During all that my inner conflict, I failed to realize that the group that I noticed nearby slowly was getting smaller.

Just as they appeared before, now they were gone. Only two of them were remaining.

Not the worst news. Less threats to worry about.

But, whoever they were, they appeared stronger than before. Or maybe it was just my senses that got sharpened…?

Who knows. But, in both of those cases: not good news.

The stronger the opponents, the better chance for them to notice me and do something.

Being in the state I was I couldn’t even tell if they were noticing something off about their surroundings; a.k.a. me.

But, it did not seem like they cared.

Just like before, they were wandering nearby, like they were just waiting for something…

And apparently, that “something” finally came.

I couldn’t sense it, but I realized that when the surroundings started changing.

It was… bizarre.

I want to say that we were caught in some kind of an anomaly, it was so confusing.

Suddenly, everything around us started moving, like it was caught in a very strong wind. Jumping forwards and backwards, up and down…

If I had a stomach, I would’ve instantly gotten sick. Hell, even without one I felt my head spinning.

It took a long time, but I slowly started getting my senses back and actually realized what was going on.

It was not an anomaly. Well, not like I was thinking.

The surroundings weren’t moving. They were.

And I was along with them.

When I was so sure that they never noticed me…

Or did they?

Hmm.

There was still a chance.

Call it just me being too much of an optimist, but there was still a possibility of them not noticing me.

How?

For that, I needed to ask a question: how were they moving?

Well, with magic, obviously. While I couldn’t tell exactly how, assuming that they didn’t notice me… they could just think I was a part of the landscape.

A rock. Or a piece of a tree. Anything. And for some reason, that piece got caught in their transporting spell.

But for that, it meant that they were REALLY something else.

The only way I could think of them making a mistake like that would be using some kind of flying spell… and I knew from my own experience that it was not easy.

Hell, the last time I used it I burned off part of my own body just to fuel it.

But again, it was before I was even enhanced by the Origin Crystal… so it was possible…

There was still the issue of calibrating it properly…

But, judging from the movement of everything nearby, it was far from perfect, which was giving a bit more credibility to my new theory.

Damn.

I was not sure if I should count myself as very lucky or the opposite, but at the moment I couldn’t do shit, so I just had to go along with it.

Hell, it wasn’t all that bad: the spell was not perfect, just as I noticed, and was bleeding mana all over the place.

The mana that I could use.

I didn’t have to even focus much to get it to myself: it was flowing through me on its own.

The rock, or piece of earth that most likely was serving them as a platform was completely filled with that magic. The same piece I was wedged into. Supposedly.

I couldn’t feel the exact shapes of those pieces… or at all, really, but they were so close that it either had to be that or them literally piggybacking each other.

Doubtful.

Then again, their auras were rather large, so it was hard to judge exactly what was going on.

We spent quite a bit of time traveling like that, just to land somewhere… I am not certain where exactly. Still without my senses I couldn’t tell at all.

At that point, I started getting more worried.

Not really about them attacking me or something, it was more about my own state.

With that much time passing, I thought I would be able to at least recover enough of my magic to recover my sense of sight. Or at least have my enhanced sight back to the degree that I could see without guessing.

But, none of that.

I probably should blame this strange transfer that was going on with my body… soul, or whatever.

Despite my best efforts, I still couldn’t understand what was exactly going on with me.

What I realized though, was that I was thinking a lot clearer.

Sure, earlier you could tell that it was because of shock or whatnot, but my thoughts were getting a bit too sharp for my tastes.

It was sort of like I was full of adrenaline, and we all know that’s not possible without a physical body.

Sure, I could say that my earlier body wasn’t fleshy either and by extension couldn’t produce adrenaline either, but…

It was magic, allright? If THE Origin Crystal cannot produce something as simple as adrenaline, something that people can make in a lab with enough effort, what is it good for even?

Whoah, where did that even come from?

I guess the “magical adrenaline” or whatever was getting a bit too strong, making me slightly on the edge.

To be honest, it was kind of understandable in the current situation.

But scratch those problems, what’s going on outside of my own head?

Well, not much. At least at the moment they weren’t.

For now, the people outside were just… I don’t know, hanging around? The hell were they doing? It was kind of eerie. No change in anything. They weren’t even moving for a while. Were they resting?

It seems like it, because after a moment I noticed that their mana was steadily rising.

