Chapter 22

　　Putting the F. And U. Into Fluff

　　"Bring it!" Maria bellowed as she stared down the charging horde of bunnies that came towards her. With each strike she expended valuable spirit energy, energy that was almost instantly refilled by the death of each creature.

　　The only problem was, these creatures all had impurities within their energy. Impurities that would normally never be a problem, as her natural cycling of the different energies in her body would not only filter out the impurities, but also could use them as semi-rough tools to either expand her meridians, or chip away at the size of her core. When done slowly, this process would help her build up what were the equivalent of calluses on her meridians, and even her core. Each nick, and abrasion would momentarily hurt, but ultimately be used to help her strengthen herself the more energy she could consume from fallen foes. The only problem was, this process required her to take time to pause and allow her body to regenerate the damage sustained. As it was, she was getting thousands of tiny cuts from the energy her body was trying to process. Energy that itself was wielded by beings that were admittedly one tier lower than her own, meaning the energy was even more raw, and even harder to process quickly. This meant that after the first few dozen bunnies she was beginning to feel a slight warmth within her. By the time she hit three dozen bunnies, she could feel a slight burn coursing through her that made each move feel like it was sluggish and harder to force.

　　Now that she was at this point, she knew her options were nearing a breaking point. She had so much mana, the energy she was gaining was easily twice that of what she was spending to get here. The problem was that each time she used her own processed mana, her body would greedily inhale the corrupted unevolved bunny energy around her. This was why she had placed all of her thoughts into using one supercharged spell. While she had never cast the spirit version of this spell before, she knew that a similar spell could be cast with every element. The basic idea of her spell was to create a wall of protection in front of her, using her mind she would create the shape, height, width, and intensity of the wall. With the idea of creating a replica of the great wall within her mind, she focused and forced a pillar of energy to rise up around her.

　　Greater Spirit Wall

　　Whoom.

　　The force of energy she used to create the wall was so intense that she felt her reserves of energy drop by over three fourths. Instantly she felt her focus slip, as suddenly the energy that had been so prevalent within her suddenly bottomed out, as she had hit one of her first safety limits. A seventy-five percent energy usage, particularly for one spell was intense. There was a slight surge of darkness that filled her vision. At this, she knuckled down and forced her mind to focus on both maintaining the spell, and her own consciousness. This was a bit trickier than she thought, and she went and used not just one but two tried and true methods, first she bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood. Then as if that was not enough, she took two fingers and jabbed it against the side of her temple. The pain was enough to keep her conscious, while the jabbing of her fingers was meant to help her maintain constant focus. Her mind spun slightly from the tapping, showing that it was effective, as she was able to sue the sensation to quickly shake off the worst of the sleep and sudden wave of exhaustion that flooded her body and mind.

　　Then slowly the darkness that had been creeping across the edges of her vision dissipated, as she was once again able to gain control over her mind and body. At that time, she was rewarded for her efforts by a system message.

　　World First Notice: Limitless Caster (Lesser)

　　Title: Limitless Caster (Lesser): You were the first mage caster to cast a spell using seventy-five percent of your mana pool. You must be truly desperate, and desperation has paid off. +15 Endurance, +15 Spirit, +50% ability to avoid blacking out while casting devastating spells.

　　Seeing the message, a few things became apparent to Maria. First, she realized that she could receive title upgrades during combat, meaning that either empowering an enemy with energy and the using said enemy corpse as an impromptu grenade was not worthy of a World First Title, or someone else might have already done so. Thinking logically for a moment, the odds of someone not only getting access to magic, but also being able to use magic well enough to imbue it into an item that could then be used for a devastating attack seemed low. Thus, it might have been something that was so inconsequential that the system would not think it worthy of noting.

　　The second thing that Maria realized was that once again she was saved from having her status revealed. First the titles gained while inside this nexus were hidden as she was technically in a different universe, meaning the announcement wouldn`t make it to everyone. Well to anyone other than the bunnies that were valiantly charging into her Spirit Inferno of a magical wall she had constructed for protection.

