I knocked on the door to Horace's office, and Jons opened it for me. I walked in slowly, trying not to show how impatient I was.

"Are you hopping Mads?" Came the deep voice. Horace stood in the middle of the room, in a full-on Dracula armour. That explained why he was growing a goaty and a thin moustache the past week.

Over thin, dark plate with gold ornaments, flowed a black and red cloak with a collar sticking over the vampires head. He had a rapier on the left hip and a red orb with ethereal horns floating over his right hand.

"Not at all!" I exclaimed and hopped onto his left shoulder. I wasn't checking my status in the past two weeks and it was time to see if it was good enough for the trip.

"Status!"

Name: Mads Age: 3 Race: Lesser devil/High-human Strength: 3(12) Titles Endurance: 5(14) One in Body and Soul You are not just a soul and you are not just a body. Mind: 13(17)   Soul: 19 Well: 17(17) Shell: 15(17)

"My soul grew to nineteen," I whispered.

"Are you worried I won't let you go?" Horace chuckled and continued, "It will tick up to twenty in a couple of days, if you will keep up meditation. Extend your arm."

I gave him my right hand and the man slid a bracelet onto it. "A ten is enough for your soul to stay anchored to the body long enough, so the bracelet would keep you alive."

Horace patted my hand. "If you do get hurt bad enough for it to activate though, I will come to pick you up and you will stay in the mansion until enrollment in three years."

I nodded and poked the thing. It had tiny runework on it, the most detailed I saw on anything.

"Second, I have a bag for you." The vampire handed me a simple black bag, with black strings to hang it on. It kinda looked like a school shoe bag. "You will need to continue studying, so it's packed with books. Even if you will reach the Academy, if your stats won't be high enough, you will have to wait a year or few, before enrolling."

I nodded aggressively.

My eyes filled with light. I looked around, I was at a small train station. A single stone platform with a small wooden roof. There was a dirt road leading off towards the sun, to the right from the tracks, cutting through tall grass. Ahead, above the tracks was a barely visible blue outline of a mountain.

Next to me on the ground, was a piece of paper with "All roads lead to the mountain" written on it. I guess it was a good thing, I put on the travel clothes before coming to Horace. I fixed my black coat, checked the strings on my shoes and put on the bag. The bag was too big and dragged on the ground, so I supported it with a mana pane.

I hopped down onto the tracks, crossed them and went towards the trees beyond the field.

After a while, I put up a small shield before my face, to keep the grass from hitting it. A shame the absurd strength soul granted my body, didn't help much with walking faster. I wonder what a toddler with just physically built up strength would look like.

I hopped above the grass and twirled. I was about halfway to the forest and the station was barely visible above the grass. After landing, I jumped again and I was facing the wrong direction, so I fixed my path and waddled on.

Since I didn't eat breakfast, I was getting hungry. I reached into the pouch for some munching... there was nothing. Did I at least pack water? I grabbed onto the water skin. I pulled out the tip and took a few sips.

Suddenly the grass ended. The trees seemed pretty normal-sized and the under-bush was scarce. The leaves were slightly blue from beneath.

I picked a random direction at an angle from the mountain and continued. Whenever I found some, I picked the mushrooms and berries I recognized. Until noon, every now and then, I heard a distant sound of the train passing on the tracks. At some point in the evening, I got far enough, the sound didn't reach me anymore.

I supposed I could have just walked straight away from the tracks. It would take me a while to reach the mountain anyway, so keeping my direction at least somewhat mountain-wise, was prudent. I still kept angling away from the tracks, until dusk came.

In front of me was a hill, so I walked to it's top and boosted myself a couple of times to land on the branches of one of the trees. It was such a terribly uneventful day. I yawned. The branches of the tree I chose were too thin to lay on, so I looked around. All of the trees were similar.

I jumped up and grabbed onto the tallest branch that could support me. At the bottom of the hill, opposite where I came from, was a larger tree with some sort of white fruits on it. Too tired to walk, I boosted myself a couple dozen times to reach my sanctuary for the night.

One would think pseudo-flight would be difficult, but it was just like an adult throwing a child. I'm sure I'd tire myself out if I kept going for a couple of minutes, but for a relatively short distance, the effort barely registered.

Landing was the hard part, I smacked against a couple of smaller branches and had to re-boost myself multiple times to land on the branch I chose.

