Azrael spent the rest of the day in recovering in his room, despite his insistence that he was okay.

While healing magic healed the body, it apparently didn’t replenish lost blood. This meant that he was stuck in bed for the foreseeable rest of the day.

It was already past the fourth evening bell, so it wasn’t really that long – a few hours before bedtime.

Never one to waste time, Azrael decided to go over the series of events that had brought him to where he currently found himself. Everything had happened so fast, since he’d been summoned by The Trickster, that he hadn’t even had a moment of respite.

First there was the summoning, then there was his meeting with The Void Primordial, as well as the influence of the void on his soul, skills and race. This had been followed by an interrogation, a dungeon break and a raid boss and then, to cap it all off, he’d nearly died.

In all of that he’d just been a bystander, reacting as things came. There had been no plan, no tactics. He’d just gotten caught up in the tide of events. He hadn’t even noticed the fact that Zen was a player.

Oh, and he was on the other side of the known world.

His only consolation was that he hadn’t died. He’d honestly considered it, as it would have probably returned him home, but in exchange Alena would have died. He would have also lost a life token.

Each lost token was a step towards the final deletion of his character. Azrael made a promise to himself – he would not die.

Pushing himself up, Azrael tried to find a comfortable seated position. Even now he could feel the newly formed connection to the void in his soul. He needed to see how badly his soul had been impacted by this new sudden power.

Slipping into his soul space, Azrael let the world around him fade.

Like a god that had left a world for several centuries, Azrael came back to find his soul changed. Not drastically. The general shape of his soul was still there – untouched, just as mankind hadn’t managed to change the geography of the oceans and continents.

There was a thrum of new energies though, burning in his soul. Just like mankind discovered coal, oil and nuclear energies.

Moving in closer to inspect his soul, Azrael found his gaze drawn to the swirling soul mist. Though no denser than the last time he had entered, the roiling veil that hid his core had a new quality.

The presence of the void was mixed in. Azrael was unsure whether it was because of his newly changed skill [Mana Sight], but he could actually see strands of the void flowing through his soul. He could instinctively feel that it wasn’t mana, but that was more of an innate sense from soul sense, rather than from [Mana Sight]. He wasn’t actually sure whether [Mana Sight] influenced his [Soul Sense] in that regard though.

Like his soul mist, the barely perceptible streamers of void swirled around and flowed through his skill crystals. What worried him most though was the way it seemed to warp the surrounding mist, absorbing or discharging it at random. Sometimes two streamers of void would meet and devour each other into nothingness, or else grow larger. The paradoxical substance seemed to follow no consistent rules.

His only consolation was that it didn’t reach down to his core. Whenever he spied a glance of his soul core, the divine spark glowed as brightly and as fiercely as it ever had, untainted by the void.

There were only two other things in his soul that seemed radiate a power of their own, though neither was as bright or as powerful as his divine spark.

The first of these was less of a skill crystal and more of a pedestal for a small star of its own. From it, he could feel The Trickster’s power radiating outwards, a weak imitation of the God’s true aura. Presumably this was the {Trickster’s Blessing}.

The second source of power was almost the exact opposite. Unlike the radiant sun that was his divine spark, or the lambent star of the {Trickster’s Blessing}, this gateway to the void was like a paradoxical black hole.

The gateway to the void sat on top of what was formerly [Stone Shaping]. The top of the skill was warped almost beyond recognition, as if melted and reforged under intense heat. Though the original skill [Stone Shaping] was still usable, he could see that it no longer had the potential to grow.

The end of the skill crystal was so warped that it was impossible to facilitate any more growth. Instead, it pierced through the black hole and connected into the void. Bolts of entropy arced out of the gate where it touched his soul and void mist leaked out, drifting downwards to mingle with his soul mist below. Instinctively Azrael knew that he could draw on the power of the void and use it to shape the world around him, through the new skill [Void Shaping].

It was perhaps his most interesting skill crystal, because it facilitated both [Stone Shaping] and [Void Shaping]. If he understood the skill correctly, then by channelling pure mana through the Skill he could freely shape stone and by mixing his mana with the power of the void he could theoretically shape everything else.

