I wake up, luckily not in another world this time, covered in rock, debris, and gravel-like crushed up remains of the boulder, ledge, and other unfortunate rock.

Still alive, screw you mountain, you can't kill me.

I attempt to laugh self-deprecatingly, but stop when my lungs start malfunctioning in bitterly protest and get filled with rock dust. Instead of doing useless stuff, getting out of the rubble seems like a better idea, so that is what I do.

Attempting to move the rubble and rock off me is surprisingly easy, the majority of the rock was absolutely pulverised by the boulder and I was far enough away, well, thrown far enough away to be accurate, that any of the big rock completely missed me.

It is when I try to get out and move one larger piece of rock away from my chest, do I realise I was wrong.

Nope, it turns out only most of the big rock missed me. Looking at the relatively large jagged piece of rock embedded into my left lung, explaining why my lungs were not working too good, and why my left arm feels quite hard to move.

I feel tempted to scream in agony, but it doesn't hurt as much as I feel it should, probably because of adrenaline or something. Don't get me wrong, it is absolutely god awful misery, but it is tolerable torture if that makes sense.

Currently at a loss of what to do, I ponder my options in erie calm.

First, I could try to do what most people would do and scramble to get it out of my body, but that would be so much worse and be very much life-threatening.

Wait, isn't this already life-threatening?

Nonetheless, the first option is not good.

The second option, is to sit here and think a bit more as I don't think I can move.

Giving it a try, gritting my teeth in a new wave of pain I can confirm that the rock has pierced through my body and out below me, pinning me to the rock.

Then I feel something quite perplexing, my left lung finally collapses due to my continuous attempts to try to breathe and wiggling to move. I shudder and flail my legs around on the ground in agony, groaning in pain as I can't get enough air out of my lungs to scream.

The only thankful thing in this situation is that I don't think the rock pierced my heart, narrowly missing it, but that doesn't change the fact I feel my heart beating weaker.

Weakness spreads through my body and the dread, and terror of actually feeling my heart slowly stop working leads to me concluding that I have no idea what to do here.

Slowly, as my heart begins to fail, I start to accept my fate. I didn't get to do much, but I did enjoy my time the best I could and had a fun time even if it was a little short.

My last thoughts are of the view, and the thunderstorm in the distance when I was sitting with everyone at the ledge, having thunder and lightning strike when Hernon was trying to do something was pretty funny to me.

Finally, my heart stops with my final thought being of me burning my time in this world, the floating mountains, the landscape and clean air, and my companions I knew for all of three days.

...

What? My heart stopped right? Huh, maybe this is like my final clarity before I am whisked away again, at least the pain eased slightly.

...

. . .

Somethings not right here.

I do the only thing I can think of and open my menu to have a look over.

True Name: [Aqzuran Keteroch] Species: [True Elemental of the Storm]

Traits/Skills/Abilities:

-[True Elemental] Absolute authority over related concepts.

-[Pure Being of Magic] Mana and Magic given form, bodily functions and mundane forms of poison, in addition to other harmful effects are nullified unless willed otherwise.

-[Avatar of Keteroch] Acquired by the [True Name] and [True Elemental] Trait, use and transform into the avatar of your concept.

-[System user] You use, activated, or are otherwise related to the system.

-[Otherworldly Historian] You carry the understanding and practice of History across worlds. The work, knowledge, adventures, and the will of the past, refined over thousands of years, given perspective in an alternate world will drive you forward.

Titles:

-[Prime Elemental] Evolved version of the [True Elemental] title, you are the first True Elemental of your assigned concept.

-[Pioneer of the Tenth Age] Unlocks future options, fate is tangible.

-[Immortal] You do not age, related to the [Pure Being of Magic] title bodily functions.

Hmmmm.

Is it, is it that shitting [Being of Magic] Trait again?

'Bodily functions' hmmm, other harmful effects are regarded obsolete, what counts as other harmful effects?

The longer I sit here lying with no beating heart, the more I suspect this is the case. Too shocked with the realisation, I forget to register that I am still in fact stuck here crippled with a collapsed lung, no heart, and what I suspect is a few broken bones.

Too weird, this is fucked.

Only when the pain flares up do I remember the current situation, and with what control I have over my arms, I attempt to pull out the stone pinning me to the ground, and with a bit of pulling and twisting get it out, only to find it surprisingly easy.

If I can 'will' my functions on and off, does that work with pain?

I try it, and am immediately relieved when it does and all the pain fades away. With nothing hurting me, and on the high of knowing that I am still alive, I turn my attention to the gaping hole in my chest.

Where I expect to see organs, instead I am met with something else.

My body, around and inside the hole is just a blurry mess of wispy smoke and what looks like light in physical form, the majority is white with gold and shades of blue, with some small amounts of what I think is blood, my blood, of the same colour pouring on the floor, triggering some familiarity of something I remember from my first day in this world but not fully remembering, due to the current situation.

Now that nothing is obstructing my body, and letting me see through to the other side with a mix of emotions too strong for me right now, I watch in mesmerised, morbid fascination, as even though I want to look away in disgust and horror, I can't look away as the wispy strands of smoke, light, and rainbow-like liquid slowly stitch itself back together and form my body.

I was even tempted to turn back on my senses just to understand what was happening, but refrain, as I admire my body fix itself, not even realising my arms and broken bones seem to be fixed too, making me wonder if I even have bones or organs.

