I helped Lorie by carrying a chair out into the courtyard. She had instructed me to put it next to the old dusty table near the main entrance.

She came out right behind me holding a fresh pot of tea. The young looking grandma refused to let me carry it, saying it was too dangerous and that you needed a certain amount of experience to handle a hot pot.

“So what tea is this? It smells different from the usual stuff?” I asked as Lorie set the tray down on the old table.

“It’s just cinnamon. Nothing fancy.” She answered.

“Cinnamononon.” I said incorrectly. Cinnamonapolin was an actual word I had trouble pronouncing. It was an issue even before I became fun sized.

“Si-Nuh-Muhn.” She corrected.

“Cinomanon?” I said incorrectly.

Lorie smiled and tried to stop herself from laughing. “Yes that's correct. Good job. Would you like some. This one is a lot more kid friendly.” She said

“I’m an adult! I like coffee and beer!” I responded defensively.

“My goodness. Such adult drinks. You must be very brave.” She said as if trying to hype up a child.

I sighed not wanting to fall for the obvious trap. I quickly tried to change the subject by pivoting back towards the tea. “I didn't know you could turn cimonomoonamen into tea” I butchered.

Seeing my anxiety she ignored my pronunciation. “You can turn anything into tea if you boil it enough. Here, let me get you a cup.” She poured some out for me. The liquid was a dark amber color. She then added a few sugar cubes and a bit of milk. The milk turned the liquid into a pinkish brown. Almost like strawberry milk but… not that.

Lorie slid the cup over to me. “Can you add more milk maybe?” I begged expecting it to taste bad.

“Don’t think about it. Just taste it.” She commanded.

I took a quick breath before lifting the cup, blowing on it, and bringing it to my lips. There was a satisfying slurp followed by a delighted “hmmm!”

The liquid spice was sweet, but not too sweet. It really did taste like cinomonom. The milk made it slightly thicker while still keeping it's watery texture.

“I like it.” I said.

“That makes me very happy to hear.” She said pouring her own cup.

Wait a sec…. “Did you make this with me in mind?” I asked.

“I did. You didn't like the stronger tea, so I made this one instead.” She responded cheerfully.

“Thank you Lorie, I like it a lot.” I said.

I drank my tea while asking Lorie about mundane magic stuff. Once I was done with the cup, I remembered Snowball was still inside, so I went back in to grab her.

She was now sporting a new blue dress. Lorie said she put it together from my old clothes. That being the torn up dolls dress I was summoned in.

It looked so nice on her. She was princess Snowball now. “You look so pretty Snowball.” I said gleefully as I held her up to look at her.

“You can’t do this! I’m a nudist you clothes loving weirdo! Let me out of these clothes! I want to feel the wind on my fur!” Yelled Snowball as I spun around with her.

“Don’t be ridiculous Snowball. You can’t walk around naked. You’re a lady of fine quality. What if Mr. Brutus saw you? He’d get the wrong idea. And then we'd have so many kitties running around. What are we going to do with so many cats? There's no shelter around Snowball. We’d have to eat them. Are you cool with becoming a cannibal?” I scolded her.

Lorie laughed hearing me talk with my friend. “How about you let me hold on to her, so her new dress doesn’t get dirty.” Said Lorie.

“Yeah, okay!” I skipped over and handed Snowball over to Lorie. She took my doll, setting her down on her lap.

Everything was great today. Thanks to the sleep I got, I wasn’t tired anymore. In combination with the delicious tea, seeing Snowballs new outfit, and it being such a nice day outside. It all left me feeling really good. Giving me a rush of energy.

Out of happiness I ran out into the courtyard and threw my momentum into a chain of cartwheels. At the end of the chain, I spun my body around and performed a back flip, rotating in the air several times before landing on my light-up shoes. They flashed like fireworks at the end of a performance.

“Te-da!” I cheered.

Lorie clapped, “Very good.” Then projected a large 10 above her head out of colorful aspects.

“Wow, that was great!” Said Snowball.

I smiled and politely did a curtsy by putting one foot in front of the other and bending my knees, as I held the ends of my skirt out. “Thank you.”

That’s when Zubu stepped out the door holding a pair of wooden swords. “About time.” I said.

“Don't rush me. These were outside covered in dirt so I had to clean them.” She said as she stepped onto the courtyard. A moment later she threw one of the bamboo swords at me.

I kicked the sword causing it to spin in the air. Reaching out, I stopped it by grabbing the handle. The handle came to a perfect stop, while the rest of the sword wobbled like a guitar string.

I giggled, “hehehe, It made a funny noise!” Zubu seemed too serious to laugh so I dropped my smile and fell back into ultra serious battle mode.

