[A.N. : Sorry about the delay. Family went on a small vacation yesterday and dragged me along.]

Chapter 7

Volume 2

Lots of things been happening lately. It’s weird.

I mean, it’s not like any of those are particularly bad. It’s just that Ann started to spend her days at the militia’s barracks, helping forehead with everyone’s training.

She’s teaching them grandma’s technique, so they have been doing great progress compared to before.

But… there’s a weird… thing in the air.

Like when you feel a big gear in the bottom of reality just turned a dent.

Like that.

It also doesn’t help that I’ve been expending most of the last months training with weapons.

Grandma gave a second look at my other weapon techniques and decided I was still green at many of them, so it’s back to the basics.

Except it’s almost to no avail to have spare trainings with golems or treants anymore, since the amount of aura in my body is absurdly bigger than theirs.

A treant wouldn’t be able to pierce my skin, even if my Aura Armor is down.

So I’m training with grandma herself.

She will make [Aura Weapons] out of the environmental energy and I will have to defend.

It’s tough as nails defending against someone who can manipulate weapons like grandma.

First, I’m fighting against her soul, so I cannot use the movement of her muscles or joints to guide myself. I have to rely on observing where the weapon is going to and then calculate in my mind where it can land on my body based on that.

Second, she is a master in changing her [Aura Weapon]’s form midway an attack. Like how she constantly changes from [Aura Sword] to [Aura Dagger] and then to [Aura Pike] in the middle of an attack. Just so she can make me guard against the sword, go past my guard with the smaller-reach dagger and then blow a hole in me with the Pike. Noticing the aura changing in a few seconds and then recalculating all of the possible moves she can have the weapon do, considering that she doesn’t have physical limitations… its insane.

Third, she knows I probably won’t die even if she goes all out and there’s plenty of aura in the environment, not to mention she’s making me train without aura armor. So when she hits me, it isn’t fatal but it hurts like hell.

Fourth… she just knows everything.

From the most basic mace movements to the most intricate weight-and-chain ones. Grandma knows all about weapons.

What the hell is she?

Some kind of ancient shaolin master?

She said, laughing, that her own skill is only on the level of a deputy master on common weapons, or a practice assistant in the most exotic ones, but that only makes me fear the masters of the Long Lived Clan even more.

What kind of monsters where them?

*sigh*

Wasn’t that enough, Alma is also watching us and learning.

At first she didn’t know even how to do a proper [Aura Weapon], but after a few months she can already do [Aura Javelins] with ease.

Well, at least she is becoming good at hunting monsters and stuff. It seems to come naturally to her. And also in producing nice-tasting fruit.

Alma’s peaches and apples are delicious. Juicy, ripe and sweet on the right measure.

And she can make them whenever she wants.

I bet it expends a lot of aura, but she always makes me at least one a day.

It has been fun.

I expend my nights training with grandma, then I eat a peach, then I go back home and once every two days me and sister have some nice time together, like as if we were a recently-married couple or something.

The best part is that she isn’t fertile, so there’s no risk of deformed incest babies.

No.

It’s all raw on natural, risk free.

I love [Aura Analysis] and its miraculous capability of showing me when a woman is going to be fertile or not. And I love our clan’s weird many-years-long fertility cycle even more.

That said, my day time…

Well, I have been expending them with Alma.

Not in the village, but in the soul world.

What are we doing?

Well, one of the techniques of the [Soul Space and Time Magic] is to basically cut a piece on the tissue of emotional space and create a small emotional demi-plan for oneself.

So I’ve done it. It’s like a tree house for me and Alma to build stuff.

Currently we have a castle, a lake, some emotional trees, some emotional ducks and ducklings and a nice statue of emotional marble.

Emotional ducks.

They are a thing.

They aren’t souls of animals because those don’t last even as much as the souls of humans, but rather small soul vessels we created just like how I made Alma herself.

So they are intelligent ducks.

Not very intelligent, since they have only very rudimentary minds, but I guess maybe as intelligent as a smart dog?

