Hardcore.

Meaning, single-life. You die once and it’s over—gameover, man.

Restart, no respawning, no desperate sprint for your loot and gear.

That was my style. 

I needed stakes. Deadlines to push me forwards. 

Even in the video games I play I suppose… 

But not like this.

Dear god…WHY? 

—HAVE YOU TRANSMITIGATED ME INTO A HARDCORE WORLD.

I was standing in a meadow. 

A sour feeling building in the pit of my stomach for one simple reason, even despite the absurdity I was experiencing.

It was beautiful. 

Lush, filled with flowers and insects alike. Bee’s buzzed to and fro from a lone large oak tree lightly swaying in the distance. 

Rolling hills filled the horizon stretching onwards like an ocean of green.

The sun, just barely risen burned the sky in a myriad of crimson and citrus. The air was utterly devoid of corruption, crisp, if you will.

This was too real. 

Which is why I knew it was hardcore. 

I knew I only had one chance of surviving. 

“Inventory!” I said confidently.

‘…’

Nothing happened. 

“E?”

‘…’

Fuck.

— 

It has been hours.

I am starving.

I have been walking through this godforsaken meadow the whole time. East, arbitrarily picked because there was nothing but meadow around me.

Is there food in meadows?

Probably? 

I can’t see shit but grass and flowers. I passed what seemed to be berries… but was I really willing to test my luck? Roll the dice on poisonousness edibility?

My feet burned, soles sore and tender from trudging through brambles and thorn-laced bushes.

Did I forget to mention by the way?

I’m bare ass naked. 

“WHY ARE THERE SO MANY INSECTS!” I screamed into the blue sky above.

[Constitution +1]

‘…’

The fuck?

A voice entered my mind unprompted. Its tone a grating grizzly metal, like a dying cybernetic-god. 

It quickly disappeared like the soft breeze brushing against my skin. 

The insects continued to buzz around me. 

“Status.” I said aloud.

[Player Status]

Strength - 10

Dexterity - 10

Constitution - 11

[Available…]

Text bursted into life before me, written in a pure white ink, it floated unfettered of the world around it.

Are you kidding me? Where’s my goddamn inventory?

For a moment, I thought I knew what had happened. That I had been brought into this hardcore world… 

But what’s with this Player Status screen? 

I looked over my shoulder to see the sun threatening to set behind me. 

Maybe five—six hours left? Jesus. 

Then it goes down? 

Then it gets dark?

‘…’

I turned around and hurried my pace even more. Ignoring my status in lieu of focusing on my survival. I squinted at the building mass of shadows in the distance. 

A forest?

I prayed. Gritting my teeth before breaking into a pained jog. 

—

The sound of a small rushing stream built as I reached the forest. 

Thirst consumed I collapsed on its muddy shores cupping water into my mouth. Giardia be damned, this place is so pristine I bet this shit is better than Fiji. 

It was. 

I eventually just dunked my entire head into the glass-like waters. The cold baptized me anew, cleansing the grime and exhaustion from my soul. I was already naked. Which I was now ironically thankful for, since I’d have to trudge to the other side.

I stared up, my face dripping with water, my dark hair clinging to my skin in a mixture of stinging sweat.

The terrain changed unnaturally abruptly.

The river a hard border delineating the meadow from the forest. 

A harsh biome change. 

I saw a dark forest filled with broad trees. Mud coloured bark stretched upwards into mushroom-like canopies. I could tell they were oak trees, yet they looked ever-so slightly off. 

This world so far was… uncanny.

Which made sense I guess?

The forest was fairly dark, a little brooding, and something at the back of my mind told me that danger lurked within its woods. 

But the thought of standing in an open meadow bare ass naked as night approached was worse.

Goosebumps bubbled to my skins surface, the ambient temperature was dropping with the sun. A feature I was not used to. 

I quickly stomped through the river seeing small fish dash away from my legs. I cursed as I stepped on a sharp rock, while also thanking the numbing cold waters.

I only had an hour or two of sunlight left. 

To my glorious surprise as I crept into woods my eye caught a gleaming red.

A succulent apple, an apple tree if you will.

I quickly reached up and plucked the lowest hanging fruit I could. Each bite snapped off with an unnatural crunch. Like ambrosia on my tongue, sweetness bursted in a myriad of flavors. 

