As time passed Will began to notice a strange feeling, both inside and around him. It was like a soft thrumming that existed not only in his body but the air around him. Whilst Will grew, the thrumming began to get more and more apparent to him. There was a natural feeling of desire that came with the thrumming, as if he somehow craved the feeling.

It was that unknown craving that fueled his interest in figuring out the thrumming. Soon that interest became a near obsession for him. This was partly because the feeling of the energy was tantalizing, bringing with it some strange inborn desire that Will recognized had something to do with the body he was in rather than his torn human mind. Though there was another reason why he couldn’t get the thrumming out of his head, a simpler reason.

Will was bored.

The development of his boredom had come faster than he’d expected, seeming to develop as his memories returned. The restlessness made sense; his new life was filled with a simplicity that his old life hadn’t had. Will had no phone, nor any tv, which if he was being honest with himself had taken up much of his time in his last life. Worse though was the fact that Will simply had no one to talk to, which left him often feeling lonely.

Will knew that snakes weren’t social creatures, and even in his last life he hadn’t been super extroverted. Mostly, he’d just stuck to himself and his own group of friends, never truly being an outgoing or even averagely social guy. So, the budding loneliness and the sadness that came with it was more than a little surprising to him. Though it did make sense, he’d spent twenty-three years of a different life in the body of a naturally social creature, while he’d only spent around a week and a half as a snake.

In that time, he’d been completely alone, with the only interaction he’d had with other living being coming from the three hunting trips he’d taken. Though in a way there was a sadness in those trips as well. Yes, the trips were exciting, filling him with adrenaline and eventually a deep satisfaction when he was successful. But they were also tragic in a way, not only was Will taking the life of another creature, but the trips also served as stark reminders that he was no longer human. In his past life he’d been the grandson of a pacifist, he’d only ever been in one fight and that had happened when he was eight. In this life he’d already killed three creatures, and worse he’d felt a natural sense of bliss when he’d done it.

The buildup of his loneliness, boredom, and sadness at his knew existence was becoming an issue for him. Even with his fractured memories Will knew he’d spent a large portion of his last life with depression. Now in this life he was beginning to feel that depression settle over him again, and that scared him. In his last life he’d taken pills to alleviate the depression, trying many prescriptions with mixed effects. In fact, now that he thought back on it, he couldn’t help but acknowledge that depression had taken up a vast majority of his old life. It was like an ever-present weight tied to his chest, holding him back from living his best life.

Will didn’t want that for this life, he wanted to live a life without the ever-present sadness. To do that he knew that he would need to distract himself from the budding depression, and to do that he needed to keep himself busy. Hints, why he was becoming so obsessed with the seemingly omnipresent energy that surrounded him.

That was why he found himself coiled up in one of the darkest corners of the cave with his head facing a wall. Since he realized he didn’t have eyelids, he decided that this was the closest method he had to replicating closing his eyes.

Why he’d decided he needed to close his eyes was simple, the energy was faint and hard to focus on due to the distractions of his environment. Will felt as though finding a way to clear his mind of any external distractions would help him feel the thrum. Unfortunately, the method wasn’t perfect, partly because Will’s night vision was quite good in his new body, and partly because he also had the strange ability to sense the objects around him. Still, he figured looking at a was better than nothing.

With his vision blocked, Will began to focus on the thrum he’d felt around him. Interestingly, the energy from the two blades didn’t seem to affect his concentration despite always being present. In fact, the energy they emitted had a similar feel to the thrum around Will, all be it different in a way he couldn’t recognize and far more powerful.

First, Will focused on the feeling inside himself intently, it took him several moments before he was finally able to truly focus on it. It was then that Will realized that the feeling was not just a strange ever-present vibration, but an energy of some kind. Somehow, he could even sense the energy coursing through his body like blood.

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Briefly Will wondered why he hadn’t been able to sense the energy with his thermal vision, but quickly realized his mistake. The energy was not hot, but rather it didn’t seem to have a temperature, it wasn’t hot nor cold. Focusing on the energy, Will quickly realized another aspect of it, it was naturally circulating through his body. Before when he’d sensed it he could tell it was moving, though now he was able to sense that it was actually cycling.

The energy ran through him, to his headfirst, and then down to his tail in a circular motion, constantly rotating around him. Even stranger, Will noticed that the energy was growing as he was sensing it.