They know how to make tricks after all.

Like when we give them emotional corn I materialize with [Soul Magic: Materialization] and they pretend to be roasted ducks on a plate.

It’s very entertaining. Alma loves to make them duck-jump to silly songs and stuff.

She goes: “Du-du-duck, what’s your name? Is it lu-lu-luck or am I insane?”. Silly.

So, that’s what we have been doing in the emotional plan when I’m not playing with the children and stuff.

Emotional demi-plan building with alma during the day, meals with the family, weapon training with grandma’s soul during the night and sex with older sister from time to time.

Life is nice right now.

***

A certain thing has been bothering me.

“That’s all for today.”

“Thanks!”

Not the fact that I have finally gotten enough mental power and multitasking capability to be able to hold back grandma’s full-on weapons training, but how Alma is dealing with the whole monster killing thing.

It has been months now, but it seems she has been killing monsters pretty much from the day she was born.

But… it’s weird.

I mean, killing isn’t something nice and cozy, as much as it is monsters or whatever.

Killing is killing.

But she can still be all lovely and nice and gentle, even after swiftly eviscerating a monster.

Maybe it’s because she isn’t human?

I mean, she surely has some human mannerisms. And she has some hazy memories from a life as something which had a family. Maybe even as a human.

Maybe not.

But, regardless, she surely isn’t human anymore, if she ever was before. Her soul doesn’t take a human form except when she’s imitating someone, and she doesn’t deal with stuff the same way as us.

Maybe that’s why she can kill monsters without feeling anything.

I have seen it once or twice, even if it’s difficult. I would be patrolling the forest and most of the times that meant me killing monsters.

Or, when it happened from one of them getting too close to one of Alma’s trees, that usually would mean the monster itself getting destroyed by her.

But it happened of me finding a monster near one of her trees, and then seeing she disposing of it.

The emotions on her… well, it would be mostly just a small glimpse of “bad!”. And then she would deal with the monster and would return having nice, cozy emotions.

Or maybe it’s because she’s a spirit.

I mean, she definitely knows the value of bodies. She isn’t like the spirits grandmother told me exist over in the soul world, and which just don’t care about if you live or die.

She would get worried when grandma hit me with the pike after all.

But being a spirit…

Oh.

Right.

She’s a [Forest Spirit]. She isn’t just a regular spirit.

Her body is the trees around us.

Filled with insects, birds, spiders, snakes, all kinds of animals.

Animals and plants which compete for life.

Which live in the law of the jungle. Quite literally.

I may have made her with the purest of feelings, but she was still in contact with death and killing even before getting awareness of herself, uh.

Or maybe that has nothing to do with it.

Should I ask her?

My [Soul Isolation] technique is working pretty well, so she shouldn’t be able to notice what’s happening to my emotions right now.

Still, how should I ask?

I can’t just bring up the subject like this, out of the blue…

Maybe when she’s playing with the emotional ducklings.

But then she may take it wrong.

I would go all like ‘what’s up with you liking animals but not feeling bad about killing monsters’ and she would go like ‘what do you mean? Do you think I’m a bad person?’ and I would pass as a dense character who can’t read the mood…

…

Fuck it.

I’m asking.

Now.

“Alma?”

“Yes?”

“I’m curious.”

“About what?”

“When you kill a monster… don’t you feel bad about killing them?”

“Killing monsters? I think no. It feels right.”

“Right? How come?”

“Like… they are not supposed to be, I think. Like they disturb things. So I kill them.”

“Don’t you love them?”

“No! They feel wrong!”

“I see.”

“But I love you!”

“Hehe. Nice. I like you too.”

“Thanks Pa!”

“Stop calling me that.”

Uhm.

It may just be [Forest Spirit] instinct then.

Monsters and [Forest Spirits] are natural enemies after all.

I don’t understand this whole instinct thing very well, however. Is it something from the mind world?

Maybe grandma will explain it better to me once she starts teaching me about the mind world.

***

Nine years old birthday night.

