Argul woke up at first light. She yawned heavily and slowly stood up, making Alyra yelp in indignation as she was thrown off Argul’s back. Argul ignored her daughter and stretched like a cat. She had no idea that sleeping underneath a random tree could feel that good, though admittedly, it had been long since she had slept the last time.

Argul shook herself, trying to get rid of the last remnants of sleep, and yawned again. “Morning Aly.”

Alyra mumbled something back, but Argul couldn’t understand it.

She blinked. Right, today was the day, but she wanted to do it in her human form. Argul dug a small hole and filled it with water so she could take a look at herself after changing. Digging was refreshingly easy with her paws.

Once that was done, she activated her subskill, and her form lit up for a second. Changing her body felt super weird, and while it was not a pleasant feeling, it wasn’t too bad either, like having sand everywhere on your body.

Argul looked at her reflection in the puddle. She had silver hair that reached her shoulders. Her animal ears had stayed but were likely a bit smaller than before. She had a diamond-shaped face with absolutely no blemishes, making her look a little bit unreal and more like the illustration of a perfect woman.

Argul had a bit deeper set of light blue eyes that, complimented by her eyebrows, gave her a somewhat fierce look. She made an angry face and was pleasantly surprised by the vicious and wild look that looked back at her. It looked really cool.

All in all, she was attractive in a dangerous way, and Argul was quite happy with that, even if she didn’t consider herself dangerous.

She looked down at her body, and the first thing that came into her view was, well, her breasts. Now she had no idea about women’s cup sizes, so she could only tell that they were pretty big but not overly so. Argul had never bothered to learn these things. She didn’t have any female friends back then anyways.

She touched them with her hands and fondled them a bit, her curiosity simply taking over. Argul had to admit it felt nice, mainly because they were still somewhat firm despite their size. She might have become aroused because of her own body, which in turn activated a member she had not expected.

Above her vagina, Argul’s penis slowly rose to a full erection and reached a length of maybe 20 cm. It was likely a bit smaller, considering she had once been a pure male.

Alyra cleared her throat. “While it sure feels nice to fondle your breasts while shaking your hips seductively and making weird slapping sounds with your erected penis, you might want to come out of your own world before you do something unnecessary in front of your daughter.”

Argul was suddenly very aware of her daughter’s presence and what she had been about to do. She blushed hard and glanced at Alyra, who was sitting where they had slept, observing her with a raised eyebrow.

Argul immediately looked away again and ran behind the tree, standing beside Alyra to hide. There was no way she could think coherently about anything in an embarrassing situation like this.

Argul didn’t quite notice the slime that was behind the tree and how she took it and hugged it desperately while mumbling excuses again and again. Alyra was laughing hard on the tree’s other side and thoroughly enjoyed the situation.

After 10 minutes of intensive slime hugging, Argul calmed down a bit and took notice of what she was embracing. The heat rising back to her cheeks again, she sat the slime back down on the ground. Much to her surprise, it immediately jumped back against her chest. Argul could understand. She liked it too.

The slime fell back down, and she didn’t have to think long about deciding to take it with them as long as it wanted, naming the slime Aina to distract herself from reality.

Thinking back on the situation of before, Argul could really only slap herself. Of course, she would be naked and find her own damn body attractive. This was not good because she didn’t like being narcissistic. She also couldn’t talk to the universe naked.

Argul changed back to her foxy form and looked down at the slime. She lowered herself to the ground hoping the slime would understand, and lo and behold, it actually jumped on her back.

Argul stood back up and walked around the tree again, not that she had been hidden behind it with her size. She pointedly avoided looking at her daughter, and an embarrassing silence ensued.

Alyra was the first to break the awkward atmosphere between them. “So, when are you going to contact the universe?”

Argul breathed in and out a bit, trying to regain her dignity and calming herself down. “Right about now.”

Then with the presence and grace only a four-meter tall fox with a slime on its back could have, she activated her ability [uniphone]. Argul couldn’t actually tell if she was doing anything. There was a bit of mana movement, but that was it. “Uhhh… Hello?” 

Why couldn’t she be an ostrich?

Then she could have at least put her head in the ground, trying to escape her inability to do people things. There had been so many good opportunities for a good and epic entrance wasted there, and Argul really wanted to not be here at the moment.

The situation got worse as Alyra looked at her, completely baffled. “Really mom, that’s how you start this conversation?” 

