I was right. The voices plagued me today, more so than before. I slowly got the feeling that with every dream of my past this would get worse and worse and worse and even worse after all that... I spent the entire morning just laying there, curled up in my bed, trying not to cry. Ira wasn't of much help. I often heard her sigh in my head and when she talked she would say that I should do something to get my mind away from it all.

But I couldn't.

It was bad, really bad. I felt soreness all over my body, I felt terrible every time I moved. Even crying hurt, it made me tense up whenever I sobbed. It was hard to breathe. Once I finally got up I slowly crawled to the food chamber as I called it and began eating the food that was still left. After three weeks I had eaten my way through most of the food here.

Guess I'll need to go hunting or something... or maybe I'm ready to take it on?

You can try but... I doubt it.

What else am I supposed to do? My magic isn't strong enough no matter how hard I train, physically I'm not making any progress, so what am I supposed to do?

...

...

...

You could try to gain more magic? Ira suggested.

Gaining more magic? Gaining more magic? Are you kidding me?

I hit the wall, making the entire house shake.

How am I supposed to just gain more magic?

By making a contract with a powerful magical being of course. Or maybe we could look for a dungeon, I think there might be a few around here.

What?

I was confused, we learned none of this from Elster. He always taught us that only certain artefacts, like the Crystalline Leaf, and natural awakening could grant magic.

Oh, honey, there are many ways to awaken and evolve magic. The easiest are dungeons and artefacts. But you can also gain them by making contracts with powerful magical beings like devils and deities. Of course, you can also awaken magic but that is... rather difficult, it's completely up to luck. You were lucky to awaken a type of magic after already gaining one through an artefact. The easiest way now would be to either find a powerful magical being or to find a dungeon and hope a magic concept awaits you at the end.

So let me get this right: you expect me to go and look around for a magical being to ask for magic or to go find some potentially dangerous dungeon just in the hope I might find a... magical concept or whatever at the end?

That's right, you're learning to listen to me, good!

I just leaned against the wall and tried to ignore the voices while I thought about all that information. It wasn't easy to ignore all these insults, they made me feel week. But at least they weren't loud today since the wind was fairly week. But they did make me turn many times out of fear someone might be there. There was a new thing. I had heard gunshots before but... now I was able to hear footsteps in the wind as well. The rustling of the leaves of some bushes almost sounded like someone opened a door multiple times as well.

And how would I even find a dungeon?

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Hmm... that might be a little difficult. I can't sense them anymore and I'm not aware of any in the area, your best bet might be to ask around in some kind of adventurers guild or something like that. We had them back in my day but they were exterminated by some people I don't remember right now, dunno if something like that exists these days.

Maybe this has something to do with it? I thought as I took the two bronze necklaces, with the bronze chips that had runes engraved on them dangling from the chain, out of my pocket.

I had taken these from the two brothers that were here two days ago. I thought they looked valuable so I kept them.

Hmm... they didn't have this stuff back then but I do think that those runes have some magical effect.

Well, it doesn't even really matter, there's no way I can find one of these guilds or whatever anyway...

Only leaves a contract.

Oh yes, let me just look for... for what exactly?

Well... I dunno, we're in a forest so maybe a dryad can grant you magic.

A dryad?

Yeah, spirits of nature. Pretty powerful as well, although it does depend on the forest they're bound to. And since this forest seems to be pretty damn large I guess there's no way there isn't at least one around here somewhere.

So you want me to find a dryad and ask them to grant me magic?

I raised an eyebrow, I wasn't even sure whether or not she could see it but I did it anyway. This whole thing sounded like a stupid idea anyway. Why would some magical being give me magic anyway?

That's what I am suggesting, you're free to take on that overgrown cat any day, as long as you don't die. I mean I'm pretty sure I can't get you out of that even with your improved condition.

I didn't know what to do. On one hand, it sounded like a good idea to obtain another type of magic but... it sounded difficult... or rather, it sounded too easy and I knew it would be difficult. Finding a dungeon would be difficult and would probably just end with me finding some broken piece of wood at the end. Finding a magical being like a dryad would probably be easier but... I doubted that I would get anything out of that.

For now, I'll stay until the fresh food runs out... then I'll pack some dried meat and go find Terror. After that, we'll see I guess.

Good, at least you won't be sitting around all day anymore.

And with that, I finished eating and went back to training. It was difficult to meditate. My body was still shaking and I heard the voices and now footsteps and all that the entire time. It wasn't hard to widen my mana pores and veins and organ, it was hard to stay focused on it. Multiple times I thought someone stood behind me and I would jump up and turn around and roundhouse kick the air. Afterwards, the voices always seemed to mock me.

Working out wasn't much easier, I felt exhausted today and I always felt someone kick me when I was doing push-ups and the like. I fell to the ground multiple times because of that.

That night I could barely sleep, afraid that I would dream another dream about my old world. I was also constantly yearning for my home back, it had happened multiple times over the past few months but it was now getting worse and worse. The following days also weren't much different. Every day I would wake up drenched in sweat and with dried tears on my cheeks, although I had no more dreams or at least none were as vivid... I still saw their faces, and not only theirs... sometimes I saw the faces of Ilmar and Alyra and those of my parents, sometimes even those of the knights. The nights when I saw the faces were almost as bad. I would often start sobbing as soon as I opened my eyes, and that hurt. With every sob, all my muscles hurt.

It also seemed strange, why was I seeing these faces now? It almost drove me mad whenever I saw them. One night I woke up because the Power of Wrath had activated in my sleep. Ira said that it was strange that that happened but that it was possible. The next two weeks I spent in the village were torture. But I endured it. In the end, I was more muscular than ever before. My magic was more potent than before and I felt physically great, sometimes. Mentally I was a wreck. I constantly turned around to make sure that no one was following me, even though I was alone. I packed all the dried meat and all the nuts I could find, filled up my water supply in the lake... which I for the first time now remembered was contaminated by at least three dozen corpses but Ira told me that wood elves were pretty much immune to most poisonous effects, and she was right, I didn't feel sick at all, the only thing plaguing me was my paranoia.

With everything set I warped to the other side of the lake and began looking around with enhanced instincts, speed and strength as well as in stealth mode. I also made sure to only traverse via the trees, at least it was safer up on the branches. And so I quickly left behind the place I had stayed in for more than a month. A place I hated but the place I owed my current, improved condition. If I hadn't gotten to that village I would most likely be dead by now.