“Good morning Glen Cove!”  

I heard my alarm clock go off and I reach over and smack it. I sit up, scratching my head and think about my strange dream. It was so real and vivid; I didn’t know quite what to think. I look at the time and see it is now 8:01 am.  

[Crap I got to meet my sister in a bit.]  

Memories of my dream rush to my head and I start getting an ominous feeling. I grab my phone and call my sister.  

Ring. Ring. Ring.  

“Hey bro! Was up?”  

“Hey, Maya. I don’t think we should go to that debate today. I got a bad feeling about it; I'll take you anywhere else just not to the mall today.”  

“Oh, come on! It's just like you to flake out on me like that. If you don’t want to go, then don’t go, I'll go myself.”  

“No! I'm not trying to get out of it, I just had a dream...look I can't really explain it.”  

“Look I have to get ready. If I don’t see you at the mall then fine. Goodbye”  

She hangs up on me and I sat there lost in thought. The scenery flashes around me and I find myself standing in the food court of the mall. Looking around confused I see my sister walk over to me.  

“So, look who decided to show up.”  

“Hey, Maya. Look I'm sorry but I really did have a bad feeling about being here today.”  

“Yeah, yeah. Let's go before the seats are gone.”  

The scenery flashes again and this time I find myself lying in Maya’s lap. I can see her talking to me but there is no sound. I guess I am dying right here? What are these anyway? Memories? Another flash later and I am sitting in a chair in front of a desk with a macho-man.  

“So, seeing as how you were the cause of the incident as well as your past crimes, you have been judged as needing rehabilitation.”  

Wait, what!? This again!? I try to scream out and plead my case, but it seems I can't make any sound. The man hits the enter key and the scenery flashes again. I am now inside of my prison cell. I look around and see the surroundings making me shiver.  

“No please! I don’t want to relive this part again. I can't take it.”  

My cell door opens and the empress of evil is standing in front of me.  

.  

.  

.  

I receive so many beatings again, and again, and again. Neira is simply breaking my body as fast as it heals. Then she just leaves. My surroundings flash again and this time I am chained to the pillar and I let out a sob.  

“Please...just stop already.”  

I endure this torture too until whatever force is holding me here is done. After a while I find myself running from the wolves and it always ends with my fight with the alpha. Then just as the alpha jumps at me time stops. I look around in confusion with a slight hope that maybe this will finally stop.  

“So now we can finally talk for real.”  

Hearing this mysterious voice, I look at its source. It came from a small child with long black hair and piercing green eyes. Her body is completely covered in scars and her presence reminds me of a wild animal. She is wearing some leather clothing that is more like a simple sleeveless one-piece robe or dress. This must be Allynna. This must be...me.  

“So, you finally realize who I am.” she says  

“I do. But where is this? Your memories?”  

“No. These are our memories. It seems when you activated when we turned four, the merging of our memories plus the traumatic experience shattered our minds.”  

I nod at her kind of understanding a bit of what happened. She continues on.  

“While we are technically one person Allynna's mind and your mind didn’t want to fuse properly. So, because of that our soul is also in disarray. Leveling up any more while in disarray may actually be fatal for us.”  

“Wait! What do you mean its fatal?” I say with anger.  

“Do you remember how that demi-god treated us? Not even bothering to hear our story? Also, remember Neira and what she did. How about our current situation?”  

“Of course, I remember. How could I not?”  

She looks at me giving me a crooked smile.  

“Good. Then for us to merge properly we need to be on the same page. What I want is simple, to pay back those that hurt us and others that do so in the future. With a fury that shall burn like wildfire”  

I understand where she is coming from. I want to get revenge too. But that is impossible the ones that did this to us are people I can't even touch.  

“Look, I want revenge just as much as you do but it's impossible now. The ones that hurt us we can't do anything about it.”  

She sighs and looks disappointed, then speaks.  

“I see. So, you choose that answer. You simply need to realize nothing is impossible for pure fury. The sooner you realize this the better. You will wake up soon and don’t worry I'll talk to you again.”  

With that, she and the scenery around me fade into dust and I am left in the darkness again.  

I feel something wet against me I also hear waves and the sounds of nature. I open my eyes and I find myself lying down on a sandy shore. Next to me is the dead body of a wolf. Looking around I see that I am standing on the shore of a large river, so large I can barely make out the other side. I start to inspect my body and grimace when I come to the wolf bite on my arm.  

“Ow, that hurts. I need to find something that can heal this.”  

“Why don’t we find some herbs. You have that appraisal ability, right?”  

She or myself is right. I check for my satchel and find it is still there. I throw out anything that was ruined by the water. I then look down at the wolf and decide to take it with me, at least it will be something to eat. Carrying the wolf over my shoulder similar to a fireman carry, I begin to search the various plants using my appraisal. It should give me a rough estimate as to which ones have a healing property and which don’t. After a couple of hours of searching, I find a variety of possible plants. I move back to the river and set the wolf down. I then remove plants that need to be consumed so I only have the ones that need to be applied externally. Grabbing two rocks, one flat and one round, I place the various plants on the flat one. I add just a bit of water and I begin grinding the plants following my appraisal as best I can, determining which part of the plant I can use. Doing this leveled up my survival skill as well as granting me the alchemy skill. Once I had a nice yellow paste, I began to rub it into my wounds hoping this doesn’t lead to an infection.  

