Gifts: [Library] [̶͚̖́̊Ḁ̷̙̂̓̕͝s̶̩̖̬͕̓̿̚s̴͔̗̟̙̉̉í̷̧̛̻̲͌͛s̴̲̓͊͋t̷̘͔̦͖̓͒a̴̯͇̹̐n̵̻͈͇͑̔̐̏t̷͉̎̓̑̀]̸͉͊̈́͂ [Legacy] [Administrator] [Superableness] [░̶̶̵̶̵̵̶̴̸̨̧̧̱̠̟̠̬̭͈̫̬̻̭͙̻̳͙͎͇̯̟͔̟͚͉̲̠̜͔͕͇̤̣̝̹̘̥̾̇̀̿̽̀̇̉̑̂́̾͗̊͐̓̈́̾̾͂̾̔͐̔̇́̐̀͂͛̽͆̆̒̇̏̕̕̕͜͜ͅ░̸̸̷̷̸̢̺̗̝͇̯̥͎̤̟͎͖͍͒̄͂̐̋̈́̇̂̈́̂̀̽̿̍̊̉͜͜͝ͅͅ░̴̶̷̴̷̴̶̶̛̛͇͈͓̯̠̰̫͍̫̜̱̭͖̫̗̭̱̼̩̦̯͇̭̣̪̭̟̱̠͊͌̀̈́̓̈́̓̄̊͐̔̉́̒͠͝͝ Comprehension]
Magus Knowledge:
Particle physics[Incomplete],
Nuclear physics[Incomplete],
Quantum Mechanics[Incomplete],
Space Physics[Incomplete]
Astronomy[Incomplete]
[Corrupted]
Name: Cardis Galilei Soul Width: 100(Mortal) Upgrades( [Transcendent(+1%): 200], [Lesser God(+9%): 500], [God(+30%): 1350], [True God(+20%): 3000], [Arch God(+40%): ???], [Administrator(???): ???], [By???s] Race:Hybrid(Ancient High-Elf/Archon) (Primordial)Arch-Divinity: 0.1% Multiplier: 1x, Minor-Creation(Restricted: 99.9%), Minor-Destruction(Restricted: 99.9%), Minor-Manipulation(Restricted: 98%) Administrator(Restricted)
My head lulled and my senses returned. The first thing I noticed after reopening my eyes, was the light shining in from the top of the cavern. The apparent meadows all the more clear above. Swiveling in most directions I took in the dastardly and abhorrent scene of the dead.
I should feel more about what happened to them, but a nagging sense sings of 'us or them' in the back of my head. Obviously, I'd choose to live over those I don't know, I didn't have a choice to begin with, so why do I continue to beat myself over something else's actions?
My morals scream of an inhumane action, yet, am I still constrained to the mundane morals of before? I still know not of this world or what lays before me. The mystery of mana has shrouded and delayed most of my time here. I haven't yet moved from my spot in what has been superimposed as an eon.
Thinking of the time, could it have been an eon. What is time to me now?
Comparing the scene of carnage given form, from before my 'healing' and after, I take note of glaring differences. The lack of quite a few corpses and skeletons, and further degradation of the few buildings left. I decided to ask a question of my everpresent partner.
"How much time has passed... Ark?"
[Hmm...]
[Quite a bit I'd say. I had to rebuild your body from the ground up, that coupled with improving your mana system, and the lack of power I can use, on top of keeping your soul tied...]
[I'd say a millennia give or take a few.]
He says things so casually, yet it seems he fails to see how utterly mind-boggling what he speaks of is...
"How can these corpses and structures last this long?"
[Mana, magic. Maybe, miasma or other mystic energies. Be thankful that their souls had been absorbed, else they return as undead.]
Ignoring the possibility of shambling corpses and the prospect of undeath. I ask my final two questions that have been bugging me.
"Time, how does time pass in the soul? Also is there any way out that you can see, I think the only way out is through the top of this cavern..."
[Normally it doesn't, reality doesn't exist in your soul, so neither does time unless you want it to. To shorten this conversation, it is subjective on your will...]
