Paryl walked through the viridescent forest.
The region in which he had landed was mountainous, evergreen forests taking it over like an infection. His socks were soaked from the mud he walked through. They made wet squelching noises at every step.
Goosebumps rose on his skin due to the sound.
'Seems like it rained yesterday.'
Wind whistled against trees, making him jump back in fear. The boy's hands jumped to his neck, until he realized there was no threat.
Shaking, he continued.
'It's so dark...and wet... Wait, why am I not cold?'
By all rights, Paryl should have been freezing. But he just felt a pleasant, subtle cold wind on his skin.
The reason for this was a subconscious use of fire magic, producing a small heat bubble around himself. Due to the instincts he shared with the dragon, he could use it.
There was just one issue: his extremely underdeveloped mana core.
When the creature took over, it was using mana from an external source. Paryl didn't know what that source was, but he felt it. It was something within the imprint, like a second mana core.
That 'second core' seemed to be connected to something, but he wasn't sure what. All he knew is that mana was coming into it from the north.
With that other source of mana, the creature could use incredibly taxing forms of magic. For example, Inferno.
However, Paryl's trick to heat himself up wasn't using that connection. He was using his small, underdeveloped mana core. Well, it wasn't underdeveloped when compared to his peers.
An average human would only start to form a core when reaching puberty, which would grow by emptying and refilling it. Paryl not only had a core at the age of eight, but it was 7 times larger than that of most humans.
Paryl's core was 5.81 gigamana, growing each day due to circumstances he hadn't understood yet.
Humans had the biggest cores when compared to other species, only rivaled by the beast folk. In the middle were dwarves, and elven cores were smallest.
This was not counting mana beasts, who didn't have developed cores but simply sucked mana out of the air. They didn't bother filtering it and transforming it into a more efficient fuel for magic.
His core was not built to sustain such advanced and technical use of magic for more than an hour and a half. He had to reach a settlement by then, or his wet, cold clothes would drain his body heat rapidly, leaving him to die a slow and painful hypothermic death.
Paryl was unaware of this fact. He was only scared of the people searching for him.
Paryl was sharing mana use instincts with the dragon. That was why he could make the heat bubble.
One of those instincts was sensing large mana sources, and he felt four around him. Two of them were rapidly approaching.
Paryl started panicking. Mana use was reliant on emotion, so his heat bubble grew unstable, consuming more and more of the young child's mana.
The world distorted, seeming larger and darker. Shadows were longer, trees became monoliths of terror.
Paryl started running in the muddy terrain.
Even though he knew where his followers were, the scared child would constantly turn around, expecting to see someone just behind him.
Every rustle of leaves, every cracked branch, made the boy's heart race within his chest even faster, his hands shaking.
Paryl's eyes darted around, trying to find any threat around him.
He didn't have a habit of exercising, as he wasn't allowed to most of the time. After just a few hundred meters, he started panting like a dog in the heat, stopping to catch his breath.
'Phew... They're going in the wrong direction...'
Paryl used a tree to support himself. He waited a few seconds, catching his breath.
He felt a cluster of thousands upon thousands of small mana signatures east. That was a small town he saw while flying. To the west there were two people, and they were going further westward. The other group of two was heading south from him.
The tree rustled in the wind, making the boy jump back in terror. Still hyperventilating, he sat back down. Cold sweat covered the boy.
'The town is very near, so I can relax.'
The boy repeated to himself over and over, holding his rapidly pumping chest tightly.
Paryl took a step forward, then screamed.
Sharp pain bit into his elbow.
Something as black as the night itself moved rapidly, swiping at his arm.
Red, sticky blood started to pour from the open wound.