“The Pond of Elvermarzon.” I whispered, staring at the tranquil scene of the lightly gurgling creek filling the pond within the cavern filled with crystals.

This was it.

This was what the last few weeks had all led up to. The pond. I’d made it.

But, for what?

My master hadn’t even explained anything about the pond other than I was to step foot into it.

My master, who was, for all I knew, dead down below.

I began to turn around, to head back the way I had come, but it was as if something stopped me, a force pulling me in ever so gently.

Come to us.

The words whispered through my mind, and where I would typically feel a sense of fear at words being spoken in my mind, I felt compelled to walk towards the cave pond.

Come to us.

I felt my feet begin to walk me forward, stepping past a stone that happened to look a lot like a skull.

Come to us.

I neared the small creek flowing into the cave, and even with the voice calling me forward, I couldn’t deny my curiosity, crouching down and sticking a cupped hand into the water.

Part of me expected for something to happen, perhaps the water would glow, or it would begin to burn like magma.

My hand got wet.

That was it.

Curiosity sated, I was drawn forward the rest of the way towards the cave, the voices still humming in my mind.

Come to us.

Come to us.

Come to us.

I neared the cave entrance, sticking out a testing hand through the opening, testing to see if there were perhaps a trap in place.

When nothing happened, I took one last deep breath before stepping through the threshold.

Instantly the voices in my head got louder, now sounding as if they were speaking from somewhere nearby.

“Come to us.”

“Come to us.”

“Come to us.”

The question was where us was, but looking at the pond within the cave, I already knew. The voices were calling me to the water. Under normal circumstances, listening to voices within my head telling me to step into a dubious pond upon a strange mountain wouldn’t have been the wisest of choices, but it was as if I was only halfway lucid.

“Come to us.”

“Come to us.”

“Come to us.”

I stood in front of the pond, looking down. Usually, I would have felt a rush of fear, unable to see the depths of the crystal-clear pond, but now I was filled with only the need to step forward.

“Come to us.”

“Come to us.”

“Come to us.”

I stepped out into the pond. I expected to drop beneath the water, but it was as if my feet stepped down upon an invisible floor under the water. Caught by surprise, I wavered for a second, but the moment I did, the voices grew louder.

“Come to us.”

“Come to us.”

“Come to us.”

Gathering my courage, I continued walking out into the pond, the invisible floor sloping gently until I was up to my chest at the pond’s center.

So, now what?

My answer came when the pool that had been an ordinary pool of water moments before began to bubble, sparkles of light floating up from beneath me.

“What the-?”

I didn’t have the chance to finish the words, as one moment, I was standing chest-deep in the cave pond atop the moment. The next, I was floating in an endless void of white.

“H-hello?” I called out, flailing my arms as if I could direct myself.

To where, well, that was anyone’s question.

“Finally.” I heard a voice boom from around me. “It took you far too long. When you didn’t appear for a hundred years after our fall, we assumed you and your master had prevailed in trumping death. Though, I am curious why it has taken you so long to finally return here.”

“Return here? What do you mean? Who are you? Where are you?”

The white void was silent for several seconds until a person simply appeared before me.

“Huh. Well, isn’t this unexpected.” It was a man with golden eyes and heavily tanned skin as if he spent his every waking moment in the sun.

“What, what is unexpected?”

“You.” The man scratched his chin, walking around me as if he wasn’t in a void.

“What do you mean ‘me’? And how are you walking like that?”

“You. You aren’t who we expected.”

“Who is ‘we’!” I finally snapped, unsure what was happening or who the man was.

The man in question sighed, rubbing at his face.

“Goodness. Things have really changed. Back in our era, any would know when they were in the presence of a Sage.”

“Sage?” I stared at the man as I continued floating about. “I thought you all died.”

“We did, I suppose.” The man shrugged as if his death was only a minor inconvenience. “What you see here, what you’re talking to, is a replication of the mind of the Sage of White Peaks. I, or he, passed on, and on the passing of a Sage, their mind is copied and transferred here, where it is forever stored, or at least for however long the magic holds. Last estimates put it at a hundred thousand years.”

“Hundred… what?” I was lost. Of all things I had expected upon entering the pond, this wasn’t one of them.

“A long time. All the Sages of our era eventually ended up here, all save for The Sage Above All and her apprentice.”

“Her apprentice.” I repeated back.

“Yes. You.”

“Me?”

“Yes, we recognized your signature, except the person who has entered our mind dimension is somehow both the Sage Under All to Be and an entirely new person.”

“What sort of name is that?”