Alyra stared at her mother, who pointedly avoided looking at her, and her tone got more severe and composed. “You are aware that this is also going to be a negotiation, and you kind of destroyed your image of a serious threat a moment ago.”

Argul could only look down in shame. She was not good at people things like negotiations or rather lacked the ability and didn’t like them. In addition to that, after her first embarrassment today, she kind of wanted to cry but managed to hold that in.

A mighty female voice came from everywhere. “The little one is quite right. As far as first impressions go, that one was one of the worst I ever had the joy to have, even for a conversation that should be all but impossible.”

Why did they have to rub salt in her open wounds? Hasn’t it been enough already? 

Alyra immediately snapped to attention while Argul desperately tried to hold back her tears. Look, during the time she had been depressed, she had pretty much never interacted with anyone, so this situation was a bit difficult for her.

It was silent momentarily, and you could only hear Argul forcefully trying to calm herself by breathing more slowly.

Once she got a grip on her feelings again, she cleared her throat awkwardly. “Right, hello again, I assume, Miss Universe. My name is Argul Agren, and I am the mana core you decided to imprison some time ago.” 

She concentrated only on the words she had planned beforehand and tried to ignore everything else. “Now, if I am dangerous to you, I can forgive being imprisoned in self-defense. As you might know, though, being imprisoned isn’t really all that nice, which is why I want to propose a hopefully possible solution for us two to coexist.” 

Argul breathed in and out heavily, trying to calm down a bit more. “I don’t know what being a universe means, so it might not be possible.” 

Argul had failed to get the superior position in this negotiation, and she honestly didn’t care all that much as long as she got what she wanted now that she was calm. Her offer was also a pretty good one.

Silence reigned for a bit of time until the universe decided to answer. “My name is Fia Lotusriver.” 

The voice continued haughtily. “As far as I’m concerned, you and your energy are safely locked away for eternity, and yet you come and offer coexistence as if it weren’t so. You have to be mighty confident in that offer of yours.”

Argul sighed and turned a lot more severe than before. “You are wrong, Miss Lotusriver. Firstly, to call it locked away safely stretches the implication of safety so far that it will rip, just because I would do everything to give my daughter freedom.” Argul really hated political games and all the acting that came with it.

She continued, a lot more confident now. “Secondly, your containment will fail. I didn’t just bring the energy with me. I generate it and will do so for all of eternity.” 

She raised her head and looked at the sky with a serious expression. “Mana, as I call it, already eats away at the plane you created as my prison and will destroy it someday. Going by your instincts, that day will likely be your last one.”

Then Argul sighed and got a bit softer. “Don’t understand me wrong. Before this meeting, I never wished you ill or wanted to harm you, but depending on how this negotiation goes, this might change in a way you won’t enjoy.”

She would not let her daughter’s freedom be taken away. She would do what she could for her, even if it meant killing another person. Do not understand her wrong, if Alyra does wrong, she is going to be punished, but she wanted her to have the ability to even do wrong in the first place.

Argul waited patiently until she got an answer, only this time it came a lot less confident. “That is indeed concerning.”

A second pause set in before the universe continued. “Please let me apologize. I haven’t talked with anyone since the death of my own universe and didn’t even think it was possible. I acted how I did because from what I know about other universes, I wouldn’t trust them to move the length of an atom without throwing something deadly at you.”

There was a moment of silence. “And I have yet to decide if I trust you.”

Argul ignored the trust part. It was only logical and focused more on the death of Fia’s universe. That info was way more interesting. There was a way to become a universe, so maybe she would have become one if she had killed Fia, not that she wanted to be one. “So you haven’t always been a universe. That’s interesting and makes us somewhat similar, as I haven’t always been a mana core. Would you mind telling me and my daughter a bit about universes?” 

Argul was truthfully curious, and while the same did count for Alyra, she let her mother have this conversation as it would be necessary for her plan.

She got her answers, but only the barest of information. A universe was typically a beast-like entity. However, if one should be killed and an inhabitant had somehow gotten a quarter of the kill participation or higher, said figure would become a new universe.

The moment a universe decided to grow bigger was when it began to age, and it had a limited age. There was a way around that, as you could steal the lifespan of another universe. Because of this, the multiverse was in a constant state of war.

The cause for their aging was that the universe stretched its own space to grow, which would cause it to collapse after it stretched itself too far out. Once the process had started, it sadly wasn’t stoppable anymore.

