In the end, everyone agreed that Cael shouldn’t be there. In a nice way.

He and Tar were informed that this was technically a Tier 2 world. What did that mean? Well, basically it denoted that practically everything on the planet was between level fifty and one hundred.

That little tidbit was a bit alarming considering Cael was still stuck at level one. When Cael had asked, it had been revealed that Flint too was above the fifty mark, which was a little insulting, but then again, the baixan was a few years older.

Moreover, they decided that Cael should be transported to a lower-level world as soon as possible.

“But I don’t know anyone on other worlds.” He’d complained. He didn’t really know anyone here, but he was still generally safe. After all, he hadn’t died yet.

Trista gave him a long look before going on to explain to him in detail everything she knew that had happened to him in the past three days, starting with him being falsely arrested, and ending with his earlier kidnapping.

In theory, events like that would happen regardless of where he was in the universe, but Cael figured it would be bad to admit that the System was probably acting against him. Left with nothing that he could use to refute her logic, Cael resigned himself to planetary deportation.

They had dinner, take-out from one of the city’s koldarian restaurants. It was kind of like if Indian food was made unreasonably spicy. After half an hour and a dangerous amount of water consumption, Cael settled for eating some of the fruit they had in the fridge, which he was surprisingly happy with. Maybe he was still reeling from the spicy curry-esque dish, but the bowl of fruits may have been the best thing he’d eaten in his entire life.

Stuff like that tends to happen when your ‘entire life’ adds up to being less than three full days. Either way, that was one more strike against Cael being able to remain there. Nobody said it, but Cael locked eyes with Trista and just knew.

The rest of dinner passed uneventfully, and when it was over, Cael helped to keep the dishes before excusing himself and running off to the guest room to pack. It was only once he was there that he remembered he owned literally nothing.

Well, that wasn’t quite true.

‘You do not own me.’ Tar interjected.

‘I was talking about the bracelet we got today.’

‘You can’t lie to me, I read your mind.’

“You know what,” Cael tossed the cat onto the bed, “Even if that were the case, it doesn’t change the fact that we don’t have anything to pack.”

‘Then why don’t you go to sleep? It’s been a long day, and I think you’d like to remember falling asleep in a comfortable and clean bed.’

“That does sound nice. But Tar, do you even sleep? I don’t want you to be bored waiting for me to wake up.”

‘The darkness is patient. It knows all will eventually return to its fold.’

“Yeah, that’s not as funny as you seem to think it is.”

‘I’m hilarious.’

“You’re a nice distraction.” Cael agreed and gave the monster cat some ear scratches.

‘I’ll take it.’

Cael opened the door and called into the living room, “Hey, can I take a shower and change into some new clothes? The ones I’m wearing are a bit damaged.”

“Sure!” Trista shouted back.

He stepped back into the guest room and undressed. His clothes were much more tattered than they had been that morning and covered in a considerable amount of blood.

“Are you watching me?” He asked the cat.

‘Yes. Do you care?’

Cael didn’t. Tar had already more or less seen everything during the dismemberment. Moreover, Tar was kind of… well, it was hard to explain. Cael didn’t care about changing in front of Tar because it was like nothing was wrong. Tar was essentially just another piece of himself, albeit with more sentience than most other pieces.

‘Weird, right? I think that’s the familiar aspect.’

He shrugged and finished folding his destroyed outfit before he walked into the bathroom connected to the guest bedroom.

“Uh. Do you know how to work this thing?”

There was a toilet and a sink. Both of those seemed pretty intuitive, but the large standing shower that took up half the bathroom was much less so.

The elemental bounded into the bathroom to take a look.

‘Huh.’

For starters, there was no drain. The only indicator that this was a shower at all was a pair of adjustable shower heads hanging from the ceiling, and a bottle of… something. Other than that, nothing stuck out. There were no knobs, handles, levers, or even buttons to toggle around.

‘It’s magic.’ Tar reported, stepping inside and sliding up the wall. Cael made a face. It made sense that Tar could do that, but Cael hadn’t really considered it.