It’s really good to be a reminder, but I guess I would like to be able to forgot somethings, sometimes.

It’s not that I feel super sad, but it is a bit saddening that I won’t have a birthday party this year either.

Let’s just go inside.

Oh.

Grandma is here still.

Unusual.

“Hi grandma, hi Ma, hi Anna.”

“Welcome home.”

“Hello Darling.”

“All!”

There, there, a small hug on Anna and i will seat at the table with grandma and mother.

Seated I am.

“Has something happened?”

Grandmother usually doesn’t stick here until this late after all.

“I have something to discuss with all of you.”

Yikes.

Thanks for the Chamomile Tea mother.

I wonder what is this thing grandma is wanting to tell us.

***

Dinner tonight consists of fried chicken with rice, mushrooms, egg and seasonings. Quite simple.

But it does taste amazing. Mother is a great cook.

“So, how was the day today?”

Father started the conversation as we began chewing. There’s an implicit order for things. He or mother will ask this question, and then the other one will start talk. Since it was father this time, the first to talk will be mother, then father, Ann, Jacen, Me and only then Anna.

It’s not like this order has to be followed too strictly, but since everyone naturally flows this patter it has become a habit already.

Of course, with grandmother here we may need to change it, but let’s just let things flow suit.

She probably won’t want to talk to us in the middle of the meal. It seems to be an important subject after all.

So, it’s mother first today.

“I finished sewing your and Ann’s clothes.”

“I Helped!”

That’s pretty standard little sister, pretty standard indeed.

“Then I checked the pantry again for that mold, and there doesn’t seem to be any. But Matilda said her house is covered in it, and Rinia is having trouble with mice. So if you see any, you need to tell me.”

“Sure.”

“Yes Ma.”

“Okay.”

“Ookaay!”

Good to know we won’t have problems with mold or mice. I’m done with the rats from the last time.

“What about you, Pa?”

“Today was training day, so Ann kept giving us instructions. This technique of yours is amazing Marie.”

“I know. Has someone suspected something?”

Grandma. Concerned as well.

“Not at all. Has Ann told you how forehead decided to explain it to us?”

“Not until now.”

“He said it was because of father.”

Ann is composite as ever.

“So, in the end it’s as if you had asked her to do it Jhon?”

“Yes. It was a bit weird since I’m not everyone’s friend, but we are comrades after all. If they die I will be damned as well.”

“I bet Filli is still thanking you.”

“Indeed he is Ma. You know Filli right Marie? Fred and Lilly’s son?”

“Yes. I remember helping Lilly when the boy had a fever.”

“He’s a great friend of mine, and he just always wanted to be able to hop into trees on a single lap. Once he understood that Ann would be teaching us a dojo’s technique he was like Jacen when he saw that beehive Alvin got him some time ago.”

Hehe.

Jacen’s embarrassed face is nice to see.

“That’s good.”

“Uhm.”

Silence. It’s Ann’s turn now.

Will she need for mother to ask her, or will she start by herself?

“The day was good. Forehead taught me a fencing move I didn’t knew. He’s good at [Joint Training].”

Mother’s look become a little worried, but father reassures her with a look of his on.

Now they are touching each other’s hands.

Yeah.

It’s on the small things. The truth that they care.

That said, forehead’s movement isn’t anything much spectacular. I have been looking at today’s training by using [Soul Walk] and it’s just a fairly common feint.

You need a bit of aura control to pull it off, but the movement consists of trusting your weapon sideways relative to the person and then subtly changing the angle in the middle of the movement by thrusting your own body on the opposite direction of the weapon, while keeping your wrist bended to change the tip’s direction. It’s a perforating movement with a good range which can take most enemies by surprise, but not perfect at all.

If it is in a common fight the timing would be awful and the movement would be wasted due to the loss of momentum and speed. Not to mention that the bended wrist would probably break once you hit the enemy.

But if you keep a bit of your aura concealed then you can regain this momentum by suddenly accelerating the sword, it is possible to deal a good amount of damage.

