If anyone had ever wondered, how would it feel to have all the nerves stretched taut and then used as strings by a mad bass guitar player, I experienced that in full.

At that moment as I joined my mind and the body I had created, I felt everything at once.

Body functions went crazy, as pain, pressure, temperature and other receptors activated at the same time.

Muscles attempted to contract simultaneously, getting torn in confrontation. Bones shifted as joints popped out of their sockets, ligaments unable to keep them in place.

I had always thought that I had high pain tolerance level after everything I had gone through with spine rehabilitation. But now the waves of hot agony made me roll around the ground, grinding old crates, boxes and even frozen corpses into dust.

It felt, as if Tomas de Torquemada, H.H. Holmes, Vlad Tepes and the rest of notoriously inventive people throughout the history had a get-together with me as the main attraction.

I had no ability to faint, or have an adrenaline rush or endorphin to get rid of the agony. But as time went by, I became able to pay attention to other things than pain.

Either due to the stimulation from the pain or some other mystical reasons, I could see Myself.

---

Unbeknown to me, the mind core had shifted into a direction outside of the familiar three dimensions. It was there, but not quite there.

Oddly, my body had also changed from the one I had designed.

Notably, I grew male member, that I initially had totally forgotten about, engrossed with the creation of the body with super-physique.

I also felt hair grow from my head, which was a really weird thing to feel.

Amazingly, the solid mechanism-like tissue structures that I had designed were being replaced with living cells, humming with vitality and each becoming a focal point of my energy. Each formed a direct overlapping connection between my spirit and body.

Due to that, the cellular structure did not loose in toughness to the original carefully-designed structure, but became more realistic. I got rid of the eerie doll-like sheen of the skin and the body became even more efficient in energy control and maintenance.

And as with mind core, I felt the body cells begin to shift into the dimension other than ordinary space-time of XYZ+t.

I could not comprehend the details due to the complexity of what I could observe. My mind was struggling with new intricacies of the space, but it felt like a flattened balloon being released and regaining its round shape. 4

As the shift advanced, slowly from inside towards the outside, the pain receded and I could finally stand up.

---

It felt weird. Big time weird.

I could sense the pressure of the stone floor against the soles of my bare feet. I felt minute changes in the airflow against my skin. It took time to switch from magic perception to my eyes, but as I did, I could observe Tyndall effect, as tiny icedust particles danced around in thin rays of light coming from the shafts below the ceiling.

I was butt naked in another world, in some sort of temple with frozen corpses surrounding me, but I felt that it was beautiful.

The nostalgic feeling of light passing through the pupil and eyeball, reflected onto the retina and converted into visual signal!

The feeling of muscles stretching and contracting under the skin!

The almost-forgotten feeling of beating heart!

I shook my head and my vision went dark.

Having no hair for who knows how long made me totally forget about what to do with hair. I brushed the strands off my face and looked closer.

My new hair was of the wild, bloody red colour, and reached the middle of my back. It was odd change from my old dark blond hair I had inherited from my Danish mother. The new colour did not feel natural at all, it was way outside of the hair colour palette I was used to..

Also, I had never liked long hair, preferring short maintenance-easy haircuts to all the hassle long hair entailed.

I looked for the weapons I had first gathered from the corpses.

It took some time to find them, as I had kicked the majority away when I had tossed around in pain.

Surprisingly, some blades had broken, visible through contorted sheaths.

They had likely shattered due to heavy blows at extremely low temperature, as steel often had the downside of becoming brittle in extreme cold. That also proved again that major chemical and physical laws were same as on Earth, which was reassuring.

I drew one dagger that looked fine from its sheath, and tried to cut the hair I held in place above my neck level.

I almost ended up driving a dagger into my nape as the sharp edge actually rebounded from my hair that I had stretched out.

Sawing, hacking and even trying to cut it strand-by-strand did not yield any results.

Doing that, I also noticed that my average available strength had dropped compared to my past skeleton-form, but I also clearly felt that my total potential had risen.

There was some sort of limiter or division, likely due to the 5th dimension I had integrated with in addition to the familiar three geometrical dimensions and the time being the fourth.

I tentatively decided to call it spirit dimension, as it seemed to have something to do with my energy and spirit.

---

While thinking, I looked down.

Yep, I was reminded again that I was naked.

And apparently, had had a horse’s junk attached while I was not looking.

“Nononono, where I am going to find pants to fit that in?!” I almost screamed as I hurriedly tried to use the technique of body moulding I had used before. Luckily, it worked.

After finally reaching the size “A bit above average, in length and thickness both”, so that I would not make people faint in case I had to undress, I turned towards the task of finding some clothes.

---

I was not too eager to undress corpses that were frozen solid. The bodies that had been broken, had shattered into pieces together with their clothes.

So I decided to go with armor.

I went to the leader who had the fancy scaled leather armor and took it off.

Surprisingly, the leather had not deteriorated, and the straps were still flexible. I had no idea how that was achieved, considering all the frost and age, but I was still thankful for the fact.

The height difference between me and the armor’s original owner’s rather average build was significant, but thanks to numerous buckles and straps, I was able to fit the body armor onto my larger body.

Luckily, the armor had long skirtlike faulds reaching midtights, so with it on, I did not have an urgent need for pants anymore.

My newly created nerve receptors informed me that the armor felt VERY cold and quite hard against the skin, but I was able to regulate their output so that it would not be distracting.

Having covered my body and nether regions with the armor, I now felt pretty confident and comfortable.

In addition, I found a relatively flexible piece of leather to tie up my hair so that it would not get in my way as I could not cut it into preferred length.

I also searched through the weapons to arm myself in preparation for the world outside.

I picked out a poleaxe that looked to be in the best shape and a straight short sword that I managed to attach to my armor with relative confidence not to drop it.

I clearly lacked basic materials like some soft new leather and rope.

Instead, I had to pick pieces from the heaps of old leather, which was hard as board and usually cracked at slightest pressure.

“I would kill for a roll of cowhide, some wax, thread and needle”- I growled as I started ripping off tiny buckles from the armors and belts that I could find, and linking those into passable chains.

Using such temporary measures, I managed to secure my pitiful luggage.

It included all the unbroken daggers I could find, the diaries of the mage and the elder and the rings and bracelets that the group had brought with them when fleeing from Bial.

The daggers and jewelry were taken as funds, in case I found some sentient and civilized beings outside. Daggers for more practical, poorer communities and jewelry in place of cash in case I managed to reach some economically advanced areas.

I hung my luggage over my shoulder like a bandolier, picked up my poleaxe and after a short salute to the dead, moved towards the only exit out of the hall that I could see.