Jave had just finished writing his letter before he saw the effects of Magic Sense kicking in. His other five senses faded away, leaving in an entirely different world. In truth, there was nothing different between it and the normal world other than the way it was perceived.

It was the same world he had seen during the fight with the boar.

What left Jave confused was that this was not supposed to happen on its own. It took effort to phase into the magic realm, yet he did not sense anything of the sort this time. And what further left him confused was that he could not deactivate it.

Have nothing else to do, he observed the amazing energy flow all around him, that formed patterns that lasted for but a fraction of a second before fading and being replaced with a new one. He looked down at himself and saw a unique sort of energy, one that made all Souls. It was even more complex than the world in front of him.

And yet, he understood it, or at least a small part of it. It further confused him, as staring at his soul always left with a severe headache. However, he pushed that confusion aside and decided to quench his curiosity first.

The part he now understood was the part that translated information into senses and fed it to him.

Seeing it gave him pause. Purple veins were attached to it, distorting it, and altering his senses. Though currently he was fine as he was not receiving his senses.

He still had yet to find the cause of that.

But first, one step at a time.

He knew what he was going to be was undoubtedly dangerous. He had heard plenty of tales of people turning into monsters or worse, after trying to tamper with their souls.

That didn’t matter now, seeing as he’d be a monster nonetheless if he didn’t try.

So he pulled on a few strands of the World Energy, and bent it to his will. It turned first to light blue, with his natural energy manipulation skills turning it to energy best suited for that. Now, though, he had no use for energy attuned mana, and instead turned it to Soul attuned mana, turning it into the same white energy of his soul.

He pulled the strands into the part of his Soul that was corrupted with the purple energy and then used it to burn the foreign energy. He used whatever strands of Soul energy that was left, to form a weak and rough defense around that particular part of his soul.

Then, his entire Soul pulsed, twisted and turned, changing itself.

It now had a far better defense than he could ever make himself. Which was mind boggling. And should be impossible, considering he had no hand in it at ll.

He was starting to feel fatigue. His awareness began slipping from him. Soon he found himself bombarded with fragments of memories, that slipped through his grasp as soon as they appeared.

The rest of his sleep was uneventful.

***

He blinked once, then twice, and got up groggily. The first thing he noticed was that he was no longer in a forest, and in some sort of rocky terrain. He also noticed the lack of some sort of presence that he had felt when he entered Laurenhall, but had not consciously registered it.

His throat felt dry. He was sore all over. The sun scorched his skin.

His armor was in tatters. He had no idea how that happened. Bruises covered his body, likely due to the rocky terrain.

His sword was still missing.

And then he spotted a glinting object in the distance. It was too far to make out the details, so the only thing he could see was a shiny object lodged in a rock.

He frowned. There were too many blanks in his memory. Not that he could do anything about it. It seemed that he’d have to work with he’s got. And that was not very much.

He swallowed, reminded of his lack of water. His stomach grumbled, reminding him of his hunger too. He reached over his shoulder, and found nothing but thin air.

He frowned once more. It seemed not only was his armor ravaged and his sword god knows how far away, but his backpack containing his tent, food and other necessities missing.

He sighed, relenting his current circumstances.

It seemed he’d have no choice but to look for food and water.

Glancing at the sun, he knew it would not be easy. And if he was going to choose a direction, he might as well choose the direction in which the shiny object that may be his sword lay.

It seemed that his soul had changed somehow. It was one of the certain things he could discern from his memories. A lot of things didn’t add up, with his memories altered. He’d have to find out for himself what was true and what was not. Meaning he’d have to re-learn everything he knew up ‘til now because of the slight chance of it being altered. He couldn’t risk it, seeming as his occupation consisted of a lot of fighting. A single twist of information was all it took for him to see a dragon as easy prey.

Not that he’d ever do such a thing. Even if his memories told him that dragon was easy prey, doesn’t mean he would commit to seeing them as one. You’d his entire personality if you wanted to do that.

Back on topic, he had to figure out how and why his soul had changed. There was obviously more to it than his memories told him. Every single goddamn memory since he came to this place was twisted and jumbled up.

But more importantly so, there was this nagging feeling telling him that he had come across something big, only for it to wiped from his memories or twisted up. How he would retrieve his memories, he had no idea, but he would do it, even if it meant fighting legendary beasts like dragons. Not like that would ever happen, though.

That was one of the first things he would do, then, as soon as he got out of this place. Not fighting legendary beasts- but recovering his lost memories.

Speaking about getting out of this place, he would first need to find the artifact. And to do that, he’d need to be in good shape. And if anyone hasn’t noticed, he was not in a good state. He’d need to find some food, and some water too, or else he wouldn’t last a day in this terrain.

He finally reached the object, and unfortunately, it wasn’t his sword. It was the Silver Tine boar that he had killed earlier.

He sighed and collapsed.

A lot of the wind had been taken out of his sails as he felt the disappointment of not getting his sword back. The sword held a lot of sentimental value to him. So did his armor, but he was able to push that aside for now.

He was too tired to do anything. Even if it was only an estimated two hours since he woke up. The sun and heat had thoroughly sapped the strength out of him. He had eaten food or drank water for god knows how long.

He wanted to sleep. It would be so easy to just give up and fall into peaceful oblivion. But a part of him resisted that thought, not willing to give up so easily.

With a groan, and a lot willpower later, he lifted himself and set to explore the barren landscape.

He didn’t have any hope in finding anything though, as for miles all he could see was nothing. Just the occasional monster. He did his best to avoid those.

Two hours later, he came across a cave, and explored it. It was empty of residents, save for a hill of ants, and even had a small pond at the back of it. Not even bothering to clean the water, Jave sank to his knees, cupped his palms and greedily drank the water, quenching his thirst.

He let out a long sigh of contentment. The water felt like pure bliss to him.

He collapsed onto his back. He still was hungry, but he felt he could survive another day without eating. He could eat the ant, the only problem was killing and gathering enough of them without gaining the attention of the entire swarm.

And then he realized he could do magic. He felt like slapping his head for not thinking of it earlier.

He once more slipped into the strange world, his other five senses disappearing. In front of him were thousands of white sparks, along with small amounts of mana and other energy pulsing through them.

He did not create a flame thrower spell, as that wouldn’t accomplish what he was trying to do, and instead set out to form a new spell.

Runes of intense meaning formed in his head, and without hesitation he formed them in the real world. Fifteen minutes later, the spell was done, forming a massive complex pattern in front of him. He pulsed mana through it, and it activated.

Thousands of strands reached out, and connected to the sparks. When they made contact, there was a flash of red, and the spark would be gone. Within seconds, all of the ants were annihilated.

He opened his eyes, and let all his five senses return to him. His brow was drenched in sweat, a testament to the effort creating a new spell took. And this was comparatively easy.

He got up once more, ignoring both the protests from the rest of his body and the smell permeated the cave. He kicked the ant hill and crouched down to separate the dirt from the ants as best as he could. After two to three minutes, he had gathered a small mound of dead ants, that would amount to three or four handfuls. After washing off the dirt from his hands, he took a handful of ants in his palms and brace himself for what came next.

He closed his eyes and munched down.

Ten minutes later, there was nothing left of the small mound. His stomach was satisfied, for the moment, something he was glad for. He still hated the entire experience though, along with the taste. It was still there, in his mouth, and took some effort to ignore.

He laid back down, on the cold and hard stone, and closed his eyes. Without further ado, he fell asleep.

***

End of Chapter 4