‘Where am I? Did the Architect contact me again already?’ Alex wondered as he looked around the void he found himself in. “Woah!” He exclaimed when he looked down though and saw a massive ocean stretching as far as he could see. It didn’t look like water though. ‘Is that mana? My mana?’ He thought as he attempted to stretch his senses to his mana like when casting a spell.

The results were odd, he could feel his mana but at the same time, he couldn’t. It did not respond to his commands either but what he could tell was that the ocean below him was indeed his mana pool. ‘This must be my soul!’ He suddenly realized.

He brought his hand up to his head to scratch it as he tried to figure out how the orb had caused this. When he did however he realized he was holding the orb still! “Wow! What is this thing doing inside my soul!?” Alex panicked slightly but he had no idea how this had happened or what to do next.

He continued rolling the orb around in his hands as he had while truly awake but nothing happened like last time. In fact, the orb was entirely dark, the dull glow from before gone entirely let alone the imitation of a sun it had been pulling.

‘Hm I needed mana to get into the room in the first place so maybe the orb needs it as well…? Worth a try I guess since I will need it to open the next door.’ As he thought this through he realized something potentially problematic, however. “How do I channel mana from my soul while inside my own soul?” He said when he tried to channel the mana into the orb and failed.

Hours, days, weeks - Alex had no idea how much time had passed while he attempted to sense mana from within his own soul. Time was hard to keep track of when you are in an endless white void with the only thing changing up the scenery is a giant sea… of… mana…

‘If I can’t sense my own mana from within my soul, what if I just dip the orb into the ocean of mana below? How could I have been so stupid as to not think of that? Although I never really tried moving in this space either.’

As Alex came to this conclusion and he thought above moving down he suddenly began dropping toward the sea of mana as if falling through open air! “Ah!” He exclaimed in surprise and mentally yelled ‘STOP!’ In his mind and came to a jarring halt.

During the sudden drop, his grip had loosened a bit on the orb and now with the sudden halting of his momentum, it slipped from his grip. Alex watched in horror as the orb fell toward the ocean of mana below.

‘Uh-oh…’ He thought nervously to himself. ‘I hope nothing bad happ-‘ “BOOOOOOOM!!” Alex covered his face in fear and curled into a ball in the air. He peeked through his fingers and saw the orb down below sucking in his entire ocean of mana at an incredible speed!

“NO!” He shouted in despair as he felt the drain on his being. When he had tried to manipulate too much of the mana before it had caused pain and for him to have to sit down for a rest and that was nothing compared to what was being consumed below.

If the orb was sucking up the ENTIRE OCEAN what was going to happen to him? As pain wracked his body he convulsed in the air, unable to faint as he was already within his own soul, he watched the seemingly insatiable Mythril orb consume over half of the mana.

The more mana the orb took within itself the brighter it had gotten and was once again performing an imitation of the sun. After it reached peak brightness it also began to expand within Alex’s soul! Where the ocean of mana touched the orb, it seemed to form a natural barrier around it! No longer being rapidly consumed but instead slowing seeping through the barrier in small amounts.

As this happened the pain began to fade from Alex and he was suddenly torn from his soul and sent back to reality. He jolted awake and looked around, back in the room he had been in before and laying on the cold floor next to the obsidian pedestal.

He slowly got up and inspected the room but there were no unexpected changes he could spot. The pedestal still gave off its odd green light but of course, the orb was no longer floating above it as Alex held it within his grasp still.

‘Well at least I survived getting the orb I guess. But what in the hell was happening in my soul?’ He immediately sat down and began meditating, trying to make sure he wasn’t about to be taken over by a shade or inflicted with some soul disease or something.

Obviously, he found something odd right away the moment he began meditating as he figured he would. ‘I can feel… something? Something foreign is in my soul but it doesn’t feel wrong, just warm and different from myself. What could this orb possibly be? The fact that he no longer had it in the real world and that is truly merged with his soul was worrying.

The door said it was one of the true tools of the Architect but why would he put items on Earth that did such unexplainable things? Then again, all his choices and motives are unexplainable to humans so I guess this can’t be called odd for him.’

Not finding anything else off within himself Alex finished off his snack and got back to his feet. ‘Time to get out of here already!’ He told himself. When he approached the door with the hand-shaped indent like the last one and attempted to do the same as before by channeling mana into his hand. Thankfully this seemed to do the trick and the door began to glow! After several seconds Alex suddenly found himself standing in the doorway to the dungeon staring out into the forest leading back to town.

“What the!” He exclaimed out loud in surprise. ‘I just teleported!’ He thought to himself in excitement. ‘I’ve never even heard of that happening to anyone from the adventurers guild! However it happened though, I can’t believe I am finally out of that place!’ As he thought this he jumped in the air and pumped his fist in the air as he often did when overly excited.

“Time to get back to town! YEA!” He yelled into the forest before remembering that he was basically defenseless and without anyone to help him if he got into trouble. ‘Ah dang, I gotta stop making stupid mistakes like that! Stupid stupid stupid!’ He silently chastised himself as he began walking in the direction of town.