A good few minutes later, I smiled to myself and walked back through the now superbly clean room to the counter to sit down and start to experiment on the theory that had been working itself out in my mind. “Through the soul it becomes mine.” I reminded myself, rewording the little puzzle the dungeon core gave me and smiling to myself before plopping down behind the counter on the comfortable office chair I put there.

“The only question is where the soul is inside of my body…” I pondered for a few seconds of speculation before shrugging and deciding that trial and error might just be a better use of my time and I looked around the arcade getting ready to start.

Through the monocle, I see the mana or ‘the energy of the body’ all around me in the arcade and I start to mentally tug on all the particles of mana in all their different colors and I watch as they come closer to me one by one ready to be part of my experiment. Before I got started, I quickly thought of what the best testing method might be and I came up with a few but only one really stood out as the best and so I started arranging the mana into the shape I wanted.

A tightly packed screen started forming before my body, the natural tendency of the mana showing before my eyes as the different colors of mana started trying to defy my mental grip and move away from each other and I vaguely noticed that the opposite was happening to mana particles of the same color and they were being attracted to each other, but my mind was focused on keeping the particles in line.

It was a good thing that I didn't really need for the screen of mana to be that tightly knit because it would have probably given me a headache for them to be under an inch apart. It also wouldn't have worked to screen my body if I did that too, as there just wasn't a lot of mana for me to use and I had emptied the entire of the arcade just to have enough that it would screen my entire body and then some.

As soon as my screen of mana particles was ready for me to use, I started my test. I moved the screen of mana back and forwards again, shifting them so every part of my body was screened and then after a few seconds of the screening, I stepped back in shock. A jolt of energy washed through my body, in my chest, and slowly I felt something new form right where my heart is.

I gasped and looked down at myself, but there was nothing to see! Even when I scattered the mana particles across the room, the feeling stayed in my chest and I started gasping for breath as the feeling of energy coursing through my veins like fire overcame me.

A Pop! rang out from beside me, but my thoughts became blurred and I moved my head, painfully facing the source of the sound that of course the system. “You are undergoing a soul expansion!” The system's voice rang out through the room, a source of calm in my panicking mind. “Am I going to die?!” I yelled out in pain, demanding an answer from the system.

“No. You are undergoing a soul expansion and your physical form is undergoing some changes to house your soul.” The system says helpfully explaining what is happening in the most vague way possible.

“WHAT CHANGES!?” I scream out as a particular wave of fire causes me to fall off my chair and slump onto the ground with an uncontrollable spasm. The system stays quiet for a moment and then replies with a barely audible voice from my position and pained screaming, saying “Unknown.”

As soon as my mind could understand what it said, my mind started feeling too big for my skull and the pressure started to ramp quickly almost as soon as it had formed, causing the light around me to fade and my head to pound with my heart in protest as my body slumped and I face planted on the cold wood floor.

----------------------------------------

Light came back and I opened my eyes, only to close them again from the bright lights. Maybe I could sleep in a bit…

I continued to lay on the hard and warm surface I was on, my mind blissfully silent until I heard a Pop! That caused me to open my eyes again and rapidly blink away the silence and warmness that had taken over my mind. It took a few seconds, but my mind slowly started warming up like the old rusty computer it was and I looked around me with confusion. “This isn't my room…” I mumbled as I went up onto my hands and knees, seeing a shelf full of different things. Buns, candy, a weird slightly glowing box with runic shapes on it…

As I looked at this array of things in front of me as I wiped off the string of warm liquid coming from my mouth, my mind started booting up and the memories of what had happened started replaying in my mind, causing me to reflexively clutch my head and turn onto my back at the memory of the pain. Thankfully, it passed after a few moments and I rose up into a sitting position before grasping onto the counter and pulling myself up with weak arms into a standing position slowly.

I looked around me and I could see the arcade from behind the counter. It was normal, just as I had left it. I turned my head around slowly and I looked behind me to examine the counter and the little lane behind it.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

My chair was knocked over, but other than that everything seemed like how it should be according to my fuzzy memories. Dungeon core on counter, artifact generators still in their slots in the counter. I stumbled to the chair I had knocked over in my pain and I seized it and hoisted it onto its legs again before collapsing onto the padded chair with relief.

“What happened?” I wondered out loud and reviewed my scattered mind, looking for a clear answer. Nothing came to my mind, but at that moment something else popped into existence to answer my question at that moment, quite literally. The system made the usual Pop! as it appeared beside me and I turned to it with trepidation.

