Chapter 37 - A child’s laughter

  Adam watched with wide eyes as the piece of his soul he had extracted from himself flew away and completely disappeared. Unlike before, he could no longer even see the tether linking himself to it anymore, which was a worrying sign. His soul was a lot stronger now than before so the missing soul fragment surprisingly didn’t seem to be an issue. One might think that having a portion of your soul disappear out of you might be damaging, but he felt completely fine.

  At least, fine in terms of the missing soul fragment, as his body was still racked with pain. His core had reverted to its previous state since the released energies weren’t refined into a better core this time. However, it did look noticeably different as the core no longer had red cracks at its center but was rather an entire shade of reddish grey. The fact of having his core mix up during the evolution seemed to have merged the energies together. He briefly wondered if that would be an issue if he tried to evolve to red the next time.

  His status window hadn’t changed at all so he had no idea if his far-fetched idea had worked or if his soul fragment was now lost forever. A flash of regret overcame him as he imagined floating about aimlessly in the void for eternity. He really wished he hadn’t just subjected a piece of himself to that fate.

  He had to wait and see if the soul fragment ever returned but he didn’t hold out much hope. Instead, he wanted to find out what sort of effects a stronger soul would have on a person. After all, his own soul had grown immensely recently, and figuring out the power of soul magic was the main purpose behind his risky experiment.

  When he had recovered enough he attempted to feel how much soul mana he had available. It wasn’t easy since what he believed to be his soul mana core was overlaid with his solid mana core. He could usually tell how much magic was in his core thanks to a general feel, it was a strange new sense he had developed since he got his core.

  It wasn’t exactly a feel, sight, or smell but rather a mix of all his sensations into something new and too complex to describe. Like describing color to a blind person, he could simply tell without being able to explain how exactly.

  As a result, it was almost impossible to know how much soul mana he had, since it was masked by the new magic sense of his core, similar to trying to see the paint color of a wall covered with wallpaper. And therefore like wallpaper, he needed to remove it to peer beneath. Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly as easy as that though since he wasn’t able to move his core at will, magic was relatively simple to move about his body but that reddish core wouldn’t so much as budge no matter what he tried.

  It was as though his core was locked in place and he was therefore completely unable to accurately estimate his soul mana capacity except for a vague sense that it existed… Extracting it directly until none was left was his only way of knowing how much he possessed for sure, yet he didn’t want to do that since it was his trump card in this dangerous environment and he didn’t know enough to frugally expend that precious resource.

  Luckily for him, there was likely to be another group of those giant ants crawling about in these tunnels. He circulated mana through his body and reveled in the feeling of the power engulfing his muscles and making him feel so much lighter. It appeared that the process of soul augmentation had worked wonders on his magical pathways since the mana now flowed like water with minimal mental strength needed to guide it. With his body coursing with arcane energy, he made his way even deeper down the large tunnel in search of his new prey to use as test subjects in hopes of discovering the advantage of a stronger soul.

  —

  Meanwhile, a limping striped blue and black feline continued its struggle through the tall and narrow ravine. The towering rock faces created a snaking passageway occasionally littered with tall trees resembling large oaks with thick branches spreading across the rocks and uneven terrain.

  The creature left a small trail of blood as it practically dragged itself across the ground. Adam's control over the exotic tiger was awkward and clumsy at first, after all, walking around in a different body tends not to be the simplest thing to get used to.

  His soul was strained as if something was pulling at him every time he took a step. The injury was severe since it had literally killed the poor creature. His soul's arrival hadn’t changed that, in fact, it was actually harming his soul. His control over his soul was sufficient to resist the pull but he had no soul mana anymore and therefore couldn’t repair the damage his soul was incurring from the pull that was trying to pry him from the heavily injured creature.

  He felt rather disoriented and not because of the creature's mind either. Currently, he was barely connected to the beast's body, like playing a VR game without putting the headset on. He could see through its eyes and move its body, but the creature's senses were locked out from him to avoid the intense pain and disorientation that came with connecting to the creature's mind too deeply.

  He could tell that he was on a timer as he limped along, he didn’t know where he was going but was rather wandering aimlessly. This entire situation was so strange to him, despite this not being the most bizarre place he had woken up in.

  He managed to drag himself out of the ravine and exited a thick patch of forest that seemed to be on a mountainside. The entire terrain was very uneven so he didn’t know if he was on an elevated section of ground or if the open area in front of him was yet another ravine.

  As he got closer, he noticed wind hit against his… fur, and only now realized how much he missed the effect of a cool breeze. It had been so long since he had felt it that he almost forgot it existed. This unexpected sensation caused him to loosen his grip on his soul and slip a little deeper into his host. He did the equivalent of a wince as he felt the jolt of searing pain coming from his leg.

  He didn’t retreat immediately however since a little pain was a worthy price to pay for breathing some fresh air for the first time in ages. Simply doing his best to ignore the pain was a better solution anyway as it allowed him better control over the creature's body. His first deep breath took him by surprise as his sense of smell was incredible.

  His mind once again linked up with the memories of the beast but this time, he didn’t fight against them but rather embraced the flow of information. He closed his eyes as he looked through the important events of his host's life. It was not too dissimilar to watching a movie at a really rapid speed except that every time he saw something interesting, related memories would immediately surface.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Considering most of the things in this creature's memory were all new and therefore interesting to him, he got a lot of memories popping up one after another in rapid succession.

  He remembered the tall flightless birds the creature would hunt, he saw its mother and siblings when it was a cub, and he witnessed the death of many of its brethren while on hunts. Each memory led to the next in a never-ending stream of information. Adam began to be overwhelmed as he stopped focusing on the past and instead focused on calming his racing mind with another deep breath.