Effortlessly, I summoned my level one null aura. The power engulfed my body and sword in a brilliant azure glow. All that aura training had paid off. It was so thin yet super uber dense. My body felt as though it had the momentum of a bus.

Zubu let out a whistle. “Wow, looks like I won't have to hold back.” She said.

“That’s not all.” I said as momentum, wind, heat, earth, and water aspects began to enter my aura. I didn’t have the body of a mage, but I did have the aura of a cultivator and it could hold aspects almost as well as a mana stone.

The only issue was I had to gather them while my aura was active. That meant I wouldn’t be able to cast spells right off the bat, but it did come with other benefits.

The momentum aspects gave my movements more priority. The wind aspects made me lighter on my feet. Heat aspects increased my speed.

(Authors note: I originally wanted momentum aspects to effect speed, but once I put a little more thought into it. It made more sense for it to effect someone's priority. As in the force behind their movements, or as the word “momentum” implies, momentum.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The relationship between momentum, heat, and cold. Is very simple. Momentum is potential. Heat and cold are direction.

I’m unsure if I’ve contradicted the story with this change, but I'll eventually update the rest of the story later to reflect this. Sorry if there is any confusion.)

Earth aspects gave me strength and defense. Water aspects did something similar, but with the added effects of making my aura more flexible, causing my steal-like shell to act like liquid metal.

Mr. Brutus said, I should make the outside of my aura soft and the inside hard, but once you reached a certain amount of layers it became harder to mold. That meant my caterpillar aura wouldn’t be as nimble, or flexible.

Water aspects solved that issue. I was now able to keep the solidity of my steel shell while also being able to mold it as if it were molten metal.

Bottom line was, aura creation had to do a lot with the first 20 layers. They were the ones that decided what the aura would be. That’s why making them hard turned the outer layers, into a stiff inflexible mess.

At first I thought Mr. Brutus was playing a prank on me. When he told me to make my aura hard on the inside, but then I realized he was trying to teach me about aura creation. Without his intervention I would have ended up with a super soft aura that could easily be broken. The worst part was I wouldn’t even know.

He could have just told me, but then the lesson wouldn’t have sunk in as well. Hands on experience not only helped you learn things. It also gave you a much deeper understanding. A kind of understanding that couldn't be put into words.

It was kind of hard to change my aura back to hard. Water aspects helped with that. Aura creation was almost like the growth of a tree. Every layer grown was nearly permanent. It was no wonder why over time it became easier to create each of the layers, since they were simply just extensions of my natural aura.

My level one aura never actually vanished. It was always there, but hidden. Every time I needed a layer or two I was simply empowering the layers I’d built over time with my Qi. And here I thought I was creating the aura from scratch every time.

My aura went from a solid blue to a golden orange. It was so different from what I had before. With my control I could hold it for hours. Especially with all the cultivation I did. My spark was almost twice as strong now.

“Interesting aura. What do you call this one?” Asked Lorie.

“Paradoxical aura.” I said.

“Why?” Asked both Zubu and Lorie.

“Because, cultivators shouldn’t be able to cast spells.” They still looked confused. “Just watch.” I added.

Instead of explaining it, I showed them. There was just enough heat aspects stored in my aura for a low powered fireball, so I withdrew the aspects necessary for the spell and formed an orange spell circuit. Surely enough a glowing ball of flames appeared floating within the spell construct.

My aura now void of heat aspects, went from a warm orange to a breezy greenish blue. Both Lorie and Zubu looked impressed.

“I see. Using a cultivators aura to cast magic. That does sound like a paradox. Though mages often use magical aura’s to empower their spells. In truth, your aura acts like a storage device. That’s clever, but you wont be able to hold very many aspects in there. Unless you add more layers. Even then you’ll only be able to cast a few spells.”

She wasn't wrong about that. I couldn't fit all the aspects I wanted, so I ended up reserving percentages of storage space for each one.

10% storage for momentum. 10% storage for wind aspects. 10% for water. 10% for earth. The rest of storage was reserved for heat aspects and any other aspect effects I might need. Such as the healing effects from life aspects.

In truth, I only needed mass storage for the heat aspects. However the combination of the other aspects was great for increasing my physical attributes.

I thought about learning other types of magic. Kinetic based spells seemed like they would be very useful, especially since momentum was so easy to get. Wind, earth and water spells also seemed like a good choice.

There was a reason I focused more on my fireball spell. That was because even before I ascended, I already knew the spell structure for fireball. Also watching Squirmy burn was so satisfying during that whole open the gate quest.

Zubu’s aura flared to life. Her body glowing a bright pink. A moment later, the power lit itself on fire releasing burning static along her body. She looked like an exploding transformer. Her sword took on a similar energy. Though, much more focused like a welding torch.

“Is that safe?” I asked.