And not in a way that would indicate them gathering magic to cast some kind of spell, it wasn’t fast enough. Yet it was faster than what I would call regular regeneration while you’re resting…

But again, what’s even “regular” at this point?

I’ve seen plenty of people with weird talents, powerful or not, so why not? They were probably able to rest faster than expected…

Hell, I would be probably able to do that too, if not for that strange transfer going on. If on top of that we add my ability to drain magic, that would be an easy task…

Speaking of.

I noticed something.

Mana nearby… was disappearing…? No…

It was… just like someone was draining magic from the area.

It wasn’t invasive, like with my touch, but gradual. Like someone had purposefully been doing that to hasten their regeneration…

Interesting.

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And more importantly, that meant that whoever that was… there was a rather large chance for them to be a crystal person.

Well… were they…?

Let’s think.

Wouldn’t it be possible for someone to actually do that without the crystal…?

I don’t think so… So a crystal person?

From what I knew, there used to be a bunch of people like me, but they were wiped out by Mike. Or ILMA… or the mix of two, the whole thing was a bit screwy.

So it was either someone like that survived, or someone had figured out how to use the crystal outside their body to drain magic. Or just straight up managed to emulate the process without it.

The question was, which one?

The question that was answered almost immediately: it was just the crystal person.

I say “just”, but that was a rather large finding, to be honest.

I only noticed that because of the mana that was getting absorbed and mixed into their own resources.

I was familiar with the sight. Like with many other instances, the magic wasn’t just cleanly melding into them, it was just this dirty and “patchy” mix. Like I’ve seen with myself and many other people.

All of them using the Origin Crystal.

To think of it, it wasn’t that unexpected.

I already knew that this world had a lot more of it than I thought, though. Most of its spread was thanks to a certain someone that wanted to get more powerful.

To think of it, even I had released some of that material. Mostly accidentally, though, but still, it was still there.

And especially in my near vicinity. If I really got shattered recently, there was a good chance that people near me could have had just accidentally found the pieces.

That is, if they were really just random people.

Yeah, at the back of my mind there was that sinking feeling, telling me that those nearby were a bit more familiar to me than I was thinking.

But, I was still not sure why.

For the life of me, I couldn’t recognize their mana.

To be honest, after seeing them try to regenerate by absorbing mana that was easy to explain: the fact that they were constantly mixing themselves with the loose mana from the environment meant that they were in constant change, never having identical mana flame that I could be familiar with. It would just take a couple minutes for someone to change their appearance completely. And I don’t mean bodily appearance.

So, I was still blind.

Until I regained more of my senses, there was no way to confirm anything.

Hell, even if I was to regain those, if they were really also able to change their appearance, the only way to check was to read their mind.

Yeah, about that…

I already tried that.

Too bad it did not work.

And it was not just because their minds were resistant or something like that. No. I was just unable to focus completely.

I want to, once more, blame the process that was going on inside me, that was constantly devoiding me of mana…

At this point, I was really confused. And the only thing I could do was to just wait…

And I did.

After a while, finally something started happening.

Not to me, though. At least I don’t think so.

The presences nearby started gathering mana for some reason, this time it was clearly to cast some kind of spell.

My mind instantly went towards the worst situation.

Were we under attack?

Or maybe they found me?

It was neither of those.

They were just making a portal.

I mean, it was “just” to me, but weren’t people who actually were able to cast those kinds of spells not very common? And, on top of that, wasn't this world sort of… dead? Especially after… recent events?

Hm.

Whoever they might have been, both of them had to use magic to actually cast the spell, which made me doubly intrigued.

Honestly, when I felt a portal forming I thought I might have just stumbled upon one of my old “acquaintances”, but every single one of them would be able to make the portal alone.

So was it someone new?

Who knows at this point.

I was a bit worried that I wasn’t going to be able to follow them, but my fears were for naught. Just like with their regular travel, I was pulled along.

Don’t know why and how, though. By all means, I should’ve been left alone. There’s no way that they would accidentally just bring me with them…

Did that mean… It had to.

They knew I was there. And were doing that on purpose.

What purpose? Who the fuck knows.

It didn’t seem like they had some malicious intent, at least at the moment. It would be so easy to just get rid of me right now.

Should… I ask them…?

Before I decided on that, I realized that we arrived.

Yeah, another strange thing: the portal took longer than I thought.

Weren’t those things almost instant?

But then again, I’ve never seen people try to make one as a team… so maybe it was a bit more complicated than I thought.

What about our destination?

That’s the thing, I couldn’t tell.