The growth wasn’t quick by any means, rather it was extremely slow, so slow that Will had almost missed it.

‘What is this? Is it because I’ve never felt anything like it, even in my last life. Is this exclusive to snakes? Or is it something that happens to everyone, but humans just don’t sense it?’, Will wondered silently.

As he thought about the matter, Will felt himself begin to lose concentration and forced his questions away. It proved harder for him to do than he would have thought and took him several moments before he managed to regain his sense of the energy.

After gazing at his own energy for a while, he realized where the growing energy was coming from. The origin of its growth was his skin and mouth, or rather the surface of his body as well as his mouth. It was hard to tell as the energy was little more than a tiny trickle, but it was consistent and that was what allowed him to notice its influx.

‘The energy around me is getting drawn into me’, he realized silently, trying his best to keep his inner dialogue at a minimum.

For a brief moment, he wondered whether or not he was actually sensing the oxygen in his blood but dismissed the idea. The energy was too vibrant, too… noticeable to be oxygen, and Will began to feel certain that wasn’t the case.

That thought led to a deepening curiosity, which turned his attention outwards to the feeling surrounding him. As Will’s senses turned outwards, he immediately realized that it was much harder to concentrate on the external energy. He was attempting to focus on a single piece of the energy, a small portion that he could observe. It was too present, too vast for his mind to focus on it easily, like trying to spot a single raindrop in a rainstorm.

After several moments of trying to pin down some of the energy to observe he got frustrated and was about to give up. Though it was the frustration that loosened his concentration enough for him to realize his mistake. You couldn’t observe an ocean by focusing on a single beach, you had to gaze out at the distance to truly see its enormity.

The energy around him filled his head, faint but present, and he realized he’d had far too narrow a view of the energy. Unlike his internal energy, the feeling of the surrounding energy was different, fainter and less dense. Despite that there was far more of the energy than there was inside himself. Similarly, the energy was not just in the air as he’d originally thought but also in the stone beneath and around him. In fact, he realized that the energy was everywhere, and he suspected it was in everything.

The sheer enormity of that realization washed over him, and he quickly began questioning the source’s origin. Then after a few moments of observing the energy he felt an idea occur to him, one that came from a very distant memory from his last life. Even though the memory was faint, Will couldn’t help but feel as though it was crazy, crazier because it made sense.

Slowly he exhaled all the air in his lungs, then sensing the energy around him he breathed inwards. The energy in front of his mouth was pulled into him as it had been with each breath he’d taken while sensing the energy. Only this time, Will tried to reach out and touch the energy, to pull it towards his open mouth and into his body. It took him three deep breaths before he was able to do it, though the amount he pulled was not much greater than the amount he breathed in.

Suddenly his heart started beating faster as he noticed the energy settle in with his own as his theory was confirmed.

‘Cultivation!’, he realized with a start.

Before he’d died, Will had been a fan of cultivation comics, he’d always found the concept interesting after all. The ability to draw in energy from his surroundings and use it to gain power was interesting.

The realization that his hunch had been right brought a dozen questions to his mind, and quickly he lost his concentration on the energy around him, but this time he allowed it to go. Instead, he let his mind reel as it took in the implications of what he’d just learned.

‘If this is truly cultivation, how come I’m only capable of it now? Similarly, why didn’t I ever feel the energy in my last life?’, he wondered.

Will knew it shouldn’t be possible, but he’d also never thought that reincarnation was possible either. As this thought occurred to him, he thought back on the old cultivation comics he’d read, piecing together the little he could remember of them.

In the comics there were usually some similarities, a main character who grew strong through cultivation and martial arts, usually with the aid of a cheat skill. Often the plot was set in a timeline where sects and a feudal-like system was in place. There was also usually stages to the cultivation as well as a multitude of different types of cultivation. Troublingly, he could also remember there were ways one could cripple themselves over the course of cultivation. Though he had no idea how it was done, nor how he could avoid it.

As this all ran through his mind, another cultivation trope hit him, one which left him with a whirlwind of emotions. Shock, fear, and perhaps most of all excitement, coursed through him.

‘In a lot of those stories the main characters are reborn in another world’, Will thought, raising and turning his head to look at the entrance of the cave.

‘Am I really still one earth?’