“Do not worry child. I’ve already created a practice barrier around the top of the mountain. It’s impossible to die.” Said Lorie.

“How does that work!” I panicked.

Both Lorie and Zubu gave me a strange look, before locking eyes.

“You okay, Isaac?” asked Zubu cautiously. There was that look again.

They must have thought I was freaking out or something. Was I freaking out though? I looked around to see if there were a bunch of fireballs floating around. There was only the baby fireball I conjured to show off. Everything looked fine. Even my aura looked normal.

My actions didn’t sit right with them and I could tell they were about to call the whole thing off. In an attempt to prevent it I said, “I was just curious on how the barrier worked. I didn’t mean to… uh… scare you guys.”

It was silent for a moment before Lorie jumped into an explanation. “It’s something like an enchantment. Though since I had little notice it’s more on the rune script side of things. Don't worry it'll work. It’s just not permanent.” She said.

“Why are you so fixated on the barrier?” Asked Zubu, her plasma fading into a thin mist of pink light.

“I just want to know what the barrier actually does. Like is my soul trapped in my body, or is it more like a resurrection type of thing? Are you a necromancer? You have to tell me if you are!” I questioned fearfully. I didn’t want to be brought back to life over and over again.

Been there done that. The memories of my mother torturing me to the point of near death and bringing me back to life ran through my head. That was seriously horrible. I never wanted to go through that again.

Seeing how distraught I was, Lorie gave an explanation. “It can heal you and it can restore anything inside of it back to before it was broken. So buildings, trees, the ground, cuts, bruises, stabs, dismemberment. It will all get reversed.” She said.

“Is it like a time loop? Couldn't something like that make someone immortal?” I asked. If focused on a single person, it could be insanely OP.

“It’s not a complete reversal of time. It only undoes the damage if there’s no level zero auras. Things like plants can be reversed by negentropy, but for creatures nature rank and above. It would take way more energy to get around their natural aura. Especially for you two. You guys will just get hit with strong healing magic, with a side of cleansing.” She explained.

Something told me I should have invested some storage for apathy aspects. If Zubu didn't have to hold back. Then being hit would hurt a lot. I quickly gathered some apathy and gave them 10% of my auras storage. Already I could feel myself mellowing out.

“So if I die, it’ll bring me back to life?” I questioned.

“Yes, it will. As long as it hasn’t been too long and your soul is still attached to your body.” She explained.

I looked to Zubu fearfully. “Please don't hurt me too much. I don't want to die a bunch.” I nearly cried.

“Don't worry, a cut here or there won't hurt. Use some apathy to negate the pain.” Said Zubu.

Her words didn't really reassure me, but she had a point. With some apathy, pain would be a none issue. Still, Lorie said some about detached souls? It sounded like a cause for concern.

“What happens if my soul is detached? Does that mean actual death?” I asked.

“You die when your heart stops. If your soul were truly detached, your body would turn to dust.” She said.

That didn’t make sense. People die all the time and there bodies are fine. “I have another question. How come on my world people don’t turn to ash when they die?”

She sighed as if I’d just asked where clouds came from. Zubu sat down realizing I wouldn’t be satisfied without an answer.

“Okay. Usually when it comes to God’s, they have a collection system to gather the souls. However Cosmo has way to many followers to implement that system into all of them, so instead she only gathers the souls of those who are lower spirit rank and above.” She answered.

“Wait just a minute!” I yelled realizing a horrible truth. “Are you telling me some people just end up spending eternity trapped in their dead bodies!”

“Not that long. For the most part they are sleeping, so they can’t really feel or experience anything. The cores end up being gathered slowly. Cosmo’s system drains away the quintessence until they are back with her.” She explained.

Right, the bottle cap. Since their body is dead, they can’t produce quintessence, so Cosmo’s bottle cap ends up draining their reserves, causing their souls to slowly go back to her.

“What about bones? Those don’t go away.” I said.

“They do eventually. Unless they get preserved in some way. Such as fossilization. Since the soul is slowly removed. Things like bones don’t fall apart right away. Even when the soul is gone, they can last a while. It’s only when you rip a soul from its vessel that the body turns to ash.” She explained.

Slowly drained away into nothing. Can a soul survive that process? It sounded like the soul was used like a battery. I was about to ask when Lorie interrupted my thoughts. “Aren’t you two going to fight.” It wasn't really a question. Lorie was very stern with her words, almost as if tired of the conversation.

Zubu pulled herself to her feet and held her blade up reigniting her aura. Static and fire roared to life as it wrapped around her, turning her blade into a plasma sword.

My aura had already gathered enough heat aspects to turn yellow, so I launched my previously conjured fireball at her, but she cut right through it with her glowing sword. Then came charging at me for a stab.

It was a little scary, but This was nothing compared to the trials yet to come.