Maybe it’s the hunger, but this might be the best damn apple I’ve ever eaten.

While gorging myself I also scanned around me, looking for fallen sticks. A weapon of sorts. 

I settled on an arms length branch, it felt sturdy enough and fit snuggly in my grip. Though I already knew how pathetic my circumstances were.

Budget caveman role-play essentially. 

I stared back at the soon to be setting sun. A cold shiver washing along my back. 

Fuck—I’m so fucked.

I searched through the forest, looking for the most secure tree to climb up and hide atop. 

CRACK!

I jolted. My head whipping around me to see a blur of brown and white.

A deer, staring at me blankly with dark pupil’d eyes.

A deer? 

That wasn’t… normal? 

It gave me a momentary glance before tuning tail and prancing away. 

Slowly but surely my established assumptions were being washed away.

I sighed before continuing my search.

Instead of a tree-house, I eventually found a hollow. An uncomfortably tight hollow, but deep and narrow enough for me to barricade with sticks and mud. 

Which I promptly began to do. 

As soon as I finished, the sun had just began to kiss the horizon. I crept into my hovel, pulling a ramshackle mass of cobbled together terribly weaved dirt and sticks behind me. 

My makeshift door engulfed me in a rather satisfying darkness. 

I was sitting naked, completely lost in an unknown world, awaiting the incoming swarm of monsters and beasts that I believed to stalk the night.

I coughed, my eyes tearing slightly. 

I couldn’t understand. Unable to comprehend the sheer reality that I was in. Something at the back of my head was screaming at me to sleep, to wake-up from this dream. 

But I knew that this was no dream.

Why? 

Why me?

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The night outside was quiet, the shaking of leaves filled the air. I could just barely see the moonlight seeping through small gaps in my door.

“Status.” I whispered.

[Player Status]

Strength - 10

Dexterity - 10

Constitution - 11

[Available…]

I hadn’t gained another stat point. I turned my attention to the last line, almost mentally clicking on it.

The text changed, blinking out and back in an instant. 

[Bonus Chest!]

’Select One… 

- Air Aspect I

- Iron Sword of Fire Aspect I

- Potion of Invisibility II

At this point I shouldn’t be surprised anymore. If everything is absurd, nothing is.

I withheld my disbelief, hugging my knees in the dark hollow, the smell of oak and dirt suffocating my nostrils. 

The bottom two options I recognized, rather comforting in their familiarity. 

But the first option?

Air Aspect? 

I had never heard of it, never seen it, and the curiosity was going to get the better of me—I could feel it. 

It would stand to reason to take my time with this choice, the sword immediately useful, a weapon for defense and perhaps even a fire starter.

The potion a temporary measure, doubtfully lasting long enough for me to hide through the night. 

Would picking the first option just give me an enchanting book? Wouldn’t it say ‘Book of..’? 

‘…’

Fuck it!

I chose Air Aspect, a silent prayer escaping my lips as I made the mental choice. 

The screen flared, the text fading into the darkness around me. 

The ensuing silence was slightly awkward…err hello—

I barely mustered the thought before a searing pain began burning its way through my body. 

I choked on excruciation, folding over onto the dirt, digging my fingers into the earth I wheezed. 

I suffered in silence, still aware of my desperate circumstances. I was scared noise would attract… things. 

The pain ran rampant around my body, following my veins and coalescing along my outer forearms. 

I looked down to see two glowing sets of dots and lines branding themselves into my arms. I tasted blood in my mouth, I ground my jaw, my teeth threatening to shatter.

And like the wind…

It was over. 

I heaved, trying to manage my silent breaths of relief. 

I leaned back against the inside of the hollow, my heart beginning to slow once again. 

My body felt raw. 

Like I had been pushed through a blender and remolded. I stared down at my forearms, my mouth agape at the sight of an oddly familiar looking set of runes.

From wrist to elbow, two lengths of runes ran.

‘ᔑ╎∷ ᔑᓭ!¡ᒷᓵℸ I’ 

I don’t know how but I knew what it meant.

Air Aspect I. 

A smile crept to my lips. 

I brought my hand before my face, or, at least I thought I did, it was really dark in this hollow. 

The darkness was quickly parted by a soft blue glow, the runic script along my forearms illuminating in an ethereal blue light. 

