After seeing the fantastical scenery in front of her, out of fear, Adore decided to close the door as fast as possible, although she didn't know how much protection the house would really grant her. But she could only hope and pray that this would be enough to keep her safe. She then started to think out loud.

"Where am I for real? This is crazy."

"You're in the world known as Avalon; it's way bigger than yours and also way more dangerous. This is actually where I'm from," a voice directly in her ear said.

"Um, who are you?" asked Adore in a confused tone.

"I'm the little black mouse you saved," said the strange voice.

"Oh, where are you?"

"I believe I'm in your soul space. I'm guessing I'm your Beast companion now, along with all the other mice you took care of."

"Oh, ok. What is a beast companion?"

"It's a pact you make with spirits and beasts to bind your souls together."

"Oh, ok. I guess that makes sense. When did I do that?"

"I don't know. I guess we were already your beast companions before we got here," said the strange voice in a nonchalant tone.

"And how exactly did we get here?" asked Adore in an even more confused tone.

"I don't know. I don't even know where we are in Avalon right now, nor do I know how we got here. I don't even remember how I got into your world. I just know I used to live here. I don't know anything more than that."

"Ok, do you know how this world works?"

"Kinda sorta."

Adore didn't like how a lot of the things she was asking were barely getting answered. So, she left it alone and decided to look around the house and figure things out for herself. There wasn't much; it had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room space, and a dining room. It was very simple and straightforward, but there wasn't really a bathroom.

"Ummm, where's the bathroom?" asked a door in a bewildered tone.

"Outside, I guess that's where they usually are." The mouse said this as if it were a normal occurrence.

Adore was confused as to why a bathroom would be outside. Then, she thought for a minute and noticed that there were no appliances or even a sink. This must mean that electricity and plumbing weren't available here, and she probably would need to use a hole. This caused her mind to wonder in till she decided to distract her mind with something else; she then began to think about how she actually never gotten around to naming the strangely colored mouse, so she decided to focus on that to distract herself from how she would go about that process of using the bathroom.

"Do you have a name, little mouse?said Adore.

"Yes, I actually do," said the voice in her head.

"Can I hear it?" asked Adore.

"Twyla," said the mouse.

"What a beautiful name! Is there a reason I can't speak to the other mice, Twyla?"

"You must not have enough mana to support so many beast companions. They are in a sleeping state, but not a lot of beasts can gain an ego," replied Twyla.

"Ok, ok, that makes sense. How many do you think I'll be able to talk to?" Adore asked.

"Probably like five. That's how many I see with the most mana," replied Twyla.

"Oh, I guess that's fine. How do I bring you out?" Adore inquired.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"I don't know. You have to read books on magic to figure that out," said Twyla.

Adore was a little skeptical at first, but she was sure this was a fantasy world once she heard Twyla speak of magical books. Adore had seen some books on a shelf in the living room not too long ago, so she decided to look there first.

Once she made her way to the living room and walked towards the bookshelf she had passed a while ago while walking to the front door, she saw books of magic on the last row. It wasn't a big shelf, so she didn't have to look long to find what she needed. She immediately saw a book on the basics of magic and how it worked, and that's the one she reached for and grabbed.

As she was reading, what stuck out to her was the way magic was used. To cast spells, you had to channel mana through out your body and materialize it in order to make a runic pattern that correlated to the spell you were casting and say the activation word after the runic pattern was complete, or think it. Thinking of an activation word after forming a runic pattern was complicated and could result in casting a dud, which was an incomplete spell that did nothing but consume one's mana, or you would end up casting a totally different spell altogether, which was called a misspell, which was said to be incredibly painful alone with duds. That is why thinking spells were said to only be done if you knew them by heart.

To use magic at all, you need to be a circle mage, meaning you have to form a magic circle in your soul space. The highest number of magic circles a being can have is ten in the mortal realm. How things outside of the mortal realm use magic is unknown. Now that Adore knew this much, all she needed to know was how to make a magic circle in her soul space.

In the book, it said that in order to do this, you had to try and feel the mana lying dormant in your body. So Adore sat there for hours uninterrupted until she did, and just when she was about to give up, she felt something strange all around her after twelve hours of meditation.

She recognized this to be what the book called "mana." She was so happy that she finally started feeling it. Now, from here, she had to figure out how to start moving the mana. She knew it would be hard to do until she formed a magic circle. So she took her time. One hour passed, but nothing happened. Two hours passed, and Mana started to move a little bit. Six hours passed, and she had moved mana to her soul space. This is where she would build her mana circle. But before she could start, she passed out and went to sleep from using so much energy.