“Must be, but how does it work?”

‘Do you want to ask?’ Tar offered.

“I refuse to put those clothes back on, and you’re the only one who’s seeing me naked.” Cael shook his head.

‘How flattering.’

“Don’t take it personally.” Cael looked over his System menus. “Hey, if it’s magic, then why don’t I try out my last Skill?” Somehow, [Mana Sight] had grown from level eighty-three to eighty-six while he wasn’t looking. He figured that may have had something to do with accessing the elemental plane of shadow since he'd last checked its level, but why was it taking so much more to level now?

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

‘[Mana Sight] is something you should be using whenever you can.’

He nodded in acknowledgment and connected his mana to the Skill as Trista had taught him. This time, there was no flash of comprehension accompanying the connection. Based on what Trista had said, that indicated he had used the Skill before at some point. The levels also seemed to suggest that.

In place of the sensory overload, a colorful array of shapes smacked him across the face.

“Right, how am I supposed to find anything in this mess?” Blotches and patterns hung suspended in the air, colored every hue Cael had never even imagined to exist.

On the wall, however, a square board of pure-white mana had flickered into being.

‘Oh, never mind. You can turn off your [Mana Sight] now if you want to.’

“Why?”

‘It turned on when you stepped in.’

Cael stopped supplying his mana to the Skill and the abstract art exhibit faded from view. The board remained, though it changed a bit. Most of the square became transparent, but some of it shifted into a knob with color around it. A gradient from blood-red to pale blue with an arrow pointed toward the very end of the light blue section. Beside it sat a bar with an identical arrow pointing at the bottom.

He reached out and touched the screen. It felt solid beneath his fingers but made no sound when he tapped it.

“Do I just..?” Experimentally, he moved the arrow up the bar. It grew from a trickle, skipped past a shower, and went straight to a flood that almost shot him back out of the shower.

Cael yelped and dragged the pressure control all the way back down. His heart raced. The sudden shift in pressure had startled him and left him freezing cold. That was probably because the temperature was so low on the control panel, but Cael was almost sure that the water was below freezing. Maybe it was just because it was wet too.

His immediate instinct was to crank up the heat, but based on what happened with the water pressure, the goal was to make the tiniest changes possible. After all, the pressure hadn’t even passed the one-quarter mark displayed helpfully along the side of the pressure control bar.

The number of zeros he was seeing at the maximums was frankly enough to cook him.

‘Yikes. Isn’t that kind of overkill? You might as well be taking a bath at that point.’

Cael looked up at the cat. Tar sat unhelpfully outside the shower.

‘Fine, a more painful bath.’ the cat acquiesced.

“How is it dry out there? Actually, where did all that water even go?”

‘The answer to both of those might be the same. When the water touches the floor or crosses some invisible boundary into the rest of the bathroom, the water gets reabsorbed and cycled back to the battery above.’

“So instead of helping me, you were learning about the shower?”

‘Precisely.’

“You’re unbelievable.” Cael rolled his eyes and looked around the bathroom. If he was right, he’d be so happy.

There were no towels.

Satisfied with this observation, Cael stepped out of the shower and felt as the barrier removed all the water that passed through it. That was probably the best news he’d gotten all day.

He stepped back in and watched the shower heads reorient to point directly at him once again. How intimidating. Somehow, this shower was more terrifying than the kidnapper who had stabbed him a couple of times.

He very carefully tapped the pressure upward, and once it was pouring down at a rate he could feel the temperature, Cael started to adjust the heat.

In the end, the settings Cael decided on were about three percent pressure and six percent of the temperature wheel.

Additionally the bottle of floral-scented… cleaner was more potent than he’d expected, so while he had initially lathered his hair with a teaspoon of the stuff, he had ended up using that amount for the entirety of his body as well. The bits of blood he rubbed it over seemed to genuinely disintegrate and blink out of existence.

It was the weirdest shower Cael had ever taken. The only one too, but it was an experience either way.