If your enemy is human, of course.

Most animals and monsters don’t have the nimbleness of sideways movement of the human body, so it’s a wasted movement on them.

“That’s good to hear. What about you son?”

Yeah Ma, let’s keep the ball rolling…

“We just trained grandma’s technique all day long. But I tried to use [Aura Analysis] at the same time as well, so it was very hard and Ann had to correct me.”

Uhm.

I’m using a bunch of techniques at the same time here. Including qigong and [Aura Analysis]. But I’m a cheat character so it doesn’t count.

Silence again.

Oh, right, it’s my turn now.

“Tila and Ysim came looking for me today. I taught them how to fix Tila’s doll’s head and they thanked me.”

The little doll was a piece of trash to be fair, but things are how they are. The girl likes the straw-and-cotton doll; I help her to sew the head back on.

No big deal.

“I killed a rat!”

Oh.

Anna was waiting all dinner to say that, wasn’t she?

“Really? A rat?”

“Uhum!”

Father’s fake excitement face hides true fun and joy.

I’m fine.

It’s just my younger sister.

It’s usual for her to get this kind of treatment. I won’t get jealous.

If not, I’m glad no one is paying attention to me right now.

Since I would need to explain how I managed to just do just that much all day long, and they do know I don’t need to sleep.

“That’s true. Now tell your Pa where we found the rat Anna.”

“In the garden! It was eating mother’s plants!”

It was probably after the Big Foot herbs. Rats love them for some reason. Maybe they’re scared of frostbite or something?

“That’s nice darling. What was it nibbling on?”

“It was eating my Big Foots.”

Score.

“I see. Rats do like these. I remember we used to fence them with wood planks.”

“Until Pa got sick of having to do that again. How is he?”

“He’s fine. Working on his patch. It seems this year’s crop is going to be good…”

Well, dinner was good.

Now, to wait until the chit-chat ends.

Then it will be time to listen to grandmother’s seriousness.

***

Desert is honey-candy orange peels with beer.

You take the orange peels and then boils them on water until the bad taste is gone and the peel is soft. Then you boil it again, but with honey in the water.

It’s tasty and accentuates the taste of the beer.

Everyone is nibbling on theirs happily.

“Very good peels Alice.”

“Thanks ma.”

See? Even grandma likes it.

“Now, if I could have everyone’s attention…”

Ah, here it comes. Go on grandma. Is it forehead? Do we have to kill him?

Or maybe the local lord sending spies was an unforgivable act of aggression?

Should we bomb his castle and take his wife hostage?

I’m feeling a little aggressive recently.

May be all the macho juices boiling up inside of me after I started hanging out with sister more.

It’s been two days already. Can’t wait for more.

“I want for Alvin and Ann to go together to the Kingdom’s Capital one year from now.”

…

Wait.

What?

So soon?

“Is his training done already?”

Father, is this what you’re worried about?

I shouldn’t leave the house until I’m fifteen!

If I go now, that means you won’t be able to commemorate my fifteen birthday with me!

The Capital is on the far-side of the kingdom, it’s over 3000km to the southeast!

Besides, the terrain is all Hilly and if we go in Autumn the weather will be awful!

I may be able to make it in a few days if I run seriously like I do to get to my training camp, but Ann will need over a year to travel this much by walking!

So, if I go with her…

That means a one-year long road trip.

I don’t want to expend so long on the road! There will be nothing to do besides walking!

Except maybe having sex with Ann.

Uhm.

May not be that bad.

“One year will be more than enough to finish it.”

“Mother, do he really needs to?”

I know Ma, I’m a bit sad as well.

“Alvin won’t live a good life if he’s to stay in the village. He can’t stand being bored. I think the only path for him is to conquest a dungeon, enslave the core and pretend to have become a Dungeon Master. Then he will be able to use his full power and live the life he deserves.”

“Enslaving a dungeon core? Is this even possible?”

Father is surprised.

Well.

It’s for the best that he doesn’t know about the huge chunk of mana crystal over his head, isn’t it?

