I woke up feeling as though I had been stuffed beyond my limit. Like I was packed full and ready to burst.

Looking at the state of my soul, I could see why.

To fight against the other soul I took control of his energies to surround and crush him like he intended to do with me. Afterwards, I passed out and it seems that I kept the remaining energy and pieces of soul, bringing them into mine.

Since my soul was young it didn’t have the capacity to hold that much energy, resulting in the uncomfortable pressure in both body and soul. As I continued to watch, I could see that the excess energy was slowly leaking out and fading away. Though not all of it was disappearing, as I could see some of it being used to grow and strengthen my soul as well as to repair the damage still remaining from the fight.

As for the fragments of soul, I wasn’t sure what I wanted or even could do with them yet, but I was sure they would be useful later.

For now, I refocused my attention on my body and opened up my senses. There were some immediate problems I noticed.

First of all my body was filled with small aches and pains and I felt weak and drained of energy. Secondly, my mouth lacked even the smallest bit of moisture and my lips were cracked and peeling.

In other words I was not in the best of shape.

The aches and pains were easily washed away by a quick wave of healing from my flesh sorcery. Though this healed my cracked lips, it could do nothing for my dry mouth and throat. I would have to hope I’d find some water soon. As for the weakness, I wondered if I could repurpose that stasis enchantment to sustain my body without putting it to sleep or slowing it down?

After spending some time thinking it over and picking apart the pieces of the enchantment and what each actually did, I thought it could work. I was leaning very heavily on the instincts from my mana sorcery to alter the enchantment into an active form of magic, but after a few failed attempts I had worked out most of the kinks.

I sat cross legged on the floor of the stone room and took a few breaths to slow my fast beating heart. I started off by pulling in some of the mana in the air before combining my mana and flesh sorceries to direct it to both sustain and energize my body. And slowly but surely I could feel my weariness drain away until I was filled with a refreshing vigor.

Feeling much better I decided it was time to continue exploring this place and maybe I could find something to drink. Standing up, I realized that I still had the book clutched in my hand. My breath hitched as my thoughts turned to how close I had come to dying. Taking some deep breaths and pushing those thoughts away I focused on the book. I decided I would keep it with me for now, maybe it would be useful.

That done, I took a better look at the room I was in. Dusty and half caved in, the room had only one other doorway located to the right of the one I had entered through. Not seeing anything else in the room aside from rubble, I started walking towards the doorway and into a corridor beyond it.

There were fewer rooms down this way, but I took the time to search through each one. I mainly found dust and debris, but there were cuts and gouges all over the walls and floors that made me wonder about what happened here.

In one of the rooms I found a few small disks made of different metals that I decided to keep. I played with them as I walked, moving them through the air around me in different patterns and speeds. By the time I could sense the end of the corridor I could successfully keep three of them moving around at the same time.

The end was just around a bend up ahead and I could sense it opened up. In fact, I couldn’t sense any stone beyond it at all. Heart beating faster I sped up my walk before bursting into a run. Rounding the bend I was momentarily stunned by a bright light as I staggered to a stop.

My eyes struggled to adjust to the first light they’ve ever seen, as I struggled to comprehend what was in front of me.

Blue skies dotted with wispy white clouds stretched above me as far as the eye could see. Imposing mountains of dark grey stone dominated the land around, separated by valleys full of colorful trees. Mainly in shades of green, I could also see reds, oranges, and the rarer purples and blues dotted throughout.

I was taken out of my shocked reverie by the tinkling sound of metal on stone behind me. Looking back I found the metal disks I had been playing with scattered about the ground. Pulling them into my hand with the rest I turned back to take a closer look at my surroundings.

I found myself on a small ledge partway up a steep cliff face that looked out over a large forested valley. Off to the left was a waterfall that fell from the top of the cliff to a small pool at the bottom leading off into a river.

I sat down on the ledge and dangled my feet as I processed just how big the world had gotten all of a sudden. A strong breeze chilled my skin and as I looked around I could see various creatures soaring through the air, too far away to make out details. In the distance I could even make out a mountain floating in the sky where many of these flyers seemed to gather.

