A screen floated in front of Beth, but that wasn’t the first thing she noticed, the first thing was the fact she seemed to be floating. Floating in space, no longer shackled to the ground. She was surrounded by astral bodies, stars and planets and more stars. As far as her eyes could see there was beauty not dissimilar to what she saw when staring at the rift itself. She tried to reorientate herself, not that she could tell which way was up, but she was unable to move. Sure she could wave her arms but it had no baring on her location, she couldn’t propel herself forward she just hung there flailing pointlessly. With effort she could rotate but that was hardly worth it at that moment in time.

Her memory had come back as though it had never vanished at all. If anything the only hazy bit was the time actually spent exploring Platilda, from which she only remembered sparse moments and that there had been beauty. Oh such beauty. But the moments themselves, the scenes that were the cause of such beauty those she couldn’t remember. Only that she had called out for Pauline and Nate and they hadn’t been there. She had left them behind, a decision she didn’t regret. But also one she didn’t feel good about. Especially given how much time had passed while she was on Platilda. So much for saving time.

That fact hit her again shifting from subconscious to consciousness like a battering ram. She’d been on there for weeks, the screens that had flashed had showed her a rapidly decreasing window of opportunity. She had been mere hours from running out of time when she’d made contact with the rift and she had had no idea. It was horrifying, on a primal level. Losing control like that. She resolved to not allow such a thing to happen again. Not that making such a decision could actually make a difference, how does one protect from effects that they don’t understand or can even know when they are happening. Something for her to research she decided. But first she needed to work out what was happening here and now and to do that she needed to read the screens that she had been ignoring.

Trial: Walking (common) 25

Reach the peak of the three sisters of Hepterel within the time limit.

Time Limit: Complete

Reward: Pending

First Timer Notice: Level 5

Reaching level 5 grants you the ability to infuse a skill with your mana type in this case being [Cosmic (rare)]. While in this realm no time will pass allowing you to focus on developing your mana core and allow you to infuse the elements of your mana into your skill. Note how you have previously used the skill will influence it’s new effect.

Tip: picture a path for the mana to travel to your core and from that point to the place you are most likely to use your skill.

The first thing that stood out to Beth was the fact no real time would pass in this new realm she was in. She felt like she had spent the last month and a half racing against the clock so just knowing for a moment time was no longer an issue and that she could finally breath allowed her to let go of stress she didn’t even realise she was holding in her shoulders. Stress that had rejoined her alongside her memories. She let out a deep deep breath pushing out all the old air that had settled in her lungs. Not that she was even fully sure that worked the way it did in the so called real world. This realm obviously had it’s own rules. As she relaxed she began to feel a slight tingling sensation. So slight she would never have noticed it if not for the complete lack of outside influence beyond that. She had no feeling of contact with anything except the slight pressure against her fingertips. As she became aware of the effect on her fingertips she became aware it wasn’t just at her finger tips, her ears were tingling too, as was her exposed arms and legs. In fact the more she became in tune with the feeling the more aware she was it was effecting her across her whole body.

It wasn’t painful or all that distracting. In fact she was sure if even slightly distracted she would stop noticing it entirely. It was as though a dandelion seed was brushing against her skin but everywhere all at once. Well almost everywhere. Now Beth was more aware of what she was feeling and more importantly not feeling she could tell there was no such feeling on her scalp or under her finger nails. She didn’t know why that would affect it while her clothes were proving no trouble at all, but chalked it up as one of those things.

