rubbing my eyes grogily I yawn and reach for the sky while i stretch. maan today was the day i have to go to family dinner. today was my birthday... well looking over at the alarm clock it was 11:03 a.m. crap its mid morningg, i guess i stayed up late again. one of these days one of my online novels would get famous and i would get rich! then i could get my family off my back and do a little traveling. Thinking of my brother and sister always brought up mixed feelings i hadnt seen either in over 2 years and as i was turning 30 I didnt have much to show. a few books online and a dirty apartment. as much as i was looking forward to tonight i was dreading it all the same.
getting out of bed to make myself breakfast I remembered i had decided to treat myself in preparation of today by scheduling a nice haircutt and shave. I was looking a little rough around the edges, especialy if i had plans to meet the fam tonight. got to look my best! flipping the bacon I took a quick brake to run to the living room and take a rip of some delicious bud i had picked up last week. shooo blowing out a cloud of smoke damn thats some good shit! running back to my slightly burned bacon I grab some milk and plate every thing before wolfing it down while watching the news.
got to watch the news in the morning! somthing my late father instilled in me, he was more of a paper reader but i perfer the new channel. turning off the tv i walk to the bathroom and hop into the shower, I dont want to be late to my haircutt. i rinse off and throw on some cloths before i head out. it takes about about 5 minutes to walk to the barber shop. Its a little cold so i walk at a brisk pace on the way. walking in i see a cute brunette girl about 5,6 she asks me if i have an appointment and i tell her I do for 11:30 i grab a water because its way to early to drink beer and liquer tastes like barf to me. a minute later another blonde llady aproaches me and asks "are you Ben? Yes" i respond. Right this way please.
I grab my water and follow her to the back. the place is pretty deserted just the front desk girl and us. "pretty slow lately with all the stuff going on?" i ask "yea it is for a tuesday" we chat casually before i get to ask my favorite question. "so i say blue portal appear- Why a blue portal" she asks and I respond "duh because portals are blue..." anways a blue portal appears and you dont know where it goes but you know you cant come back what do you do? some dont take the question seriously as they dont even have the frame of reference to understand the question but we had talked and her boyfriend was a 'nerd' i couldnt helo but sigh when i heard that. but i had coverd the basics when i told her about some of my books. so she seemed to take it seriously when she paused stoping her every busy hands to look from my hair to my face and say probably not I got too much of a life here. maybe a few years ago though she said with a wistful smile.
Man! i lamented people realy do lose their sense of adventure somtimes! lucky for me. i was a poor webnovelist so i could dream the impossible all day long. saying this to myself i felt my smile fade a bit. I walked out thinking about the dinner tonight. I texted a picture of my new haorcutt to the the group text and got a few happy birthday see you tonights. I felt my stomach rumble and decided i wanted to take a shortcutt between the building to shave some time off. taking a early right and going between a book store and old dollar store there is a small tunel that runs down and then slants up to exit a block later. no one really used it as it was always a little wet at the bottom. but i could cross 2 streets faster and then it was just a short skip through a park to home. finding the tunnel easily enough i quickly entered feeling a rumble from my stomach. half way down i noticed it was darker than normal. i turned around and couldnt see anything behind me but blackness looking down at my feet i could still vaugly see the pavment but not much else. turning a corner I saw it then a blue portal floating in mid-air.
No fucking way i said out loud! shrieking out loud only to brake in laughfter the next it took a few seconds for me to collect myself. i quickly grabbed my phone to take a pic and send it to someone anyone. then i thought better of it. looking up from my phone i could see it had shrunk significantly and seemd to be speeding up. omg was this punishment for always asking other people?! not fucking cool god! shit! instantly sweating because i knew what i would do. i take my phone to the family group text and quickly send out i love you so much and always will i send it before i jump through the rapidly shrinking portal.
jumping through i see an endless expanse of blue, looking closer for a second it looks like small blue dots but too close togather to tell the difference. holy shit! fuckK! i cant believe i did that! I can only think this as i feel a cold mist that seems to go right through my cloths and freeze my muscles then my bones. as the feeling starts to get stronger, i then realize i am falling in a bottomless land of blue. I start to feel pain and look down at my body to see it start to disitigrate as if the blue stuff is acid and i am a piece of paper. i can only scream louder before blackness takes me.
when i come to I am floating in a land of blue. i sit in stillness for a minute as i try and take stock. as i do i feel faint burning and a slight pressure. I can only describe the burning as if i am being cooked but as it goes on it becomes less as if i am being tempered but the ocean. but as i do the feeling of pressure becomes stronger as if i am a ballon too full. i start to feel as if i am going to explode, and i start to panic.
ok! ok! blue shit! fuck, maybe mana!? I focus my entire mind inward, only now realizing that i am a disembodied blob. Fuck where is my body?! shit. i am gona die. can i compress the energy maybe control it? as i try, i manage to compress it with some effort. as i feel myself being tempered with more mana it gets easier to compress and control the mana. i get into a cycle where i feel the mana around me as it comes in contact with what i am guessing is my soul? I cant divert my focus to think about my situation, as i quickly start to feel the pressure on my escalate as i absorb more mana. as i compress the mana I absorb i notice that there comes a point that i cant anymore. as i compress it to the uitmost i can i notice the draw of mana near me. as if it drawn to the concentration. feeling the pressure of the added mana i squeeze what i have absorbed to compress it one last time, and feeling the added strain of the incoming mana i do the only thing i can think at the time and form it into a brick sorta slab and lay it on what i feel the floor of what i am guessing my soul is. the process repeates as i feel less and less strain from doing it.
