“Oh Sol, the pain, why is it so painful?” I mutter to myself after the void finally flung me out. Those things should come with straps to hold you down; I'm still feeling nauseated from the spinning. But, speaking of trans-dimensional travel, where the hell did I end up.

Looking all around me, as far as my eyes can see, are trees, lots of them, so many that it's safe to say that I'm in a forest and not someone's garden, hopefully. Though looking at the tree's there at least triple the height of the trees back home, should be decent enough to climb and survey the area.

Continuing to gaze around in the hope of finding something else that might be useful, though unfortunately, my sight was mostly blocked by all the trees. So with little else to do, I decided it was time to check up on my body and hope everything was still there, still in the right place and in a good enough condition from what I had left it in. Because I don't want to climb a tree and realise half-way up my legs are still on the ground.

So casting a protective dome formation around me, I was in for my first surprise of the day.

As the dome formed out normally, it's usual transparent shell begun to thicken as it encountered the native mana. What was also interesting was that it turned a translucent purple for some reason, however, I glossed over the new colour it had, since the feedback I was getting seemed to indicate that it's defensive capabilities had almost doubled in strength.

Though this was just a hunch I was going off of how much mana I could sense was going into it, so it's safe to say that I'm going to have to test it's capabilities in the near future.

However, that wasn't the big surprise. Because on my end, when viewing my natural mana intake to see if any problems had occurred there. I found that the mana I was taking in was vastly superior to my old world's mana: with not only the quality being much purer, but the speed at which I was taking in mana was almost doubled. It was like I had landed in a planet-sized mana spring.

Though even with this delightful discovery, I did notice that there was something strange going on. Since normally, the human body will have some resistance to the intake of mana: due to the skin, bone and organ's either deflecting the mana back into the world or absorbing it themselves before it was able to get to a mage's manapool.

Now this had me slightly worried, since from the memory of back home the only creature's that were able to take mana in effortlessly were either wandering souls or spirits.

Now since I haven't technically died yet and void travel did drag both my body and soul through, I'm starting to suspect that my soul and body may have merged into one as I was crushed and flung around the void. So my natural instinct told me to inspect myself.

Frantically I delved into my body as I attempted to figure out what the hell had happened to my body, and if there was cause for me to be more worried about the current situation I was in.

So doing what came naturally I decided to check to see if all my organs were still intake. Thankfully there were still there, so my merging theory was going strong. Though unlike ordinary souls and spirits whose bodily function were none existent, my organs were in existence, though they currently weren't functional or materialised.

Which means that I'm using spirit/soul logic and living off of the surrounding mana, not so bad in itself. But, if I am using spirit logic then delving into my manapool to check it out is making me slightly worried, since any changes to the body were sure to have occurred there and can potentially be the most damaging.

So upon arrival, everything seemed calm and stable. Mana was coming in, swirling around and then either settling into the manapool or being sent out to the rest of my body.

However, what worried me was the rate at which mana was being absorbed, since if it kept going at its current rate then once the pool becomes bloated in say a day or two then I will no longer be almost dead I will be dead. Exploding into thousand of tiny pieces and all because I can't do the regular spirit thing and just excrete unnecessary mana.

Then again the second biggest problem was my own doing since I never learned any high-level meditation techniques and instead just plastered myself in self-absorption runes, and with my body merging with my soul this meant that my body was in a perpetual state of constantly absorbing mana with no way of turning it off.

Which means that I need to either find a host to possess or start spamming magic all day. But even that will still eventually lead to my death, since mana fatigue and exhaustion is a bitch, once either of those two put me under I'll explode while having a sweet dream.

So in layman's term, I was royally screwed. But who I am if not optimistic, so time to enacted Operation: find me a host to possess so I don't blow up. As long as the body I acquire is vaguely human, it should allow my body time to not only adjust to this planet's mana, but it should also mean that the excess man can eject by using the host own bodily function to serve me.

That and hopefully take control of a good minion who I can use to help me search for suitable bodybuilding material.

So goals in mind and body in check, I eye up the nearest tree in front of me, and with the aid of a movement formation to get up, I begin my search for civilisation.

But even so, it would seem that this forest is exceptionally large; sprawling out into the horizon on all sides. Searching in a place like this may be a bit tricky.

After a few hours of spinning in a circle above a tree casting eye enhancement magic every few second, I finally spot something in the distance. Smoke, which usually indicates a progressive civilisation.

Or a forest fire. Eh, best to keep my hope's up.

So with a location in mind, I cast a levitation formation and began to float towards the smoke-filled horizon and settle myself in for a travel time of a few hours.

Though I do have the strangest feeling that I'm forgetting about something, ah, can't be too important if I've easily forgotten about it, if it's important enough George will fill me in later.

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Observing my surroundings as I float on by I begin to document the strange creature's that I see. Ranging from strange moving stones, most being the size of my head, but there's the occasional big fellow who was the size of a boulder. Looking closely at their movement's does seem to indicate that there are herbivores because where ever one of them passed the grass would be visible shorter than before the rock creature was there. With these traits in mind, I shall name them Rock Turtles.

While observing said Rock Turtle's, I chanced upon seeing their natural predator. Safe to say I was less impress to see a Tiger in this world. Though it was considerably larger than any from my world with it easily dwarfing the biggest boulder Rock Turtle, though it's next action did manage to grab my attention again as it shot out a fireball from its mouth. Safe to say I was a bit flabbergasted by this act, especially so when the fireball itself was pure mana, but I couldn't detect any spell activation.