  The air was filled with many different scents and flavors, more than he had ever known existed. It was as if he could see colors simply from the smells in the air. A fresh scent of wood came from next to him, but soon, something far more shocking made itself known. He found the distinct smell of smoke drifting from far away and being carried on the air currents rushing up the open area ahead of him.

  It was a strange smell to find out here and he wondered if the was a forest fire happening. The thought dragged up yet another memory from his host's brain and he was about to ignore it before he froze.

  In this creature's mind, clear as day to him, he saw a small group of wooden huts with several fires burning in and around them.

  Adam now no longer even noticed the pain in his new body as he looked through all the creature's memories of this place.

  It was a complete shock to Adam since this was the first sign of civilization he had found since he left Earth. The new memories he saw were rather new and likely took place only a few days ago. In them, he watched from the beast's perspective as it descended a steep hillside and stealthily crept towards the only lights in the valley below the creature's rocky home.

  As it got closer to the yellow fires burning brightly in the dead of night, he saw why the beast was so interested in the small village. Or more accurately, he remembered the smell coming from those fires. Meat, and lots of it. Juicy and irresistible to his feline sense of smell, the beast snuck all the way to the boundary of the village.

  Calling it a village might actually be an overstatement, it had two dozen huts made primarily of wood with or discernible pattern of structure to the encampment. The settlement wasn’t protected by any walls or fortification but rather reminded Adam of roaming native americans except with wooden huts and stone fireplaces.

  The creature made its way to one of the fires closest to the extremity of the encampment and that was where he finally saw its inhabitants. A group of five humans sat around the fire with some sort of meat being cooked above it. This was so exciting that he didn’t bother pursuing the memory further to see how it ended but rather focused on the environment around the camp.

  The memory was dark so he didn’t have a good view, and it was hard to see details of a memory anyway. This wasn’t like watching a video where you could pause and zoom in at will, this was more complicated. The memories he was accessing were rather blurry to begin with, and they didn’t usually come as a single uninterrupted package. As a result, it was hard to determine where they were located.

  Before he had time to think about it further, his highly sensitive ears picked up a distant yet extremely recognizable noise.

  It was unmistakable and Adam found his new body dragging itself closer to the cliffside almost instinctively. After a few seconds and the reminder of his hind legs' terrible state, he reached the cliff’s edge and almost fell over when he peered at what lay below.

  Down in the valley beneath the cliff, a small village with wooden huts stood. The were no fires this time but he knew this was the same place. The noise he heard once again drifted across the winds before being deposited in his feline ears. The laughter of a child was unmistakable as he stared down at the valley. Small figures could just about be made out, running around the encampment while giggling.

  They were running to and around a group of adults who appeared to be gathering into a group, all with long spears in their hands. The group was clearly preparing to go out hunting or something of the like.

  Adam felt immense relief at not only having found civilization but also humans in this new world of his. He smiled almost unintentionally but it would have appeared terrifying on the tiger's face if anyone had witnessed it. His smile didn’t fade for a few moments as he observed the human village from his spot above the valley.

  His smile only faded from his feline face when he felt his soul finally begin to lose in its fight to keep him in this body. It was then that he realized that he was about to die. A sudden thought then popped into his mind.

  ‘What if I just go back to the soul realm?’

  His status clearly showed that his divine ability was still accessible despite him no longer having access to his mana or spells. He assumed he was trapped here when he arrived since he no longer had access to his magic or even his body. The tether that linked him back to his body wasn’t visible when he left the soul realm, but maybe it would appear if he returned there.

  Adam looked up with his feline eyes as he stared up at the sky like it would somehow answer his query. But it only made him even more lost as he noticed what the sky looked like.

  It was a bright blue with a few small whisps of clouds, he would have assumed it was Earth's sky if he hadn’t known better. Yet now he knew it wasn’t his sky either as it lacked something crucial that he hadn’t noticed until now.

  He had spent so long lost in the enormous underground labyrinth that he forgot about the unmissable planetary ring that extended across his new world, a feature that was distinctly absent in this open sky. Adam then suddenly remembered the wind and how no wind existed in his new world. All this added up to a startling conclusion.

  ‘I’m in another world… again’

  With that final thought, his body collapsed and his soul no longer had the strength to hold on to life as he drifted into oblivion. Yet death didn’t come as he found himself aware of his surroundings once again, or rather the never-ending darkness that encompassed his very being.

  This time, however, he didn’t go looking for a different light but rather spun in place. He turned around and found what he wished would be there, a thin but clearly visible silver line that was attached to him. He focused on moving in the direction of the tether in hopes of returning to his own body once more.

  Adam felt weak and slow as he followed the silver cord back to his original body. His memories were growing blurry and things began to slip from his mind, things like his birthday or the faces of his school friends were no longer visible to him. He feared that he had damaged his soul too much from fighting to hold on to life yet, he reassured himself that he wasn’t the original version of Adam, he was merely a piece of him so those memories wouldn’t be lost.

  The only important information he needed to have right now was his discoveries of this soul realm and his incredible transmigration power. His original body needed to know so he focused on all he had learned since being ripped from his main soul and pushed aside anything else. His mind repeated all the events that had transpired over and over again while he raced forward in darkness, constantly following the tether that extended seemingly endlessly into darkness.

  It could have been minutes or years, Adam's soul fragment was completely unaware of time as his mind repeated the same thing as if stuck in a trance.

  ‘Remember the people, the tiger, and the different world’ was repeating endlessly in his mind as he followed the silver line forward and onwards, his only lifeline in the all-consuming darkness of oblivion.

  Consider supporting this story by following and giving me your thoughts with a quick review.

  Consider becoming a Patreon member

  Any feedback is welcome.