This story follows Ayre Vasatra’s perspective.

My mind feels like a flat stone endlessly skipping over a limitless lake. I can feel myself moving, yet there is no end in sight. I’ve experienced what it feels like. I know the pain and disability of being subjected to the horror of mana decay. I remember how Luthais and Naexi explained it to me as they attempted to heal me… right before I pushed them away. I know how it’s supposed to feel, yet this was in a league of its own.

Maybe it was fatigue. Maybe I overestimated my capabilities. Maybe even my greed to use the mana around me to supplement my own. A whole ton of maybes… A whole none of answers.

From a skipping stone, I felt a rushing wind blowing on my face. I’m running. Running over a river. Each step is harder than the last for it seems as though I am running against the current. I feel its weight and yet I have no intention of stopping; no intention of giving up.

I finally saw its end. The river started to get narrower and narrower; sandwiched between two limitless stretches of barren land filled with cracks and dust. As I reached its narrowest point, the river stopped. Or perhaps this is where the river begins.

At its starting point, the river is surrounded by a grassy patch which I soon discovered to be a clearing in the middle of a forest. The grass grew as tall as half of my height, about 80cm or so. The trees grew as tall as the ones littering Odaoqith. Am I in Odaoqith? Perhaps my brain's representation of the home I’ve been living in? I don’t know…

Raising my weary head, I can’t help but close my eyes as a gigantic ball of bright white and gold light floated just a little out of reach. It was formless aside from its shape as a colossal sphere; feeling familiar yet a stranger at the same time. The sound it makes reminds me of the whispers you get from time to time, even if they don’t come from anywhere. The odd moments when you turn around, mistaking your name being called or a voice speaking from behind you. An unseen phantom that lingers and watches yet never makes itself fully known. Intangible yet ever-present. It is…

“A constant,” I said, slowly reaching my hand up as gas-like clouds meet my hand.

As my hand touched what felt like its hand, I gained the sensation of my body again. It’s not like before, however. I close my eyes and gain sight from my own eyes, yet it feels like I am watching from a distance. Piloting an avatar of my own body. There is a disconnect, and yet I feel no fear or apprehension. I feel safe. Its warmth completely reminds me of Yamazumera when I’m wrapped in her embrace. A firm sense of security and safety.

I look at my left hand to see all of the skin burnt off, why my muscles dried out and colored gray with deep cracks running along its surface. I open my eyes and see myself once again in front of the giant orb of light. The smoke and flame-like exterior move around slowly like dancing clouds and a low fire. The part of it reaching out to me is slowly seeping into me.

Instead of my right hand, I switched them out and raised my left. The relief is immediate. I feel like the dead muscles and broken bones of my left arm are healing themselves rapidly, almost to the point of impossibility! The sensation is scary and amazing at the same time. Yet I don’t feel the same excitement as I usually do. Everything is coming as a surprise and yet expected at the same time.

After a while, all of the pain disappeared. I peered into the eyes of my mortal flesh and found it completely healed. I opened my eyes inside of my own mind, looking at the giant sphere which I have started to call “Solaris” for lack of a better term. I looked at it with wonder, yet no part of me felt fear that I would not see it again. I turned around, facing toward the endlessly running river, parting ways with Solaris for now. One step later, the current took me further and further down its endless expanse.

The barren wastelands that sandwiched the narrow parts of the river no longer existed. Now replaced with grasslands and plains filled with plant life. I feel relieved.

As the river went on, it went deeper and deeper until I can no longer see myself or the surface above. Beneath the depths, and surrounded by water, I open my eyes. I open the eyes of my actual body. This time, no longer piloting an avatar. As if being woken up from a trance, I find myself falling down at blinding speeds from way up in the sky!

Panic in my heart started to set in. My breath started to quicken. I flailed and tossed around in the air as my body flipped over and over, trying aimlessly to catch myself from falling. It’s a good thing that I’m somehow so high up in the sky that I have this much time to even think about what I’m going to do next.

I’m terribly terribly afraid, yet I’m not completely losing my mind. A part of me — even if it’s small — is confident that I’ll be able to come out of this situation unscathed. Well, I wasn’t really raised to doubt my own instincts! Come on, what makes sense.

Dragon Tempo? Uhm, I think I’m good with using Dragon Tempo haphazardly for a while. Need a break with that after what just happened.

