly with energy, others taut and still, like waiting wires between nerves and fingertips.
He was stunned.
All this time, during every crash, every tumble, every accidental tree-dive—he hadn't injured himself on it once. Not a single scratch. No bruised ribs from the chain, no crushed toes from the spiked head. He'd taken a beating, sure, but never from it.
That wasn't luck.
The connection wasn't just physical—it was magical. Instinctive. Protective.
"…You're not just a weapon," he murmured, brow furrowed. "You're part of me."
The flail didn't respond. But it didn't need to.
He stood again, more carefully this time, the flail still clutched loosely in his right hand like it had always belonged there.
He rubbed his shoulder, then his ribs. Everything ached. His pride most of all.
"Alright," he grunted, turning the flail over in his hand. "Maybe it's your turn."
Throwing himself into the air like a human pinball had clearly been a poor strategy—at least until he had more control. But the flail? It was sturdier than he was. And if he could change its mass without hurling himself into the nearest tree, that felt like progress.
He gripped the haft, letting it dangle lazily at his side. The weight felt normal now. Familiar. He closed his eyes and focused on the threads—the ones that laced through his arm and into the weapon like veins.
With a gentle nudge, he reduced its mass. The response was immediate. The flail's head lost that grounded pull, its chain going slack like it had been filled with helium. It bobbed slightly as he moved his wrist, more balloon than bludgeon.
He increased it again—slowly.
The hum in the threads intensified, and the flail dragged down once more, not painfully, but with weight he could feel. He repeated the motion several times in either direction. Lighter, heavier. Lighter, heavier. Each shift was smooth. Predictable. Controlled.
A grin tugged at the edge of his mouth. "This… this I can work with."
He stepped into a clearing, gave his arm a stretch, and let the flail swing loosely at his side.
Time for a test.
He decreased its mass sharply—almost featherlight—and gave it a forward swing. The flail arced through the air in front of him, slow and graceful. Like a kid on a swing set, suspended in that perfect, weightless moment.
Then the backswing came.
He let it circle behind him, shoulder pivoting with the motion, turning it into a full rotation. As the chain stretched to its limit behind him—head nearly vertical—he seized the threads and shoved density into them.
A lot of density.
The chain snapped taut with a sudden, metallic whine.
Then gravity took over.
The flail's head ripped downward like a divine hammer falling from the heavens. It hit the earth with a bone-rattling BOOM, driving deep into the soil.
The ground shuddered.
A crater tore open like a landmine had gone off, flinging roots and dirt like shrapnel. A shockwave pulsed from the impact, flattening grass and underbrush in a wide arc. Trees in front of him swayed violently as though caught in a passing storm. Birds exploded from canopies in the distance, shrieking their indignation as they scattered into the sky.
Thane stood frozen, flail still clutched in his hand, heart thudding.
"...Hooooo," he exhaled. "Okay."
He blinked at the miniature disaster he'd just created.
"That... that was awesome."
His grin widened, then cracked into a laugh.
The soreness was still there. The bruises, the memory of being drop kicked by physics—but somehow, it was all worth it.
He looked down at the flail, its head buried in the crater like it was proud of itself.
"You and me," he said, giving the haft a light pat, "we're gonna get along just fine."