As far as I knew, it wasn’t much different than before… Well, besides maybe less mana around, but I was able to feel only the immediate area around me, so there’s a good chance that I just was wrong.

Funnily enough, it seemed like they also came to a similar conclusion, because just a while later the spell started forming again, and they opened another portal.

What were they trying to do?

Was I right? Did they fuck up and the portal was indeed flawed? It dumped them somewhere they didn’t want to?

It looked more likely by the second, because with the second portal the story repeated.

They arrived at the place, took a moment to take in the spot, and promptly moved forward, opening another.

This repeated multiple times.

Hm.

Was I right? Were those portals really flawed? Or…

Wait. I get it.

I felt like there was something missing when they were conjuring those openings to travel between places.

There was no anchor.

For the anchor to work, it had to be at least powerful enough for me to notice it. Even in this flawed form. And yet, I noticed nothing.

So how were they traveling?

I remembered about the other method of portal transport I’ve heard before…

The random teleports.

That would explain a lot.

They were trying to get somewhere, but they had no anchor to get them there. So they tried the risky method: random teleportations.

Of course, like demonstrated, it failed multiple times.

But what was even that for? Were they that desperate to get somewhere? I can’t think of a reason to do that…

If they were following someone, the random portals would only hurt them. Besides the unsure destination, there always was the issue of the other side effects that could present themselves…

And yet, they were trying to do exactly that.

I still couldn’t understand it, but it seemed like they, for some reason, were finally done with teleports, because at the latest destination they finally stopped.

I was quietly hoping that I’ll get to understand the situation a bit more, but of course not. It only got more confusing.

After they stopped it seemed like they started a conversation for a bit. And it went a bit south.

I know, because my mana senses started being a bit better… or maybe it was just because their emotions were a lot more pronounced.

Both of them seemed on edge suddenly and with a mix of impatience, anger and annoyance, they finally managed to reach their breaking point.

Well, one of them, at least.

The other seemed completely calm, maybe a bit confused and tired, but that’s about it. A strange way to react to a sudden outburst, but hey, who am I to judge? It’s not like my own emotions were completely sane as of recently, either.

I don’t know if that was because something one of them said, or maybe it was just because of those failures of teleports, but the following altercation made me reconsider multiple things.

First of all, who were they?

Yeah, right, that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out this whole time. But as they were fighting each other, I realized that neither of them was able to even do damage.

That was definitely something I would never expect.

The amounts of mana that were being tossed around were large enough to kill a quite decent mage in one hit, but those two were just shrugging it off like it was nothing. Hell, it seemed like they were only getting stronger.

That confirmed my earlier suspicions: they had to be at least part-crystal.

It only got more obvious later, when the shapes of their mana flames started making wild changes: no longer reminding me those of people, but rather some weird creatures.

I assume that was because both of them tried manipulating their body.

On that thought, I suddenly felt a sting of pain, confusing me.

An attack?

Hell no. No one was targeting me. But yes, they managed to finally hurt each other. Probably one of them managed to surprise another with a sudden change, piercing their defenses, but… what the hell?

One of them turned into a ball!

It made me giggle.

What kind of idea was that? How would that help with combat? That kind of idea was something that I’d come up with, being so stupid.

I guess there were more people like me out there than I thought..

As I was pondering, I was hit with another jolt of pain.

I was not imagining things. I was not under attack, yet I was taking damage.

Was it possible that the fight was so disruptive that even I was getting caught in the blast radius?

Even if that was the case, shouldn’t I just absorb the power of the attack, just like they were? I was a crystal too, and I bet infinitely more hungry than them, so…

Wait.

If they both were a crystal, then wouldn’t their literal point be to use attacks that pierce the ability to drain mana?

But usually that would mean physical attacks! And they'd have to be powerful indeed.

While I wasn’t doubtin in their power, I sort of couldn’t believe that I would be hit accidentally. You had to be precise to actually do damage, and to think that I’d be hit by sheer chance was infinitely low.

And yet… I couldn’t think of another option.

Meanwhile, it was getting worse.

And not only for the one guy.

Sure, it seemed like the other one was gaining upper hand, but the more damage he was taking, the more pain I was feeling.

Bizarre, right?

I wanted to somehow understand what exactly was hitting me, but without an actual physical outlook on the situation, it was impossible. With my artificial senses I was unable to understand the source of this pain, especially because I never could see anything connecting to my own body…

Wait.

My body… where exactly was it?