I could feel energy—mana—coursing through my veins to my arms. My heart as the source of power, pushing it around me with every beat. 

A small breeze began to build upon my palm. An almost imperceptible swirl of air formed sending a shiver down my spine.  

I had gained the ability to manipulate air.

I was a fucking AIR BENDER!

[Mana +5]

The metallic cyber-demon voice nearly made me shit myself in surprise. I would’ve screamed aloud if I wasn’t rudely interrupted. 

By a piercing howl. 

Which was quickly followed by a handful more, forming a symphony of terror that reverberated through the forest like a tidal wave.

My body froze. The human in me having a primal reaction to the howls.

The magical glow of my arms quickly died out, my excitement at my newfound supernatural abilities evaporating into thin air.

I could hear my heart beginning to pound in my ears.

I held my knees close to my bare chest, kinda wishing I had a flaming fucking sword about now. 

I had almost forgotten for a moment that I was in rather dire straits.

This was going to be a long night. 

—

I don’t know when I fell asleep.

Choosing to close my eyes and hide away for my first night. 

An ancient tactic.

I dreamt of waking up at my desk. My game paused on my screen, that yesterday was a dream, and today was the funny moment of disbelief at such a dream. 

That I’d hear my little sister, Charlotte, knocking on my door to go and grab a coffee, that I was late for work or something. I’d tell her about the crazy dream I had and she’d laugh at the absurdity of the situation, call me stupid and crazy.

Haha… no.

I awoke to the noise of chirping birds, the bleeding light of dawn seeping through the gaps in my ramshackle door and the aching in my body from sleeping in a claustrophobically tight tree hollow, my knee’s cracked and grinded as I stretched outwards.

I pushed the door over, watching it shatter into pieces before crawling out of the tree like a newborn. Covered in dirt and littered in swollen red scratches from yesterday’s trek.

I tentatively looked around me seeing nothing but a few birds flying overhead. The leafy blanket of branches above me swayed in a cool morning breeze.

The sun streamed through forest, having only barely risen. 

I had survived my first night.

My hands shot up in celebration, before the groan of my stomach dampened that moment.

I can’t just live on apples for the rest of my life, I sighed. 

‘…’

Haha, the rest of my life… the rest of… my life.

I looked down at my hands, then up at the blue sky. I felt the breeze around me, the chirp of the birds and the scent of earthy nature fill my lungs.

What could I do but accept my current reality?

Could I just hide away each night? 

Pretend that this isn’t real? That any moment now I’d wake up from this… nightmare?

No.

If I am anything, as my co-workers would say—I am too resilient for my own good.

I did win a company award for such tenacity after all.

I would not let the world, foreign or otherwise prevent me from thriving!

I raised a fist to the sky as an oath to myself to not give in to the absurd.

— 

What nobody mentions, in these sorts of survival situations, is the discomfort in having to adjust to not having a toilet.

I stood up from my recently used make-shift pit toilet. Making sure to bury the moss I used to wipe my ass with, I marked the location like one would a land-mine.

It was a fresh day. 

One full of many possibilities! 

I sat just outside my hollow, staring at my Status, an apple core freshly eaten by my side.

[Player Status]

Strength - 10

Dexterity - 10

Constitution - 11

Mana - 5

[Enchantments]

Air Aspect - I

My newfound abilities had appeared under a new tab, Enchantments. Additionally I had gained a new stat, Mana. 

It, unlike my others had only started at five, I wonder why it only appeared after I gained my Enchantment?

I shrugged, settling into a meditative position.

I gazed inwards, breathing slowly, feeling the Mana flow throughout my body. 

It was a euphoric feeling. Like discovering you had a layer of strength you never knew, a phantasmal arm to interact with the world. 

While there was Mana within, it seemed I could only manifest it as air control outside. 

My forearms glowed, my Air Aspect runes coming to life as I willed my mana within me to move. 

I felt a small drain on my reserves. 

I raised my palm to the sky, my eyebrows creasing as I tried imagining a sphere of air spinning in my palm. My mana moved sluggishly to my will, the runes seemingly acting as a medium for my control. 

I watched as a small ball of air slowly spun to life, smaller than I imagined it to be. It was about the size of a nail, a marble of wind condensed under my will.

I breathed slowly, sensing small particulates of ambient mana entering my lungs before being processed by my heart. 