　　"Ayee-eep." Cries of bunny pain echoed out across the open hillside as bunny after bunny jumped into the blazing inferno that was slowly whittling down her innate reserves of mana while she held the wall in place. By doing this, she took the spell from being just a one-time use spell to a continued casting spell, effectively meaning she could keep the spell running indefinitely, so long as she had enough mana to maintain the spell. Unfortunately for Maria, she did not have unlimited mana reserves.

　　Maria felt the moment that a bunny impacted her wall, and she almost felt that she could see and feel through her spell. This was something that only higher-level Mages should be able to do, the Detached Senses was a sign that she was not only aware of her own mana, but how her mana interacted with the world. This was an important hurdle for any mage, as it was necessary for mages that were Tier IV and higher that wished to wield truly devastating magical effects. For lower-level spells such awareness of enemies interacting with her spell was not important, and often it was actually discouraged as most lower-level Magicians often lacked the capability to both cast a spell and maintain some awareness of their surroundings. This of course made it so most mages had a huge blind spot, mainly their backsides, which were often very vulnerable from being stabbed in the back. That was why in Maria`s last life, higher Tier mages were so devastating on a battlefield, as they not only had the wherewithal to maintain situational awareness during a battle but could often split their consciousness to cast multiple combat spells in unison, to devastating effect.

　　Maria was not at the rate of being a Grand Master, or someone capable of being aware of their surroundings, feeling the effects of their magic, and being able to adapt to a given battlefield. In fact, Maria hoped that she would never gain such proficiency, as it would mean that her ideal quiet life would be sold and traded for another lifetime of war and strife. Regardless of her current conditioning, while she was far from being as capable as a Tier IV mage, she didn`t need to be. Right now, her power rating was at the upper end of Tier II, and her attributes were well over those of the enemies she now faced. So while she was clearly outnumbered, she was able to maintain control of the battlefield by constantly absorbing the burning energy of the bunnies she was slaughtering by the dozen, and using their discarded energy to replenish the energy she was channeling out in a never ending cycle to maintain the protective barrier around herself.

　　Whoom-thump.

　　A charred blackened bunny corpse landed in front of her. It reminded Maria of the one time she and her sister had tried to cook their mother a Mother`s Day steak but ended up charring the meat black. The rabbit landed, its body burnt and glowing with dark purple lines of spiritual energy that clearly burned into and through the beast, cooking it from the inside out, then somehow igniting the fur into a smoking mass. The old Maria would have vomited at the sight, but that was a Maria from a long time ago, one who had no concept of what it meant to try to save the world. The new Maria looked at the blackened corpse, and then nodded to herself, realizing that her spell would work so long as she kept it going.

　　Realizing the spell worked as intended, she began changing the shape of it so that it resembled a circle around her. Then at the very center she sat down and began focusing on mending-meditating, trying to force more energy into her body, while also forcing her body to ignore or quickly heal the damage she was sustaining. During this time her mind split, just as the great masters of her past life taught her.The author`s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

　　Maria watched with her mental senses as more and more mid-sided bunnies began learning from one another. The smartest, or most determined ran down the hill, using the steep incline of the hill to gain enough speed, so that when they jumped, they were able to punch their way through the now Sustained Greater Spirit Wall, that she had cast.

　　Thump, thump, thump.

　　Charred bunny corpse after charred bunny corpse landed next to her. Those that came close to striking her with their dead husks for a body were quickly struck away by a reflexive strike from her glowing palms that sent the bunny corpse flying off in opposite directions around her.

　　This was going to be a war of attrition.

　　***

　　Sheer moments had passed since the beginning of the Integration, meaning that even with the one month to one minute ratio, there should have been at most thirty months since the bunnies here had a chance to start their process for improvement. The only problem was that thirty months was a lot of time.