Before going to sleep, I pulled out a random book from the backbag and read, until my eyes began to close.

I woke up with a sneeze. I jumped from the tree, pushed myself up a couple of times and landed on the ground softly with just a bit of a stumble. I wondered if it counted if you reached the Academy by following the train tracks the entire way. I shrugged, not something I had to worry about. I wanted to my adventure.

I was taken out of my thoughts by the songs of the birds waking up and after looking around, realised it was still dark out. I joined the birds with "Sympathy for the devil" - upgrading my mind was paying off - and continued my walk with spring in my step.

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When the morning dew and subsequent light fog evaporated, I pulled out my diary and tried to write in it, by holding a pencil with mana.

Occasionally I bumped into trees. Whenever that happened I looked around and collected berries or mushrooms if there were any. All berries and the rare mushroom that could be eaten raw, went into my stomach and the rest slowly filled my pouch.

At noon, I sat down in the shade of a pine occupied by butterflies that sounded like chimes and wrote down my mathematical memories, then played the violin and switched them every two pages or a piece.

Once the suns rays lessened, I moved on, continuing my mana-writing practice. The letters were large, blocky and didn't keep lines, but practice and all that.

The second night, I slept on a tall rock. It looked like a mace and was mostly white and rather uneven, it's tip peaking over the mixed trees around it.

I was woken up by whispers and rustling. When I looked down from my perch, the fog was thicker and full of shapes meandering through it. I threw some manaballs at them, but they just dispersed around the projectiles and continued their rustling.

Not feeling up to the task of fighting them, I just meditated. My meditation consisted of rolling around the rock and boosting myself up at it, whenever I fell off.

The fog went away at noon and my walk continued.

As I wrote my first well-shaped letter I bumped into a root growing out of the ground. I put away my diary and pencil and looked around. Before me, was a fence made out of live roots. On the other side of the weird growth, was a large clearing with a rock cube in the middle of it.

I walked around the fence until I came upon an arch in it. From the opening lead a cobbled path, to a square hole in the rock. Above the hole, was a carving of a chest, winged by torches. It was interesting, so I walked into the clearing, when nothing happened I skipped towards the rock and jumped in.

My first dungeon delve, I mused. As I was beginning to worry I guessed wrong, I passed through a film of something and landed... softly enough on the ground.

I laid on the floor of a perfectly square corridor, facing its back wall. On the wall was an engraving depicting a knight being stepped on by an indistinct four legger dog-thing made out of cubes.

"I'm fucked," I complained and stretched my neck. Nothing to it, maybe the things in here were soft, as some sort of twist. I laughed, as if.

I got up and turned around. Ahead of me was a straight path. My heartbeat quicked and I took off in a slow jog. Aside from that one back wall, everything was smooth, with torches lining the walls every ten or so meters.

Slowly, I closed in on a ninety-degree bend and heard rock hitting rock. When I turned, I saw a creature made out of floating rock cubes pace back and forth, two torches away from me. Where you could stack four of me on top of each other to reach the ceiling, that thing was only a little short of half as tall as the walls.

I reached the first torch and the rock turned towards me. Its head recoiled a little and ground on its neck rock. It lunged at me as if in slow motion, so I kept running and when it was close, boosted myself up and over the thing. I tried throwing some mana punches at it, but they did absolutely nothing and I boosted further away.

I landed on the floor rolling sideways and got up. The monsters head swiftly weaved up and down through its blocky torso and stopped once it faced me. The thing did it's slow-mo run again and I continued my jog.

Four torches further, I noticed the rocks were resounding more often and when I looked back, the monster was gaining on me. I boosted myself into the fake flight, giggling.

Two torches ahead of me, the corridor opened into a larger space. I flew in and there were two rock dogs, each guarding another opening. I boosted over the right one and heard them shift.

I turned into a dead end with a chest. I put slight pressure on myself to slow down and fell with a low thud on the chest. I tumbled down from it and swiftly shot a manaball at the lid to open it. I got up and looked inside, to find a small rock cube. I threw it up and let it fall onto my outstretched hands.

I boosted myself back and up, turning around. I entered a spin but ended up falling behind the monster coming after me. I got up and the other two were raising their heads, so I jumped up. They hit the spot I laid in, blistering some rock and I blasted into the exit ahead of me.