I began looking around for a new place to camp. I was getting seriously hungry and had no idea how long I was out for. Thinking about it I am actually pretty lucky that I wasn’t found by an animal or something. After finding a suitable location, I get to work on the wolf. It was kind of hard to do as rigor had already set in but at this point, I really didn’t care I needed food. Once I finally had the meat ready, I started on the campfire and began cooking. The meat was a bit tough but it did its job I suppose. I then decided to call it for the night.  

The next morning, I decided to explore the river while looking for things I could eat for breakfast. I did manage to find some more arels and some berries that were not poisonous either, so I guess a fruit breakfast it is. While wandering around aimlessly I came across a large tree growing at an odd angle, intrigued I decided to investigate it. Upon closer inspection, I found out that the reason the tree was growing at the odd angle was because it was growing over a wooden cabin.  

I walked towards the treehouse and found that it was in fairly good shape. It definitely looked like it has been here a while. Walking up to the door I realized that the door was all crooked and didn’t really close properly, I had to lift the door up a bit to open it. Walking inside I found it was all just one room, an old bed in the corner, basic kitchen in the opposite corner and the rest of the room was filled with old books, bookshelves, and other study materials.  

[I think I can make this into my new home.]  

I started looking around the house first going to the kitchen. The stove was a stone oven/stove combo. I inspected the chimney area and went outside to see if it was damaged. It looked intact which was good, I'll have to start it up later to be sure I can use it without smoke coming back into the house. Most of the metal cookware was in pretty great shape after wiping the dust off the pots and pans gave off a blackish green hue, it looked pretty cool. The other cookware was rusted pretty badly and had to be tossed. The bed was in serious need of dusting and cleaning which I proceeded to do. The mattress was made from some soft material, I wasn't quite sure what, but I hung it over a branch and beat it with a stick to dust it out.  

I proceeded to take the blanket to the river to wash it as best as I could and then brought it back and hung it out to dry. I really wanted to check out the rest of the house, it looked like some hermit lived there for who knows how long. I started to poke around through the books trying to see what they were when I came across a sudden realization...I can't read. Putting that aside for later I straighten out the books and other documents and do my best trying to clean up. Old herbs and food were tossed out and the kitchen area was cleaned up. I decided to try the stove, with a bucket of water handy, I started it up and had a small fire going. After a few moments, I realized that the smoke wasn’t coming back in the house. I walked outside and viewed the chimney and saw it was working properly.  

After I was done cleaning It was past midday, so I brought in the mattress and the blanket and made up the bed. I decided to go out and hunt for some food now I could somewhat properly cook something. Finding another branch, I quickly whittled it down like a spear and left in search of food.  

I got pretty good at hunting, not the best but I did alright. Wandering through the woods I was searching for any signs of an animal. Finding some sign of movement and tracks I move towards my prey. Sitting on a tree was another elessir. This time I'm going to get my revenge. This time I have been practicing my throwing. I pick up a rock and throw it at the fake dragon. It manages to hit square in the body dropping it the found. While it is stunned, I move in with my knife and quickly dealt the finishing blow.  

“YES! I did it!” Before I can finish my celebration, I get a notification.  

You leveled up!  

A terrible headache, waves over my head dropping me to my knees. After a few moments, the pain subsides. I guess that is from the effect of leveling up. I pick up my food and head back to the house.  

Back at the house, I start up a fire in the stove and then I go and fill a pot with water and set it on the stove to boil. I take my elessir out towards the river where I dismantle and clean it by the river. I got a bit better at it since I first started this and for something as small as the elessir, I can do it in about 30 minutes. I return to my home and then proceed to place any small utensils in the boiling water. Using the hot water, I try to clean as many dishes as I can. Once I was done, I decided to cook the meat in a pan. I wish I some herbs or salt to cook with. I'll have to find some tomorrow. After dinner was done, I brought my plate over to the study area. There was a desk in a corner hidden by a pile of books earlier, I guess the owner ate and studied.  

Using the remaining light I have I then open a few books trying to study the characters while I chow down on mutant meat. Once it starts getting dark, I close the books and I rub my temples.  

“I guess it will be harder to learn how to read than I thought.”  

“Why don’t we ask that goddess? She might be able to help us.”  

“Yeah, I suppose you're right.”  

Going over the stove, I make sure the fire is out and then made my way to the old bed.  

[This will be my first time sleeping in a bed since I've been here]  

I lay down and immediately fall asleep.  

I found myself on a beach somewhere. It looked to be about noon or so. I looked around and I spotted a figure lying face down on a towel. As I approached, I recognized the figure as Teona. She is wearing a bikini enjoying her sunbathing while reading a fashion magazine. Currently, her top is undone and she is just lying on her stomach with what appears to be some sunscreen lying next to her.  