Even if “enslaving” isn’t a good term. I won’t be making a being with a mind follow my orders. If I understood what grandma said well, what she wants for me to do is to take a dungeon’s core, destroy its soul and maybe put an algorithm in the place.

Like a computer.

I miss my computer.

“It’s difficult and he won’t be able to do what a Dungeon Master usually does, but he can pretend to be the Dungeon Master with this much.”

I wonder what they do?

Dungeon Masters surely work with dungeons by fusing their souls with the dungeon’s crystal and soul.

So that means they use the dungeon’s wiring with their minds to control it.

On another words, shouldn’t I be able to create an artificial interface which allows me to “dive” into the dungeon’s core without needing to fuse my soul with it?

I would need to use [Soul Surgery] to cut the dungeon’s soul to pieces and then create a soul-interface which allows me to receive inputs from the dungeon and at the same time send commands, but if computers existed back in my world then I should be able to do something like this in this world as well.

The only problem is that I will have to basically write an Operating System from ground zero, and I don’t know how to program.

Hahah.

I wasn’t a programmer back in my former life.

But I am a fairly competent necromancer in this life.

So if I try…

Oh, and I don’t even need to wait until I get access to a dungeon.

If I take my Mana Crystal with us I can train on it while Ann is sleeping.

It will be interesting I bet. Something to help me pass the time.

“All is going away?”

Oh, little sister got a little of that.

“That is what I want dear.”

“Uuumuh..”

Oh, she’s sad.

And now mother is putting her hand on her shoulders.

“Mother, shouldn’t Alvin go once he’s older? He will be only ten next year.”

“No. This is a perfect age. His training will be over and he would be accepted as a baggage carrier by the Bishton’s Magic Research Association. If we wait until he’s older then he would be refused until he made a name for himself as an adventurer.”

“Marie is right, Ma. It’s easier for a kid to be accepted than an Adult. I don’t know this Bishton’s Association, but no Association would hire an Adult as Explorer without it having at least Lowest or Low Rank.”

“Then can’t All just get rank by himself?”

Ha.

Jacen doesn’t want for me to go either, hum.

“It would be too suspicious that he’s an Abnormal. It took me five years to get to Low Rank and I was considered Lucky to have found an [Unformed Dungeon] back then.”

Father has a point.

Besides, it gives me a chance of getting inside a dungeon early. If something happens and we “get lucky” to get to the main core chamber early then I probably can become a Dungeon Master early as well.

Without having to go through all of the bureaucracy of getting a license to explore and all of that bullshit.

It may be a stretch, but I bet the Royalty of the Kingdom wouldn’t mind. Accomplished are treated with even more respect than low-class nobility after all. Not to mention most high-nobility houses have Accomplished within them.

Yeah.

Let’s do this.

“Okay then.”

Mother accepted.

Everyone else is nodding… except for Ann.

“Is there a problem Ann?”

“I won’t be going in a year. I will be leaving in six months.”

Oh.

She already decided this much hum.

“Can’t you wait a bit longer?”

“The tournament is in six months. It will take me a year to reach the capital. If I go in six months I will get there just in time. If I go in a year I will have to wait six months at the capital.”

“That’s true. But you will expend aura while traveling. Six months of resting would be good for you.”

“I don’t want to wait anymore. I will do grandma’s technique every day while traveling. This way I can preserve my aura.”

“… very well. Alvin doesn’t have to preserve his aura, so he can find you middleway.”

'I don’t need to' would be a better instalment.

But the family is on the dark regarding my capabilities, so I guess this much is okay.

“It works for me”

I’m sure it does sis, I’m sure it does.

But It does hurt a bit to know you wouldn’t stay here a bit more in order to commemorate my tenth birthday with me.

Or even be company to your younger brother as he goes to the big city for the first time.

Everything will be fine.

Grandma can guide me while using [Soul Walk] and she has showed me some maps already, so there’s no risk of me getting lost.

But, still…

It’s a bit sad, that it is.

