Oh my God, what was that just now? What has gotten into me? How will I ever face her again? Burning her bra, and then vanishing into nothingness – what will she think?!

A myriad of nightmarish scenarios was bringing him to the edge of a panic attack as he found himself on his knees, after a particularly unfortunate landing at the witch's doorstep due to being distracted.

I can never go back to my world after this... at least another Ronel must exist here, one that didn't witness all of that, Alt consoled himself without any success.

The hut's wooden door creaked, and his unlikely teacher, wearing her worn-out robe emerged.

After getting up to his feet, he found himself in an awkward staring match with the witch, who just returned his gaze neutrally.

"Do you want to tell me something? We don't have all day," she finally broke the silence.

"Can't you just do your mind reading thingy?" he said, not hiding his irritation.

"Oh my, I would never dare to intrude on your privacy!" she said with feigned indignation. Why did everybody around him have a knack for theatrics?

"Uh-huh, right," the teen boy said. "Can we talk about this inside?"

"Sure, we don't want the guinea pigs to overhear us," the witch complied and invited him in.

He threw her a scowl, sure that her choice of animal to use in her example was intentional to remind him of his recent trauma.

With a knock of her fingers, the old lady conjured a table set together with hot beverages. Alt thanked her for the hospitality, after reminding himself that despite her insufferable nature she was his only ally in this world.

"I must ask," he started, taking a sip. "And please don't judge me... so, back in my world, I was talking with eh... a friend, and for some reason I kept doing things without thinking... things that are really not me, or that I guess I would never do before. Did I really change that much after being here for just a few days?"

"First, you must clarify what you mean by things," the old lady mercilessly insisted.

"Things," he repeated, not budging at her provocation.

"Things huh," the witch looked at him, with a poorly hidden grin. "Ah, the beauty of youth," she said in the tone of somebody reminiscing about the good old days.

"It wasn't this world that changed you per se, or even the act of learning magic. No, it looks like this here is the culprit," she continued, pointing at his spiral mark. "It seems that your Spirit Twin was quite the lady-killer."

Whaaat?

"You don't mean...," Alt gasped.

"Yes. It seems that by messing around with his tattoo without knowing what you were doing, you hastened the absorption of the foreign Soul Fragments. Usually, they would be ingested into your Soul Essence very gradually, giving them time to acclimate, with a minimal effect on your personality. But by doing it in big batches instead, it seems that you end up losing control of yourself for a period of time. Careful, or you may end up on one of those offender's lists that need to stay away from children's playgrounds."

Alt buried his head in his hands, this time literally.

What the hell, she is joking, right? Just what kind of man was his Twin? And weren't they supposed to be similar to begin with, and if so, what did that say about his own character or lack of thereof?

"Is there a way to turn back time? For at least an hour? I kind of screwed things up back there."

"The best I can do for you is to conjure another cup of tea... or if you think it is THAT bad, I can give you a potion to erase her memories."

"No way!" he protested, not even surprised anymore at the extent of the witch's knowledge. "I am not that kind of guy!"

"Well, that remains to be seen," she chuckled. "Now, on a serious note, there is something I am going to tell you just once, and you better listen. Be careful about who you choose to reveal your powers to in your world. There are forces out there that would do anything for an opportunity to get a hold on what you will be able to do soon. So, unless you want to live as a lab rat for the rest of your miserable days, or become strong enough that this no longer matters, I'd advise you keep your mouth shut."

Altair listened to the admonishment, finally realizing just how grave the situation he had gotten himself into could turn out. Indeed, if an organization like SCAR got wind of his abilities, they would likely stop at nothing to get him under their thumb, and he would put his family and limited circle of friends at risk. Then there was the Levantian military, infamous for conducting unethical experiments on humans with the aims of creating a super-soldier.

"I am sorry... I realize it was really stupid. I will be more careful from now on," the teen boy finally brought himself to speak.

"Alright, I will chalk it up to young love and puberty this time," the witch said, sending him blushing. "Do you trust her completely?

"I guess... I mean, we haven't known each other all that long. But I don't think she took any of what I said seriously anyway."

Except for me suddenly disappearing without a trace – that ought to raise a red flag or two.

