My previous manipulation of the Absorption Station’s setup required me to focus intensely on what I hoped to achieve through it, or at least touch an item I wanted to work with.

When I tried to do the same thing now, I failed.

I grasped for the vague sense of hunger the ascension meter always imparted in me, and I could find not a trace of it. No amount of inner searching made the sensation resurface.

So I turned my metaphorical eyes towards the next best thing. My bond with the Abyss.

It was easy to tell things had changed there. With my maximized ascension meter, the connection had strengthened even further, becoming truly unbreakable. Before, I could vaguely sense the Will of the Abyss radiating along our link, and was even influenced by it on occasion. Now, I could definitely feel something, a vast and keenly intelligent presence lurking at the other end.

Oddly, I couldn’t describe that presence as fully ‘alive.’ It was certainly aware, but there was a weird underlying feeling to the presence that made it distinct from all other creatures and minds I had encountered.

More than anything, I felt curiosity on the other end. A sense of amusement, too, like the Abyss was about to pat me on the head and ask what snacks I wanted while we headed out to a store. Maybe if I was a good child, I would get a few souls to spend on a new toy…

Despite the ongoing peril of my situation, I couldn’t help but smile.

What I wanted was unlikely to cost just a handful of souls, though.

So, one by one, I counted out a total of two hundred precious crystals. Once I had them all awkwardly pressed to my chest, I extended my mana and wrapped it around the souls. At the same time, I pressed the idea of what I needed through the bond.

Mind. Expansion. Strengthening. Enhancement. Faster. Thoughts.

Our communication was a flurry of ideas, all blended together into a loose arrangement that would hopefully get my point across.

The Abyss hesitated. Then its presence swept through our bond and directly into my soul, making me feel like I was about to burst. Pained gasps escaped my mouth as ‘Mother’ carefully evaluated my request and the offering intended to pay for it.

Finally, with agonizing slowness, as if not quite sure the exchange was worth it, the Abyss reeled the souls in.

The crystals popped like soap bubbles, releasing light and pure soul energy. The beauty dazzled me before everything was washed away along my connection to the Abyss. For a moment, the link was still and quiet.

Then a wash of energy surged across it.

This was nothing like the melted soul energy that had enhanced my soul during my ascension. No more gentle nourishment or systematic improvement. It was far more powerful, and far more violent. This was a steamroll-type upgrade, something an enchanter would force on an item rather than anything that should ever be done to a living creature.

I couldn’t stifle the scream that ripped out of my body.

The energy rampaged its way through my chest, burned up my throat, and finally pooled within my skull. It obliterated everything there, melting my brain down into a useless goo I was afraid would leak right out of me.

Yet, I was still aware. I could feel every moment of the agony. Worse still, this pain refused to transcend my consciousness and overwhelm my ability to process it. I was forced to witness every second, to experience every miniscule tremble and spark of torment, and to comprehend exactly what was being done to my body.

The soup that now filled my skull churned, heating up past the temperature any mortal liquid should have been able to reach. The energy roiled through it, altering and refining as it sank more and more of itself into the brew.

Not all of the energy stayed there, of course.

Some of it seeped into my hair. Some streamed down the back of my throat, making me clench my teeth and lips even tighter out of fear that what I had paid dearly for would just trickle out of my mouth. Some streamed further down, back the way it originally came, then coursed through all my limbs in warm, itchy tingles.

But the true agony only started when the energy hit my brain’s connection to the rest of my body.

My nervous system received a jolt of energy all its own, melting and warping as the Abyssal force went on a wanton blitzkrieg through my flesh. There wasn’t a nerve that didn’t get scorched. Not a single connection wasn’t ruined beyond recognition and then reforged into something new and, undoubtedly, better.

Finally, finally, the mess inside my skull began to cool. Starting from the center and extending outwards, my brain slowly reformed. I would have freaked out to witness the unnerving display in such cruel detail, had my pain not been so utterly overwhelming.

As it was, I sobbed with relief at the sight, my fingers clenched on the station’s chair until the knuckles were bone-white.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

When the last piece of my brain resolidified and the final remnants of Abyssal power faded, I was a limp, sweaty mess. My body was broken and wrung out. I had not a hint of desire to move, even if I could.

My mind, however, was another story.

With the process complete, my consciousness slammed back into my body, ending the odd separation that had allowed me to witness it all in the first place. And as soul and body synced up, my mind expanded, blooming in new and utterly beautiful ways.

Each thought was sharp, focused, and beyond fast. Whereas before, I had struggled to keep my mental faculties firing off at their best during combat, I had a feeling I could handle it easily now.

I also didn’t need to worry anymore about getting overwhelmed by the demands of magecraft. The headache caused by my enhanced mana perception was violently excised. The magical world lay bare before me, all its mysteries mine to contemplate and pursue.

At least until my mana perception level increased again. Then, I suspected, I would run into the exact same issue once more.

I refused to worry about that.

I just luxuriated in the dance and patterns of mana, watching it weave around me and swirl about the dome of the station.

