Have you ever had a nightmare about falling?
Most would wake up in shock after such a nightmare, but for Adam, it was quite the opposite. He felt himself falling endlessly, without sound or any other sensation. He had no idea where he was since he couldn’t feel his body, and no light met his eyes.
One thing he knew for certain, he had died. As he was plunged into oblivion, his soul was all that remained of him now, his very essence in its ethereal form. Then something changed.
What was left of his barely aware consciousness stopped falling.
He felt himself being surrounded by something but did not know what it was. Then, a sensation of warmth made itself known. This warm feeling seemed to seep deep inside him and nurtured his mind back from the brink, as clarity slowly returned to him.
After an unknown amount of time, he remembered his final moments and, the battle that cost him his life, the soul fragment that returned at the worst possible moment. A sense of cruel irony built up inside him as he remembered all that he had accomplished. The beach that had nearly killed him so many times, his exploration of the enormous grass planes, and his struggle for survival against the many creatures in the underground labyrinth.
It all made him feel so special, like the hero of a fantasy story who was summoned to another world to become overpowered before going home as a superhero. He had grown his magic and worked for countless hours to perfect his spells and mana core.
Now it all felt like a cruel joke. How can you give someone all that only to take it away without giving them a chance to even show off?
Adam didn’t feel anger despite that being what he would have expected to feel. Instead, he felt a detached sense of resignation. He had been inexplicably transported to another world and discovered magic. Only to meet a god who told him he was a special boy and made him feel like a god in the making.
His previous thought felt ridiculous in hindsight. He was no hero, he wasn’t even competent with magic. After all this time, he still couldn’t do anything remotely impressive.
‘WOW, I can make my body a little stronger… So can anyone with magic even without a common ranked spell’
His mind flicked to the tribal humans his soul fragment had seen during its trip. They likely also had magic and despite looking like a tribal group, would no doubt be able to utterly destroy him if they met face to face.
He remembered his thoughts when he found out that he was the cause of his own mother's death and how he had felt a sense of purpose to help others to atone for that terrible action. As if he would even actually see or speak to anyone ever again. He now saw all his actions for what they truly were, not noble or heroic but idiotic and egotistical. He didn’t want to return home to help others with his new power for his dead mother's sake, he wanted the glory and attention.
He felt sick at himself for not even realizing his own subconscious thoughts. He had noticed it before when he tried to feed those shadow mana-infused crystals to the white ants. It was stupid and illogical but he couldn’t see it at the time. He had spent all that time making those stupid black-furred shorts to transport the crystals in… But that was just yet another lie he told himself. In reality, he wanted to look cool to impress the people back home, and his pride at killing the dangerous creatures made him want to wear their fur as a trophy.
His entire life had been one of misery and loneliness and now that he observed it openly without any filters, he didn’t like what he saw. His emotions were still there but they were suppressed, as if enclosed deep within himself. In an almost emotionless state, he analyzed why he behaved the way he did, why he took so many risks and did so many illogical things. It all boiled down to one thing.
He was going to return home as a superhero. That was the thought that he had never truly managed to dismiss from his mind. Ever since he woke up on that alien beach, he believed that any time he went to sleep, he might wake back up on Earth once more. It wasn’t that far-fetched either, if it can happen one way for an unknown reason then it can also happen the other.
His now unbiased analytical mind scoffed at the unrealistic thought but it was one that he had unknowingly carried around with him this entire time. His mind wandered to the God, the only person he had spoken to since his journey began, and now also the last person he would ever speak to.
That old man had given him most of the information he had on magic and the multiverse, and he had been the one to inform him of his unusual inborn ability. Yet that had only emboldened his subconscious belief in his own importance which therefore made him the protagonist that would return home and impress the entire world with his magical power and superhuman feats.
He felt the warmth soothe him as his mind became sharper and more focused. His memories no longer came as blurs and his emotions began to resurface slightly. He recalled the incredible discovery of his divine power, to enter something called the soul realm that was apparently linked to reincarnation according to his Divine patriarch description.
He had no time to properly digest and marvel at that incredible new information as he had died before he could properly review it. Once again, he felt loathing towards his past self as if it was an entirely separate person who had done him wrong. But when the memories of the harrowing journey through darkness and the small soul possession of that recently deceased tiger came back to him, he wondered if that was where he had gone now that he had died.
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If his unique talent was linked to reincarnation, then was his lingering consciousness actually floating inside that same soul realm?
The thought ignited the emotions that had been slowly working their way up from within him as hope finally began to replace the cold disappointment he had previously felt.
He couldn’t see anything though. But this was different from the void of the soul realm he remembered. No, this was more akin to him having his eyes closed… Or missing in this case.
He tried to look inwards at his core but found nothing. A hint of anger and longing appeared as he realized that the core would have been eaten by that stupid overgrown insect just like he had done to so many other mana beasts. He had worked so hard to get that magic core and those spells, yet now they were gone.
‘The cycle of life I guess…’ he thought bitterly.
