The difference between Martin’s current and former self was astronomical.

At first, he’d been a scrap of consciousness floating through his soul. His soul would react to his thoughts, and he could feel some sense of familiarity with it. Considering how, with practice, it became easier to interact with his soul, it would better have been described as an affinity with it. At this stage, his ability to think was almost entirely separate from his affinity with his soul. Naturally, the harder he could think, the harder he could interact with his soul, but that seemed to be the extent of their link.

After almost dying the first time round, he’d experienced a period of rapid growth. Both his affinity with his soul and his ability to think experienced a major breakthrough, and continued to develop at an astounding rate. Too quickly, in fact, to gauge anything more than the basics of his situation. For one, he could tell his mind and soul were now linked, with his overall state having a much larger impact on his affinity with his soul, but not how much exactly.

A misunderstanding that arose because of this was that he’d achieved true unity. Now, he knew that wasn’t the case.

In his current state, his mind and soul were truly one. Instead of his mind manipulating his soul, he now thought with his soul directly.

The change was so great that Martin couldn’t tell the limits yet, but there were some things he noticed immediately:

The fact he thought with his soul meant there was, in a way, no limit to his ability to think. His soul was infinite, and any part of it could be used akin to a brain. That didn’t mean he could think an infinite amount, however. His soul was like a new body, something that he could vaguely feel the entirety of at once, but trying to use too much of it at once would be like trying to use every muscle in one’s body at the same time.

Just like opposing muscles generally not pulling at once, trying to use an area of his soul too ‘close’ to another one for something too different would result in both failing. At the same time, trying to think of too many things at once would result in him beginning to feel... not exactly, painful, but strained. Martin wasn’t willing to risk soul exhaustion, since, despite being almost certain it wouldn’t cause any long-term harm, he wasn’t going to risk his life pointlessly based on limited knowledge.

Still, a soul was different from a human body. With every moment he familiarised himself with his current self, he only continued to grow. At present, he was already on the verge of restoring his mind to its previous peak from before his death. Soon, the two would be beyond comparison.

With the brief overview of himself, closer to a glance in the mirror than a deep inspection, Martin decided to devote a portion of his attention to testing and understanding his knew capabilities, while devoting another to the most intriguing aspect of his new self so far.

‘Now this is interesting’

It seemed, in the process of his mind and soul truly becoming one, the ‘chains’ that held them together hadn’t disappeared. He could sense the familiar presence of his intent to live nestled within the depths of his very existence, at the same time part of his soul, and part something more.

Fortunately, the only thing about its existence that remained the same was the fact it existed. Whilst previously, it had acted as a guide of sorts, whispering to him of ways to improve, urging him to grow –a positive influence, perhaps, but not one he could allow to exist within his own soul- it had now truly become a part of himself.

Directing more of his focus to get a better understanding of it, Martin found that was an almost perfect way of describing it. If he wanted to, he could use it as additional ‘space’ to think, regardless of how much he was thinking using just his soul. The ‘space’ provided was limited, but just like with his grasp of thinking using his soul, the limits were only being pushed back further every moment.

In fact, he found that, unlike his soul, which technically had some conditions for its development –although the fact those ‘conditions’ amounted to him thinking- this space would continue to grow passively. Martin wondered if the reason was because his will at the time of its creation had essentially been ‘to live, to want to live, and to be himself’ influenced that.

The fact he was constantly acting on it, and couldn’t simply not live for a moment, meant he couldn’t test his hypothesis, but he was almost certain it was at least part of what allowed its constant growth.

‘I wonder how different it would have been if I’d managed to think anything else at the time. Maybe if I’d found a way to use my soul whilst still in my body... I suppose there’s no point thinking about that now. Wait, can I make another declaration like that?’

Unfortunately, Martin immediately discovered he had an innate understanding of how his declaration functioned, and received the answer that no, he couldn’t. To be specific, it had been closer to an ‘it depends, but not yet’.

Leaving aside the fact he’d received close to definitive proof that there was, in fact, an intended progression system for souls for later, Martin delved further into his innate understanding of his declaration, hoping to understand its nature better.

First, he found a detail currently useless to his situation, but one he was certain would eventually be of importance.

‘It seems the warping of my personality to one that desperately strives to ‘live’ has been swapped out for something I’m much happier with’

He found that, rather than changing his soul, the declaration now changed his existence itself. He wasn’t sure how it worked, or what that meant precisely, but he knew he’d been... reinforced; he was harder to kill, he’d grow faster –this bonus apparently applied to everything he tried, with exact results depending on the skill- and, his favourite bonus, he was much harder to corrupt. Just like with his growth, this applied to everything: drugs, techniques manipulating his mind –apparently those existed, and Martin could only guess what that meant specifically- physical alterations to his brain or soul –again, apparently different from mind-manipulating techniques- and even deception.

The second detail was more promising. It seemed his declaration really was more than just part of himself. That had become more obvious with the fact he had access to knowledge about it that he’d never learnt, but confirmation was appreciated.

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Even with the answers he seemed to get just by asking about it, Martin couldn’t fully understand what that thing was. The fact it was entirely different on a conceptual level to anything he’d encountered before didn’t help, but its scale was also far too great. All he knew was that it seemed to be some fundamental force, and that it seemed to exist beyond the confines of space, time, or anything else Martin could think of.

Surprisingly enough, he had little problem with being connected to such an... entity? Force? Now that it was no longer influencing his mind, or at the least not doing so in a way that he could notice, he didn’t have many reasons to attempt to discard it, especially not those that outweighed a risk of permanent death.

He was going to use it, and it... he wasn’t sure whether he’d be much use to a cosmic existence on that scale, so it likely wouldn’t rely on him as much.