Argul thought mana would be an excellent way to solve that problem. Instead of stretching yourself, you could just create new space.

The Lotusriver universe had, as of yet, not grown, and the only extraterrestrial objects in it were trash items dumped there by other universes. 

Argul couldn’t quite believe that that meant nearly a galaxy’s worth of stars and their systems had been dumped into Fia’s domain. Why would anyone do such a thing?

“So what do you want to propose to let us coexist?” Fia asked after she finished.

Argul had been deep in thought and exclaimed surprisedly. “Ahh, I nearly forgot, sorry!” 

She cleared her throat. “Let me give you an overview about mana. It changes the laws of existence a bit, maybe a lot. Anyway, using your intent with mana lets you do things that should be impossible, and mana will create things you thought of as impossible.” 

Argul paused for a moment to give Fia time to think about it before she continued. “Using mana, I should be able to create a pact that will force you to integrate mana without dying. Mana should also allow you to grow your universe without aging, by the way. Back to the pact, with what I had in mind, it might also force our behavior if there are clauses concerning said behavior.” 

Argul was really excited. She would have to use [uniphone] to connect to Fia to create the pact, which would be a lot harder than making the materialization spell.

“You are aware that what you just said sounds really ominous, yes?” Fia answered warily.

Argul flicked her ears in embarrassment. “Let me tell you the short version of what I had in mind. Then you will understand.”

Argul sat down on his hind legs and started speaking slowly and clearly. “Firstly, Fia Lotusriver will become a mana universe enabling her to use mana and live with it.”

“Secondly, Fia Lotusriver will be allowed to use all mana that the containment plane of Argul Agren can’t hold to grow her universe. This includes matter creation, invading other universes, or management such as deciding on a natural mana density.”

“Thirdly, Fia Lotusriver will have no control over Argul and Alyra Agren. This clause applies vice versa and will cause Fia Lotusriver to lose control over Argul Agren’s plane.”

“Fourth, Fia Lotusriver, Argul Agren, and Alyra Agren can take no actions against each other with the intent of the other’s death, no matter how much in the future said death would be.”

“Fifth, all organisms and matter are able to traverse between the universe and Argul Agren’s plane through portals based on the rules set by Argul Agren. There has to be at least one portal active at each time.”

“Sixth, Fia Lotusriver, Argul Agren, and Alyra Agren are of equal standing. This clause will not stop them from acting in relationships such as mother and daughter or friends.”

Argul breathed out. The real pact was a lot longer, and she had long thought about it to avoid any loopholes. “And that should be about it. I will not be able to hide the true nature of the pact, and you will be able to decline it should you want. I might need a few tries to create it because it is complicated to do so.”

Argul thought the universe had nothing to lose. It would gain the ability to grow without aging and gain control over an energy that no other universe had. The only thing she had to give was Argul’s and Alyra’s freedom and control of Argul’s plane.

The pact would also not stop them from working against each other as long as there was not one shred of killing intent behind it.

It took more than an hour before Argul got an answer. “Alright, let’s see if you have told the truth about me being able to decline. Only then will I consider accepting.”

Argul got to work and sent her mana along the vague connection of ‘uniphone’ to create the pact. She failed 28 times before she managed to build a stable connection. It took Argul another five tries to make a pact, and then she had to try three more times to get the pact right. She only had to do the last one because Fia tried to decline, to confirm that Argul had told the truth.

After 5 hours of going through the contents of the pact and changing some minor detail two times, the universe finally accepted, much to the relief of Argul. She really didn’t want to kill somebody she did not know.

Argul got a weird feeling and was suddenly painfully aware of the pact’s contents. She grimaced. It was really invasive, and she felt as if futures just collapsed while others became more likable.

It took five long minutes before the feeling went away, and Argul breathed a heavy breath. She had done it!

Fia’s voice filled the air again. “So now that your mana is outside your domain and under my influence, what will happen to invaders under the influence of other universes?”

A universe infuses its inhabitants with its influence, mainly to stop them from killing it, but the feature could also be used to invade. The more aware a being was, the more influenced they had often been, which made humans a good prime example of that.

Argul looked at Alyra, and Alyra looked at Argul. A realization dawned on them both at the same time. “Fuck!”

Fia cut the connection. That had seemingly been enough information for her.