Back in his cave Azrael watched the dawn of the eighth day. It had been nearly two days in the real world, which was all that his capsule could support him for. That meant that today was the last day he had to finish this, before he logged off.

Taking up a cross legged pose he settled in. The wolf’s mana stone sat in one of his hands.

Closing his eyes, he gently extended a tendril of his mana towards the mana stone. To his senses it was a small ball of energy, a tiny star in the void. Gently he touched it, feeling the energy gently tingle through the connection. Its power was incomparable to his core, but what he was doing had a different fundamental reason.

The power in his core belonged to him, meaning that he had control over it, however both the mana stone and his soul resisted his touch, meaning that if he was going to try and manipulate the mana in his soul, he first wanted to practice on the mana stone. Although mana and his soul mist were slightly different, they were similar enough.

For a moment he let his senses rest upon the star that was the mana stone. It was bright and full of energy, but it was also soft and velvety. Gently he wrapped his consciousness around the star and began syphoning the corona of the star. He drew it out like he would a thread, drawing it from a spool. The energy twisted, trying to pull back, to escape his grip, but instead of tightening his control he relaxed, holding it just enough to draw it, guiding it, but allowing it to relax.

Then, very slowly he directed the thread to his right pointer finger, where the energy coalesced again. Opening his eyes, he raised his right hand and released the small ball of energy. It shot off, striking a tree outside the cave and stripping the bark where it hit. The mana stone broke in his hand, its energy spent. Azrael however had already slipped into his soul space. It was time for the real challenge.

His soul sat there, the only thing in the dark void and he stared at it in trepidation. Despite his confidence in all his work in the last days he was working completely from memory. All his notebooks and all his calculations were with Sera.

He couldn’t even switch back and forth between the two realities as when he was logged off, or was not present, his character would subsist in this world, which meant any delay in the process could be disastrous. Calming his nerves, he began.

Floating closer to his soul Azrael began shaping the mist into small streams. His aim was to create a new skill, which would grant him a status display. A simple interpreter for the rest of his soul.

However, due to his lack of access to below the layer of soul mist he wouldn’t be able to build those five sublayers to support the skill. This meant that it wouldn’t be able to grow in the future. He had to get everything perfect on his first try.

Under his hands the mists began to move in orderly fashion, weaving together into geometric shapes and solidifying. He was essentially building a skill crystal from scratch.

Back with Sera he’d used the same algorithm that decoded his skills into code to turn his new code into a crystalised form. Now, he was rebuilding that very same form from memory, drawing out the angles and lines with pinpoint precision, He could not afford to fail. If he did the results could potentially destroy all his other skills, or worse yet, his entire soul.

For the longest time he worked, straining against mental exhaustion, building higher and higher. Time had no meaning here. A streamer slipped from his fingers, unmaking part of his work. He grabbed it, panicking, and brought it back into his control, rebuilding what he had lost.

As he continued working there was more and more resistance from his soul, which in turn meant that each next layer of crystal was harder and harder to make and consequentially took longer to form, with a higher risk of disaster.

Suddenly, the soul thread in his hands snapped, overstrained, and recoiled backwards, arcing back to his soul like grounded lightning. He tried to grab it on its way down, but it slipped past his mental fingers.

He was about to give chase before realising that his skill crystal was in danger of coming apart. He was so close, so close to the end.

Giving up chase he hurriedly drew another thread of soul mist and finished the crystal. It glowed, flashing, and he could feel the soul mist flooding through it, like water through a parched riverbed.

Below him the escaped thread fell through the mists to the center of his soul. He watched it with regret. He had been so close!

All of a sudden, an enormous magical feedback roared up the rogue soul thread. Like a tsunami, it crashed into his skill crystal and he was ejected.

As the force connected, he felt the entire skill crystal strain from the force, before shifting, unable to contain the power. He watched it break, change and warp, taking on a new form. He watched as his entire work was ruined.

That was the last he could observe as the energy blasted into him out of his soul space.

Azrael landed back in his cave and violently coughed up blood, as the force of the recoil travelled through his body. It exploded out of his already weary body. Sweat covered him like a glistening sheen of oil and his muscles screamed at him from inattention.

For a brief moment, he lay there gasping for breath, as his blood and sweat mixed on the cave floor, before his game capsule forcefully logged him off.

The last thing he remembered before everything went dark was a small blue screen flickering in the space in front of him.