The replenishment didn’t equal my expenditure. 

I exhaled, letting go of the air marble. 

I watched as it continued spinning in place for a breath before dissipating. 

Curious.

I had enough mana for maybe five air marbles. With the initial cost of conjuring the air marble being the biggest crux, maintaining them once they formed was rather easy. 

I formed another marble. 

But this time I imagined it spinning faster.

The marble swirled around, slowly at first before I pressed my will into it to make it revolve faster and faster.

My hands quivered, a subtly painful strain building within my veins. 

The marble spun, spinning fast enough for me to hear the air being pulled into the rapidly forming vortex of wind. 

I clenched my teeth, folding my middle finger to my palm, holding it down with my thumb. 

Like a coiled spring, I flicked the marble forwards. The marble snapped through the air, careening towards a tree. 

I heard a light thump, a crunch then silence. 

I exhaled, feeling the strain release on my mind and veins.

I walked over to the tree I had targeted, examining the damanage. 

About the power of an average punch? Not bad… 

I grinned. 

There was potential. 

And by gods.

I was using bloody magic. A giddy child-like sensation overcame me, I broke into a small victory dance. Shooting finger guns into the air and mockingly blowing invisible smoke away from the ‘barrels’. 

I looked over to the sun, still rising. 

I assumed it was somewhere around eight O’clock in the morning.

I had a few things on my agenda for today.

A proper shelter for one. 

Ideally pants, but I knew that was currently a pipe-dream. 

I also needed another source of food, protein… I thought, almost salivating at the mouth. 

Water, Food, Shelter.

I had the river nearby, which covered both water & food as I had seen fish o’plenty swimming around.

I wasn’t much of a fisherman, but how hard could it be to catch some fish? 

I mean I had magic!

MAGIC MAN!

—

SHKK!

‘…’

Another miss. My terrible makeshift wooden spear slipped out of the river, sadly devoid of a catch.

“SLIPPERY BASTARDS!” I shouted at the fish below me.

I had been stabbing at the water for an hour to no avail. At some point I even emptied my mana pool trying to blast the fish away with balls of furious air.

I found that shooting compressed air at water was like trying to collapse a concrete wall by throwing a tomato at it.

Wildly ineffective, while subsequently elucidating me of the effects of running low on mana. 

I sat by the waters edge, tired, defeated, hungry and massaging my temples of the throbbing mana-headache. The fish swam around nearby, obviously taunting me.

Hah...

I brought my “spear” to my face, thinking for a moment. 

With a rock I split the tip in two, or, I tried to at first, only ending up snapping off the tip.

I cursed before finding another spear to work with.

Carefully this time, I split the end by wedging a sharp rock into the end before gently tapping it down. Then once more, forming a crude trident.

It was reminiscent of a tri-tipped fishing spear I had seen once on the primitive history channel. After using a large coarse boulder to sharpen the tips, I returned to my fishing attempts. 

This time however I approached carefully.

I dipped the spear into the water, trying to understand how the water refracted the entrance of spear. Mentally trying to visualize where my spear would be versus where my mind thought it should be. 

Satisfied, I took a deep breath, looking around me for my first victim.

I saw a lightly red/pinkish fish, salmon perhaps? I wasn’t sure, again, not a fisher. 

Well… for now.

I measured where I should stab, where the fish could run, and with a decisive stab I sent my trident hurtling into the water. 

The spear dug into the river bed, kicking up a cloud of silt & mud. 

Did I hit it?

The rivers flow quickly washed the disturbed debris away, revealing…

“FUCK YEAH!” I screamed, carefully pulling the spear out of the river to reveal a hand-sized fish impaled on the end of my trident. 

I grinned like a child, jumping around in jubilation, splashing the water about and scaring off any nearby fish. 

Didn’t matter though.

I’M A FISHERMAN!

It seemed even the world agreed.

[Dexterity +1]

— 

After making an absolute mess trying to gut the fish by the rivers edge with the sharpest rock I could find. I returned to my hollow, hanging the fish on a branch just above me.

My new order of business was trying to start a fire. 

I chuckled a little at how I had ignored the option to receive a literal flaming sword but held little regrets since I was now a fucking wizard.

I proceeded my cave-man role play by pathetically trying to rub two sticks together for embarrassingly longer than I’d like to admit.