To this, I begun to imagine what type of evolution it must have undergone, since being able to shoot out a fireball the size of my head and produce it at a high enough temperature and to melt through stone easily is impressive enough for a creature of its level, but without activating some sort of spell? If I ever get the chance, I must congratulate the person, or people, who managed to create a species such as this, since Lentunto was defiantly not involved in its creation. Thus I filed the creature under experiment on later and memorised the general location I had spotted the beast at.

Continuing on my journey, I eventually spotted some flying creatures and safe to say the excitement of seeing a fire-breathing Tiger was dampened by seeing a group of Swallow like creature's gliding through the air.

I'm in an entirely new world, give me some interesting creature's to see.

But wallowing in self-pity for the simplicity of this new world's biology won't get me anywhere. Might as well take a closer look at the Swallows in the case that like the Tiger they too had special abilities as well. Passing by them, I happened to notice that they never flapped once. Instead, they bent the air around them so as to allow them to move around at whatever speed they wished to use. I'm not detecting any spells, so I wonder if they have some latent magic abilities that allow them to bend the mana around themselves.

With that thought in mind, I stopped my trip for a few seconds and delved into the body of a nearby Swallow. But, what I found wasn't what I was expecting. The creatures body was similar in build to normal birds. However, the mana pool which I hypothesised the birds were using were none existent. Instead, it was replaced by some innate energy modifier that allowed the bird to naturally gathered energy and then spread it around the body through tube-like vessels that encompassed the arteries.

Looking back, this may be similar to the Fire-breathing Tiger as well. I may need to investigate this further once I find a suitable host. If I'm lucky, these people may even know what is going on with the local wildlife.

Exiting the now visibly distressed bird, I activated a flying formation and began to hurtle my way through the sky, while I hope to find a suitable vessel faster in hopes of understanding this world.

[One hour later]

Finally, I've reached the smoke cloud and from the looks of things it hadn't travelled that far either. Lucky me, the source of smoke should be somewhat close by. Re-casting the levitation spell for better manoeuvrability I begin to have a look about.

It only took me a few minutes, but I can conclude that the place is deserted in almost every direction, which should make it easier to detected any movement. Right, no more getting side-tracked, of I go toward the primary source of the smoke, shouldn't take more than a few minutes to reach it.

Moving gradually towards the origin of the smoke, I set up some protective formations around myself just in case I discover whatever started the smoke and said smoke-starter can detect and attack me. Though that line of thought sent a shudder down my spine, since any creature which I know that can sense spirit's and souls are usually strong and have an appetite for said beings.

Plus, I doubt I have the confidence to fend one of in my current state. Thus I slow down slightly and begin to advance carefully.

As I start to close in on the smokes origin the density grown thicker and thicker, as I approach the source the smoke is so thick that my normal vision can't see jack shit. So forming a wind formation, I blow away the annoying smoke.

But what I see is not too my liking. The source seemed to occur from a battle, and the fuel used was human bodies. The amount of corpse's on the pyres compared to the very few graves tells me that no battle took place here, but a massacre.

The clearing isn't all that big either. Only one mile wide, though it's clear that this clearing is manned made with stumps of trees visible on the battlefields edge. Though what's curious about this battlefield is that the ground is completely blackened, as if someone had burnt the entire area indiscriminately.

I scan the area looking for any survivors that may have been missed, But all that I find are areas were certain parts of the human army were massacred and the equipment on those people must have used: steel swords, plate and mail armour and the occasional musket, have mostly been smashed, burned, corroded or just discarded as people fled. The corrosion in certain parts makes me think that mages were involved, but then, why would mages massacre non-mages?

My mind flashes to one of my history classes were we were told about the Magi ancient era and how non-mages were treated like cattle. Sol forbid that this world's mages are like that, if so then there no better than the Highland barbarians and rouge mages back home.

But even so, if mages did fight here, who are buried in those graves. Thinking the worst, I teleport over to the simple wooden crosses and send my mana into the ground underneath, nothing. Thank Sol. Though these simple wooden crosses seem to bear armour in a similar fashion to the ones the Chinese traditionally use on closer inspection, though these look much flashier, Emperor Hung would be drooling right now if he saw these pieces of armour. Minus the ones with bullet holes in them, which is most of them.

Thinking about it, what in Tenfu's name happened here exactly?

The set-up is too abnormal. If the gravestones belong to the enemy army, then there must have been a battle here. Even if the massacred army was surrounded, with the amount of muskets they had, they should have killed more than a handful, even if the mages intervened right at the start missed bullets would've hit other soldiers.

This place is too mysterious, something else must have changed the balance. There's limb haphazardly laying around, so maybe the enemy used some genetically mutated beast: like the Tiger or Swallow I've previously seen.

Well, I'm never going to figure it out this way, I need to find a survivor. Now let's see, this spell should still work since there human, or at least to my eye's they are. With but a thought an invisible bubble form's around me and begins to spread out.

Ten meters. Nothing.

One hundred meters. Nothing.

Five hundred meters. Nothing.

One thousand meters. Nothing.

Getting impatient I expand the search to enclose two miles. I instantaneously detect three presences all at the same spot, most likely survivors who managed to run away quickly enough. Teleporting to the forest's edge, I begin to weave myself through the woods while following the trail left by the spell and in no time at all, I reach the area.

Though it would seem that my idea of them being three survivors was wrong, looks more like an execution to me. Two of the people were standing in front of the third kneeling man. Out of the two standing one was wearing very feminine plate armour, though her hair was styled in that of a man's, the other wore a pale blue dress that showed of defined her femininity. The thirds person on the other hand: leather and some iron pieces, I can guess which one of them ran away. Now then let's see how this plays out and which body I should occupy, if I'm guessing then it's going to be the tied up third guy, the guy's lifeless face is perfect for me to make a new minion.

See William all good things come in the end when one stays optimistic. I could fell a very broad smile beginning to form on my face.