I woke up to sunlight hitting my face.

(Ugh...)

Sunlight? Wasn't I deep underground inside the cavern?

I tried to get up using wood magic to control my body but nothing happened.

Ah...

Somehow I was still able to look around at my surroundings without magic though.

I seem to be inside an enormous circular pit in the ground.

(Huh? Aren't those the other cavern layers?)
In the walls of the pit, you could see into the interior of each cavern layer.

...Alcazar's explosion blew a hole straight through to the surface.

I looked around further and saw dozens of mana crystals scattered on the floor all around me. 

Those are the crystals I had painstakingly installed inside my scarecrow body.

Each was purchased with a ludicrous amount of money... I'm glad to see they're still intact.

It's a good thing I took the time to get rid of all the brittle cheap ones that shattered when I got punched a little too hard.

These more expensive sturdy ones seem to have survived even after that massive explosion from Alcazar just now.

Looks like my body that contained them got blown to pieces though...

I probably should've invested in a better body too...

If my body was destroyed why am I still here though?

I tried looking down at my own body but there was nothing there.

...

Frantically, I continued looking around, but except for the mana crystals around me, there wasn't a single piece of my scarecrow body remaining.

Everything must've gotten incinerated.

(...Now, what do I do?)

Am I just a soul without a body, just floating around now or something like that?

Is this what it's like for everyone when you die in this other world?

*Crash!*

Unstable pieces of rock were falling down all around me from the walls of the freshly created hole to the surface.

*Crack*

The noise of loose rocks could be heard dislodging themselves right above me.

Quickly I spotted the large segment of rock that was about to break off of the cliff face that I was at the base of.

Wait, isn't this bad? It's going to fall right on top of me?!

I need to move!

(Can a soul even be killed by being crushed to death though...?)

The large rock split off from the cliff face and began to fall straight towards me.

I was tempted to test my theory, untill I suddenly realized something-

(MY MANA CRYSTALS!)
Even if I'm potentially invincible, my crystals could still be crushed.

Desperately I tried moving towards my crystals but nothing happened-

Oh!

My vision suddenly moved forward slightly in the direction I was trying to run towards.

Unfortunately, I couldn't move fast enough, causing the large rock to hit me and my crystals anyway.

...

...

...I'm fine though.

The large rock burst into pieces on impact. It would've definitely instantly killed an ordinary human.

(So I am invincible...)

My expensive crystals seem fine too.

Now that I think about it, they survived that enormous explosion, so it'd be weird if the impact of a rock managed to break them that easily at this point.

Phew...

Feeling lost, I looked at my status, most of which was the same except for a couple of things that I decided to focus on.

My "name" is gone and my mana is back down to 1...

That's the amount I had right after learning my mental ability.

And what is this new ability exactly?

That seems fairly vague? But it's a movement ability nonetheless!

I've been making do with wood magic and my afterburner ability this whole time to move.

My wood magic had been crucial in getting around, but having to use magic just for a simple movement was like having to rotate your hand above your head whilst patting your belly just to move a leg.
It's been a real pain, but it was still better than not being able to move at all.

But with this ability-

I slowly inched forward.

Oh!!!

It worked!

I can move around by just thinking of moving now!

Immediately I began to slowly approach the nearest mana crystal to me.

...

It took a while. But eventually, I managed to reach the crystal and quickly got to work with my wood magic.

(Perfect!)

Taking some inspiration from Alcazar's glass body, I created a small humanoid wooden doll around the crystal.

Eagerly, I flew inside the crystal, and...

Nothing happened.

...How do I attach myself to a crystal again?

(Ah... soul magic...)

It wasn't for long, but Alcazar did tutor Furby and me in the basics of some soul magic.

Furby seemed flawless in mastering all types of magic, whilst I failed at nearly all of them.
Soul magic was the only type of magic that Furby seemed to also fail at as well.

Alcazar gave up after explaining the basics to us since we both seemed to be hopeless at it.

Alright, let's give this a try! I've still got 1 mana to experiment with, just like old times.

My expensive mana crystals trapped in the wooden doll's chest should definitely be good enough to house a soul!

Ever since the information entered my mind about my soul's capacity increasing, I've had high hopes for this...

Oh!

And as I had hoped, it actually worked effortlessly this time!

My soul began to gently get sucked into the crystal as soon as I obtained the magic skill.
I quickly approached and flew into the crystal attached to the chest of the newly created wooden doll.

My vision went black for just a moment but immediately came back, now from the perspective of the wooden doll I had just created.

It worked! I'm back in action!

That went way easier than expected.

Though I suppose it is to be expected. After all, I've supposedly had a very high aptitude for soul magic this whole time...

For a while, I thought my own status was messing with me since I couldn't manage to do any of the things Alcazar instructed me to do regarding soul magic.
But it seems this was all due to the restriction of my soul not having enough space for more abilities.

I awkwardly floated over to the next crystal using my new incorporeal movement skill.

Slow...

◇◆◇

 

It's a bit of waste not to use my new ability, but I just used wood magic again to move around since it's too slow moving around using incorporeal movement.

I'll just have to figure out a good use for my new movement skill some other time.

I just finished picking up all the mana crystals I could find and slowly but surely expanded the size of my body with wood magic.

The result is a sturdy-looking wooden body made up of thick interwoven wooden roots.

It's slightly taller than my old body.
I've even reinforced my joints and knuckles with pieces of a very sturdy rock I found on the ground close to the crater Alcazar created.

Now that I'm finished recovering all the crystals I could fine, I've begun searching for everyone else's whereabouts.

I couldn't have been the only one to survive the blast... right?

Just as I was thinking that I seemed to step in something.

(?)

I looked at my foot.
There's a black piece of goop stuck to it.
As soon as I lifted my foot, it dislodged itself and fell to the ground where it slowly but surely continued to move towards the direction of the crater.

...