Adam struggled to steady his breathing as his body pulsed and burnt with pain. The core in his chest threatened to tear him apart as it became unstable and churned in on itself. This evolution was incomparable to his last as the sheer quantity of energy flooding him was like nothing he had ever experienced.
Adam jumped into action as he enacted his plan. He had realized this the last time, but his core needed time to solidify itself and reform into a more potent and dense form of mana. If the evolution process affected his core, then could its energy be harnessed and used elsewhere… Like on the soul for example?
He pushed the excess magical energy from his core into his pathways. It made him scream in agony as his body felt as though his blood was replaced with liquid fire. His body began to glow with white lines that illuminated the empty tunnel as he did his best to ignore the pain. Pushing as much as he could into his pathways he didn’t even register the ear-shattering scream he was making as his body exploded with volatile energies.
His core was no longer a solid sphere but rather resembled a swirling lake of red and grey. His entire body was on the verge of ripping apart when he looked deep at his soul. It was in a terrible state with tears appearing all over the silver flames. He simultaneously held his core together the best he could as he was essentially blind after switching to viewing his soul, while also keeping his soul in one piece by flooding it with his silver mana. For the first time, he discovered that his soul mana could heal his soul.
Adam tried to hold his soul together by using his silver mana as ducktape, but to his shock, the mana integrated itself into his soul and pathed up the rips and tears that appeared because of the dense mana in his pathways.
He didn’t have time to think about what that meant or how it worked as the pain was so intense that he was surprised he hadn’t passed out yet. He was quite literally watching his soul rip itself apart as he worked as best he could patching it up.
His core was swirling at dizzying speeds but he blindly held it together somehow. His pathways were beginning to expand and strengthen to hold off the overwhelming magic traveling through his soul. But he didn’t hesitate to push more mana into his pathways every time his soul absorbed some of it. His soul was growing at a visible rate, but he was having trouble keeping up with all the damage being caused.
Time slipped by unnoticed as Adam lay spasming on the ground. He didn’t even remember falling flat on his face as his entire being was straining to hold his literal soul together. His core was probably not going to evolve today as the amount of mana he stuffed into his pathways was ridiculous. His soul had become incomparably dense and bright, unlike its previous state. Whereas before it could be compared to a ghost, now his soul almost had a tangible look with a lot more density.
His pathways had grown in size and strength as the mana he had circulating in them no longer ripped them apart and leaked mana. His soul had benefited from this tremendously as it had undergone its own evolution instead of his core. Adam’s mana core had so much of its energies siphoned that it had calmed down significantly. He had little soul damage happening anymore and the pain had diminished tremendously.
A single decision still had to be made though. When he thought up this crazy idea of using the abundant energies to reinforce his soul instead of his core, he had no idea it would actually work, and nor did he know how it worked. All he knew was that his soul was much stronger than ever before and that if he wanted to learn the true nature of his soul magic and divine ability, he would need to take a leap of faith.
Adam covered his hand and fingers with his silver mana and silently scolded himself for not thinking of this sooner. He had not understood how he had managed to pull out a piece of his soul during the shadow wolves' attack but now understood. His soul magic-coated hand didn’t need much effort as he simply needed to activate the mana on top of his soul, since his soul was attached to his body it moved with him and therefore he essentially created a soul magic glove.
Using that special glove, he reached into his soul and grasped a portion of his chest’s soul. Gripping it tightly, he braced himself for the coming pain before yanking his hand back out of his soul with the portion he gripped still within his fingers. Once again, he noticed his vision stretch and twist, he now found himself outside of his body, floating in an amorphic blob of energies only linked back to himself by an almost unperceivable tether.
His vision had turned black except for his own now dimmer but still intact main body’s soul. Before he could take a second to take everything in though, his own soul moved and tossed him high into the air until he could no longer see his main body. Unlike the last time he had this strange out-of-body experience though, he didn’t see any more souls nearby to help him mark his position.
He floated silently through the silent and unchanging void of nothingness as time seemed both unimaginably long while simultaneously inconceivable short. His senses he relied on his entire life had all disappeared. He could not move or simply had no concept of whether he was moving or not. Despite all this, he had no fear or any emotions actually, it was as if he had become a robot, simply analyzing the situation without bias.
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A sudden jolt of confusion was the first emotion he felt as he realized something was wrong. As a human, he naturally sought out light and feared the unknown of the darkness. Realizing that his mind wasn’t how it should be, he quickly tried to look around, to find something, anything other than the void he was in.
A single dim light was the first thing to catch his eye… Or soul sight technically, as he concentrated on that single point of grey in a world of black. Soon, the tiny dot began to grow and grow as the spot got brighter and closer. He was fascinated by the light, the only thing he had seen in years, or was it seconds? The light grew to be bigger than himself and it slowed down as it got closer.