I rolled and took off in a jog. I was getting mana-tired. After two torches, I noticed I still held the rock, so I shoved it into the backbag and looked back. The dogs were three torches behind and began picking up their tempo.

I kept running until I heard the stomping rocks were just behind my back. I took off into fake-flight again. There was a bend to the right ahead and I had to slow myself down. Just as I was about to hit the ground, I exploded to the side and flew just below something swooshing above.

I tumbled and looked back. There was an arm made out of the same floating cubes, sticking out of the ceiling. I boosted myself again.

Three torches ahead was a T-section with a larger, bear-like construct guarding it. After the second torch, I tried to keep myself afloat while slowing down and when I was at the edge of the bend, boosted to the right.

After another tumble, I was running again. I heard a large crash but didn't bother turning to see it. After two torches, there was a turn left. Beyond it, I saw an illuminated, two-winged door. Symmetrically, there were two bears looking at each other on it, standing on a person in a pointy hat and someone with a bow.

I stopped before the door and leaned against it, supporting myself with one hand. I was short of breath and felt magically thin.

Suddenly the door opened and I stumbled, falling face-first on the ground. I chuckled and looked up. There was a bull made out of cubes, standing in the middle of a large space. The beast was about twice the size of the bear, the room twice as high. The walls on three sides were identical, with square hollows carved into them, in three tiers, each about half the size of the previous one.

I walked in and the door closed. I heard griding and looked back. The wall behind me took on the same form the others had. In it, on a small pedestal was a tiny cube floating.

I slowly walked backwards and the bull didn't react. When my back touched the wall, I boosted myself up lightly while turning and landed on the shelf. Now the bull began hitting the ground in slow motion.

I run deeper in and mana-hopped over the shelves. Mid-flight I took of my backbag and slid it over the cube. Target captured I turned back to the bull, which was now - still slowly - running towards me.

I boosted out and to the right, in two bursts I was in the second hollow. There was another cube there, as I thought. When I grabbed it, I heard the bull crash into a wall.

I boosted straight ahead, towards the third cube. The bull rearranged itself as I was reaching the third hollow. When I grabbed the cube and turned around, the bull was running towards me at a pretty normal pace.

In three boosts I reached the fourth cube. I grabbed it and nothing happened. The bull managed to make the turn and was running towards me.

In the middle of the room, an altar rose. Three floating cubes, each about the size of my head, above each other and four smaller, hollowed-out ones on each of the sides of the top cube.

I boosted out, holding one cube. I bloody hoped, this would end this, rather than turn on the hard mode, if there was such a thing.

I shoved myself back when I was above the structure and landed badly on the stones. Before I feel from the altar I smashed my cube onto the closest slot. When the stones touched each other, the one in my hand shifted and aligned itself.

I fell and the bull flew over me. I boosted up, while pulling out another stone from the bag and managed to get it on the pedestal.

Now the bull reformed itself to face me and as it rose its front legs, I shoved myself to the side. The damn thing smashed into the opposite wall with a large crash. I pulled out two stones and held them with mana.

Just as the thing was reforming itself, I boosted up and just in time. It smashed into my wall as soon as I took off. I boosted at an angle towards the left.

Just as I pushed myself back towards the altar, the fucking bull exploded on the ceiling. As I hit the altar, the thing was already back up.

I shoved the two stones into the free spots and there was a bullhead cube in front of me. The blocks forming the tips of its horns were above my ears.

I hit the ground and exhaled in pain, I hit my head on the ground. I turned my head to the side and the wall was sliding in.

With a grumble, I stood up and looked around. The walls slowly smoothed out and the one behind me formed a door in itself.

On the door, was a carving of a figure with a staff shining light onto the three earlier humanoid figures. Around them laid crumbled blocks.

When I looked back, the altar was gone, but the bull was still there, unmoving. I laughed and fell to the floor in hysterical giggles.

After some times, I was done cleaning the floor with my clothes and got up. When I reached the door, it opened and there was a black, reflective surface beyond it. I walked into it.

Bright light assaulted my eyes. Once I readjusted, there was the cobble path before me. I took in a deep breath.

"That was fucking fun!!" I yelled out to the sky. With a smile still on my face, I felt something shift on my forehead and collapsed in pain, into uneasy dreams.