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As i get a little more proficient handling the mana i notice how clear my soul is before it had spots of silver and dots of black. but now its spotsless ethreal white. handling the mana now feels as natural as breathing. as i compress my mana bricks i invision a endless blue paved road with giant towers and pantheons. i was going to build my soul up like the most BA minecraft map. i lost myself in the fantasy for a second. as i built my bricks and laid my foundation i started to notice the mana being pulled in ever increasing amounts towards me. soon i felt the pressure increasing no matter how fast i compressed the mana. i felt panic start to rise and again devoted my mind whole heartedly to compressing my bricks again. but not matter how fast i made them the pressure continued to rise. I realise that somthing has to change or i am going to explode and with all my mana i am sure i will not survive. feeling i only have about a minute left before i die my mind races. The only thing i can think about is that i have to get out of here. feeling the pressure rising i feel my mind calm and think maybe i can use the mana to move? it feels like an ocean so maybe fins? wing? i grab some of my bricks, I got alot by now maybe 100? and try and thin them out and form wings. as i bring the mana outside my soul it loses some of its cohesion as if the mana around it wears away at my control. i firm my grip on my mana a little and make what amounts to two flat walls on the side of me. as i start to get a suffocating feeling i push back on them as hard as i can in an effort to move and they flap to my sides in an instant and i feel myself shoot forward. as i do I can feel myself swiming in the mana currents and the suffocating pressure starts to fade.
not knowing what else to do i start to lasily swim and compress my mana bricks. dreaming of the day i build a city, no a world! in my soul.
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as a creation god Arlos had seen it all done it all countless times. after creating another multiverse he had decided to take a break. a nap really. waking up after an untold time Arlos decided to get back to get back to work. before he did he spied somthing in his divine creation mana plane. the mana plane was countless times bigger than any universe he had ever created but he could still see it all in a blink. such was the power of Arlos. as he looked he noticed movment in the divine creation mana. impossible he muttered nothing could survive there. in another breath he was before the distubance for although he could see it, it was hard to believe. two giant wings made from sheets of compressed mana. each wing contained more mana than a small world. even more unbeliveable was that in its soul was a flat plain. one that was made up of mana sheets and it contained mana compareable to an entire universe! watching as the soul absorbed and compressed the divine mana to extend his soul plain one more slab he could only laugh. plucking the little guy with further ado he could only laugh!
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I had been swiming for what felt like forever but what else could i do. to stay put was to die and to stop making bricks was to die. but i was content i would build my inner world 1 brick at a time. I had long ago perfected my wings and swiming in the endless expanse of blue. i continued to travel and compress mana in my soul. as i was swimming, i suddenly felt somthing grab me.
i looked up in panic only to see a guy in a gold robe looking at me "whats up little mortal" he said "my name is Arlos". the first thing i noticed was the mana. it stood still, no currents. in all the time i had swam in the endless blue there was alwasy shifting currents forever. Now in front of Arlos as if a dog heeling to its master it was perfectly still. "Hello uhh sir" i say. "I can tell you snuck into my divine creation mana pond while i was asleep and have been playing around for awhile." he said with a frown. I could tell that to make this guy unhappy could spell my end so i had to be careful. "i uhh saw a portal and thought...." Arlos shook his head and said "worry not little mortal although i cannot let you keep any divine creation mana you have reaped benefits nontheless. not even the son of a god could bathe in my divine creation mana pond." I think he was talking about my soul. after swiming in the divine creation mana for so long not only had it grown stronger but the creation mana had made it spotless. I remember how far i could sense before a few feet. now my senses could span miles and i could direct the flow of mana as natualy as breathing.
"Although i will reincarnate you and let you keep you memories divine creation mana doesnt belong in the hands of a mortal. good luck!" with that i felt my surroundings change, and the next thing i knew i was looking at the canopy of a forest. i felt a great wearines take me and the next thing I knew blackness took me.
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the dragon army was one of the most famous mercenary legions on the continent. their leader Diva assor was a legendary knight that swept the continent in his youth before founding the dragon army. the dragon army was not like normal mercs in that they were more about quality than quantity known for only accepting experts, they had a high reputation. Diva assor was polishing his black armor in the bed of a giant wagon as he contemplated the future as the wagon rolled across the plains towards leendar, the orignal base of the dragon army had formed around a small town that grew into a city.
a contract from a nobel of the dark elves was one of the worest contracts, months spent underground fighting in the dark against disgusting creature after creature only for our employer to wander off and get himself eaten by a mind flayer trying to take a piss. we only got half of our commission and had to fight our way out at the end because he was the son of a Nobel. it was really enough to make a man crazy. sighing to myself before i put my armor down. we would be traveling through gods grove soon.