He tried to inspect the blurry light and was overcome with joy when the light turned to the side since he now knew that it was actually he who was moving and not the light. As a result, he focused on getting away from the light and watched as it began to shrink once more. He looked around for any more of the lights while still staying close to the first.
As soon as he thought it, another light appeared in the distance, then another, and yet another. Soon dozens of lights were appearing all around him. Some were brighter than others, some had strange shapes while others were just as gaseous and shapeless as himself.
He inspected some more of the souls and eventually tried to touch one. This wasn’t possible however as the closer he tried to get to them, the harder it became to get any closer. It was as though the was a force field of some kind blocking him from reaching out.
He continued to go from soul to soul but each wouldn’t allow him to get any closer. Eventually, he found something different, it was a dim soul that was flickering and seemed to shrink with every passing second. Adam reached out to this light like how he did to all the others, but this light didn’t push him away, rather it dragged him forward like a magnet.
His vision shifted and got pulled as his soul morphed and changed as if being pushed into a mold. His soul was currently only a fraction of the size of what it had recently become but he still had all his memories as far as he could tell. That being said, he remembered his latest advancement on his soul-sensing front and therefore knew that the feelings he could feel weren’t his own but rather the emotions of the soul he had just touched.
A wave of fear and dread rushed at him, it reminded him of the intense anger he felt from that boy all those years ago. Yet this time, he did what he should have done back then, he let them wash over him without letting them influence him. The other light was fading fast as his soul was stretched into place.
When his soul settled down, it was as though a switch was flipped and the previous soul completely disappeared leaving Adam in its place. He felt strange like he could feel something. This was bizarre considering he didn’t have any limbs or even a body at the moment. Yet something slowly came to him, at first it was slow like a silent whisper and a light breeze, but then it got louder.
Adam opened his eyes to see what was going on but his mind hurt and the world around him felt so strange after not having any senses in that weird darkness. He tried to rub his forehead but his arm felt like it was frozen stiff and he couldn’t raise it to his face. Then realization dawned on him.
“Wait, I have a hand… And eyes?”
He was a floating soul drifting in the darkness only moments early yet now he had his body back? His didn’t make sense, the last time he merged back with his body, it was like two minds colliding and merging back together. Not something he could just miss and besides, he had no idea where his body was anymore.
Squinting, he let his eyes adjust before looking around. He found himself surrounded by green trees. Now he was really confused, was he back on Earth?
He looked inward but couldn’t see his mana, in fact, his soul was the only thing he could see and it was different from what it used to be. He quickly looked down at his own body in the real world and discovered that he had fur.
For some reason, he was on all fours and could see blue and black fur covering his legs in striped patterns similar to that of a zebra. He wondered why his soul looked so much different but now he understood why he felt himself morph and squish before, it was because he was squeezing into a different body.
His mind was simultaneously burning with questions while also completely frozen in shock. He had actually possessed a creature, like actually taking over a different living being's body. He had no idea that was even possible. His bewilderment at his situation was shaken when an intense pain crept up his hind legs.
He turned his head to look behind himself and found that his back leg was definitely broken. His new feline leg was bent in an unnatural angle and blood stained his fur. As he was looking behind him, he also noticed a pool of blood on the ground. A stone cliff was stretching above him.
“Ah, I get it. This poor fella must've fallen into this ravine and died”
His soul had changed to take on the form of the last soul since his pathways had been recreated somehow but they didn’t look anything like they did before. They now truly resembled small veins that traveled across this four-legged creature's body.
The core of this feline didn’t look like anything he had ever seen before as it appeared to be a slimy blue color. He didn’t recognize it at first since it didn’t look like a core, yet the power it exuded was evident. It had almost a sweet taste to it when he mentally prodded it, it traveled all throughout his body and caused his body to go into overdrive. His mind began to race before being filled with memories.
Memories of running through the wilderness and hunting prey, memories that weren’t his own yet memories that felt just as real as any other. He recalled the creature's attempt to catch its fleeing prey and the fall into the ravine after a failed attack. He remembered the pain in his body as his legs broke on impact.
Adam’s soul jerked back in reflex as the stream of memories stopped. He had just accessed the memories of the creature from its brain but also discovered that he wasn’t trapped inside the creature. He couldn’t push his soul out of it at will but he could disconnect his mind slightly from the creature. As a result, he didn’t feel the pain of his broken leg anymore but could still move.
He found that a portion of the strange slime ball of a core had traveled through his host’s body and been ingested by its flesh.
It was only a small amount but its effect was clear, this was some sort of drug-like energy that boosted its abilities for short but intense periods.
Then an idea came to him… Could he still access his status despite not being inside his own body?
Adam Hartwell
(soul fragment)
Divine patriarch (reincarnation): [soul realm]
Spells:
- [Berserker - lesser]
- [Venom fang - lesser]
(???)
His jaw almost hit the ground as he saw his status screen. It didn’t mention the name of the species he was possessing but clearly showed its skills. But of course, the biggest new surprise was the discovery of his Divine ability.
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