Another six hours passed, and Adore slowly woke up. She could still feel the mana in her soul space. From here, she didn't know what to do, so she went back to reading the book to get an idea. While going over it, she was a little confused but had an idea of what to do, so she kept reading until it made sense to her. After an hour of reading over and getting a better understanding of the text, she gathered that all she had to do was form a ring of mana, then compress and condense it. Once she did that, controlling her mana flow and what could come in and out of her soul spaces would be easier for her.

So she sat up, crossed her legs, closed her eyes, and started the process of forming a ring of mana and making it a good size so her control over mana wouldn't be all wonky. A few hours passed, and a quarter of a ring was made. After two more hours, almost half was done. Another hour passed, and a full half was done. Now she had one more half of a ring to go. So, one hour passed, then two and three came right after. Then bam, she was finished, and it was time to compress and condense the ring. She didn't have to do this right after, so she took that time to get more sleep.

Another day had passed, and Adore was ready to go. This was nothing to Adore; she had plenty of sleepless nights because of her old job. She was glad she was able to take her time with this. As soon as she woke up, she went to the kitchen after realizing she hadn't eaten.

"Twyla, how do we cook here?" Adore asked.

"There should be a stove in the kitchen and matches. You can use that to heat up the inside of the stove and turn on the burners."

"Ok, thank you, Twyla."

"No problem, Master."

That was new for Adore; she had never been called anyone's master before. She didn't mind it, but honestly, she didn't have time to think too much about it. Her stomach was eating at her at this point, and then she thought about something.

"Um, Twyla, do I have to feed my beast companions?"

"No, we feed off of the mana that your body consumes while also supplying you with our own mana and continuing the cycle indefinitely, unless one of us dies." said twyla.

"Ok, that's good to know, but whenever I can, I'll still give you all a good meal," she said.

After that, Adore looked around the kitchen for food and found a deep freezer. She wondered how it ran since she didn't really have electricity at all.

"Twyla, how does this work?" asked Adore

"Oh, magic stones! There are lamps in the house that operate using them as a source of energy as well. All magic stones are sourced from a location that has an abundance of the respective element, and the deep freezer in our house utilizes an ice stone as its source of power, indicating its elemental nature," said Twil

"Is it water or ice?"

"Oh, that's right, you're not from here. It's water and air. Some elements are made from more than one element. Said twyla."

"Oh, ok, that makes sense." Said Adore

After that, Adore looked through the deep freezer and saw only meat in it. She decided to pull out a large piece of bird meat and cook it. She searched through the cabinets for herbs and seasonings to cook her food with and found a few. She then roasted whatever bird she had found in the deep freezer. When she was done, she started chowing down on her food until she felt satisfied with it.

"Wow, that was good. I guess I still got it," said Adore in a playful tone.

Twyla found this funny and giggled at the sight of her prubbing her belly as she said this. Adore also laughed along with Twyla until she finally regained composure and decided to finish the last part of making her magic circle. She sat in the living room on a love seat, crossed her legs, and got back to work. Condensing and compressing her magic circle was supposed to be painful, so she had to brace herself.

"Ok, here we go."

Once she said that the process began, she started to tighten the mana and merge them into each other, and damn, did it hurt! It felt as if thousands of needles were aggressively stabbed at every part of her body; all she could do was grit her teeth and endure the pain. She had dealt with pain for most of her life; compared to that, this was nothing. So, she pushed through for hours, compressing and condensing her mana. Then, something happened: a burst of energy shot out of her body and hit against the surrounding walls, causing books to fall off the shelf and a few vases and stands to slam against the walls.

"Oh wow, I think I did it. I believe now that I did. I should be able to look at it by entering my soul space."

She then did exactly that with no problem. She was surprised at how easy it was. In her soul space, it was basically a huge mansion with over 100 rooms. She assumed a lot of her mice were sleeping in some of them. She was standing at the entrance of the mansion, and high above it were actually two intertwined mana rings. She was surprised by this. Does this mean she's a second-tier mage already? She just started; was she a prodigy?

Who knows, but she definitely knew this had to be why it was so easy for her to get into her soul space. She also felt lighter, as if she had greater control over her mana, but she also felt less human, as if a beastly essence were exuding throughout her body. While she was lost in thought, three mice rushed out of the mansion. They were huge, like four feet off the ground.

"Master, more mice woke up. These two are the stronger ones, with more mana. Said twyla

"Hello, master Adore. I am Alice."

"Hello, master, adore. You named me Robby at your services."

"Oh wow. What is actually going on? Why are y'all so big?" Saif Adore