The fox girl, Sophie, had done much the same, mingling her own mana with Purity’s power to bless the villagers. It meant that with a bit of practice [Void Shaping] would be less mana hungry than [Stone Shaping], because he was augmenting a part of the power with the energy of the void.

Returning to his body, Azrael looked out of his window and found a few hours had passed. Ignoring the darkening light, Azrael began to draw upon his mana. He wanted to test his new skill, as well as his hypothesis.

Gathering his mana into his palm, he then began to infuse an empty wooden soup bowl with his mana. [Stone Shaping] wouldn’t work on a bowl, but [Void Shaping] said it would work on physical matter. Feeling his mana sink in, he decided to activate [Mana Sight] for the first time.

A myriad of shining colours burst into existence, as the skill activated, blinding him. Not expecting such an explosive reaction from his skill Azrael lost focus and his mana tore itself from his grasp. Mana drained out of the bowl and started dissipating into the air around him. A small part drained into the wooden table that the bowl was resting on.

Without properly thinking things through Azrael accidentally pushed past the final barrier of his [Void Shaping] skill, drawing out the power of the void with his mana, in the hopes of regaining control.

With a sickening lurch he felt his soul connect to void. Paradoxical forces flooded through him, unleashed like an army from hell’s gates. The energy rushed along his mana like lightning down a wire. With no proper direction it continued rushing along his mana, leaping out of his arm into the air in front of him.

Even with his vision heavily impaired by the swirling colours of [Mana Sight] Azrael could see a wrongness as the energy from the void warped the mortal plane. Unbound from his control the void forces had free reign.

A moment later and Azrael regained his calm. He deactivated all of his skills.

Mana stopped flowing, his vision returned back to normal, and the void forces stopped passing through him. Fearfully, he looked at what had once been a wooden bowl on a wooden table. Warped didn’t even begin to describe it.

It was as if an artist had tried to carve an abstract modern art sculpture out of wood. While the table had managed to retain two of its legs the rest of it had been warped beyond recognition. All that remained was a swirling mass of wood and air, locked in a delicate dance for eternity. Not a single sharp corner remained where it had been warped. Azrael gulped. If his hand had been in there when he’d… He shivered. It was best not to dwell on those sorts of things.

A knock on the door revealed a single elderly nurse with a oil lamp entering the room. Seeing him up she smiled.

“I have a candle for the dark, deary. You’ll be discharged tom…”

Her eyes landed on the table.

“...orrow”

Not daring to take her eyes of the impossibly warped table, she managed to find an untouched corner of the table and place down the candle. The nurse smiled professionally.

“Enjoy your rest.”

Azrael smiled back as she rushed out of the room.

Watching her close the door behind her, Azrael settled back into a seated position. In his panic during the previous experiment, he’d scrambled to the other side of the bed to get as far away from the warping space as possible. Now, very carefully, he slowly reactivated [Mana Sight]. In hindsight, activating two unknown abilities simultaneously had been a mistake. Then again, hindsight was a truly lovely thing.

As [Mana Sight] slowly started to activate again, Azrael watched as a filter was applied to the world. Mana, previously invisible to the eye, now became visible in swirling streams. Shadow mana seemed to cling to walls, as fine as gossamer, but as thick as molasses.

The oil lamp on the remains of the table was a swirl of different mana types. Light mana streamed out of the small flame, piercing through the veils of shadow mana in the corners of the room. Fire mana burned in the flame, dispersing into heat mana, which rose into the air in fine swirls. Wind and cold mana streamed in through open window, adding yet more movement to the already intricate dance.

Hot and cold – the two antithical types of mana met, spiralling around each other and cancelled each other out. He hesitated to say that they created wind mana, as he didn’t understand enough about mana to confirm it. He could, however, see that the collision of the two mana types definitely empowered the already existing wind mana.

The only other type of mana, that he could recognise nearby, was earth. The earth mana moved through the sandstone walls slowly, almost sluggishly, not really interacting with the rest of the mana types.

All in all, [Mana Sight] painted a very complex and interwoven picture. Though the premises upon which the mana types moved and reacted seemed simple, Azrael knew that there was more to it.

