After it felt like something broke the rampaging magic soon stopped moving around and instead dropped to the ground, kind of like a bucket of water being dumped. I waited for something to happen but I couldn’t sense any more movement from the previously rampaging magic. Satisfied that I had managed to stop it I started to control it in order to get it properly flowing around my soul, but before I could it started to rain.

“Why is it starting to rain?” As far as I know nothing has ever changed in here before because when I changed the darkness into something different all I actually did was just imagine that’s what the darkness around me looked like. I had a bad feeling about what was happening as I recalled that it felt like something had broken when my magic power stopped moving. “Did I break my soul or something?”

My questions went unanswered as it continued to rain and I noticed that somehow the water level was rising. “Why is it rising? The darkness should go on forever! There should be nowhere for the water to pile up!” I started to panic and when I investigated why the water was rising I noticed something was off about it. It wasn’t water at all! It was magic power! But why is my soul filling up with it? As far as Nyx told me, magic power moved around the soul in a simple manner until someone redirected it to cast a spell.

“Then why the hell is my soul filling up with magic?!” I wasn’t able to yell for much longer because the magic power had finally reached up to my head. When it finally rose above my face I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to breathe but I continued to breathe just fine. I then tried to continue yelling in frustration but no sound came out.

Seeing that I could breathe and didn’t seem to be in danger for now I calmed down and tried to fix this situation. Or is this a situation that even needs to be fixed? For all we know a soul is actually supposed to be filled to the brim with magic power and Nyx was just wrong.

Convincing myself that this was normal and I had nothing to fear, I just waited for my soul to finish filling up with magic. However, when it finished filling up my mind was still stuck inside my soul. My magic is back to normal right? If so then why am I still stuck here!

I tried to think of what went wrong during the stabilization of my magic power but in the end I couldn’t think of anything. I briefly considered again if I did actually somehow break my soul but I had no way to figure out if I did since I don’t know the difference between a broken soul and a ‘fixed’ soul in the first place.

I attempted to cast Fire magic in the hopes that I could still use it and I felt the tiniest bit of magic power disappear but it instantly filled back up to max again. As far as I can tell I didn’t actually succeed in casting the magic so I don't know why magic power disappeared. I tried casting Water magic next but the same thing happened.

I pondered if my magic power was now fixed and I just needed to cast some spell that let me escape from my soul so that’s what I started doing. I kept casting magic that would let me escape but none of it seemed to work and unlike earlier I didn’t even feel any magic power go away.

I felt like screaming but since I’m still standing inside all my magic power I couldn’t. So I instead settled for screaming in my mind. “Stupid freaking magic, why won’t you let me wake up!” Suddenly my vision began to blur and I found myself inside the shrine that Nyx and I live in.

“Huh, how did I end up here?”

“Oh Kat I’m so glad you're still alive.” It seems I somehow woke up and like usual Nyx was being overprotective.

“Mother, how would I have died? I followed your instructions exactly and my mind finally managed to escape my soul.”

“Kat did you not realize? I couldn’t sense your soul anymore since a few minutes ago. Then you suddenly erupted into flames but before I could put you out water appeared above you and put out the fire. And now that you’re awake I sense an enormous amount of magic power where your soul should be, but I still can't actually sense your soul.”

“Well you don’t have to worry about me. As you can see I’m perfectly fine and as for the fire and water I tried to cast some magic when I thought I fixed my magic power but I guess I casted the spells in reality instead of my soul. Either way if you just give me a few minutes to stretch my muscles after being asleep for so long I’ll tell you what happened after you left.”

“Ok but first let me get Mary, both of us were really worried about you.”

After Nyx got back, Mary now with her, I began to tell them what happened. I talked about how I couldn’t gain control over my rampaging magic power at first so I instead tried combining my magic and the rampaging magic. I talked about how it seemed like something in my soul had broken and how it started to fill up with magic power. When I got to that point they both seemed very concerned and so I asked, “Is something wrong?”

Mary replied before Nyx could. “Sort of… You see what you described about how your soul filled up with magic sounds extremely similar to how animals gain magic power. Spirits recover magic power by eating, sleeping, or just waiting slowly for it to recover. Animals absorb Mana directly from the air."

“Mana, what’s that?”

This time Nyx answered my question. “Mana is the magic power left over after spells are cast, but small amounts of it are also released unconsciously by Spirits. Usually the Mana that animals absorb is Mana released all over the world by the Spirit Monarch. Anyway what matters is that if you are actually absorbing mana it means that it will possibly affect you the same way and you should almost never run out of magic power. Though of course this is assuming that Mana affects you the same way. After all, animals can’t even use magic. Why don’t you try casting a spell right now?”

I took her suggestion and I started to use Shadow magic by imagining the house getting darker but before I could draw the magic power out of myself the spell was casted anyway. Wondering why that happened I imagined getting rid of the shadows in the house and again before I could actually draw the magic power out the spell was casted. That was when I realized the problem.

“So… it seems that whenever I think about using magic to do something the magic power leaves my body by itself in order to cast the spell. I can’t control if I actually want to cast magic or not anymore. I just cast it.”

Nyx took a second to think before she replied to me. “Well that’s going to be a problem. This is the first time a Spirit had its soul get changed so I wouldn’t know how we can fix this.”

After hearing that Mary chimed in. “Oh I have an idea. In the cities there are people who specialize in studying how magic affects animals. Since Kat’s current condition is similar to how animals around the world are, if we meet them they might have a tool that can be used to restrict Kat’s new powers.”

Nyx figured that trying out that plan was worth a shot but before she and Mary could leave I spoke up. “I want to go to the city. While my mind was trapped inside of my soul I realized how little of the world I’d seen and I want to learn more now that I’m finally awake.”

Unsurprisingly Nyx immediately rejected my idea. “You can’t control your magic power right now. You’ll just be in danger.”

“I may have no control but I can still protect myself and besides I’ll be with you guys.”

Nyx seemed to waver upon hearing my words and Mary even started to back me up as well. “Dear you know Kat’s 17 now and it wouldn’t hurt to show her the city. As much as you want to, we shouldn’t keep her here in the forest forever.”

“But she can’t properly control her magic! What if she accidentally hurts someone or she fails to cast a spell when she’s in danger.”

“Don’t worry Kat can always learn control over her magic again. If we go to the Empire’s capital I know the perfect place she can learn again.” With that Nyx finally gave in and I was granted permission to come with.

Topgun1908

I was tempted to name the chapter "To show the power of flex tape, I sawed my soul in half." I decided against it because I don't like long chapter titles.