“You have undergone a soul expansion due to your soul interacting with mana for the first time. New ability ‘Mana Connection’ gained. To see a description of your abilities, open the Current Abilities menu.” The system started in its usual robotic voice.

“Two abilities in one day?” I questioned faintly, I was shocked at the system’s announcement and rightfully so. I had never even gotten a single ability before today. “Current abilities menu please.” I stated firmly to the system screen while leaning on the firm counter and I watched as the screen shifted in front of my eyes, showing the list of abilities.

My eyes went over the screen quickly scanning for the new ability that I had gotten, finding it right after mental enlightenment. “Your soul has been influenced by an energy foreign to your native universe and it has undergone a change, expanding your soul to take up the entirety of your physical body and has gained the passive ability to form a spiritual and mental link to any mana it encounters along with being able to store almost limitless amounts of said mana, like the natural ability of natives of Oridon.” The system tells me, leaving me shocked for the second time today.

“Well… I guess I did it!” I said, laughing at my worry from what happened while my ‘soul expanded’ or whatever the system called it. “But now… More experimenting I guess. I need to figure out how to use this new ability.” I commented, realizing that I had been doing a lot of experimenting and testing lately. I was practically turning into a scientist being all shut up experimenting with magic all day in my arcade!

I looked away from the system screen and let it disappear from reality while I scanned the room through my monocle for all the scattered mana around from before the ‘change’ happened. They were all around the room, dark purple mana in the shadows, white spiraling through the air like they were in a strong gust of wind, mana all around. I started to pull them into me, guided by the words of my new ability and a little voice in the back of my head, an instinct born from reading fantasy novels.

When the first mote of mana entered my body, I knew that I was doing something right as I could feel my mind suddenly gain a connection to the little purple mana particle, like an extra hand inside my… I didn't really know what to call where the little particle was. I could feel that it was inside me, but I couldn't really tell where. Like it was everywhere in my body and not in my body at all. It was hard to explain, but from the system's description I could guess that it was inside some space in my soul. It felt damned weird when I concentrated on it though.

Regardless of how weird where it was felt like, I felt a burst of joy at succeeding in getting mana. It felt like a long journey had just begun with this one simple step. The journey of the arcade mage. Or maybe I just call myself mage Leonore. Sounds less pretentious.

I spent the next few seconds just absorbing the rest of the mana I could get my hands on, but finally I couldn't see any more and I decided that the amount was enough for now. I need to see what I could do with these little things.

Carefully, I drew out one of the mana particles I had stored, a yellow one to be specific, and I watched it with the monocle for a few seconds, thinking of what I could try to do with it.

“Well, it all comes down to how mana works!” I realized and started to think about mana seriously, “What does the different colors of mana mean is the most important question.” I realize. “Just by how they act, it seems like the most logical to assume they are like sort of elemental things, maybe it's that simple?” I wonder out loud, “But what colors are what elements?” I question, only to sigh as I realize that I just added another thing to research to my very long list.

And so started my next project. Classifying the colors of mana as elements. It took a surprisingly small amount of time to actually start my cataloging, I just needed to think about how I saw the various colors behaved and connect them to how I thought an element would behave and I came up with a short list.

Yellow= sunlight, purple= darkness, brown= dirt, white= air, pale blue= water, green= unknown, red= unknown.

It was all I could really guess they were without really guessing. I didn't want to have to change anything later on, easier to just fill in new information as I come across or learn it. But now that I had finished this little list, I could get to testing my theories.

I pushed out a little mana particle, a yellow or sunlight type one. Now is the time that I really figured out this magic system. I concentrated on the mana hard, feeling the mana and imposing my will onto it like in the stories I have read of magic. ‘A glowing orb.’ I thought to the little particle, ‘you will turn into a glowing orb.’ I commanded, firmer this time as I felt the mana give a little and I started to notice a change.

Through the monocle, I could see the mana particle and it was… weird. It looked like it was being dissolved then being sucked into itself. But with the other eye that does not have the monocle on it, I could see something else happen. A tiny dot of yellow light had appeared in the air, right where I felt and saw the mana particle, steadily growing outwards.

“I did it.” I said faintly at the use of magic. “I did MAGIC!” I yelled out horsley before cackling a little both in my head and out loud to the silent empty room.