“Hey, Teona. I am guessing this is a dream?”  

Without looking up at me she replies.  

“Sort of. When you fell asleep, I pulled you into my realm. Thanks to your constant misfortune I was able to gain more strength. Now I have an older body and a beach.”  

“Oh yay...so glad  my misfortune can help.” I sarcastically reply.  

“Ha! I've been watching you lately and I know you are trying to read now.”  

“I would call you a stalker but I guess that what gods and goddesses do.”  

“Yup! That’s right I am stalking you. Seriously though thank you for the extra power you’ve given me I'll give you a little gift. I will grant you a skill to read and speak your native language, but it will be level 1 so you won't understand everything at the beginning.”  

“Awesome and with this I can learn the rest of the language and read those books.”  

“There is an added bonus too. By spending time around other languages you can pick those up as well.”  

This language skill is pretty badass. I'll be able to learn all the languages.  

“Oh yeah. I have something I wanted to ask you. Why do you get so much power from me?”  

She closes her magazine, puts on her sunglasses and rolls over on her back.  

[Damn goddess at least have some shame.]  

“Oh, don’t be so shy we’re both girls here. Anyway, to answer your question, your misfortune is of the divine variety.”  

Noticing my discomfort, she quickly puts her top back and continues.  

“So, since your misfortune really all started because of a demi-god your misfortune changed to a divine misfortune. To top it all off you got an accidental soul curse which is a divine curse, so the energy I receive from you would be like the equivalent of two gods with a soul curse.”  

“Wow, I really had no idea it was that bad.”  

“Basically, I could live a comfortable life living of your misfortune alone.”  

“I'm glad I could feed you.” I roll my eyes and cross my arms.  

“Ha, yes thank you. But I am more surprised you managed to find that house. I am really looking forward to what you learn there.”  

Before I can respond she stands up and walks over to me.  

“Well, it's almost time for you to wake up. Please stop by again soon, I'll have snacks ready next time.”  

I open my eyes and I am laying in my new bed. I can't quite describe it but the feeling of waking up in my own home now brings some tears to my eyes. I did it, I finally have a place to call home.   

I perform my morning chores of finding some food for breakfast and gathering any other food I can to store in my kitchen. After I finish with that, I decide it is time to investigate some of the books. After looking through the books I found out that a lot of them are books of magic theory and whatnot. I sort through them as best I can, making different piles of what I believe might be beginner, intermediate, and advanced books. After another hour or so I find a couple that could be a start for me and decided to start reading trying to understand what I am reading and level up my language skill.  

I go and get dinner ready and sit back down to study. From what I can gather, in order to use mana, one must first build their soul palace. A soul palace is a sort of inner dimension, that is different for everyone, that allows the flow and storing of mana in the body. So that is my first goal there, is building my soul palace. To do so I need to meditate by honing all my senses into my body and feel myself. It sounds kind of confusing but at the same time I kind of get it.  

I spend the rest of the day practicing this trying to understand how it works. With nothing happening, I open my eyes and find it is already dark out. With nothing else better to do, I turn in for the night.  

This becomes my daily routine for three weeks. Mornings are dedicated to chores and finding food. Afternoons I dedicate myself to meditating trying to build my soul palace. At the end of the third week, I finally have my breakthrough. I was meditating like usual, all my senses focused on me.  

So, I need to feel myself. How do I do that? I begin by trying to hear all my internal organs, to feel them, to see them, but that doesn’t work. Wait what is considered myself? I ponder this question then an epiphany hits me, what id myself is both of my selves. As I think this a familiar voice rings out.  

“Good job on getting here yourself.”  

I am standing inside of a prison cell and in front of me is Allynna.  

“So, you ready to take me up on my offer?”  

I think for a moment before I answer.  

“You want to get revenge even if it means we die trying to do it?”  

“Dying is inconsequential. The hate that burns in me must be released. Those that wrong us must be punished, simple.”  

“Ha! I must be crazy now for even considering it. So, if I accept and we die, you better not have any regrets.”  

“Won't die. We will be stronger. We must get stronger. You have that game system, use it and get revenge.”  

You know she is right. I am weak right now but I can get stronger. This might actually work.  

“Look I can’t promise you anything about getting revenge on the demi-god but everyone's I can do.”  

“Doesn't matter. As long as you try.”  

So that what the issue was. My old self was simply running away from my problems hoping they would disappear while the current me wanted to take action.  

“Ok, I won't run away no more. I'll get stronger and find a way to get revenge.”  

“Good.”  

She walks towards me and the entire cell is engulfed in flames. I am being burned alive and the pain is almost unbearable but my hatred carries me through eventually numbing me to the pain. Next thing I know I am in the bedroom of my old apartment. My bed on one side, the computer desk, and the PC on the other. I have my usual gaming posters up. My shelves that held my figurines are mostly empty now there are two figures up. One is a black shadowy figure and the other is of Teona clad in her beachwear laying on a towel,  

So this must be my soul palace. A twisted grin spreads across my face.