When the changeling was sure he had removed all the evidence of the day, he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Instantly dry. That was still so cool.

“Whoa.” The mirror. Cael stepped closer and leaned over the sink to stare at himself. His eyes. “Do my eyes always look like that?”

‘Oh.’

“They’re pitch black. Why didn’t you tell me?” The changeling widened and narrowed his eyes a few times, “Shit, I look evil.”

‘Right, I can’t actually decipher color at this level.’

“What do you mean?”

‘I really didn’t know what color your eyes were. I see colors through your eyes. Think of it as a stream. I generally have your channel playing in the back of my mind and pay attention when I need to see something in color. For the same reason you can’t see your eyes, I can’t see them either.’

“That’s pretty cool actually. What do you see normally, then?”

‘I’m made of mana. I have [Mana Sight] too. At higher levels, I can deconstruct light as it enters my body and triangulate the point of origin to create a colored map of my surroundings. Until my [Intelligence] is a high enough level to do that again, I’ll be using your eyes.’

Since he had access to a mirror, Cael made a point of checking over the rest of his face. Other than his eyes, however, everything seemed to be normal. Maybe his teeth were a bit sharper. They were certainly bright, but they were still within the bounds of being completely normal. For a human, at least.

Actually, this was Cael’s first time actually seeing his face in this life. He was almost a bit disappointed. Other than his eyes, his face was actually somewhat boring. Square-ish jaw, but not in a manly way. If anything, it made his face appear rounder and a bit younger. Well, not younger than three days, but younger than he felt for sure. Cael had the impression that he was supposed to be in his early twenties, but he couldn't be certain.

His hair was as black as his eyes and cropped short. He wondered if changeling's hair grew. It was certainly possible that it didn’t.

Lastly, the collar that had caused so much trouble for him lay in a thick black band around his throat. It was kind of boring all things considered.

“Hey, Tar? Can you help me remember to work out more?” Cael was kinda scrawny and it made the youthful appearance of his face a bit too prominent. No wonder everyone was calling him ‘kid’.

‘Only if I get to force you. I think that would be funny.’

“This is already sounding like a bad idea. You can… encourage me as long as it isn’t dangerous.”

‘Alright then, new rule.’ Tar’s tail flicked in amusement. That was on purpose. He wasn’t actually a cat. His tail didn’t move unless he willed it. ‘You have to do fifty push-ups before you can leave the bathroom.’

That was… doable. The bathroom was large enough for that to not be an issue. Cael dropped down and started doing push-ups. Tar snickered at Cael plight, really doing his best to live up to his true name. It took a humiliatingly long time, but eventually, he did finish.

Cael changed into a new set of clothes from the wardrobe and opened the room door again. To his surprise, Mercy was waiting there.

“Oh, hi. I was actually coming down to say goodnight. Unless you needed me to do something?” Cael stuttered over his words. He’d been caught off-guard by the imposing figure of the angel. He was pretty sure it was the wings that made her presence so overbearing but couldn’t be sure without more data.

“No. I came to offer you a gift.” She held out a small canteen, “My mother gave it to me when I became an adventurer for a few years. She told me to pass it along to someone going on a lonely journey. In truth, she just liked to give gifts.”

The angel shrugged, her wings did a little shrug of their own, “I like giving gifts too. Go to bed Cael, we will have secured transportation before you wake tomorrow.”

Mercy handed him the flask and walked away.

"Um, thank you."

Only once she stepped into her room did Cael notice something.

“Hold on, she said on a ‘lonely journey’. As long as I have you, that’s not really possible.”

‘Do you want to give it back?’

“Well, no. That would be rude.” Cael retreated into the guest room and climbed onto the bed, where he looked at Tar expectantly.

‘You can’t be serious.’

Cael just continued to stare at the cat.

‘Fine, but only until you fall asleep.’

Tar melted into an amorphous blob and stayed with Cael until he fell asleep.

Maybe even for a while after that.