Soon, after even my clothes stitch themselves back together, I just sit there slowly rebooting my mind while still covered in gravel-like rock.

I mean, I already knew I wasn't human, but only now does it really sink in. There is a lot of things I can deal with pretty nonchalantly, but I fucking died, AGAIN.

How do I even die? It doesn't say anywhere in my status that death is impossible, maybe its only some magic thing that can kill me.

After calming down from my not-so-near-death experience, I finally notice that I can see my species now, but only generates more questions and quickly put it out of my mind for now.

Ok, ok. You got this, everything is fine, it's just death, think on the bright side. You can go do stuff on your own, even maybe so some magic stuff.

It is only after fully calming down, and processing what happened, do I attempt to get back up with a sigh. Only to shudder with the feeling of a new lung working again, now that I think about it, I also decide to turn back on my heart which, after stuttering a little, kickstarts back to life as if nothing happened.

Fucking fuck-shit. I hate this feeling, it is going to take a while to get used to it. And how do I have a lung now when I didn't when I had the hole in my chest? Though, maybe I just didn't see my lung under all the writhing smoke and light.

Groaning with discomfort, frustration, and a little annoyance at dying to a rock, I fully calm down and resolve to focus entirely on the floating island, then go from there.

Congratulations! Through either death, an epiphany, sufficient records or through other unrecognised means, you have been deemed adapted/worthy enough for The System to unlock user abilities and standard progression.

- [Magic and mana manipulation unlocked]: You can now properly access all magic and mana related [Traits/Skills/Abilities] listed within your status.

- [Species unlock]: Due to the classification of your concept/element, it has been locked until now, related species [Traits/Skills/Abilities] control has been bequeathed by The System.

- [Affinity unlocked]: Affinity with your governed concept has been set to the standard level related to your species, [WARNING: user behaviour or actions may influence affinity].

- [Evolutionary tree unlocked]: Progress is the will of The System, future evolutionary options will be open to your discretion and selection dependent on titles, records, and personal choice.

It is important to note, approximately [̸͙͕̳͌͊̈́͐̆͒𝐸̷̙͍̯̜̞̇͊̑̍̈̌̆̽̒̕̚̕𝑅̴̛͓͓̜̾́͊͆̔̔͐̆͝͝𝑅̷̡̡̛̭̥͙̖̤̳͙̰͖̓̈́̒̈́̏̌̒̎̒͜͜͝͠𝒪̴̢̨̧̢̧̰̞̥͙̣̩̦͉̦͍̠̗͌͂͛̾͆͌̓̾̉̀͘𝑅̴̡͍̪̜̗̻̎]̸̡̧͔͕̘̩̤̲̼̰̈́̿̿̌͆̓̈́͋́̀͝ͅ users thus far have been removed through attempts to [̴̛̥͎̲̔̈̓̓͜є̵̮̏̏͘͝г̶̡̰͚͇͐̉̽̒̆г̵̣̟̿̀๏̷̡̛̛̘̯͔͕̮̈́̆̓г̸̥̌]̵̠̰̯̦̈̾͆́̕͠ or disrupt The System and it's will.

It is highly suggested that you do not follow in their footsteps.

This will be the only warning.

Huh?

Oh, you got to be shitting me.

So, skipping over the message, is the fact the boxes are slightly different in colour, leading me to believe there is either different types of ways the system works, or it uses tiers or classes for its messages.

The lighter blue is 'user' related messages or stuff, like when using status's, where the deeper blue is system-related messages.

Nonetheless, the message itself was quite something.

First, it offers an explanation why none of us was able to use our magic or abilities, why the system made it like this was hard to figure out at first, until I remembered human behaviour.

Maybe it's like a trial period, and I skipped it by dying and engaging some sort of emergency unlock, this also explains the warning at the end.

So, with the warning and species unlock looked at, I turn to acknowledge the unlocks, and this 'progression tree' it mentions. When I look at each unlock, and properly understand it, only then do I feel it work.

I don't understand or know how I feel it work, other than it kind of feels like something was unblocked, like you were trying to remember or work out something, then all of a sudden everything just clicks. First was magic, and now all of a sudden I know intuitively how to do magic, which I would think is a benefit of my species.

Speaking of, I didn't know 'Storm' was an element, though the system did say it was more of a concept than an element, it makes me wonder if there are other elementals that control other concepts, is death an element? What about space? Or even time?

I understand the need for a trial phase then, if that's the case.

Affinity and the Evolutionary tree are both ones that I don't truly understand, Affinity is probably like my relationship to my element? While Evolutionary tree didn't add anything to my status and is something Hernon and Co would probably know more about.

One important thing to note is the implications of the message, not even the content of the message. This means that the system is both watching us, and that everything I am given is probably a gift, a gift that can be taken away from what I understand.

In the end, nothing changed too much in my status, but now that I can access magic and more of my status, I decide that this is good enough for now, and start properly assessing my surroundings, being too occupied with dying and the message to truly look around.

Looking up, I notice the ledge I was supposed to land on, or more accurately the lack of said ledge. Swiftly confirming that I have both little way and little want to climb back up, the small rocky hill downwards, filled with sparse pine trees that also have the white, gold, and blue variants from earlier looks a lot more appealing.

Briefly, I also notice the thunderstorm in the distance, out past the forest to my right, heading past the mountains, bringing a grin to my face when I feel the connection stronger than ever.

Elemental of the storm huh? I guess I was right when I felt it had something to do with the wind.