Mana space? No, the world will slow down but you’ll still fall at the same rate.

Wait. I’ve been in a similar situation before! Back then, I drew my arms back, pointing my fingers out like feathers on a bird, then swung them forward. A massive push of air broke the fall and let me land safely. I used to think it was air like I could control air, but it isn’t. It’s mana. It felt so natural and surreal at the same time that it felt like mana itself was telling my body what to do.

I am not a Dreamwalker for I can control and bend mana to my will; I am a Dreamwalker for I can commune and coordinate with mana itself. Mana is alive! It makes sense. Everyone keeps saying that it is the breath of life, the origin of everything that exists and will ever exist. It makes sense that it possesses a will of its own!

It reminds me of how Shannon said that she is mana itself. I wonder why those visions of her stopped? She could have given me more answers, or more riddles if I’m being completely honest.

Mana of the wind and sky, would you kindly guide my hand?

As if happily answering my call, the force of mana softly nudged different parts of my body, telling me the exact position that I needed to be in. It guided me to an upright position with both arms outstretched but bent lightly. My left hand is in front of me with the palm facing down, while the right is behind me with the palm facing up. My left leg is kept straight as if firmly standing on land despite the lack of it. My right leg is bent softly behind the left as if about to perform a courtesy bow.

The panic slowly subsided despite the nearing impact. Without looking down, I expanded my mana cloak, connecting to the mana around me, essentially extending my sensory reach to a whole meter above my skin!

When the far edge of my sensory reach touched the ground, I rapidly rotated my body backward to the left, creating a vortex of dense mana. It was a combination of my own with the assistance of the natural mana around me. Despite some downward force still remaining, I managed to land on the ground safely, not even leaving a crater.

I heard sounds and saw lights coming from further into the chaos wilds. After the drain of the ground started to become apparent, I cloaked myself with mana to avoid further damage. To my surprise, my mana cloak easily extends to over 3 inches above my skin without any effort! If I exerted more, it would surely extend more!

I don’t know where she is right now, but I’m sure that I have her to thank for healing my injuries and practically saving my life. My left hand no longer bears the cracks of mana decay. I still feel some lingering pain all over my body, yet it's down to a bearable point where I can tolerate it. I’m still healing even as I speak, I think. I follow the lights and sounds, walking lightly with joy in my heart.

I felt some of that familiar decaying feeling in my chest when I spun to negate my fall damage, yet it’s steadily disappearing now. I have a million questions. For now, I guess I have to rejoin the group. I don’t remember what happened next after the Preliminaries. Figuring things out can come later. For now, I have to do my best in the Scorching.

A couple of minutes of walking later, I breach through some woods and find another clearing with lots of different tents. An Invention mage spotted me and quickly escorted me to the tent with the other qualifiers from the Preliminaries.

Inside, I spot most of them sleeping. I see Ayen sleeping soundly at the far end of the tent. Some other familiar yet unknown faces. Most of them are sleeping under cots made of fur. Perhaps it’s for the best. On the left bed near the entrance, Geta rose up and gave me a smile and an upward nod before going back to sleep. There’s a loudly snoring guy beside him.

I guess there are just seven of us, huh? The only empty sleeping cot is the one to Ayen’s left. I guess that’s the one for me. I walk lightly, carefully avoiding any possible noise.

I squeezed myself inside, making some ruffling sounds that woke up Ayen. With an annoyed expression, she took one look at me before sassily turning away from me.

“Welcome back,” she said.

A soft voice welcoming me back from the brink of death is nice. I’ll gladly take it. I turn to the other side and find the lightning mage I spoke to before the Preliminaries started, Toross, if I remember correctly. He’s not asleep but firmly rolled inside of his cot. He looked at me without an initial reaction.

“Took you long enough,” he said.

The cockiness that I got from him earlier wasn’t there. He sounds like a completely different person. I didn’t reply. It wasn’t as if he was looking for one anyway.

I stared up at the ceiling as I felt something inside me working to repair my body. It’s like it breaks down and just gets repaired right after. At least, that’s how it felt why I broke my fall. Is this what it’s going to be like from now on? My own body is disintegrating right in front of me every time I use mana and magic. I don’t know what changed. Maybe it was like this, to begin with. All I know is that I’ll have to understand my limits sooner than later.

I won’t have business saving others if I’m dead.