The following weeks passed in a blur. Mira and I hadn’t spoken about the incident since it happened, but for some reason, it seemed like we’d never have to. The meteor fall was long gone, but the memories of that night lingered, carved into my mind alongside the feelings they brought.

Strangely, or rather not, things returned to normal pretty much the next day, which was natural of course. But also weird.

Maybe ‘normal’ wasn’t the right word either.

‘Let’s see… I live in a forest in the middle of nowhere with what might as well be the most beautiful woman in the entire world, and I’d either be fighting Horny or other beasts on a daily basis... Yeah, that’s as normal as it gets.’

Every time I thought this of, it made me giggle. Images of people’s reactions to my description of normal popped into my mind—hair being yanked, water being spit out, or people falling flat on their butts, like the silly reactions I’d read about in books.

Of course, there was no one around other than Mira, so I was left only with my imagination.

Maybe imagining myself in these scenarios was the weird thing…

Was it normal for one to talk to themselves or giggle out of nowhere?

‘Of course it was!’

Maybe, then it had to do with the the shift in my lessons.

We’d wrapped up most of the history lessons, at least for now. Mira said we’d barely scratched the surface, “circumferential” she called it—a fancy new word she taught me, although I preferred “peripheral” out of the two synonyms—and once the time came, we’d be returning for more details.

Now, our focus was on grammar, vocabulary, and—ugh—writing.

One would think reading a lot and learning new words, I practically already knew how to write.

Wrong!

That’s like saying if you eat food, you automatically know how to cook it.

That long stick of a pen was so big, why did the make them like that?

I had to press at least three of my fingers together just to hold it, and it was still awkward. And how was such a small thing so heavy!?

I was an Elemancer at the red stage now, so it really wasn’t that difficult, annoying if anything, barely noticeable, but what about everyone else?

Not everyone was an Elemancer, and neither every Elemancer was at the red color. What were they supposed to do? Hold it with both hands, one to steady the base and the other to keep it balanced? Who even thought of that!?

And on top of it all, Mira couldn’t help me in this one, offering either a smile or a chuckle.

At least the exercises she made me take weren’t that hard.

First, she’d have me read a difficult text, then note down the words I struggled with. She’d also ask which ones I wanted to go over again or needed an explanation for. After that, I’d have to write and say each word out loud five times, while listening to her repeat them, so I’d see, hear and write all at once. If five times weren’t enough, we’d do it ten. If that didn’t work either, then twenty—at which point, the word would get saved for the next session until I got it right.

We’d repeat this for an entire chapter, which translated to three to five pages, thought there were those ugly, unpleasant very big ones that lasted eight pages.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Honestly, it was pretty effective, but damn did it take time.

Mira explained that I was actually doing pretty well, and I was already pretty advanced for my age but still, just like that two-hole hours were gone each day.

That was so much!

Sure it had its fun when the words were funny or if they had many synonyms because Mira invented this word-play game, where each of us would say a sentence, and the other would have to say the same thing using the synonyms to reach a similar meaning, and the added twist of adding one more word at the end. This lead to enormous tongue twisters that were getting progressively harder to remember, which made it super fun, but still, it couldn’t compare to everything else I did on a daily base.

I mean, there was a limit to how much fun that was compared to venturing in the forest, seeing the different flowers bloom, fighting Horny, and of course, watching, understanding, and absorbing quint.

I had reached the red color! The red color!

How cool was that?

And it happened so abruptly.

One moment, I was bracing myself for a head-on collision with Horny’s, well, horns. The next, a surge of power flooded through me—a strange yet oddly familiar sensation. For a split second, I heard the sound of splashing water. It reminded me of the clarity I felt during my fight with the Darkclaw, except this time, I saw the rippling water beneath my feet.

I thought I was losing my mind. After all, I’d been mid-air just a second ago, and now I was standing on a dark sea beneath a vast purple sky, gradually bleeding into a deep crimson red. Then I noticed the familiar symbol etched high above—the lighted dots I had once connected had transformed into what now stood as the Eye of the Storm.

I was back in the same place I had been when I first awakened—only now, a few things were different.

Most striking of all? I was there with my body.

Back then, the experience had been surreal. I wasn’t really there—more like a spirit hovering in that space—but I still felt the exhaustion as if I were. Now however, I was fully present, with my body and everything, standing in what I could only guess to be the inside of my core. And, even more strangely, I realized I could enter this place whenever I wanted.

It didn’t take me long to figure that out, surprisingly enough.

Since I was mid-air when the transformation happened, the moment my physical body landed back on the ground, I was forced out of that place. But because the entire experience lasted less than a second, I was still fresh on the sensation. By focusing on my core, I managed to re-enter the moment I was kicked out.

It was weird—being in two places at once. Even weirder when one of them was inside your own self. It made me very self-conscious. What would happen if I moved my arm inside my core? Would it move in the physical world too? No, but I still felt the sensation of moving it and not moving it at the same time. It was confusing and disorienting.

Thankfully, that didn’t last long. I started getting used to it, mostly because I understood where this place was.

It was my core, the closest connection I had to quint—both my own and the ambient quint around me. In this state, quint and I weren’t all that different, which meant I could study and understand it more deeply.

I’d always thought I was pretty good at manipulating quint, but learning inside this space (I still haven’t come up with a name for it yet), I knew I’d be able to grow by leaps and bounds. The possibilities seemed endless, and I was certain there was more to it than what I could grasp right now.

Sad how I wasn’t able to spend much time inside it.

Entering this place wasn’t the only thing advancing my stage offered.

I went through a qualitative change.

In all honesty, it was scary how much of a difference there was between the fifth stage of purple and the first stage of red.

It wasn’t a ten plus two. More like ten plus eleven.

Ignoring the sharpening of my senses, which was tremendous to say the least, my speed, endurance, reaction, and of course, power felt unreal, otherworldly even.

Well, I might be exaggerating on this one, and it could be as simple as me still not growing accustom to my newfound strength, but still!

Previously, facing Horny was crazy. I knew that much myself.

However, I also knew that he wouldn’t truly harm me.

And I was proven right after he came back unscathed from our encounter with the Darkclaws. He’d been holding back when training me, but now... now he truly had to work for it.

Not only because I could match him and even surpass him, but also because I had grown to be quite the fighter, not that I had anyone here to face of and see for myself...

That’s why I started hunting other beasts.

Every second or third day, instead of training with Horny, I’d venture out to hunt wild beasts alongside him. We came across some very unique creatures and others that were tricky to deal with, but in the end, we always came out on top.

I felt confident in our ability to beat every beast in the forest—except for one, of course. But I doubted we’d run into that thing anytime soon. And so far, we hadn’t.

That’s how the past few weeks went by. Aside from my ascension, things were pretty normal, I’d say.