“Blame your master, or rather, his master.” The Sage, or the copy of the Sage, continued to walk around me as if inspecting me. “Hmm. I think I understand.”

“Well, that makes one of us.” I muttered.

“She told me she was close to finding her answer…. This is the fruit of her efforts, it appears.”

“Her…. Answer?”

“It would be impossible to explain it to you as you are now. The short of it is the pinnacle of a Sage, of reaching the title of a Great Sage, is the finding the answer to the question.”

“What question?”

“As I said, it would be impossible for you to comprehend.”

“Fine. Wait-” I shook my head, realizing I had gotten sidetracked. “So I’m in some…. Sage memory graveyard?”

“A distasteful way to put it, but yes.”

“A place meant only for Sages.”

“Yes. Sages could come here and receive aid from those before, and novice Sages would be sent here to find direction.”

“Right. Okay. So why am I here?”

“And there we have the intriguing portion of this.” The golden-eyed Sage continued walking around me for several more rotations before he finally stopped in front of me. “It appears that you are once a former Sage, the apprentice under the Sage Above All. Tell me, do you have news of her whereabouts?”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “She stole the body of my best friend, then vanished after asking me a bunch of questions and gloating about her greatness.”

“Hmm. That does sound about right for her.” The Sage nodded, well, sagely, before continuing. “You have confirmed my beliefs, though. You two were reborn, reconstructed far into the future. How long, well I couldn’t tell you as I have been here without news since the fall of the Sages. Seeing you here leads me to believe your reincarnation failed.”

“So I’ve been told.” I grumbled.

“Oh, you have? Well then, there is still someone in your era with interesting amounts of knowledge to them. How I would love to meet this individual, but alas, only those with the marks of a Sage can enter here.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Only Sages are allowed here, and I’m a failed reincarnation. So what, this… apprentice person they what, just sorta didn’t make the trip?”

“No.” The Sage poked my chest, I half expected his finger to pass through me, but it felt as real as any other touch. “The reincarnation succeeded in theory. You are the former apprentice of the Sage Above All, I can see the shape of your soul, and it hasn’t changed.”

“Should I even bother asking what that means, or are you just going to say that it’s beyond me again?”

“You catch on quick.” The Sage winked at me. “The theory of reincarnation was always just that, a theory. My field of expertise was never with the temporal realm like the Sage Above All, nor was it with the astral realm such as the Sage Who Sees. I know of the practical theory of reincarnation, though. It is a matter of taking a mind that has been imprinted and passing it into a newly formed body. Except, in your case, an issue arose.”

“Being?”

“Over time, there have been mutations within the magical world.”

“Mutations?”

“Think of it as evolution or progress in magic. I can see it in you, a bias for a preformed type of magic.”

“Kin magic.” I added, realizing what it was the Sage was referring to.

“Ahh, so you are familiar with this then?”

“Yeah. It’s like, magic that is passed through bloodlines. My family has illusion Kin magic apparently.”

“Interesting, very interesting.” The Sage nodded. “Well, there was no such thing as this ‘Kin magic’ in our era. The appearance of this genetic magic interfered with the magic involved in the reincarnation that took hold of you and the Sage Above All. Your master, being a Great Sage, could break through.”

I shook my head, correcting the Sage for once. “No, Sar- The Sage Above All, her family had no Kin magic.”

“And there it is.” The Sage laughed as if finding a breakthrough for an interesting problem. “Without having the foreword knowledge of a genetic variety of magic appearing after our fall, the spell was laid for the reincarnation of yourself and the Sage Above All. For the Sage Above All, being born anew within a bloodline that had no such ‘Kin magic,’ the magic worked exactly as intended.”

“Then why did she, the Sage Above All, only appear recently? What happened to my friend whose body she stole?”

“It may have required a trigger to unlock the astral memories sent through the temporal plane. As my area of expertise is with neither such fields, you would have to ask the Sage Above All herself.”

“Right.” As the Sage continued, I looked down, or what I imagined was down, still floating in the endless white void as I was.

“As for you, your reincarnation happened within the bloodline of a family that had this Kin magic. This bloodline magic would disrupt the spell, and your astral memories sent through the temporal plane were wiped clean.”

“Meaning?” I did my best to keep up.

“Meaning, by all rights, you as a person were completely reset, an entirely new being, while containing the same soul.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed. My, this will be interesting. What will happen when you die, and your memories are brought here? Will the original memories of the former you be brought here? Or will yours? Or will it be a case where both sets of memories are combined, two effectively entirely separate beings, forced to fuse into a new single entity?”

“Yeah. Interesting.” I answered, trying to act like I cared about what he was saying.