Well, the family just doesn’t have what it takes to stand up against grandma. She’s just right.

I hate boredom, and if it takes me too long to leave I will lose time pretending to be a regular person.

Better to bet it all on the “stroke of luck” possibility and create a fantasy-like story of how the poor baggage carrier happened to be able to reach the dungeon’s last room and fuse with the core.

If I’m lucky to be sent on an unexplored dungeon at first, of course.

Let’s hope I am.

***

So, the bow lessons are over.

Indeed, all weapon lessons are over.

It ended with me being able to keep myself from being pierced by grandma in a 30-minutes-long fight.

It was a boring fight since all it was was grandma trying to pierce me with all kinds of dirty tricks.

She would change her aura weapon midway her attack, cast the [Shadow] spell on hidden secondary weapons, try to blind me with the [Flash] spell, create illusions….

After this much I’m pretty sure I can deal with whatever technique an enemy uses against me.

And since there isn’t such a big risk of getting overpowered by an enemy with brute strength, things are fine for now.

I think.

I mean, there must be things which are stronger than me in this world.

I may meet them someday and have the need of defeating them.

So I should keep increasing my strength.

Problem is…

I don’t want to.

I have stopped absorbing energy from the void and from my [Spiritual] talent. I don’t need it.

But if I was to keep absorbing energy, I would surely go through another hard limit in a few days. Maybe ten or twenty.

And then, once I hit this hard limit, I would go through the same I went on the last time I hit my Aura Aggregate Limit.

No sir.

No thank you.

I don’t want to be reduced to bones and decaying flesh to then have my body reconstructed from zero.

So, until I effectively need more strength, I won’t be doing it.

….except maybe I will need it and won’t have ten days to get it.

On another words, I may regret bitterly having made the decision not to become stronger now.

But I don’t want to!

It’s awful!

Aaaahh~~~

You know what, I should just do it.

Really.

Except grandma wants me to learn [Mind Walk] as soon as possible.

What to do?

***

[Mind Walking]…

Is damn hard.

Grandma tried pulling my mind out of my soul tonight, but it ended with me entering a comatose-like state.

It seems I don’t have enough awareness of what my mind IS to be able to get my consciousness to inhabit it. So when I had it moved there all that happened was for me to lose consciousness.

So that’s why grandma has decided to start from a different approach.

She will go on [Mind Walk] and stay by my side, interacting with me as I go around at night and do stuff.

Just like how we did with me learning to see and hear people’s souls.

Alma is interested as well, so we will just stroll around the forest while grandma keeps us company.

This would be the regular kind of training one such as me would be doing to be able to learn about mental magic, but it isn’t the only one.

Nope.

Grandma also gave us a game to play.

It’s called six-face dice and it’s a harder version of the popular one, three-face dice.

On three face dice you think of a dice with three faces and try to roll it on your mind. If the person you’re playing with figures which Is are the faces of the dice you were thinking of, then they win.

Otherwise, you win.

Six-face dice happens with six dice instead, and it’s more adequate for training.

After all, thinking of three dice gives a rather small probability of winning by sheer luck, but it’s still reasonably high.

Six dice add a lot more difficulty.

Grandma says we will have started to develop our mind magic skills better once we are able to always guess right what the person is thinking of.

Not only that, we must also train including her, that is, her mind which will be traveling alongside us, and play with her as well.

Then, once we get it right every single time, we are supposed to increase the number of dice in our minds.

After 6 it’s 12, then it’s 24, and then it keeps increasing by doubling the amount.

Even visualizing 24 dice in my head at the same time is already pretty difficult, so there’s definitely room for improvement here.

That said, this training looks a lot like esper-training stuff.

Like how people would train their intuition with cards and dice and rocks to see if they had psychic powers on earth.

Not on this level though.

I guess this world’s standards are a lot higher than earth’s.

That said, I do intend to become good at this at an amazing rate.

Why?

Hohohohoho.

Cheat mind my friend.

I don’t have limits.

I can learn fast as shit.

Besides, I’m a [Reminder].