I got whiffs of smoke, but quickly realized I had no fuel.

Again, I was rushing into things without thinking it through. 

I looked around me, gathering as many dried leaves and small sticks as I could. Then moved onto larger finger-sized sticks before collecting a few arm-sized branches. 

I also scraped from the Oak trees what looked to be sap, it was amber, deceptively like honey but tasted bitter.

I cleared a small pit for my fire, a fire pit if you will. 

I formed a small cabin of sticks around some dried grass and the most flammable flakes of wood I could gather.

Now was the hard part.

I thought for a moment about trying to use my Air Aspect to try and start a fire, I knew that compressing air fast and hard enough could in theory elicit an ember.

However I was low on mana, it seemed my passive regeneration was rather slow at roughly an air marble worth of mana an hour. Though I found that mediation and focusing on explicitly processing the mana through my heart helped.

Instead, I returned to rubbing sticks together. Well, specifically I plowed a stick into a stone flattened branch. 

I used the weight of my body to grind the stick into the branch, repeatedly dragging it back and forwards until a black groove started to form in the branch.

After ten minutes of determined effort I stopped with bated breaths. I could see a thin line of smoke rising from the ember I had created.

I carefully tapped it into the bundle of dried grass and flakes I had gathered, softly blowing into it. 

YES!

FIRE! 

“OOGA BOOGA!” I shouted aloud as the fire flickered to life. 

My hands felt raw from the process and I was already sweating a little from the back and forth. I carefully tended to the flames, stacking sticks of gradually increasing size until I had a well and true fire.

I stood, satisfied once more at my efforts. 

Caveman one, hardcore world zero. I smiled to myself turning around to grab & roast my hard earned fish—

‘…’

Where the fuck is my fish?

I stared agape at the empty spear. 

“who the f—?” I barely muttered before a piercing chirk from high above me sounded out.

I stared upwards, my eyes widening at the sight of a squirrel the size of a small cat holding MY FISH in its disgusting paws.

“You motherfucker.” I said, only to receive a smug chirk back.

Without hesitation I conjured an air marble, ignoring the headache in my temples as I flicked the marble forwards with all my might.

The marble shot through the space, crossing the distance in but the blink of an eye. 

The squirrel squeaked at the sudden attack. 

I missed.

The marble whipped past the culprit, only ruffling its dark brown furs in the process. 

I cursed aloud. Trying to summon more mana to my hands but a splitting pain stabbed at my mind.

GAH! Curse this pathetic mana pool of mine. I held my head, fury and wrath threatening to engulf me.

I looked back up at the squirrel, who had disappeared into the thick canopy of leaves above. 

‘Sigh...’ 

Defeated, I grabbed my spear once more, making sure to feed the flames of my fire before I left. 

As I took the walk of shame back to the river. My knuckles rapt over my fishing spear I made my second oath since arriving in this world.

I would have my vengeance.

—

A little later in the day, as the sun began to kiss the horizon once more, the sky a tapestry of fire.

I leaned back against the entrance of my hollow, a new make-shift door sitting just to the side. A stick rested in my hands, a charring fish at its tip. The smell of roasting fish filled the air around my hollow.

There is nothing more nostalgic than a fire.

I thought back to the moments I spent hiking as a kid, backpacking through the rockies with my friends for weeks at a time.

Sigh…

I charred the fish, I’d say it was a tasteful choice but that’d be a lie.

I always had somebody else cook & catch the fish for me. 

I should’ve learned when I could.

You never know when you’ll be stranded in the woods it seems… 

When I finished my meal, I indulged in roasting an apple for desert.

A waste of time perhaps.

But I had to treat myself early on, I wanted to thrive, not just survive.

I bit into the lightly roasted apple, the succulent sweetness melting upon my tongue, I smiled bitterly.

Earth.

Home.

Friends. 

My one remaining family member.

I worried for my little sister, but I knew she’d be fine, she was capable for her age. I raised her to be.

‘…’ 

I chuckled, knowing how she wouldn’t accept my disappearance, she’d search for me forever—a sadly fruitless endeavor.

Ah, geez. 

I didn’t get to give her the birthday present I had been saving for.

Ironically, now we’d both be completely alone in our respective worlds.

I savored the taste of the succulent roasted apple. 

Enjoying the cooling night, the arrival of dusk. 