[Yes it seems the only way out would be through the mouth of this pit. Luckily I had that pyre otherwise we'd've been trapped in here.]
"Yes, now how do you expect me to get out of here. That's impossibly tall you know!"
[I don't know, use magic. That's why I had you read those books...]
Seriously does he just expect me to use magic right after reading about it... Half the information has settled and yet here I am, stuck in an impossibly steep pit cave with no way out but up. I make my way around the cave searching for anything useful. Everything that looks and slightly usable is heavily corroded, however near some of the corpses are glowing stones that seem to pulse and undulate in rhythmic patterns.
A dawning realization hits me! I have wings!
I crouch down to the ground to get my bearings, I extend my wings to their full length and being to attempt to fly with everything I have. I make it a few meters off the ground and then immediately begin to plummet.
Bang!
In all my commotion and hurry to escape the cavern, I'd forgotten that whilst my body was 'healed' i was still incredibly malnourished. My body was still plagued by malaise, still, skeletally thin like those around me, and still oh so incredibly weak. Though my skin was no longer old and worn, now replaced with a healthy-ish pale white.
"Magic it is then..."
I sit down in a basic position, legs crossed, arms joined together in and hands placed on my head on either side of my temples. I begin balanced breathing techniques from the books, in an attempt to spur my senses to feel mana. Hours pass and the light above begins to fade into a pinkish glow.
"1,2,3.. Breathe, 1,4,5... Out,"
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Measured and balanced in its own way. I begin to sense the undulations around like those on the stones prior. I attempt to pull it towards me, and the undulations turn into currents that are rapidly drawn to me at the center. I rapidly lose control of myself, and my body with a mind of its own begins to greedily devour the mana around me.
In real time I watch the leftover remains disintegrate and turn to dust, the stones and vestiges around follow suit. The once vibrantly lustrous rocks began to dim at a rapid pace crumbling like those before it.
The vortex of swirling mana ends as soon as it had begone. A newfound strength overflows from my vessel, I feel like a god.
[Don't get too far ahead of yourself, you already are a god... Although nice pace, it only took you five minutes to deplete the surrounding area of its ambient mana! Congrats you've created a mana dead-zone!]
Yes, he is right, the sense of power is just a high from my newfound strength. Pointed the feeling is, I still am unsure of what to do with the coursing heat flowing through me. Prickling sensations of Paresthesia surround me in my entirety.
The veritable options presented to me in the forms of the arcane mysticisms that make up mana. I could build a ladder of rock, I could fly again, I could fold space and teleport under my own power. So many options that I am aware of now. The power to do anything is stifling with indecision. To make a choice could condemn the path of my future. Perhaps it is best to stick with what I know, rather than attempting something I've never done before.
Too much could go wrong with teleportation, especially with not knowing what is present above. All I see are trees, a thick blanket of foliage that blocks my vision from reaching further. Magically assisted flight in such a constrained space could only go wrong, a swift acceleration into a wall and the least I'd end up with is a broken bone, worse being evisceration. The rock ladder could just collapse under its own weight, I'm no engineer but I know that stone is heavy.
Hmm, I could reinforce myself...
Yes, I'll go with that. Worst case scenario I blow up. However, Ark is here to guide me, so I would doubt he'd allow that to happen. 'Right??'
----------------------------------------
I take a form best suited for reinforcement. Standing upright, I begin switching through various forms, to mimic the waves mana creates. Swift and fast, agile and fluid, I continue through the motions, finding the all too familiar tingling of mana in my body. I begin to feel my reservoir and attempt flex it, putting to much strength into due to the unexpected ease, a veritable torrent of mana coalesces into branches flowing throughout my body. I move onto the next step into refining and reinforcing my body.
I've found intent, desire, and imagination are all too important when it comes to magic. I drive my mana with the intent to refine and reinforce my body, I desire for All-encompassing strength and defense, I imagine the strongest and sturdiest structure I know a diamond cubic crystal structure.
Something in the process responds to my desire "And so it shall be" is heard echoing throughout the cavern.