‘Still, this changes everything’ he smiled.

As he’d been analysing his declaration and its link to the mysterious entity, he’d found one final thing: he could ‘follow the string’ and, in a strange, metaphysical way, approach it. A link to an omnipresent entity and a way to approach it?

‘It’s a ticket to the outside world’

Before that, Martin wanted to consider his other options. The first he’d thought of had been using creating a sense for the outside world based on the random interference in his soul. In fact, the more he’d developed, the less it had occurred. Whether it be because the interference he’d felt was him sensing his soul responding to more advanced thought before he’d fused with it, or because his degree of control over his soul had grown, the result was the same: the method had to be ruled out, or at the least, it would take far longer.

Another factor was that Martin’s declaration passively blocked anything that might interfere with his consciousness, and interference happening in his soul, which he now used to think, definitely fit the criteria. Overall, the method was already difficult to use, and would only get more difficult the longer time went on.

The second option had been similar to the first, but using the impacts on his soul instead. In fact, this method had only become more promising, since, in the same time as he’d been going through the changes he’d experienced, another part of his consciousness had experimented with recreating bodily functions like he’d done when he originally ‘found’ the membrane of his soul, to great success.

Naturally, he’d limited himself to anything that could have unintended consequences, like breathing and especially anything related to blood circulation. He’d instead started with something basic: feeling for muscles, bones, and ligaments. In response, he’d felt... he knew there were some parts that didn’t fit, but essentially his entire soul.

After that, he’d tried to move. Moving only with the interior of his soul, he could create what felt like pockets of stress and relaxation in his soul. In a way, they were like an extremely simplified version of what happened when he thought. He’d also found it easier to think on the relaxed parts, and harder on the tense parts. It was something that would need more testing in the future.

Regardless, the interesting results had come when Martin had tried to move the outside of his soul. To his slight surprise, he’d succeeded almost too easily; he’d been prepared to retreat at the slightest sign of discomfort, but he hadn’t felt any until he’d stretched his soul into a particularly strange position, after which he’d immediately made sure to return to his default, spherical state, and give himself ample time to rest before trying again.

After a while, he’d found a shape that maintained an equilibrium between having a fairly high surface area and not being too taxing on him to keep.

However –everything had come with a however since he’d died- Martin had discovered that the impacts on his soul were far more random than they first seemed. Still, that didn’t overly discourage him; he’d already made a small breakthrough when he’d directed as much of his spare processing power to as small of an area and discovered, with great difficulty, that whatever particles or energy was impacting his soul apparently carried with it traces of various emotions, sensations, and even thoughts or concepts.

Beginning to feel fatigued –only slightly, but soul fatigue was something he wanted to avoid at all costs- after only a moment in a state directing so much of his focus on a single task, Martin had been forced to concede and redirect his attention to other tasks.

‘I suppose my soul growing increasingly resistant to interference would have only made the process more difficult. I was so close.

...Still, I think it’s better not to be assaulted by a barrage of foreign emotions at every moment. There’s good and bad in every situation’

Cheering himself up, Martin thought of his final alternative.

‘Breathing...

Considering the fact I could feel such a variety of emotions and ideas coming from outside, letting whatever is out there in here sounds like a quick way for all manner of unsavoury things’

Secretly happy at being able to reject an idea without paragraphs of reasoning, Martin returned to considering whether using his connection to a cosmic force as a way to sense the area around him was a reasonable idea.

‘The link isn’t strong enough to make me feel too much of the outside world. I can guess that much without relying on the instinctual knowledge I seem to have of it. But ‘not too much’ in terms of a cosmic force or entity could be anywhere from millimetres to a universe. However, given the fact that, if it was that easy, even a single sentient being forming such a link would become a god in a matter of days, I shouldn’t reasonably be able to feel more than a kilometre outside of myself, even after some practice’

Given his options outside of this were non-existent, and his, despite knowing his soul was currently more robust than ever before, and only getting more so, worry about how long a soul can reasonably last outside of a body –he couldn’t be absolutely certain he wasn’t, given how he couldn’t see outside, but both the circumstances of his death and the sheer variety of emotions and concepts he felt outside pointed to most likely floating through space somewhere- Martin reluctantly decided to try his luck.

He began by focussing on the existence of the declaration inside of him. Then, allocating as much of his attention to the task as possible to minimise any risks that might arise, he began to shift his focus to the connection the declaration had to whatever cosmic entity it was linked to; the connection between him and the outside.

Slowly, like a predator stalking its prey, he mentally creeped up the link, focussing less and less on himself, and more and more on the outside world. Feeling something oddly reminiscent of the trying to surface from water, he kept focussing on his link to the outside, but now directed a part of his attention he’d been saving for this task onto himself. This way, Martin hoped to only connect with the area his soul overlapped with the physical world. He hoped it would minimise any risks that would come from bridging his soul to the outside world, especially outside its own confines, as well as stopping any headaches that would arise from perceiving an area that was too large –there were no guarantees being fine with perceiving an infinite area in his own soul would translate to anything outside.

Resuming his efforts, pushing with just enough force to break the surface tension, Martin made a final effort, and...

Water separated, an exasperated diver bathing in the air.

There was nothing there, and he could feel an area the size of a marble at most, but Martin was happy. For the first time, proof he could see outside. That he still existed, as something more than a consciousness fallen out of the world. A daily luxury afforded to everyone else, but to him, an oasis in a desert. Hope.

The cold, dark emptiness of space was vast. But if one looked closely, closer than any telescope would ever allow, they... chances are, they still wouldn’t see anything. But that didn’t matter; the pocket of space suspended in the void was satisfied.

More than that, Martin had already made some discoveries.