I was just too caught on what he had said. That I wasn’t me, not really. I was someone else, but with a fresh memory.

So did that make me, me, or them, me? Or me, them?

I’m confused.

“What am I supposed to do then.” I finally gave up, throwing my hands in the air. “I came here because I was told this would be the first step in my path, journey, or whatever, but does it even matter? Who am I if I’m not me?”

The Sage stared at me, silent for several seconds before he stuck a handout like he had a thought.

“I believe you are overthinking the idea of what a person is. You are you. It doesn’t matter what form you take or the memories you hold. You of now will always be you. If you flounder too much on what a perceived thought of what you ‘once’ were, you will lose who you are now.”

“So…. Be me?”

“Sounds good, doesn’t it?” The Sage raised his eyebrows at me as if trying to get me to bite.

“I… sure.” I sighed, my mind hurting too much to fight it or even think about it anymore. “But I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

The Sage crossed his arms over his chest as he smiled.

“Well, you aren’t technically a new Sage, but I believe we will do as we have always done with new Sages. We will, or in this case, I will give you direction.”

“You keep saying we, where are the rest of ‘you’?”

“They sent me as the delegation, but upon discovering your circumstances, they have decided to let it be handled by me.”

“Wait, and you know this how?”

The Sage wiggled his eyebrows suggestively once more.

“Right, won’t comprehend. Got it. So, what do I do?”

The Sage leaned in before whispering three words in my ear.

“Whatever you want.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” The Sage nodded as he stepped back. “Being a Sage is about freedom to pursue what is it you seek.”

“But what if I don’t seek anything right now?”

“Then what you seek is something to seek.” The Sage said as if it were obvious.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Whatever I want.”

“Yep.” The Sage confirmed.

What do I want?

My mind instantly turned to the night before, when I had asked myself this very question.

“An adventurer. I want to be an adventurer.”

“Then so be it.” The Sage nodded to me. “Experience the world through the lens of a so-called ‘adventurer’ and begin to find what it is you wish to seek in the first place. In that regard, it is time I send you off.”

“Send me- send me off?”

“Yes. With the residual magic vested within these mountains, I will transport you to where you need to be.”

“Wait, wait, hold on? What do you mean where I need to be?”

“If your direction is to be an adventurer, for now, you will land wherever will lead you that route. Consider it the special one-time pulling of the strings of fate, capable of being done only once in a lifetime per Sage with the combined insight of the generations of Sages that have passed ahead of you.”

“But- but wait! What about my master? He led me here!”

“Master?” The Sage wrinkled his nose before he sighed. “The Void Mane?”

“Void, what now?”

“Void Mane. A derivative of a Black Mane. Was that the one who led you here? Your so-called master?”

“Y-yeah? Do you know what happened to him?”

“It is hard to peer outside the confines of this realm, but let me take a look.”

The Sage seemed to concentrate before nodding as if confirming something.

“It appears the Void Mane has left.”

“Left? Meaning he is okay?”

“It would appear so.”

“That’s, that’s a relief.” I sighed, a weight I hadn’t realized I had been carrying suddenly lifting from my shoulders.

Master survived.

Part of me was hurt that he had left me behind, but I had come to expect it, even accept it, for some time now.

“I’m… I’m ready.” I said after taking a moment to think of my master.

“Good. When you awaken, you will be in a new place with a new goal, to seek what there is to seek. Discover yourself, young Sage, and discover the world. Perhaps we will speak one day again, preferably before you come here after passing on.”

“Thanks… I guess?” I scrunched my eyebrows up as I considered the thought of living within an endless void of white eternally. “Wait, what about my magic? I was told coming here might be able to, I dunno, fix it?”

“Fix it?” The Sage crinkled his nose as he looked me over. “Why, what is there to fix?”

“I can’t use it.”

“No.” The Sage shook his head. “But that is for you to learn of your own accords. Now, our time is up. I wish you the best of luck. Without a true master to guide you, I will gift you your name as a Sage. Henceforth, you shall be the Sage Who Flows.”

“Sage who what?”

“Sage Who Flows.” The Sage pointed at me one more time. “You shall receive a new formal title upon reaching the heights of your seventh ring. Until then, do your best to find what you will seek.”

I had so many questions and thoughts, but there was no time as the endless world of white around me suddenly began to collapse in on itself, a sandstorm of all things rushing in from beyond where the endless void vanished.

I was falling through darkness and sand as the voice of the Sage came to me one last time.

Seek out the villages of the sand.

And then everything blinked out as I was swallowed entirely by the darkness.