Nothing, a calming senseless sensation encroached on every inch of his senses, drowning out all other external sensations to the point only a faint drone could break through. As even the droning began to subside, the silence was shortly replaced by heavy and hearty breaths. The breaths shortly turned into light snoring as faint footsteps approached.

"Dr Zalto?" a faint meesly voice uttered breaking through the drowning silence of the endless abyss. The originator of the voice, one mix of worry and concern, murmured under their breath, wondering what they should do as Zalto didn't respond. A middle amount of rustling, which gradually got louder, drew nearer as faint breathing emerged.

"Doctor Zalto!" the measly voice exclaimed, struggling to raise itself above average conversation decibels. The drowning sensation slowly began to recede, drawing the dulled-out sounds from the distance back to the forefront.

Feeling his concentration ruined, Zalto sighed with a hint of pride, finding someone managing to break his focus worthy of praise, before he opened one of his deep blue eyes with golden pupils and glanced around his cluttered private study in search of the person calling for him. The young boy, dressed in mechanic overalls and attire, stared up at Zalto as he was laid back in a chair made of paper clips.

"Yes, Lucas?" Zalto asked. The boy jumped from pure shock at being referred to by name.

"y-you know my name?" Lucus uttered nervously, twiddling his thumbs together and taking a step back as Zalto stood up. Zalto ran his glowing rainbow fingertips through his wool-like snow-white hair with pale lime tips, slicking it back so it wasn't in his face.

"Naturally, it would be a huge vulnerability in security if I didn't know everyone working under me," Zalto explained nonchalantly as a small wave of deep red lightning-like energy washed over the paperclip chair before it collapsed into a pile of paperclips. Lucus shuffled on the spot, his avian wings rustling with him, and glanced up to Zalto.

"Erm... I see. So, Lady Locket wanted your opinion on the current progress of the Ion Trains restoration," Lucas explained as he wrapped his wings around himself into the shape of a cloak.

"Figures, but knowing her she just wants me to do it for her, so she can go back to making her robot mecha," Zalto remarked amusedly. Lucus couldn't help but stifle a weak giggle, averting his gaze and confirming Zalto's guess. Zalto shook his head, mulling over getting involved before seeing Lucas's worried puppy dog eyes.

"Very well, I can't have Locket making you test her inventions," Zalto stated. Lucus exhaled in pure relief, deeply thanking Zalto, and mentioned Lady Locket said she'd planned on making him be the test subject for her prototype armour's proposal system.

"She's back on that project is she?" Zalto asked, with Lucas nodding in confirmation. Zalto sighed before he marched off with Lucas shuffling behind him. Walking through the industrial brick workshop, the duo constantly strolled and weaved between the many crates and large metalwork components sprawled throughout their path.

"Say...," Lucas utter, looking up to Zalto in anticipation of a response.

"Ask away.". Lucas nodded in appreciation.

"I was wondering, I thought Lady Locket said people part of the acolyte didn't need to sleep.". Zalto flinched at Lucas' question, blushing faintly as he cleared his throat.

"I was meditating," Zalto stated defiantly, denying any implication he was wasting any time on sleeping.

"But you were snoring though?". Zalto sighed in defeat, swaying his head to the side as he conceded defeat to Lucas.

"Well, prolonged meditation is tiring.". Lucas giggled a little at Zalto's remark, especially with the serious delivery.

"Especially when keeping paperclips strong enough to support your weight?". Zalto nodded, appreciating Lucas' ability to understand the difference between sleeping and meditation even if to a minor extent. Continuing to ask Zalto questions, the duo continued their way to Locket's workshop before Zalto abruptly stopped mid-step. Lucas continued to walk a bit until he noticed Zalto had stopped.

Lucas looked back, a pang of worry growing on his face as he saw the chilling cold glare Zalto gave to the window.

"Docto-". Zalto cut Lucas off as he snatched him off his feet, and dashed away from the window as Lucas caught sight of the spiralling black mass barrelling right for the duo. Zalto shoulder-barged the nearby brick wall and smashed straight into the adjacent room before the black mass obliterated the hallway and more of the brick wall, propelling the duo even further.

Zalto and Lucas barreled through the assembly lines filled warehouse as tendril-like extensions erupted from the black mass and clung to the destroyed wall. One of the mass' tendrils sprung out directly for the duo, at a speed even Zalto could barely track. Zalto swung his body around to keep Lucus out of the tendril's path but failed to avoid getting struck in the back himself; Zalto choked on his breath, a tiny amount of blood flying out his mouth. Steeling back his pain and keeping his eyes locked on the attacker, Zalto spun through the air before landing on a suspended walkway and gently placing Lucas beside him.

