After Kane asked if the voice in his head was Ella, he received a cautious, mental nod in return.  

He quickly realized Ella was likely having a little trouble adjusting to her new reality. So, since he felt some respect for this woman, and realized they would likely be companions for a long time, he decided to check up on her mental welfare. 

"How are you doing?" he asked, perhaps a little to casually for the situation. 

"I— I'm not sure… M— Master…" came her cautious response, her voice still sounding a little strained, and the word Master came out like sandpaper. "I woke up not long before you, so I haven't had much time to… adjust." 

Kane noticed the difficulty she had with calling him master and decided to ask about it. "Is this enslavement thing forcing you to call me Master?" 

Ella gave a wry, cautious mental nod, and Kane immediately chuckled, "If you're having so much trouble with it, then just call me whatever you're most comfortable with. I really don't care." 

Suddenly, Kane felt emotions of relief and surprise from somewhere inside him, and he quickly realized that his bond with Ella allowed him to spy on her feelings. He wasn't sure if Ella knew about this, but he decided not to share it for now. The elf was already having enough trouble with this as it was. 

"T— Thank you," she stammered, the same relief and surprise as he felt earlier clear in her voice. "I'll just call you Kane than." 

At this point, Kane decided to sit down on the floor of his cage with his legs crossed. At the same time, he nodded inwardly at Ella, "Sure. So would you like to talk about the fact that you gave up your body to live in my head as a slave?" 

"I—" Ella immediately responded in surprise but she quickly fell quiet again as her voice broke. Kane could be a little blunt with these types of things. He simply believed it was a bad idea to keep them bottled up. Especially when it involved an important partnership like this one. 

Finally, she seemed to find her words and respond, her voice soft and a little depressed, "I'd like a little time to adjust to my new… body…? on my own, actually… but yeah, I would like to talk eventually." 

"Okay," Kane nodded calmly. "I want you to know that I'll do whatever possible to make this easier for you." Even if he didn't respect and kind of liked Ella, it was probably a good idea to do whatever he could to keep the person in his head as sane as possible. 

Before Ella could respond, he changed topic, "But for now, you said you could get me out of here?" 

Apparently happy to change topic, Ella quickly nodded mentally, "Yeah. To be honest, when I woke up I was panicking a little about having lost my body, so I started learning the language of these bandits to calm myself down, rather than explore the neuralizer." 

Suddenly, she changed topic, "That reminds me, I heard them talking, and they mentioned that you were at the same power level as their leader. Apparently, they've been unsuccessful in breaking through to the Core Formation stage so far. I doubt you'd have trouble defeating them." 

Kane grinned a little, "That's what I like to hear, Ella. Thank you." 

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

For a moment, he thought he heard Ella chuckling happily, but then she quickly continued, "Anyway, it should be possible for me to interface wirelessly with all this machinery. Or at least, the neuralizer—I mean… I—am getting several signals from around here." 

Immediately, Kane nodded in understanding, "Ah, so you're the reason I can understand these guards." 

"Yeah!" Ella nodded again, actually sounding a little proud of herself, which endeared her to him. "After learning the language, which was easy with the power of my soul in combination with this thing's computing power, I managed to upload the knowledge to your brain! That's probably what woke you up, actually." 

"I see," Kane smiled slightly. "Thank you. You're already proving your worth." 

Surprisingly, she actually chuckled proudly, "Hehehe, thank you." At the same time, he felt emotions of pride and even slight happiness from his bond with her. Unfortunately, he could also feel the sadness underneath. 

'I wonder if she truly enjoys being complimented, or if this is another consequence of the slavery,' he thought to himself with a frown. 'Either way, she doesn't seem as depressed as she was on Alfheim, but the sadness is still there. I really need to have a good conversation with her later…' 

Fortunately, his bond with Ella prevented her from betraying him in any way, which included reading his surface thoughts, despite that being a function of the neuralizer. 

Then, a thought struck him. "By the way," he started with a frown. "You say you can interface wirelessly with other devices? I'm not sure I like that. Connections work both ways, and I don't want the thing in my head to get hacked." 

"I— I doubt it'd be possible for me to get hacked," Ella frowned, but actually sounded a little unsure. "Regardless, I can't get you out of here if you won't allow me to interface." 

"No, I know," Kane nodded thoughtfully. "But it's something we'll have to deal with later…"  

On a hunch, he then suddenly checked his hand and changed the topic, "Oh, another thing, what was with that ring you pushed into my hands just before you fell unconscious? I put it on my finger, and it's still there. I'm a little surprised they didn't take it off me." 

"Oh, that's a storage ring," she shrugged casually. "It has a few cubic meters you can use to store things in. It's still on your finger, because it can only be taken off by the person wearing it. Inside is everything you had on you when the guards brought you in, and…" she suddenly became a little restless, "also a chest of some items important to me…" 

Kane blinked in surprise, "That's… incredibly useful. How do I access it?" He got a little excited, because there should be two items of sentimental value in there: his sword, and his CyberStrap. 

Ella's tone became a little wry, "With your Mystic energy… which you can't use right now." 

"Right," Kane grumbled and rolled his eyes. "Which reminds me, you should get started on finding a way to unlock this collar and my cage, because I'd like to get out of here soon." 

"Understood," Ella nodded obediently through their connection. Kane quickly realized she didn't hate doing what he told her so much as she simply didn't like calling him master. Which he understood perfectly. 

Then, Ella fell quiet for a moment, and Kane suddenly wondered what he should do now. Without access to his cores, he couldn't meditate, or work on his breakthrough now that all his cores were at the fifth rank. 

As if to answer his question, Ella suddenly spoke up again, "By the way, Kane. If you're looking for something to do, can I suggest you try to contact Lady Mána?" 

"Wait, I can do that?" Kane exclaimed inwardly with surprise. He was very interested in talking with Mána again. He still had plenty of questions for her. 

Ella nodded, "Lady Mána asked me to mention that in case she forgot due to everything else happening at the time. She wants to answer more questions and help you get stronger. You should be able to do it from your soul world." 

"And how do I enter my soul world?" Kane chuckled wryly. 'My lack of Mystic knowledge is a little embarrassing,' he groaned to himself. 'I'll need Ella to correct that.' 

Fortunately, Ella didn't make a big deal of it, and quickly taught him how to access his soul world. A little while later Kane found himself back in the familiar surroundings of an endless dark sea.