Sol wondered how his team was doing, he just hoped that they made it out alive. He had been wandering for weeks at this point, his food from Gaia was getting low. He was down to rock hard bread and soggy tomatoes. He was down to his final shirt and trousers too. He had crossed mountains and rivers and travelled through deep valleys. Everything was colourful and harmonised together, even predators killing prey felt right. It was like the whole planet was a chain of life.

The night there turned the sky a bright purple and green stars splashed from within. The animals were some of the strangest he had seen here and he had managed to avoid almost all of them. He had just run away from a few.

Sol was beginning to feel hopeless, his sisters had probably been told that he died and given a lump sum of money. It felt pointless just wandering but it was all he could do.

Upon climbing a mountain, he saw a dome type building made from stone. It looked ancient and was crumbling. It was the only signs of intelligent life he had seen this entire time and his eyes flashed with hope.

He made his way across the mountain and arrived at the building. It was larger than he expected, the entrance way was at least twenty metres tall. He felt small as he made his way inside the dome, it reminded him of a temple as there were huge statues lining the entrance.

The statues had been taken by time, their faces and name carvings were all ruined. He wasn’t entirely familiar with all the norse gods but there was no noticeable feature. There was no mjolnir or loki’s spector among the statues.

As he entered the temple, he instantly noticed a crystal glowing in the center. It’s colours were complete iridescence and it shimmered like the rest of the wildlife and fauna.

Statues were in the walls but they were too disfigured to tell who they were. His eyes spotted a skeleton leant against the back wall. It was a sign of hope but dismay too.

He headed over and knelt down to examine the skeleton. It didn’t look as ancient as the building. It was wearing a green jacket with pockets covering it and some hiking shoes. It was wearing a badge that was covered in dust.

He blew the dust off it and wiped it with his tattered sleeve.

‘Explorer of the Unknown’

Sol weakly smiled, “you found it,” he said.

He noticed it was clutching a storage pouch so Sol.

olitely removed it and emptied the contents. There was not much inside- a basic rapier, rope, diary and some rock hard crumbs.

He grabbed the diary and opened the first page.

‘Diary of Advin The Adventurer’

There were stories of all his travels, the man loved to discover the unknown. He had travelled over the whole of Gaia in search of secrets and lost history. He then grew bored and decided to explore different dimensions and that is where Sol increased his focus.

‘I don’t know if anyone will read this but this will be my last few words. I came to this dimension by something known as a Void Crystal. We had discovered it in a temple on the southwestern continent of Gaia and brought it back to the guild. We didn’t understand the power of this crystal, the void is an unforgiving place. After many attempts we started to learn how to travel across it without causing instant death. There were many dimensions we already knew about but there was one that was unknown to even the best of us. I luckily had found a feather that was acclaimed to be from this unknown place. I managed to break it down into an essence which would then navigate me to this place.’

‘When I arrived here, it was beautiful but I didn’t come out of another void crystal. It was gone and I was stuck here. I began to wander these colourful lands with hopelessness, I was never going to return to Gaia. The monsters here, animals I should say. Most places I’ve been have only had monsters but these aren’t. They weren’t born from black blood- there are no monsters here. Only animals following their natural instincts. They were far stronger than anything from Gaia, their levels were that of an arcane beast from the northern regions. I was the first to identify them, something I took the utmost pleasure and satisfaction doing. But soon my food ran out and the fruit from the trees were poisonous. My level was far too low to go hunting. I managed to find this beautiful place lost in time. I believe it was made to honour and spread the word of the gods but I haven’t been able to identify any of them. I did find the norse symbols so they definitely aren’t some forgotten god nonsense.’

‘In the center was a crystal, it radiated with iridescence. I tried to interact with it but I didn’t possess the correct affinity for it. I believe the people who can are the natives here but I have yet to encounter them. I still fear that there aren’t natives here, an item of such caliber shouldn’t be left alone. It gives power, I just can’t tell what type. So I sit here as I’m writing this, slowly starving to death. I didn’t think I’d die this way, I hoped to die fighting powerful monsters at sea or discovering the most interesting parts of history. I suppose I am actually. I feel I have lived a good life however and I now want to embrace it. I just hope my soul can leave this place and the Hand of Death to carry me to the afterlife.’

Sol sighed, his soul couldn’t leave this place. He just returned back to his body.

“I’m sorry,” Sol said quietly to the skeleton.

He wondered how he got here, he didn’t drink any potion or navigate himself. Yes, he was torn to pieces but he could have ended up anywhere.

“Is this my affinity?” He questioned.

He remembered that day he was in the chair, with Mercy and an Overseer in the room. The doctor said that he possessed an affinity but they couldn’t determine what.

“If he has an affinity it is not within this world.” The doctor said in his thoughts.

Sol’s eyes locked onto the crystal.

“So this is it.” he said to himself with an eyebrow raise.

Years of negligence from the higher ups, his immortality being the only thing that kept him in the Unwanted. Now it was his turn to receive power.

He placed his hand over the crystal and identified it.

“This really is it.” Sol said.

He calmed his breathing and flowed mana into the crystal, this was the power he wanted. He could feel his mana being drawn into the crystal, it was slow at first but then began to pick up. The crystal then vibrated violently and began to suck in mana at an alarming rate. His mana pool went from full to half in an instant and then it drained to zero.

When there is no mana in a body, life force will be sacrificed instead.

It began to pull on his life force, sucking it out of every single cell in his body. He tried to scream from the pain but he couldn’t even do that.

He died, he regenerated but he couldn’t lift his hand from the crystal. It was stuck to it completely.

Sol lost count of how many times he died, but once his hand left the crystal he dropped to the floor and clutched his chest. It was an experience he never wanted to go through again.

“I thought-” he wheezed, “I thought it was going to transform me. Not fucking kill me.”

Sol grabbed the edge of the pedestal and heaved himself up. His body felt fine but his soul wasn’t.

“Fuck it!” Sol shouted, “Do it!”

Colours exploded out from the crystal and penetrated his body. They pulled Sol up and raised him in the air; he was powerless to it. Even the pain from just before or the void was nothing compared to this.

He felt every single cell turn inside out and be invaded by the colours. His bone marrow felt like it was boiling, he couldn’t bear it anymore and lost consciousness.