Satisfied that he had at least a basic understanding of his Skill’s evolution he wished to once more test [Void Shaping].

He did, however, wish to once more draw on his mana. Carefully calling it out, Azrael channelled it into an untouched section of the table, before once more using it to channel the power of the void. Like burning brimstone and soothing spring the forces of chaos and change flowed through him.

Like a oil in a river, the void flowed through his mana. It was not uncomfortable as such, but there was a sense of wrongness, and danger, as if the smallest spark could cause the whole thing to go impossibly wrong.

Guiding the mana with [Mana Manipulation] he simultaneously used [Mana Control] to clamp down on it, keeping everything moving where he wanted. If a bit of his mana escaped, then it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but with the void mixed in there was a certain proven danger. He looked at the deformed desk and shuddered, even as the two skills ticked up under the strain of the task.

Guiding the void into the table, Azrael used his mana to move it around, through the table. Wood warped as it came in contact with the void and Azrael took the opportunity to reshape the mana under his control. Though tainted with void touched wood, he forced his mana into a perfect sphere, the wood moving as if he were sculpting clay.

It was a slow process, eating away at his mana reserves. Dropping into the now familiar breathing techniques for [Meditation] alleviated some of that problem.

Eventually though, the wood under his control accepted its new shape and he cut off his connection to the void, letting the newly formed wooden sphere drop to the ground, even as his mana dispersed. The energy of the void, with nothing to conduct it vanished from the mortal plane, as if it had never existed.

Unfolding his legs from their seated position, he groaned as he bent to retrieve the wooden sphere from the floor. After a prolonged period of inactivity, they were now sore. A bell outside signalled the eighth hour.

In the dim light of the oil lamp, Azrael admired his handiwork. The sphere, once part of a common table was now a perfectly round sphere. He checked it with mana sight, finding nothing but lingering traces of his own mana. He could not sense the presence of the void.

He checked the sphere with [Craftsman’s Eye].

Smooth Wooden Sphere

Crafted by an unknown craftsman, this wooden sphere was shaped by forces beyond the mortal planes. The sphere is perfectly smooth. It floats and will roll down sloped surfaces.

Azrael snorted. It seemed that the system had some humour, in its own dry kind of way. Placing it on the table, Azrael checked his [Status], curious as to whether his race had changed due to him channelling the void.

Status

Name: Azrael

Class: Runist (Lv.4), Sorcerer (Lv.3), Lord (Lv.4)

Race: Human (97%)

HP: 240/240

MP: 94/280

STR: 19

END: 24

DEX: 20

AGI: 15

INT: 28

WIS: 30

Titles:

{Sinner}, {Heretic}, {Master of Status}, {Rune Master}, {God Watched}, {Lord of the End Forest}, {Teacher}, {Oath Maker}, {Void Touched}, {Trickster’s Blessing}, {Void Walker}.

Unique skills:

[Status], [Elemental Mana], [Aura], [@#%& Self].

Skills:

Weaving (Lv.2), Crafting (Lv.16), Spear Arts (Lv.20), Mana Sight (Lv.26), Mana Manipulation (Lv. 27), Soul Sense (Lv.15), Mana Control (Lv.27), Dramatic Flair (Lv. 3), Stealth (Lv. 24), Calm Mind (Lv. 11) Lord’s Domain (Lv. 2), Lord’s Insight (Lv. n/a), Leadership (Lv.6), Void Shaping (Lv. n/a), Reinforcement (Lv.13), Dagger Arts (Lv.22), Meditation (Lv.25), Mana Transfer (Lv.5), Craftsman’s Eye (Lv.1), Intimidation (Lv.6), Search (Lv.8).

Fortunately, he found his race still firmly on 97%, while [Mana Manipulation], [Mana Control] and [Meditation] had all gained another level. Funnily enough, so did [Crafting]. [Mana Sight], as an outlier, gained a whole three levels, pushing it right past the first advancement. Azrael wondered whether the presence of the void had anything to do with that, or whether it was simply his knowledge of different mana types, which caused it to jump past the first advancement.

Closing his [Status] with a satisfied sigh, Azrael bid the world good night.