Fuck, this was not my greatest plan.

Those were my thoughts as I am currently over the lava river nearly halfway to my planned destination but only when you realise you are currently 40 meters away from a pool of lava with nothing to stop you from becoming a Primordial crisp do you really start to wonder if you truly chose the best course of action. Of course now I remember that I didn't fully get used to my body like an idiot and didn't get as much speed as I should have.

That goddamn floating rock is probably laughing at me right now, shit will I make it?

Luckily I barely finished the thought before I landed right on the edge of the ledge while gripping onto it with all my strength. However I didn't realise at the time but I had a lot more strength then thought, even with a weak newly made body, so as I scramble onto the ledge I notice that I caused visible cracks in the stone while thankfully didn't collapse like I thought it would.

However the cracks in the rock didn't help my new found respect for lava and heights, so as soon as I got onto not so solid anymore ground I started climbing again to the top where I can finally rest and contemplate what I was thinking.

Maybe I should have used the mana anyway, next time I can just float over it.

Unlike my leap of faith the climb up was actually calm and uneventful, the strong and jagged rocks in the ravine gave plenty of places to grip and climb on and I was able to get to the top without incident. As soon as I was on stable ground I backed away from the ledge and sat down facing the death pit, no more jumping over lava filled ravines for now.

I layed down and rested here for a good few hours just enjoying my continued existence before I opened my eyes and realised I stupidly fell asleep, the reason I knew I fell asleep despite no change in the lighting was because when I looked back over the ravine past the smoke and orange glow my eyes grew wide. There on the other side of the death pit I quickly realised I wasn't alone in this realm because on all fours was a thing of nightmares.

On all fours it had a massive round face with no eyes with lines all over where you would put a face, nothing indicating any facial features other than the lines. Other than that it was fairly humanoid but with grossly out of proportioned limbs that were long and lanky with little muscle with its body in a position where it looked like it was going to try to pounce on me which combined with the fact that it had to hair anywhere on it and was coloured like dark ash helped it blend in with the floor and stone gave it yet another otherworldly look but definitely not in a good way.

What in the god fuck is that shit.

As if reading my mind I found yet another gruesome thing wrong with it, the lines on its face suddenly opened up like a flower in 3 places showing rows and rows of teeth which luckily were not as sharp as one would think being slightly more blunted than normal but definitely still able to shred. it stood there mouth wide open in awful silence before it closed it's face, turned and stalked away towards the volcano like mountain in the distance again in erie silence, as it walked away not even leaving a trace of its presence in the stone and with no sound it was like it never existed.

Ok, definitely no more jumping over lava filled ravines. Going to that mountain is definitely a bigger death trap than plain old lava.

The worst part was that it was 3/4 of my height just on all fours, if it stood on 2 legs it would be easily 2 times my height. Once the creature is out of sight I slowly start getting up keeping my eyes where it went without even blinking, after standing there unmoving for a few minutes I slowly turn back around to the snow field and begin blinking again. I walk the few dozen meters to where the snow starts and realise that while it looks and feels like snow, it definitely isn't snow but definitely looks like it.

I notice that the air no longer feels as light anymore and is going back to what it was like in the White Realm, curious, I start feeling for the energy again and I notice there is tremendously more mana here than just the few dozen meters over the lava ravine and when I reach down to touch the weird snow I realise that the feeling gets larger the closer I get. So I of course immediately stick my hands in the snow like my life depends on it and immediately feel much better, the air is no longer suffocatingly light and the mana feels so good touching my hands though it still is not quite equal to the amount of mana in the White Realm but it feels close enough.

I slowly get out of my bed of what I now call pure mana, I know it's "pure" through my own reasoning instead of what my memories tell me for once. After circulating my mana for a while and trying to figure it out, I realise that pretty much what I am currently sitting on like no big deal is almost completely made of mana which after my body starting absorbing it slowly but surely some of the particles disappeared inside of me and added to my growing collection of weird mana energy inside myself.

The best part was that as more of the mana got absorbed by me the more the mana inside me circulated and felt more warm, fuzzy and connected which is the best thing to a drug I have had so far but still I had to get up and start looking around.

All around in front for quite a distance was pure mana snow and what appears like boulders with mana snow on top, but it looks slightly off. Deciding that I have nothing to lose I walk over to the mound of mana and notice that just under the layer of mana snow was not in fact rock but weird coloured leaves that for some reason was white in the middle but blue on the edges with tiny golden hairs all over, kinda like caterpillar hairs but even smaller which mixed with the colours looking more like a piece of art than a plant in the Demon realm.

I start getting more of the mana snow off the plant and just before I throw the rest of it away I look at the soft mana on my hands. I watch as the area that touches my hands glow slightly with gold and even blue, and with a simple thought the snow starts getting absorbed by me even quicker than normal, I watch as my mana circulation gets boosted as my skin connects with the snow trying to get as much as it can before carrying it off somewhere within myself. Intrigued I start forcing myself to absorb as quick as I can but as it does so my mana circuit gets warmer than normal and I notice it is feeling like needles again and hurting, not as much as it did when I first arrived but it is getting there so I stop and start absorbing normally which calms my mana and continues it's role of literally eating snow through my hands.

Once the snow is all gone I turn my attention to the plant with a grin, This place is much better than where I started, I think I will stay here for a while and learn how to beat the floating rock. I turn to the floating diamond, "Your time will come, just you wait." I say with a hint of coldness but mostly amusement.

I turn back again to the plant and look at it, without the mana snow the main shape is a round ball of leaves that shimmer and glow slightly, giving me divine plant vibes, I decide to try to take a leaf off it, however as soon as I hold out my hand and think about taking it the leaf literally shoots off it's branch and into my hands.

"Eh?" I said as I stared at the leaf with wide eyes as I started trying to think about what I did. My eyes went even wider when I realised it did what I wanted because of the connection to the sheer amount of mana inside everything in the area I am in. Not even noticing my connection with mana was this strong which combined with the amount both inside the leaf and in the area let me bring it towards myself without even using my own mana, but I gained this connection when I was thinking about the Voice and my now called mana circuit in the first place so why does it work for me?

Squinting at the leaf I begin to wonder just what that being created and how I am so connected to it, but whatever it was, it is definitely much larger than I first thought.