His hope wasn’t dashed however as despite his magic being lost, his soul was still visible. It was in a terrible state with pieces barely holding together and huge rips all over but it was still there.
The incredible thing was the sensation he got from the small ghostly ball where his core used to be.
A small amount of silver mana was released from his barely visible core as the magic was sent across his soul and worked to pull the pieces back together once more. His mind became clearer and his emotionless and calculating mindset rapidly faded as emotions returned to him.
He felt somewhat vindicated at this, as he had previously hypothesized about the existence of a second core directly over where his physical one lay. Now that his normal core was gone, he could actually see the silver knot of energies that were now visible.
Once his soul had begun to fuse back together, he realized that he felt something around him. The was a warmth enveloping him but it was more pronounced at some spots than others. The warmth was somehow feeding his soul as it energized the portion of his soul that came into contact with the feeling. He knew that the soul realm hadn’t had anything like this so it momentarily confused him.
He still didn’t know where he was, but now knew that it probably wasn’t the dark soul realm. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t necessarily go back to that place. But first, he wondered if he could have been saved from total death by that God since he did say he would do his best to help, although he was apparently only allowed to interact with him through his edict.
As he thought of the God and if it was his doing that he was still ‘alive’ despite his body clearly being bitten in two, a screen appeared in front of him. But he didn’t have eyes, rather, it became visible in his mind's eye. He was completely shocked at this but it did make sense in a way, after all, he had seen his status screen when possessing the tiger and it hadn’t exactly been visible through the tiger's eyes since his soul was only loosely in control of the feline's body. It was like having the status screen appear in mid-air while playing a tiger simulation game in the background.
He hadn’t noticed at the time since the contents of the screen were far more important, but as his soul was bathing in the warmth, his memories and mind seemed to become sharper.
Adam Hartwell
(Astral spirit)
Status: Rogue spirit - Level 3
Soul mana: Level 2
Divine patriarch (reincarnation): [soul realm pioneer]
Spells:
- Soul circulation - crude - epic
- Soul blaze - crude - epic
(???)
Adam would have gaped at the screen floating in his mind if he had a body with which to do so. ‘Talk about a drastic change’
He immediately noticed the Astrel spirit under his name, just like it had called him a soul fragment when he had possessed that tiger.
A new line had been added, calling him a rogue spirit at level 3, but his mind couldn’t even ponder that enormous revelation before yet another came.
‘What the heck is Soul mana Level 3?’
He understood that his body was destroyed and that he had become a ghost or a ‘spirit’, but none of this provided any clarification on all this new information he was seeing.
His mana spells had disappeared, which was very upsetting considering all the time he dedicated to creating and improving them, but the additional ‘Soul blaze’ spell had appeared. He hadn’t noticed it before, so it must have been awarded right before his death. The memory of that giant ant’s soul being set ablaze by his soul magic flashed in his mind, but so did the fact that it hadn’t been enough to kill it.
It gave him mixed feelings, on one hand, this was an incredible second chance to properly learn about his soul magic, and this may actually prove to be beneficial for him as the standard mana in his physical core was clearly a completely different energy from his soul mana. His silver mana was harder to use to begin with so having it hidden under his standard white mana probably didn't help him. And if he learned how to use soul energy in conjunction with his reincarnation ability…
That thought brought his mind to that incredible Divine patriarch ability that seemed impossibly powerful. His normal magic up until now had been piss-poor compared to that. The old God hadn’t said much about it, only that it was a gift from the Universe and that it was incredibly powerful. The old man basically told him that magic was a medium to bend reality and that innate divine abilities are traits that one must be born with.
That likely meant that this ability was possible to achieve with soul magic directly, but he would have no idea how one turned a small cloud of ghostly silver energy into some sort of teleportation to a ‘higher dimension’. It was completely inconceivable to Adam with his best-created spell being condensing mana into a crude blade.
But that was in the past, his job now was to get back to the real world… But to do so, he would need to reincarnate using his innate ability.
His experience on that front could be counted on a single finger, and it hadn’t gone well that time, to begin with. Most of the souls he saw were inaccessible, and the one that let him close enough was dying. He had no way of knowing the state of the host but he could theoretically still live if the host died of old age instead of injury. But he would still be stuck with the body of a frail old person.
The fact that he had no way to know what soul belonged to what creature was also a problem. He might end up reincarnated as a rat or an insect rather than a person. That being said… How would he even reincarnate since he obviously wasn’t in the soul realm? After all, his soul had pretty much been glued back together during his long pondering and the warmth that surrounded him invigorated his essence. The soul realm had actually been dangerous to travel as his soul was very weak from straining to hold onto the dying tiger. If this warmth had been in that realm then he might not have rushed back and killed himself by merging back while in a dangerous situation.
White and blue surroundings began to come into focus somehow despite only his soul remaining. He would usually only perceive soul energy when in that state so seeing color was new. Wherever this was, it was definitely not the unfeeling dark space of the soul realm but more importantly to where he was currently… Was it even possible to return to the soul realm now that he was dead?
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