A talent which lets me remind things and never forget them… that’s bound to give me some edge in regards to mental training, right?

It surely gave on emotional training.

So let’s do it.

***

It’s been a month so far.

Training is going well, but I’m getting a little bored.

Me and Alma are currently at our little emotional subspace tree-house. That is, our small emotional demi-plan castle.

How?

Well, we don’t need to be on our bodies to be able to train our minds. My body is back home, sleeping in the living room.

After all, walking around the forest aimlessly for three whole weeks was getting pretty boring already.

So we have been making improvements to the castle this last week.

“6, 3, 4, 1, 1, 2”

“You got only two right.”

“Oh, how bad! Your turn now!”

“8,4,4,4,4,2. You should stop using 8-faced and 4-faced dice. That’s cheating!”

“Uuh! You’re the one cheating! How come you can win every time?!”

Well, Alma is a bit frustrated at my progress, but what can I say.

I’m the cheat-man.

“Hehe. I’m grandma’s grandson after all. Common, it’s you turn to guess!”

“5,3,4,3,3,1. And grandma is using 12-faced dice as well!”

“… that’s true. I saw that as well!”

Grandma made an emotional gust of wind pass along, making a smile face on the floor.

Yep, we got it right.

“Yey! I got it right!”

“That’s nice! Your turn again. Also, give me the “peace” brick please.”

“4,4,3,6,1,3. Here!”

“You got four of them right this time. Thanks.”

We are building an “Inner Piece” sanctum on the castle.

It’s made with materials materialized by using the “peace” emotion as it’s base. All of the materials.

It’s kind of bouncy, but since there are many kinds of “peace” feeling, we are able to make a nice Buddhist-styled room with a roman bath in the center.

Again with this world’s weird mash up between East and West of earth.

“3,3,4,5,5,5,5, you thought of seven dice! I win!”

Damn, that was a slip on my part.

“You’re right, sorry.”

“Have you been bored again?”

“5,5,3,2,1,4. I guess yes. It’s starting to show?”

“Right numbers. Yes. You always start doing stuff sloppy and wrong when you’re bored.”

Hum.

That’s a harsh truth.

Still, she says it with the most benevolent emotional voice of love and compassion. There’s even a hint of joy. She thinks it’s funny or something?

Appropriate for a Buddhist-inspired inner sanctum I guess. Or maybe that’s just a preconception of mine. I never went to a real Buddhist temple back on earth.

“3,3,2,5,6,6. Why don’t we go somewhere else then?”

“3,3,4,5,6,6. Where else should we go?”

Grandma wrote on the floor again. She wrote “Alma”.

Damn, I got it wrong?

I was so sure I got it right.

“I got you! How about we go to the Sparkling Woods?”

“3,3,4,6,6,6. Sparkling Woods? Is this a soul-world place?”

“You’re right. It’s a nice place! I discovered it yesterday!”

Uhm.

Should I go?

I have never really got adventurous on the soul world so far.

I mean, there was that time when I got lost on the woods and stuff.

But after that, no more.

Grandma didn’t take me to places after all. And I just didn’t care to go. I guess I got too absorbed into doing multiple things at once, so I didn’t notice how boring my life had become eh.

It’s needed for me to get this kind of weird subconscious messages like getting stuff wrong to finally realize I need some new thrill for my life.

“6,5,5,3,3,3. Okay, let’s go. Grandma, can we?”

She drew an “yes” on the ground. And then a “I will go as well”.

Nice.

Let’s go then.

***

So, Sparkling Woods.

They are woods. And they sparkle.

That’s the resume of the thing.

But not the totality of it.

Actually they seem to be made of crystal-like emotions which shine once the emotional sun touches them.

It’s kind of pretty.

A whole living forest made of colored crystal-like natural spawning spirits, which are made of a myriad of emotions.

The emotional sun is probably the main fountain of existence of these things.

The feelings it is made of are mostly bravery and happiness. A mix which makes “that’s nice”-like feelings.