She continued to allow the slight pressure to dance across her body and found that when moving it would shift with her. If she pushed her arm forward she could feel more pressure on the top of the arm while the bottom barely felt the effect at all. She played with this for a while, floating there alone except for her thoughts and the tingles coating her body. Beth was confident enough to say this was her mana. She’d been warned by many a change would occur when she hit level 5 and that clearly was this mana effect. She would have appreciated a heads up on what forming a mana core would have consisted of though. Maybe a handy pamphlet

After playing around a little longer and getting nowhere Beth decided to get slightly more hands on with the approach. No matter how much she danced with the mana it didn’t seem to have any effect. She rotated herself into something approximating a standing position and did what could only be described as a very very slow clap. The kind of thing you would imagine somebody walking out of a bush doing in an attempt to pettily get a rise out of somebody. Once her hands were together she cupped them doing her best to seal off any route of escape for the mana, she then set about closing her hands slowly making sure not to have any gaps appear to allow the mana to seep away.

The mana within her hands got more and more agitated as she compressed it like the wings of a butterfly bouncing around trying desperately to escape before it is crushed and has it’s life seep away. Yet even with her hands more or less flat against each other nothing changes the vibrating instead running along the lines of her palm tickling her in a way that would cause her to completely release the ‘trapped’ mana if she wasn’t concentrating. The pressure had also increased. Whatever was happening it was beginning to push back, not in a way that induced any pain but she wasn’t exactly an expert on keeping something trapped within her hands, or mana for that matter. As the pressure increased more and more began to panic, She’d hoping something well magical would happen but instead she was just holding angry motes of mana. Mana she was sure would escape any second. As such she acted in panic and bringing her hands up to her mouth opened them slightly. With relief she felt it depart her hands and head into her mouth.

Then her brain caught up with her actions and she frozen in shock. It seemed like the mana across the realm stopped in shock too. For a moment she just hung there not quite processing the action she had taken. She had eaten the mana. She blinked twice and before she could do anything to sensible like release the mana from her mouth she felt herself swallow.

This caused everything to happen at once for one. Suddenly she could feel the mana within her. It was like she was watching purple fireflies descend through her body, not following any know paths but instead falling simply like a ball being dropped through honey. Slowly but in a straight line leaving behind a slight trail of purple that faded but never fully vanished. She watched in awe until it headed past what Beth would think of as the centre or core of her body.

This caused Beth to panic once again. She had assumed it would have just stopped at her core. But it hadn’t and every second it got a little further past that point. She willed it to go back towards her core. While to her surprise it did. Well almost, in fact it overshot her core following a slightly different path than the one it had descended via. Again she willed it to go back to the core and again it overshot going the same distance away on the other side before listening and turning around again.

This happened time and time again with Beth beginning to audibly shout stop as the mana passed the core she was looking for. This only invited more mana to enter her and begin the journey. This new mana was still purple in her eyes but didn’t glow with the same intensity as the initial motes of light. Regardless her focus remained on the forerunners as Beth was terrified if she allowed her attention to drift it would travel further away from her core. It was still leaving a faint purple trail that the next mana particles were following so she didn’t want that getting too out of hand.

She was so concentrated on reaching so called core that she didn’t notice the mana ended up back where it started, taking the same downwards journey it had initially. As it did the stress of the situation lessened and Beth could feel her control of the mana slip from her grasp as the pressure on her will lessened. Without her provoking the mana simply followed the same journey it had previously. Taking a cautious mental step back Beth could see the path of the mana almost resembled a ball if she closed one eye and squinted. The mana never stopped still but did continue to follow the same path causing it the get brighter as it was filled with more motes of energy.

Beth watched entranced for some time, or no time at all depending on how you looked at it. Eventually it got to a point where it didn’t seem to be getting any brighter. There were so many motes that you couldn’t tell where one ended and another began. It was clear however that there was no more entering her it had clearly reached a point of equalising.

Beth hung there for longer waiting for something to happen. But no new rift appeared she didn’t suddenly get yanked away to a new world or dimension or back to the waiting room she had been in before the Trial. Had she not completed the task? Was she doomed to spent the rest of her life in this weird limbo, would she even age? She flicked the task box open and closed a couple of times as if reminding the system that she was there and had been given a task she had finished.

Yet nothing changed, she hovered there staring at the screen fairly sure she had been forgotten and was doomed to stay that way forever.