"What is that thing?" Lucas exclaimed, looking to Zalto for an answer on the severity of their situation. Zalto was silent, choosing to sift through all his knowledge but coming up blank, as he clenched his fists and cracked his knuckles.

"No clue," Zalto stated sternly. The abrupt response sent red flags through Lucas' brain, perplexing him as he's heard Zalto's family is known for their wide range of knowledge in many fields, so Zalto not knowing something was unheard of. Lucas worriedly looked at the black mass, watching it shrink and contort into a vaguely humanoid shape with twenty arms and three heads wearing different distorted expressions: a crooked ear-to-ear grin, a drooping frown, and a soulless deadpan glare.

"I... don't sense any spiritual energies from that thing...," Lucas uttered while Zalto's expression soured even further as he also confirmed Lucas' observation.

"If that's the case then I better get that thing out of here," Zalto announced. Before Lucas could even let his words sink in, Zalto lunged at the black mass monster, goading it into lunge at him in turn. As the two lunging beings were close to colliding, Zalto smirked and swung his arm forward before he conjured a rainbow-coloured rectangle-shaped portal in front of himself. Their momentum carried them through the portal before it dispersed the second both individuals went through it. Lucas blankly stared at the spot where the portal previously was.

"Is that it?" Lucas uttered with concern in his voice. As he continued to stare, a tall adult woman with a striking resemblance to Zalto, and wearing blacksmithing attire, rushed over to Lucas.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Lucas! Where's the monster!" the woman stated boldly, her voice somehow imposingly loud despite speaking with a normal voice. Lucas' entire body shivered at the woman's question, the sensation of an entire building crushing down on him, making it hard for him to breathe, let alone speak.

"I- um a erm, Dr... Zalto portal.". Lucas managed to get his message across, sporadic and clunky as it might've been, and he watched as the woman's neutral expression shifted ever so slightly to show sadness, her pure gold and deep blue eyes getting heavier at the missed opportunity.

"He beat me to it," The woman grumbled, catching Lucas off guard at the woman's disinterest in Zalto's wellbeing.

[Meanwhile?]

The rectangle portal formed in a different location before Zalto and the black mass monster shot out from the opposite sides they entered from. Zalto landed on the crystalline cyan ground, an emotionless glint in his eyes as he opened his eyes.

"Hah, mother almost... beat me to....". Zalto trailed off as he noticed the peculiar location he wound up in, even managing to throw off his attempt to stay stoic.

"This isn't where I intended to teleport," Zalto added, glancing around the pitch-black void before he locked onto the giant crystalline tree far off in the distance with glowing cyan leaves and roots sprawled out in every direction with seemingly no end in sight.

"Is this, the place mother and grandfather spoke of; the representation of our world in the abyss: The Aether Tree.". He gazed at the tree in amazement, briefly forgetting the reason he even ended up as he took in the rare sight. His concentration was only broken by the guttural screech of the black mass monster.

Zalto spun on the spot bracing himself for a battle. But as he spotted the black mass monster violently contorted, inverting and folding in on itself in unnatural ways that Zalto couldn't even perceive the movement. The mass shrunk smaller and smaller until forming into a perfect sphere and taking on a dark azure blue-colouration.

"Aether in its energy state... how....". Zalto's words began to slur as the building pain in his body began to dull his senses and even the pain itself. He raised his hand to his face, watching as his vision blurred into almost a single colour. Zalto could feel a slimy sensation building up in his throat, with the liquid forcing itself out before he hacked up aether-infused blood.

"Is this... aether blood disease?" Zalto managed to utter. As he struggled to channel any red lightning-like energy out of his hands, Zalto's body finally gave out and swung forward like a sack of potatoes into the giant solid crystalline tree root.

"Looks like... it's the end of the road for me... at least nobody got hurt I guess, other than me anyway," Zalto remarked mentally. As his consciousness began to fade, he resigned himself to his fate while thinking his mother would kill him for being felled by an unknown entity without learning anything about it.

"Your branch of his bloodline certainly loves to risk your lives for even a drop of knowledge, don't they," a child-like female voice stated. Zalto felt a sharp prick in the base of his next, followed by the feeling of his blood being drained from him. Feeling a surge of energy flow into him, Zalto shot his eyes open with his vision partially restored.

He pushed himself to his feet but stumbled back and fell on his butt, due to his weakened physical state. Zalto glanced to his side, spotting the glowing pale cyan blur beside him and assuming it was the cause of his neck pains.