***

Alt was chattering his teeth as he sat under a massive waterfall, needing to grip nearby rocks just to stay upright because of the strong current crashing against his back. The witch had teleported him to an unknown location in the mountains from which he could no longer see the vast forest surrounding Darsenius. The water was ice-cold, and the old lady had ordered him to keep at it until he was able to endure an entire hour uninterrupted. To measure his progress, she had provided him with an hourglass timer which would magically reset itself every time he left the water.

After his very first attempt, which barely lasted ten seconds before he was forced to jump out by the chilling pain reaching deeply all the way to his bones, the witch disappeared without even giving a hint as to when she might return, before the teen boy could protest.

She won't leave me here to die, will she? He thought for the umpteenth time about quitting, as his attempts to affect the waterfall were proving futile. So far, his best shot had been spreading the re-charged fire mana from his two crimson channels evenly across his entire body, which allowed him to stay in a whopping two minutes before he ran out of fire mana and quickly felt himself turning into an icicle. As he had no way to quickly recharge the fire mana other than the slow internal passive mana generation taking place in his core, he was forced to pursue other avenues.

Maybe I am supposed to increase my mana capacity?

The hypothesis didn't sound right to him for several reasons. Based on his performance so far, he would need at least a twenty-fold increase in his reserves in order to be able to heat his body sufficiently for an entire hour to withstand the waterfall's effects, unless he got drastically more efficient. He wondered if it was even possible to grow the core to such an extent in the Agate stage. Also, if he was supposed to grow his fire mana channels, then surely this was the wrong environment to do so in.

Since she brought me all the way out here, there must be something special that I can only do here. The obvious conclusion pointed at the waterfall itself.

Should I perhaps work on the water mana? He decided to do so and see where it took him, focusing on the azure Origin Point he had managed to form while in his home world.

The water blasting from the waterfall was emitting large quantities of mana, but it was so chaotic that it took him a while to be able to overcome the disarray. Alt used his previously tested method of working with one particle at a time, building up from there to bigger batches. While only being knee-deep in the water and at a safe distance from the waterfall's impact point, he was shivering, with his entire body begging for a break. He promised himself that he would take one after he finished building the water mana channel. The flow of aquatic mana in the area was so intense that Alt was certain he would be able to build the channel even if he was sitting comfortably on a boulder outside the water. However, there must have been a reason why that damn witch forced him to sit right under this cursed waterfall, and he didn't want to lose any hidden benefits from the activity.

He just hoped the whole goal of this set-up wasn't to "build character" or another cliché, but he wouldn't put it past the old lady.

The particles flowed inside of him, and he directed them towards the Origin Point, which was growing into a mana channel in the direction of the borders from his core. Once he was finally done, Altair hurried to dry land in order to warm himself up. He had been so desperate to get away that he slipped on a rocky part, cutting one of his hands in the process.

His palm was bleeding, and there was no first-aid kit available nor anybody to call for help. Resorting to desperate measures as the cut was rather deep, he gathered the few fire mana particles his core had generated and used them to cauterize the wound with his other hand, as if operating a laser. He admired the results momentarily, proud of his quick thinking and glad the damaged hand remained operational. He shifted his attention to the newly established water mana-channel, which was still a shadow of his two crimson channels size-wise but appeared fully functional, with cerulean particles flowing in and out between the vein and the core in balance.

Alt then attempted to cast his very first water spell. Remembering the explanation about rank one spells being simple elemental projections, he repeated the steps of conjuring Inferno but using the water mana as a source instead. The amount of mana that he was able to push out from his azure channel was rather slim, but soon droplets started to appearing from his fingertip.

Awesome! He concentrated further and was able to create a tiny stream from the fingertip, using it to clean the wound on the other hand.

I wonder what I should name this spell. Maybe something equally misleading, like Niagara?

He continued playing around with the stream he was emitting, trying to condense it into a ball of water and then splitting it into multiple droplets. He was using the environment to re-charge the outgoing mana and felt that he could keep doing this for a long time, with loss of concentration from fatigue being the only limiting factor.

Looks like I am getting the hang of it, he thought, after being able to spurt a stream of water about five feet long, hitting harmlessly a nearby frog, who appeared to curse him and his ancestors with his hissing.