Everywhere I looked was something new and I couldn't help the smile that grew on my face.

I don’t know how long I sat there staring but when I started shivering from the wind I decided it was time to find a way down. Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be any convenient ways to go about that. I was very high up and there was nothing around but sheer cliff face. Judging by how much it hurt when I fell on my face from standing, I did not want to know what would happen from all the way up here.

Since I was using my hands to hold the book and metal disks, I didn’t have many options and finally settled for one of the first ones that came to mind.

As I stood looking over the edge at the far distant ground my idea was seeming worse and worse. Checking to make sure I hadn’t used up too much mana with my playing earlier, I took a deep breath to prepare myself. Ignoring my sweaty palms and the pulse pounding in my ears I walked off the ledge.

I was immediately assaulted by a harsh breeze that set me to spinning, and I could feel the panic welling up in my chest. Before I went too out of control I used my air sorcery to grab the air and push myself back into a more controlled fall, continuing to use it to slow my fall before I picked up too much speed.

Now that I was more or less in control of my fall I couldn’t hold back the excited yell that escaped my lips. My heart was pounding and blood racing as the ground grew closer and closer. It was a truly freeing experience and I was almost sad it was nearing its end.

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Increasing the strength of the air pushing against me to slow my fall, I noticed I was still going too fast. Putting even more strength into it, as the ground was getting close now, I started blowing through my mana to try and slow down in time. It was working but I was going to run out of mana too fast.

This was going to hurt.

Even after bracing myself I was not prepared for the shock of the fall as I felt my legs break and was sent tumbling across the ground. The book and disks went flying all over but I was more focused on the pain.

Though it was nothing compared to having my soul damaged, it was still very unpleasant and I didn’t have the mana to deal with it after throwing it all into slowing my fall. Thinking of what I did based on the enchantment earlier I reached out and pulled the ambient mana to me, only this time I funneled it straight into my mana pool.

I immediately dumped the incoming mana into healing my body, but the legs would take more attention to fix properly. So, after many of the aches and pains had faded, I turned my attention towards my legs, setting and mending the bones and banishing any of the pieces that had splintered off into the muscle. Finally, I made sure to replace all the blood I had lost.

Lying on my back in the dirt I stared up at the distant treetops above me and couldn’t help but chuckle a little. While it wasn’t the smoothest landing, the fall itself had been exhilarating and everything had been put back together so I’d call it a win.

Having caught my breath and gathered my thoughts, I stood up and noticed just how large the trees were. Their trunks were wider than my arms could spread and they were so tall that I had to look almost straight up to see near their tops. They had a steely grey bark with a craggy, cracked appearance and most of the branches were far off the ground. I couldn’t see much of the leaves other than the fact they were green.

Done with my visual exploration I set about gathering my things from where they had scattered during my landing. If I was going to keep them I would have to find a better way to carry them, one that didn’t take up both of my hands.

Stuff in hands, it was a quick walk to the waterfall where I got my first close look at water. The side I was on had a nice little clearing around the water where I chose a comfortable looking rock to put my stuff on.

Walking towards the pool I admired how the light reflected off both the water’s surface and the spray from the fall. There were also some interesting plants floating on the water. A wide green circular base with a single thin stock, about half my height, sticking straight up from the center and ending in a large transparent orb.

Aside from that, I could see some shadows swimming deeper in the water but couldn’t get a good look at them.

Leaning down I scooped some water up in my hands and brought it to my lips. It was cool and refreshing, sending soothing waves through my body and cooling my dry throat. I decided I liked water.

After drinking my fill I headed back to the rock and sat down in the lush grass, leaning against it. Checking my mana pool revealed it was still close to empty, so I took the opportunity to rest and actively pull in some mana.

At some point it no longer took my full concentration to pull in and absorb the mana, so I decided it was time to look at the book I had been lugging around this whole time.

It looked like it had seen better times with a grey metallic cover and matching back, some type of black binding holding it together. The front had what I could only describe as some type of runes etched into it in dark red. There was a clasp holding it closed that opened easily when I injected a bit of mana. I hesitated as I couldn’t get a good sense for the mana in it, like it was purposefully obscured, but nothing else I had found in the lab still held enchantments.

