My mind suddenly went blank. I don’t think I felt any emotions at this point, nor do I remember thinking anything at this point, just complete nothingness after the light went into my head. Even the splitting headache I had moments earlier was completely gone, which now that I think of it happened earlier too.

I couldn’t feel my body, nor could I feel anything around me, I couldn’t even see or hear anything. Or so I thought initially for the first fifteen minutes or so. The strange thing was that no emotions or thoughts really appeared in me either during this time, only a slowly growing feeling of energy inside of me. Energy which I could also somehow sense outside of me. Like warmth, pressure, or that tingling feeling you get from electricity, but not quite any of these.

I could feel that the energy on the outside was slowly moving towards me, merging with me, but not decreasing in the slightest. I tried focusing on moving the energy outside towards me, and the trickle of energy turned into a stream. The suddenness of which surprised me and made me lose the focus I had for doing it in the first place. The sensation was new, but not scary. And because it was new, I played with it, attempting to find different ways to use this energy, and to let it flow into me. Time passed in ways I didn’t notice until I got bored of trying to collect this energy.

I tried to feel around me, like you would move your arm around you in the dark, except I didn’t feel like I had arms, or could see light. For some reason the energy I felt inside of me became pressured, and felt as though it squirted out into the direction I wanted to feel around. And all of a sudden I noticed that I was aware of it. A strange type of awareness I had never felt before, like it was a part of me, far more than my body had ever been.

“My body… I had a body? Where am I? Who am I?” Suddenly these thoughts plagued my mind, panic hit like a familiar ball smashing in your face.

I was suddenly in pain, as though cracks were appearing all over me. It’s hard to describe how pain feels if you don’t really know if you have a body or not. It was like my thoughts themselves were in pain, rather than anything physical.

Cracks spread out, growing larger, pain begins to rack everywhere. The intensity of which grows by the second as the panic slowly grows to a combination of insanity and blankness. I try to move, no longer feeling around me, but actually move. I feel stuck, horribly stuck. The pain now growing to unprecedented heights as I try to feel anything other than pain.

Suddenly I feel something which I can only describe as a thread of white light, though it could also be blue, before feeling white again. Colours are difficult without vision. It begins to overlap on the cracks I feel, covering them one by one. First one, then five, then twenty, all the way until every single crack feels covered. At this point I try to focus on it more, as it’s the only thing that distracts me from the pain, and as I do I feel the string wind around me and slowly tighten. The cracks feel as though they are slowly mending, and my panic lessens. “I like this thread of light, it helps me.” Is the conclusion I end up with, before my mind becomes calm again, and I return to the state I was at before the pain.

Awareness once again spread through me. I was now aware of myself and myself. I was both me, and the area surrounding me. The first being a solid cuboid, the second being made of rock. I felt that I could move myself around if the rock wasn’t there, and the idea of removing the rock passed through my mind, and I did. Without any effort the rock around me began to disappear, creating a room around my cuboid self. I could now move around in the space around me, and while this space around me was also me, the new feeling was interesting, and with interest came experimentation and playing around. I must have spent hours just moving myself and enjoying the new sensation.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The small room soon became boring, and I began to desire to expand the area. And I did until I felt resistance. I had hit an area that wasn’t me. And with that I began to feel around more, once again pressuring the energy inside of me. The energy exited me, and I now noticed the energy decreasing as I expanded. I once more began to focus on collecting the energy, and noticed that it flowed into me at a slightly increased pace. I repeated the process of expanding and collecting and began to notice a pattern. More of me meant more energy. This occupied me for a long time, and at a certain point I began feeling more resistance, and I realized I had expanded hundreds of meters away from my initial location. The process of repeated collecting energy and expanding myself was clearly the only thing that occupied my mind during that time.

Suddenly I began feeling as though this was all a film playing out, rather than experiencing it myself. Images popped up in my mind: Spirits, a cave entrance, humans, creating goblins, metals and plants, fighting, expanding more, more summoning and fighting, up until the point that a form of balance and cooperation was formed.

Humans, and later other creatures called Dwarves, Elves and far more, named by the spirits appeared, depositing their mana in the thing I now realized was a Dungeon, in return for a challenge and things they considered treasures. In time some died, but the Dungeon managed to hide its core, and expand to create multiple layers, the mana in the area flowing downwards as though the Dungeon itself was a funnel, and the more it expanded, the larger its open area was, with each layer bringing an extra dimension to it.

This film-like experience sped up, imprinting upon my mind images faster than I could consciously process. Faster and faster the images appeared, accompanied with sounds, experiences, feelings and more. Wars were fought, artifacts were created, precious people died and the earth trembled under a flood of emotions. And at that point all became white.

I was back where I was earlier, standing opposed to Hornscale. My hands still as though they were holding a book, but were holding nothing but air. He looked at me, and somehow I could feel that Core was as well. A pressure I didn’t know existed was lifted from my body, and almost as though I was guided by invisible hands I felt something inside of me.

I felt energy inside of me.

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Hey, Autor-sama again. I know that the first three chapters released on the same day, but I recall them being almost 24 hours apart, and the only reason the second chapter released so quickly after the first was because it had to be checked by a moderator. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep up this pace, but for now I'll try to write (and post) one 1000+ word chapter every day. Maybe holding back on posting them early to allow myself resting days later on. Aside from this I hope to be able to slowly increase the wordcount per chapter, but I know it will take longer to write if I do that.

Regardless, thank you for joining me in this story so far.