It is said that poison is a woman's weapon, at least it used to. I didn't like this weapon. Maybe it was because of what I learned at school about the poisons used during the wars or what I saw on television about people poisoned in their homes, or on their way to work, just because someone decided to get rid of them. Hollywood certainly played a significant role in my displeasure with poisons. In movies, people dying of poisoning suffered from convulsions with protruding veins, red eyes, and foam at the mouth. I didn't like this way of dying.

However, this was the only skill on the list with some offensive potential, except brute force. At least I was willing to give it a chance not to throw away this possibility just because I didn't like it. That tail was part of me now, and I learned to live with it. I should also accept that it's a dangerous thing capable of killing in a way I didn't like.

Of course, that didn't mean I enjoyed killing.

Just the thought of killing a creature made me sick, not to mention humans. As in everything, there are exceptions, such as Dungreen or Fae.

In the basement, I often looked at a list of my available general skills and wondered which I could use to kill my captor. I didn't have many options because even after seven mutations, no skill similar to [The Tail of Poison Empress] appeared on my list. If such skills existed, they were not general skills. Or I just didn't get the essence of the creature that naturally possesses these skills.

That has changed with the last injection when my heart has undergone mutation. Even though I was clueless as to what heart I had right now, the essence Dungreen had given me must have belonged to a magical creature. After waking up in the Sahal on the river banks, several magically focused skills appeared on my general skill list.

I liked magic; it was cool. I've been to magic shows a few times, and what some people could do with ordinary cards was unbelievable. But it was all tricks, not real magic. To my knowledge, magic on Earth was only in books and people's daydreams. Therefore, the idea that I could use real magic was something I couldn't resist.

Heart of Magic: lvl 1

Passive I

You are a magical creature. Mana is an integral part of you, flowing through your veins. You can't survive without mana, but your intelligence and wisdom are 75% greater.

Arcane Magic: lvl 1

Active I

Arcane magic is the magic of pure mana, with no attributes. It is magic focused on mana's pure power, magic which only a few creatures have.

I liked the bonus that [Heart of Magic] gave. Unfortunately, even with this bonus, my intelligence and wisdom did not approach other attributes' level. I couldn't change what my captor and my would-be master had done to them. They were not the attributes of a magician, but the girl could dream, right?

It was clear to me that I would probably never be a first-class mage, but I just wanted to try. Give these skills a chance, and when I find out that these are not suitable skills for me, I was ready to exchange them for different ones, just like [The Tail of Poison Empress]. Although my class level was 92, in terms of skills, I started from the beginning. I could afford to experiment, try one skill, and exchange it for another in a few days or weeks. Although I will lose the experience gained every time the change is made, it is still better to find out which skills are best for me now than to regret my decision later.

When I chose [Heart of Magic] skill, I immediately felt the change. For more than a year, I had learned to control mana in my body and to some extent, I did, but now I felt it flow in my veins. I had much more of it in my body; it was thicker; it contained more energy, and I had more control over it. It was amazing what one skill could do. But one thing that worries me was a sentence in the skill's description of how I couldn't live without mana.

Did that mean that if I ran out of my mana for some reason, I would die? That could be a problem. It was sure that when I trained with mana and magic, there would be a moment when I would not estimate the amount of mana required for the spell correctly. I would deplete the mana in my body. It may have been a consolation to me that if, in some tragic way, the magic did not cause my body to disintegrate, [Never-dying] would bring me back to life.

I was hoping, but I didn't want to test it on purpose.

I didn't have suicidal tendencies.

As I said, I couldn't get rid of [Eleaden Standard Language]. Not now. It was a skill I kept forgetting I had, and now it bites me back. With [Heart of magic], I had my eight general skills. My knowledge of skills was sparse. I knew that. Still, I was sure that if I wanted to use magic, I needed to choose what kind. At least if I wanted to make magic a little easier. So I decided and replaced [Otherworlder] with one, for now.

Why did I choose [Arcane Magic]? Because I thought it sounded cool. The name had a mythical touch. In movies, games, and books, arcane magic was mostly ancient magic. It was the primary magic that every magic has roots. As such, it was the most powerful magic, but it was also challenging to master.

The skill description mentioned nothing like that. The fact that arcane magic was limited to a few creatures was not unique. I had more magical skills with this description. Here on Eleaden, it was just another kind of magic, another school of magic, perhaps rarer than some, but nothing unique. Whether it was stronger than the others was a question I wanted to try to answer.

Unfortunately, the fact that it was rare meant that arcane training would not be easy, just for the simple reason of finding a teacher with arcane magic. If this is not the way I should go, I had enough options to choose from. As I said after my heart changed, I gained access to a dozen other magic schools, not to mention those I had access to before.

Every creature on Eleaden had some magic that most could use in some way or even had innate talent, skill. Thanks to my mutations, I naturally gained access to some magic schools. For example, thanks to my tail, I could choose [Poison Magic], but that one I'll only pick if none of the others work out.

When I looked at my status, I was happy with it for the first time. I couldn't influence things like class and individual stats, but I finally had control over the rest. I was delighted, satisfied, and exhausted after a hard day.

I undressed and, in my underwear, crawled into bed. There I tucked my tail between my legs, pressed it to my chest, and buried my face in its tail hairs, which were incredibly soft after the bath. I slept like this almost every night in the basement, and often my tail was the only thing that could calm me down enough to fall asleep.

…

I woke up still clutching my tail with my head buried in its fine hair. Outside the window, the sun shone, long ago rising above the horizon, telling me that I slept longer than I intended. Despite an undisturbed sleep, meaning noise from my neighbors, I didn't want to get out of bed.

However, I could not be in bed all day, so I forced myself to get up after a few more minutes of bliss. As I stretched out on the bed, I noticed system notifications that required my attention.

My morning concentration was not good enough for me to immediately read the notifications. So while I visited the backyard outhouses and rinsed with water from a well, I ignored them. Only when I sat down on a stool by the table in the inn was I able to concentrate on what the system wanted to tell me.

(ding) You were poisoned.

(ding) You were poisoned.

…

(ding) You were poisoned.

(ding) You died.

(ding) Never-ding reaches lvl 2

Oh ... what the fuck?

(ding) You were poisoned.

(ding) The Tail of Poison Empress reaches lvl 2

(ding) You were poisoned.

(ding) Never-Dying reaches lvl 3

(ding) You died.

How the hell did I die at night? I quickly started searching the log, skipping other notifications.

(ding) You died.

…

(ding) You died.

(ding) You were poisoned.

(ding) The Tail of Poison Empress reaches lvl 4

(ding) Never-ding reaches lvl 9

(ding) You were poisoned.

Four times? Did I really die four times last night? I didn't die because of the skill [Never-dying]; it had to treat me continually while I was poisoned. It even brought me back to life four times. But every time, I was killed again.