　　While it was clear that these bunnies were held to the same level of advancements as humans were, namely needing to focus on a particular end goal and advance as needed; every warrior would ultimately need five key things when advancing. The first and most important component was time, something that was heightened using this primary nexus point. From there, each warrior wishing to exceed would also need an abundance of power, again something that was also provided by this nexus. After those two, the last three were considered the most important, and ones that could only be achieved by the Individual warrior, and they were, the warrior`s path, their ability to comprehend their path and incorporate it into their daily lives, and finally, a warrior would need the will to proceed, even when the path got tougher.

　　The bunnies and in particular the Bunny General who stared down angrily at Maria might have had four of the five, but the fifth one, the will to push yourself forward was hard to gleam to. It was the equivalent of needing to have a highly sharpened blade when all you were provided with at first was a lump of unprocessed metal. Maria did not have this problem, as her will to proceed was likely the highest of components of her pentagon of power. While Path, Ability, and Will (PAW) was the common way most people learned to use the system, Maria with her advanced knowledge could cheat and form a perfect core, working backwards from the most important components needed to advance. Thus, she could focus her enhanced Will, to harness her Ability, to then direct her Path, forming what scholars considered the perfect growth triangle of WAP. This was the method used to teach her during the end times of her last life, whereby her mere ability to survive and continue to push on living for one more day she had created a Will, one that was forged to be stronger through the most precious of resources, Time. Then fed with the multitudes of power, she was quickly able to be directed to the most powerful of builds, all of this was to say that from an individual standpoint her ability to fight against individual bunnies was unquestioned.

　　The problem came that when you gave bunnies ample resources to procreate and thrive for thirty minutes within a nexus, that translated into 30 months inside the nexus. Thirty months to breed, grow and breed some more. This meant that the bunnies that came after Maria seemed to be unending. There must have been at least one large nest of bunnies to begin with, one that consisted of either multiple families, or maybe multiple generations living together, as the speed and rate that these bunnies were able to breed was astronomical. While humans had been effectively neutered by the Integration, the same could not be said for the creatures that inhabited the world. In fact, knowing what Maria knew now, she almost felt that this was done as a deliberate way to all but ensure the human race perished, which was why she spent all her time focusing her mind and efforts into getting as powerful now as she could, so that she could create a safe haven for people to grow and learn. In her past life the knowledge of Nexus nodes and their importance were not learned about until much later in her life. By that point the monsters inhabiting the Nexus nodes was impossible to overcome, as a day in the outside world was the equivalent of 1,440 months inside, or 120 years exactly. Such a deviation of power was often impossible to overcome, even for the most powerful of humans, meaning that each spot could and would forever be used to spawn endless campaigns of monsters.

　　***

　　Blinking.

　　Maria blinked away the Vision? She didn`t know, all that she knew for certain was that the memory of her past came to her, once again while she was focusing on the process of Meditation, while her goal for this was not to have a Vision, she once again noticed that this was the way of things, that her Meditating allowed her to gain greater insights into her past life. She still didn`t know why this was, other than her mind was desperately trying to recall all the valuable life lessons that humanity needed as quickly as possible, if they were to survive in this harsh new world.

　　She also realized that her staying in here could be the key to saving the world, or at the very least, saving her little portion of the world. This was also a strategically important part of the world, as it held the Designated Champion, Detective Quinn in it. With the detective here, Maria could not help but think that there was something greater to her being here right now. Even the blessings that now helped her seemed to have been more than the mere happenstance that they might have first appeared to be, before her last restart. All of these thoughts filled her.

　　First, she desperately tired to remember the key concept of her Vision, the Pentagon of Progression, that was invaluable when explaining how to progress with the new system. But there was something even more pressing, something that caused her to be awakened from her meditations.

　　It took her a second to realize what was wrong, the spell she had cast, the Channeled Greater Spirit Wall, was still blazing brightly all around her, protecting her. So, the spell wasn`t an issue, but then she realized what the issue was, why her subconscious mind had warned her to stop. The bunnies had stopped.