An agony worse than any I've experienced before wracks my body, once again all I know is pain. my desire, intent, and imagination warps my body to their whims. I don't pass out this time, I endure guiding the process in its finality. My body is clay waiting to be molded to my will. A feeling of touch is transmitted throughout my body, like someone caressing and pulling my flesh, It feels like a scab begging to be scratched, what was once mine felt foreign. I could feel my insides warping and changing, becoming something else, it came with all the pain one would expect with such a feeling. Coinciding with the everpresent pain, is a sense of immeasurable strength, an addicting high that seems to come with the use of mana. The worst of it was my eyes, I could feel my eyes hardening, they had felt off since I had awoken, yet now I had an urge to gouge them out, this feeling of rage driven by a power high almost brought me to do so, however sense prevailed, and the torment ended.
panting from the madness that had transpired I found myself exasperated by the events, this was not normal by any means, I think Ark might have taken a few to many liberties with my body, first the ease of mana collection, and now the instantaneous reforging of my body. The few tidbits of knowledge, I'd processed on mana, not magic, had coined these as gradual processes that can take many lifetimes to even come close to what I've accomplished in under an hour.
"Ark, what the actual fuck was that!"
[Hmm? What was what?]
"The ease of any of this was beyond normal! What have you done to me, to my body!?"
[Oh... That, well...]
"..."
[I might have experimented a bit... However! It was all in the pursuit of making you a body, a befitting of a god!]
"Yeah just 'a bit' is it?!? Do you have any idea what I have gone through with you, and I've only with you for what? Maybe an hour or two at most, and I've already experienced some of the worst traumas in my life, my entire existence... At least have some sense to warn me that I might die, or feel like I'm dying, before sticking me in this situation."
[How was I supposed to know that was going to happen! I just wanted to make this life easier on you! You literally have everything you could ever want, and you still can find a reason to complain! I can agree that what you went through just now was terrible, yet I can feel the strength you have, and you haven't even used any of it yet. You can admit that you came out better for it, and your power allowed you to make the world will submit to your bidding, I mean it's obvious it young, but it didn't even put up a fight!]
"What the hell is a world will? Was it that thing that talked, I thought that was you fucking around with me! Can you at least explain some of the shit you say, rather than laying it on so thick?!"
[Err... In my blind anger, I guess I let that slip didn't I...]
"Yes, you did. Now explain." I rebuke
[Oh how the mighty have fallen] he laments, [It's the will of mana, and the world. That's the best explanation I should, and will give you.] He said, a forbidding tone prevalent in his speech.
"So its sentient, why would it obey me then? I can't be that powerful, I mean look at me, I'm emaciated for goodness sake, and if its sentient then why does it work for others, why can they use magic like they can? It makes no sense, what does it have to gain?"
[...]
No answer, not that I expected any from him, to begin with, what I got was enough. I'm powerful because he fucked up my body, with his experiments...
"I guess that's all I am to you then, just an experiment aren't I. I'm just a game, entertainment to watch since you're so powerful. I'm right aren't I?"
[No... You, we have to survive. If you die now at this stage, we both die. I'm sorry for what I did, and that you think that way. But, you need this power to survive, this world and those that lay ahead of you are vicious and unforgiving. I did what I had to do, and you can resent me for the pain I have and will bring you, but soon you will realize what I did. You will forgive me at that time, but know this... I don't have long, I have used up a lot of energy to keep us alive, this may be the last time I talk to you for some time, I will allow you access to the library, and controls over search and time dilation, but for now you are on your own.]
"Just like that, you leave me, alone here to fend for myself? How do I even get to the library then? I mean come on give me a bone anything!"
[In your sleep, or when you desire knowledge, that's all there is to it. I left the soul collection and expansion to run automatically just to be sure. But for now I need to recuperate my energy, this will take time. How long, I'm unsure of, but hopefully not too long. Get stronger Cardis, for both of us...]
A pause then, just silence. It didn't really hit me yet, but I knew I was alone, on a foreign planet, plane whatever. My only source of companionship and perhaps my only pillar of support was gone...