Since I had already dealt with the soul that was in the book I decided it was probably safe enough. Opening it, I was greeted by a lot of small, neat text that I had absolutely no idea how to read.

Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes I held it in before releasing it, along with all my tension, in one long sigh and set the book to the side. At this point I was nearly full on mana and decided to take a walk and explore the area a bit. Thinking about the new stuff I could find put the pep back in my step as I headed towards the water.

I walked into the water a few steps and looked down only to be greeted by a reflection. Pale skin that looked like it hadn’t seen much sun and a body that could generously be described as thin. A head covered in short dark black hair, the most interesting thing were the eyes. A dark brown with shards of silver woven throughout, they faded to amber and then gold at the edges. They almost seemed to glow with some inner light that made for a striking look.

Seeing the face move along with mine it sunk in that this was me, this was what I looked like. I didn’t have much of an opinion about my appearance but I liked how pretty my eyes were.

Continuing into the water after my distraction I stopped when I was waist deep and stuck my head under. I immediately came up sputtering and coughing as I had inhaled some of the water. Tears in my eyes and lungs burning I stumbled back to shore and collapsed in the grass, wheezing. How was I supposed to know I couldn’t breathe underwater?

Sending a slow trickle of healing into my body while I recovered had me back up and in the water in no time. When I stuck my head under this time I made sure to hold my breath and seeing the view that greeted me, it was definitely worth it.

Stones of all shapes and colors decorated the ground, mixed in with a shiny light grey sand. Plants of all kinds grew along the bottom in a variety of colors. There were thin red ones with semi transparent leaves, short light purple grass-like ones that grew in patches, and more in a variety of different shades of green.

Coming up to take a quick breath I immediately put my head back under. There were all sorts of creatures swimming around amongst the plants. Some of them I could only make out as flashes of colors as they darted about in flickers of gold and silver, while others drifted around slowly like this one fish that was as big as my forearm with long delicate looking fins and pearly white scales that shimmered in the light. At one point I even saw what I had thought to be a rock get up and move around, pointy little legs poking out of the rocky covering.

I continued walking around the shallows and sticking my head under the water, taking in the sights. I wanted to explore the deeper parts but I was having trouble keeping my head afloat. So I decided to learn from how the fish swam about.

I spent the rest of the day splashing about in the shallow water and enjoying myself. I tried mimicking the fish at first but their way of swimming didn’t seem to match well with my four limbs. Once I realized that, I continued trying different movements to see what worked the best and eventually managed an easy paddle that kept my head above water.

Eventually I noticed that the light was fading, so I left the water to see what was happening. I found that the sun was sinking down in the sky, already close to gone. I couldn’t see through the trees very well but I did catch glimpses of beautiful reds and oranges dancing off the clouds.

I continued to watch until the sun had completely disappeared and taken its light with it. It was then that I began to notice other lights in the sky, stars that appeared as little pinpricks of silver in the now black night. There were even two giant circles of color that had appeared to light the night up with moonlight.

One of the moons was huge, barely covered by my palm when I held my hand up at arms reach. It was silver in color with faint swirls of purple and blue crossing its surface. The second moon was much smaller, a mix of orange and yellows that stood out sharply against the sky. There was a large noticeable black line down the center of it that gave it a faint resemblance to an eye.

While I was lying in the grass and observing the night sky, the world around me had changed. The transparent orbs of the water plants had started to glow with a faint blue light and as I watched I could see a little wisp of blue float out of one. It languidly drifted through the air as more and more of the little blue sparks emerged from the orbs, dancing above the water.

They lit the clearing up in beautiful tones of blue as their light joined the stars and moon in keeping the dark away.

As I watched with awe I couldn’t help but reflect on everything that had happened. Though it had started out rough and I had almost died twice now, the amazing sights I had seen today alone were more than enough to convince me it was all worth it.

If I had given up, or even just struggled less, I would have missed out on all the joy and wonder this world had to offer. So as I drifted off to sleep under a blanket of stars, I promised to myself that I would not forget just how amazing this world was.