　　Rising to her feet, she paused for a second, then once she realized her observations were correct, that the bunnies had in fact stopped charging headfirst into her protective barrier, she realized it was time to drop the spell.

　　Whoosh!

　　The towering spell of spirit burning flames suddenly winked out, revealing a one towering general of a bunny, surrounded by four large bunnies.

　　That was it, two and a half years of bunny breeding and subsequent exterminations led to this point, five remaining bunnies.

　　Maria was exhausted by this point, she had pushed her mind, body, and spirit beyond their normal boundaries, and was certain that if she was given a chance she could easily push through all three mediums into the next tier of power, but that would require time. Time and the ability to force an evolution without being interrupted.

　　Fortunately for Maria, she knew just the place that would be perfect for conducting her evolution, the only problem was that this spot was currently occupied, a simple problem to fix, but one that must be completed first.

　　"Come on then!" Maria yelled, gesturing to he remaining bunny general and his largest bodyguards.

　　The bodyguards` eyes all flashed a ravenous red gleam at the taunting, as they clearly were subject to their baser natures as barely evolved creatures.

　　Thundering hooves.

　　At the provocation, all four bodyguards began charging forward, their massive sizes causing the ground to shake. Only now did Maria begin to realize just how large these bunnies had gone, going from the size of cats, before the integration, to now be the size of warhorses that were valiantly charging forward.

　　Smiling at the anticipated battle, and thrill of conflict, Maria used some of her remaining dredges of power to weave a light sheen into her fists and feet. Then she waited, until the beasts charged past.

　　Spirit Palm Strike

　　Spirit Palm Strike

　　Spinning Heel Kick

　　As the beasts charged by, she gave a quick right hand thrust to one, before spinning to her left and lashing out with her left hand, directly into the forehead of a second large bunny that she managed to connect to on the side of its face. Then as one attempted to come from behind, she spun out with a heel kick, that managed to clip the massive bunny right in the chest, and along its left flank.

　　Within seconds the first two bunnies that had been struck in the head dropped, as their motor skills seemed to drop from them, causing them to crash into the ground.

　　The third one, managed to take three steps, before also collapsing onto the ground, panting and wheezing as the spirit energy slowly wormed its way straight to the beast`s heart.

　　That just left one of the original four bodyguards left. Maria tracked the beast with her eyes, even as it angrily charged around Maria, having to go extra wide due to not wanting to trample over the corpses of its fallen comrades.

　　Swelling magical energy.

　　Maria felt a surge of energy coming from up top the hill, instantly her mind let her know that the leader of this Nexus node was gathering energy and appeared to be close to a mental breakthrough. This realization almost cost Maria everything as her attention had been diverted for just a second, which often means death in combat. Fortunately, Maria`s attributes were far above those of the charging beast, meaning that even with initiative going to the charging beast, she was easily able to shift her feet, and avoid the incoming strike of the beast, while delivering one last strike to the charging bodyguard.

　　Exploding Spirit Palm Strike

　　Unfortunately for the bodyguard rabbit, Maria`s being slightly startled by the almost blindside attack meant that she infused twice as much energy as was necessary into her palms, making it so that her strike to the beast`s skull caused a wave of excessive force to hit the creature, causing its head to explode in a spray of spirit powered chunks.

　　With the last minion finally taken care of, Maria let out a breath, as she realized there was just one enemy waiting between her and conquering this node.

　　"Almost too easy." Maria said, words that she would instantly come to regret.

　　Thunderclap.

　　There was a burst of lightning that struck down from the skies and landed at one spot at the top of the hill. Worse, Maria recognized the type of lightning she was seeing, it was the same energy type that she herself had felt and generated when she made her double breakthrough, the same energy that had led to the death of Detective Quinn.

　　"Well, you were afraid it would be too easy." Maria said to herself, as she took a moment to turn and face the brightly glowing bunny that was clearly going through an evolution of power.