So the naturally spawning spirits probably came to life as that sun shone its bright emotions around and kept bombarding this place with them. Little by little, these crystal-like stuff formed.

Very nice.

But they don’t seem to have minds.

At least most of them.

I can feel emotions of “order” and “systematism” far to the right, so that may be a living, intelligent spirit.

But right here doesn’t seem to be anything in special.

Oh.

Shit.

I take it back.

This place’s soul sea!

Damn is this pretty!

It’s all made of fluid crystal-like emotional water, with a cold and yet warm feel to it. I tried sipping a bit.

It’s refreshing, even if it crystalizes on your mouth and throat. I guess someone used to breath would have a hard time with these, as it would spur a coughing crisis. I, myself, can endure it while my soul-throat soul-muscles break the crystal and it slides to my soul-stomach.

Very nice.

Maybe we should go to other places like this one more often.

Grandma seems to agree as well.

That’s it.

Let’s travel on the Soul World a bit before I start traveling in the Physical World.

***

Autumn is gone. Winter is here. Traveling the soul world is fantastic.

Usually it’s just really amazing scenery and weird guacamole physics, but sometimes we also do nice stuff.

Like the other day.

We got to a place where hundreds of spirits dwelled, and they were living harsh lives because of the lack of emotional water.

So we gave them a little bit of rain and made a portal to a place with more water. Like an infinite pond.

It was fairly nice.

Then we found an emotional plane which apparently connected to another physical planet on another physical universe, and helped the immortal human souls there to settle in an emotional town we build ourselves. It was quite a shock to see people there, and also a moment of great excitement for me. So much I actually got transported chaotically for a while until I made my best to summon willpower and keep my feelings appropriate.

Then, when we came back home I immediately started to test new magic, because those guys knew a lot of it and taught me a lot as well.

However, none of it worked on our own physical plane.

It seems the emotional plane can connect not only different physical places and planets, but also different universes.

I wonder if someday I can find good old earth in there?

I tried thinking on my city in my previous life, but I didn’t find it.

The common means of transportation through space-time in the soul world can’t reach earth’s emotional subplane… or maybe there are countless emotional multiverses as well.

I don’t know which kind of rules are in place here, only what I could experience by myself.

On the plus side, I have become the better storyteller on our house. And maybe in the entire village.

Since we have been visiting such amazing places I could create nice descriptions of scenery which everyone else found fantastic and difficult to imagine. This way the stories I come up with become everyone’s favorites.

And earn me some jealousy from Jacen as well. He used to be better than me at making stories to tell around the fireplace after all.

Maybe that’s going even to become an incentive to him.

He has taken back training because of Ann after all.

I hope you can surpass emotional reality soon poop-brother!

So I can even use your stories as inspiration to try and find new and exciting places in the emotional world.

Using someone else’s emotions can be handful to experience things you didn’t knew exist after all.

***

Finally!

Four months of training just for me to be able to hazily see grandmother’s mind form in front of me.

She looks like a dot of ligth. A small sun.

Let’s keep training. Alma’s still stuck on 12 dice, but I have hit 48 recently. She’s having trouble keeping up, so I have been doing double training.

One with her, with 12 dice, and a second one with grandmother only, with 48 dice.

She will tell me when I’m right by shining brighter.

Obviously I’m not letting Alma know about this secondary training. I whisper to grandmother though small soul-voice packages I create by making soul-sound bubbles and sending them to her house, where she hears it not with her mind, which she uses to hear what me and Alma speak, but with her soul.

It was hellishly hard to do it at first, but “no limits” cheat is the best cheat for training. It’s like playing a MMO where you get as much of your exp’s bar filled per monster killed in the late levels as you get in the early ones. On another words, fucking fast.

Goddess, I love you.

Even if you may be a fucking titan.

…

I take it back.

Fuck you if you’re a titan.

But you’re not. Because I’m a human from earth which reincarnated. Not an artificial being created by you with memories of someone from earth.

Yep.

I’m real. This is all real.

Let’s keep playing.

***