I didn’t even know when I started to run my mana through my body. It came as an instinct, an innate need to try and duplicate the delicate dance of nature that was captivating me so. The mana shifted through me, assessing its old patterns of circulation and replacing them with much better alternatives.

My core gave signs of activity, too. It had never stopped spinning after I put it into motion the first day I met Mercutio, but now its rotation sped up. Spurred on by my core, the circulating mana churned through my blood vessels, and its newly forged pathways snapped into place.

The second that happened, my consciousness was sucked down to a pinprick in and around my core. I saw past its surface, deep within the crystalized mana that formed the mystical version of my heart. There, I bore witness to what it was hiding.

The core was not a solid, unchanging mass. The layers themselves formed barrier after barrier, all trapping a viscous kernel of mana that gleamed in more colors than the human eye could perceive. Reds, blues, greens, and yellows were most abundant, and took up at least a quarter of the core’s total capacity, but other mysterious hues were undeniably present.

The more I looked, the more dissatisfied I got. I didn’t know why, but the inside of my core seemed… off, to me. Like it was waiting for something. Like it could be better. Greater. More efficient.

Without meaning to, I reached out my mental fingers and prodded a section of the core’s innards into motion. The mana in there shifted, responding sluggishly. Yet it did respond.

I had all of a moment to question whether or not I should mess with something as crucial as my mana core.

Then I dove into the work.

Even in the midst of it, I couldn’t explain how I was pulling it off. I tugged, prodded, urged, and pleaded. And, slowly, the mana started flowing to my command.

When I was done, there was an ordered flow in my core’s inner mana, just as there was a flow in its external expression. Some primordial pattern now ruled over my core, brought to life there through instinct and recklessness.

And at the same moment the pattern locked into place, the mana circulating within my chest surged, sticking to my core’s surface as it formed my tenth layer.

A shock of power flashed through me for the second time that day, but there was no pain now. I experienced only pleasure and relief as my empowered, purified mana nourished my body, elevating it to a new level. Even my mind and mystical senses, strengthened as they were already, received a boost.

That feels great, I mused as I experimentally moved my limbs. Moments before, I had been in too much agony even to twitch. I thought I would need hours to pull myself together and crawl out of the station’s bubble. Now, just like that, my body was fully recovered.

If anything, my previous state was actually a benefit. Wrecked and weakened as my body was by the Abyssal mana, my advancement had shored up my inefficiencies and made me all the more resistant. So I could hope that if, or rather when, I repeated a sacrifice to the Abyss, I would fare much better.

Of course, having dragged myself up into a sitting position, I was finally afforded a decent view of my body and limbs. I froze instantly.

My skin was all wrong.

At first, I thought it was a mere trick of the light. But a closer inspection only confirmed the truth. Rather than the somewhat tanned color my skin had developed after weeks of campaigning on Berlis, my whole body was now tinted a light blue.

The color was barely there, to be honest. The only reason I could pick up on it was my familiarity with my hands. After all, I saw them in the corner of my vision every day. They were my hands. Obviously, I would notice if they changed!

My altered fingers were even more alarming. When the abyssal mana burned through my nerves, I did notice it lingering in my fingertips, but I hadn’t considered the potential effects of that.

Not until my new claws were staring me in the face.

Well, not literally. They were perfectly mundane claws. They didn’t have eyes of their own. They couldn’t stare at anything.

But I shouldn’t HAVE claws!

I had always known my ascension would change me, but I never expected said changes to be so physical and so obvious. That was why my altered tongue had freaked me out way back when, despite the potential spell-casting and linguistic benefits.

I guess I always thought my physical changes would be subtle. Better eyesight. Tougher body. Greater reflexes. Stuff like that! But no, I was looking at very real claws, something like a cross between bird talons and what you’d see on a cat. Long, tough, and deadly.

Experimentally, I flexed my hands. It took a few tries, but a niggling at the back of my mind kept me going. When I finally locked my muscles just right, a tiny bit of my mana responded to the physical stimuli, and my claws receded into my fingertips.

My nails were still unusually long and rather pointy-looking, but at least I didn’t have murder weapons permanently attached to my hands.

I let out a breath of relief, then winced when I remembered where else all that mana had escaped to.

Gingerly running my tongue over the inside of my mouth, I couldn’t quite hold back a forlorn sigh. Paired with my sinuous, snake-like tongue, I now had wonderfully sharp and pointy teeth.

A bit of questing with my fingers over the lines of my face further revealed that my ears had also changed. They were pointed and longer than before. Not quite elf ears, but definitely not something you would see on a normal human, either.

I didn’t know how to feel.

Sure, the process had been kicked off a long time ago. But all these sudden changes to the body I had come to see as mine were still unnerving, doubly so because they came without warning or consent. I was simply trying to make my mind and brain more resilient, and I had ended up a demon-lite humanoid.

At least I don’t have horns…

That thought made me scramble to check. A few moments later, I let my hands fall into my lap with a sigh. No horns. Not even stubby little things.

I’m not sure what it says about me, but I suddenly couldn’t decide whether to be sad or happy about that.