I looked outwards to the meadow, seeing the darkening sky through the trees.

I saw stars.

They twinkled to life in the hundreds—thousands.

I’d never seen a night sky so clear. A myriad, a cosmic blanket of lights, each star uniquely different.

Some sparkled red, or green, some large while others looked like god had poked pinholes in the abyssal canopy above. 

Unfettered by humanity.

I wiped the tears from my eyes, throwing the apple core into the flames. The water content within crackled and popped. I stared at the flaming tendrils, slithering into the air like a hundred snakes tongues.

—

I spent the night hiding away again.

But this time practicing my Air Aspect. Observing the way mana moved through my body, how the runes on my arms glowed and modified the outcome.

It was like a permit. Worldly permission to be a wizard. I had tried imaging a ball of flames instead of air to no avail.

The mana inert to my attempts.

Hell, even just trying to expel pure mana was impossible, not to mention excruciatingly painful. Akin to pushing a kidney stone out of my fingers. I tried no further after that experience.

I did succeed elsewhere. 

Mainly in shaping the air marbles into what I can only describe as a bullet. A small sharpened drill-like cone of solid air.

It was slightly smaller than my initial attempts, yet its shape gave it much, much more penetrating power.

I’ll admit it.

I spent WAY too much time getting the air bullet to form at the tip of a finger gun.

After all, why not? Why shouldn’t I?

I was a wizard after all, and this was my magic.

I had let my fire die, but the embers still smoldered through the night.

A howl cut through the quiet night once more. 

I stilled.

It was closer than before…

Uncomfortably so.

And before I could prepare for it, I heard a low growl outside, followed by a sniffling search of scents.

I realized in my current circumstance… I should’ve cooked further from my hollow.

I kept my breath low, but I knew it was futile.

I saw the movement of shadows behind my makeshift door now suddenly a whole lot less secure with something stalking just outside.

My body tensed, goosebumps bubbling to my skin as I held my breath in anticipation. My nose twitched, a musky, almost old rain like smell filled my hollow, as I heard the heavy huffs of breath just outside.

One of the beasts got a little too curious for its own good. Its nose pushing up against my door, trying to smell me.

DWFFTD!

A wind bullet blasted forwards, my finger gun smoking in residue air mana. 

The beast yelped, high-pitched and confused. 

I charged out of my hollow screaming something primal.

“GRWAAARRRGHH!” My voice bellowed out like it had never done before. 

I caught sight of three wolves—three much larger than expected wolves. 

About hip height, cloaked in a grey fur that seemed almost silver in the moonlight. Their snouts were pulled into snarls, saliva dripping from razor-sharp teeth.

I held my wooden fishing trident, feeling woefully ill-equipped with my other hand poised in a finger gun.

I must’ve looked ridiculous, but the adrenaline flushing through my veins pushed any distracting thoughts to the side.

One of the wolves circled around me, trying to find an opening to sink its teeth into my flesh. 

I fired off a warning shot. 

It was supposed to be a normal shot but I missed. I needed practice.

My eyes darted around, swinging the trident through the air as threateningly as I could. I began growling back at the wolves, trying to make myself look more than an easy meal.

Then, I caught sight of my fire-pit. Embers still simmering in the darkness next to a wolf edging its way closer to me.

I aimed, and fired.

The compressed bullet of air tore through the space, slamming into the fire pit, erupting in an explosion of flames.

The wolves yelped as embers spewed into the air, the night momentarily flipping to day in an orange display of radiance.

It seemed enough, the wolves rapidly turning tail towards the deep forest.

It was only minutes later I released the death-grip on my trident. I had cracked the shaft out of pure tension, my hand riddled with splinters.

I huffed air, feeling like I had been holding my breath the entire time. 

Fuck. I needed a better home and some aiming practice. I thought to myself, slumping against my hollow limply, a deflated balloon.

I looked over to my makeshift door, shattered across the forest floor.

I wasn’t going to get much sleep tonight, again.

—

When I saw the sun finally rise from the hollow of my tree. My arms huddled around my legs, trying to stave away the cold of the night, my status greeted me for the start of my third day.

[Constitution +1]

“Status”

[Player Status]

Strength - 10

Dexterity - 11

Constitution - 12

Mana - 5

[Enchantments]

Air Aspect - I