"Ahem!" a bratty teenaged female voice barked. Zalto turned his vision forward before spotting the three humanoid cyan blurs in front of him, one of which was connected to the cyan tendril attached to him. The towering blur bowed slightly, giving Zalto a strangely familial and oddly cosy feeling in his chest. Although not used to the feeling, Zalto wasn't too averse to the butterflies in his stomach.

"On behalf of our colleague, One apologies, a descendant of three of the original Heavenly Heroes," the tallest humanoid stated, his voice both imposing yet standing calming. The tallest humanoid's voice filled Zalto with a distant sense of nostalgia from his childhood.

"Apologise... for what?" Zalto asked, his voice spliced together between hacks and coughs.

"We hijacked your replication of Dimensional Portals to bring the aether soursling back to the aether realm after a certain calamity dropping it, but to the detriment of accelerating the process of the aether blood poison, the Zalto briefly received into aether blood disease," the bratty short teen-sized blur explained. Zalto nodded along, middle shaking his head as his situation sunk in.

"So, this is the end for me then, isn't it?".

"As the you you are now perhaps," the kid-sized blur stated, catching Zalto's attention. 

"By which you mean?" Zalto inquired, pushing himself to a more upright position in an attempt to appear more formal but only ending up coursing himself more pain.

"We are in need of a harbinger who we can send with the aether soursling to its intended destination," the adult blur explained, adding that the aether soursling is a sort of stabilizer for realities. Zalto lowered his head, understanding what the adult blur was getting at, ending up in a sitting bow as his body went limp.

"One is glad you understand and accept our form of atonement, and know once you are in the new world you won't need to do anything else on our behalf," the adult blur stated, even getting down on one knee and bowing to Zalto in turn which shocked the other two blurs. Zalto felt himself becoming weightless and glanced down at his hand, watching his fingers slowly unravel into thin strings. Zalto smirked, tightly clasping what was left of his hand as his body began to glow.

"As long as there are new things to see, I'll be content, Mr Ester," Zalto said cheekily as his body started to fall apart and scatter fully into string leaving only a glowing orb of energy. The tallest blur was silent before a distorted but positive chime echoed from the glowing orb of light in his chest.

"Then you won't be disappointed," Ester replied, handing Zalto's soul with care as he placed it inside the refined aether soursling.

With a sun gently shining down on the land, Zalto shot his eyes open, feeling the sudden cold breeze wash over him and the soft grass brushing against his skin. Zalto felt an itch against his hand, giving him the image of an insect crawling on it, before swiping it away and in front of his face. Slightly shocked but not entirely surprised by what he saw, Zalto was left stunned as he saw his pale skin but more importantly his significantly smaller hand. He sprung to his feet and glanced around his immediate area, taking in his new surroundings.

As far as his eyes could see, droves and droves of double-storey oak trees furnished with rainbow-coloured crystalline-textured leaves. The leaves sparkled from the sun's light as they shuffled in the wind. Zalto lowered his gaze trailing the grooves of the tree he stood under, placing a hand to it and running his hand over the faint rainbow glow seeping out the grooves.

"I must really have-". Zalto jumped back slightly, hearing his slightly girly kid voice startling him. He rubbed the back of his head while thinking the bright side of his new voice being somewhat soothing instead of grating.

"I really have been reincarnated," Zalto uttered sombrely as he looked down to see his new clothes; a black short-sleeved fur tunic, pale sapphire cotton fur trimmed shorts with black fur suspenders, oak wooden sandals. Zalto spotted a small pond nearby. He pushed himself off the tree and walked towards the pond, stumbling on almost every step due to his sudden change in height.

He eventually reached the small pond surrounded by trees, swiftly getting down on his knees and placing his hands on the ground to prevent himself from accidentally falling in. He moved his head over the pond gazing into its sunlight-fueled glistening as he took in his new appearance.

(Zalto is a pale-skinned male elf with the appearance of a ten-year-old; he has curly hip-low pale tea green hair, pale/faded sapphire eyes with white whirlpool-shaped iris', and pointy elf ears)

Zalto inspected his appearance, grabbing and prodding at his face with interest before lightly striking the tip of his right ear and making his ear wobble up and down like a spring-loaded door stop.

"At least I'm still a guy...," Zalto mentioned before he pushed against the ground, attempting to return to a standing position; midway up, Zalto noticed his rise stop as a sense of impending misfortune filled him. With his face scrunching up, Zalto cringed in embarrassment as he swung forward and crashed face-first into the pond, flinging a large splash of freezing water into the air like a geyser.