Tricia felt Cage's heartbeat start again. She didn't understand it. His heart had stopped, he should be dead. She was more so confused by the pulse of energy she felt coming from him once his heart started beating again. His feverish symptoms also had gone and he was more or less back to normal.
'Well, I'm not one to complain about my child not being dead...'
She brushed it off as it being a result of his soul being pushed to the absolute limit. Tricia made her way to the mining camp to have him checked out. She was partly concerned because of the energy pulse, the other part she was concerned about was because his heartbeat stopped. To her knowledge, there had been no case of soul saturation where a pulse of energy had been released while the heart stopped and then shortly after started beating again.
She walked mindlessly to her destination. She reminisced in the past when she was an adventure, and later, her time in the civil war.
'I shouldn't think about that stuff, thinking about it won't bring back the friends I lost. They are gone.' Her eyes started to water up a little. She shook her head and dispersed the gloomy emotions. With a smile, she thought 'Besides, I have Zaria, Marcus, and now Cage'.
Arriving at the mining camp, she walked to a building that looked a lot like a prison on the outside. it was made entirely of stone and all the windows were blocked with vertical bars, the only entrance and exit was in one spot that had a heavy wooden door which was guarded by several people. It certainly did resemble a prison however, it was not. It was a medical clinic. It had all the fortifications to keep people inside rather than out. If one of the patients had a disease, it could cause a pandemic in the mine which would be detrimental with the existence of beasts and nobles. The nobles would get mad if they got looked at the wrong way, naturally they would be infuriated if the mine wasn't producing profits.
Tricia walked into the clinic and as expected, the inside was made out of stone. Most structures in the camp were made out of stone because earth magic made it convenient.
There was a woman at a desk that was in the main lobby. She had was wearing a red uniform similar to the guards, but it was not plate armor and was a mix between leather and chain mail armor. who was using earth magic to manage tablets to store information.
"How can I help you?" The woman asked while looking up from the tablet.
Tricia gestured with her free hand and said "I need to have him checked out, he was suffering from mana saturation not too long ago. He should be fine now, just better safe than sorry right?"
The woman was shocked, "You mean to say he learned how to release mana at infant age?!?" Realizing her expression she became a little flustered and quickly said "Ah, sorry... I'll lead you to a room and I'll send in Dr.Gramm shortly."
Tricia was led to a room that was very vibrant contrary to expectations. It had many plants that were magical as well as many medical tools. In the middle of the room was what looked like a large rectangular container filled with some type of liquid that radiated faint mana. On the ceiling was a soul crystal intertwined with a vine that was dripping the liquid into the container.
Tricia already knew the procedure and placed Cage in the liquid. Cage's body was fully submerged but he was still able to breathe fine. As the receptionist person said, Dr.Gramm arrived shortly. He had thick gold framed glasses and had several medical instruments on him, he was a relatively short human with black hair that was starting to gray in certain spots. Contrary to his looks, he was one of the most powerful mages in the mine second to only Zaria, Marcus, and the Commander.
Dr.Gramm walked in and shook Tricia's hand and exchanged hello's. He looked at Tricia with a gentle smile and said, "I already heard from my apprentice doctor, I'll begin examining him. It will just be a basic checkup followed by me assessing his soul"
Dr.Gramm walked to the tank of fluid and pulled out a lens with two handles from a pocket in his coat, this was possible due to space magic. When Dr.Gramm placed his hands on the handles it came to life and yellow runes began to glow along the edges. After observing Cage through the lens for a few minutes he put away the lens and walked over to Tricia.
"Overall, his physical condition is great! He should develop healthily. His fur and hair are also doing good. Ears are developing nicely and his tail should grow to be luxurious like yours" He said with a wink. Dr. Gramm continued, "I will begin examining his soul now."
Dr. Gramm began to cast a spell and a small glow came from him and ascended upwards a little, it was a light attribute spell that started to portray a hologram of Cage's soul.
"... What the F*ck!!!"
-=-=-
Cage was currently unconscious and unresponsive on the outside, but he was experiencing something strange in his soul-scape.
His soul's core was shattered and in many pieces at the moment. Cage didn't have any soul energy either, it was like the 'dam' had broken and all the water was just going past. The blood red chains were also still there, but it was like they were dormant.
'What exactly is going on here? My soul shattered but I'm not dead. I'm also pretty sure I felt my heart stop. And what was that shock wave of energy?'
Cage thought it was strange, when his soul shattered he should have died. But he was alive, it was almost like he was in a pseudo-time freeze. While in thought, Cage had a sudden idea. It was a reckless idea, but an idea at that. He saw no other way to leave his soul-scape anyways so he figured he might as well try it.
'My soul is reminding me a lot about those 3D puzzles that were on earth. I wonder what would happen if I solved this "puzzle" that is my soul...'
Thus, Cage got to work. It was a little difficult. His core was circular so it's not like there was any corner pieces. Thankfully, he was able to spot the differences between pieces really quick. Cage observed that there was so many fragments he couldn't even count them all. Using his thoughts to move around, he began to assemble his core. He was so immersed that it was like he was possessed by a spirit. One piece at a time, he began to assemble his core from the different fragments.
As more pieces moved into place, he found it harder and harder to move them. When he was a quarter of the way done, he had a small headache. When he estimated he was half way done, Cage began to half a splitting headache. When he was three quarters of the way done, His head started to feel like it would explode and his vision showed signs of starting to blur.
Cage didn't have a sense of time, he didn't even know if time moved at the same pace in his soul-scape. After what seemed like months, he had the final piece as was manipulating it to move into place. He was very close to losing consciousness, he felt that if he closed his eyes he would fall into a deep sleep. He was afraid that if he lost consciousness that his soul would fall back apart. Cage didn't even want to think about what would happen if it did.
The final piece went in place with a satisfying snap...
Light blue light began running along the cracks originating from the final piece. When the light filled all the cracks, they began to mend at a visible rate and the red chains began shaking and flickering until they glowed continuously like before.
'Uhhh... Well It seems like my soul is reforming okay now, I should be able to relax a-'
Startled, Cage felt a massive pulse of energy expand from his core. His core began to change from the misty gray it was to a new golden color. It didn't end there though, his core began cracking down the middle until it split in two.
'What?!? I thought I did it right? Why did it split in two???'
The two halves began to condense and liquefy until they began to change shape. At first there was only two golden cores that took shape. As if it was some ancient artifact, a golden ring began to rotate and spin around the two cores forming. When everything was in place, blue runes began to glow on the ring.
'...What? I can't even tell if this is good or bad anymore.'
With a perplexed look on his face, Cage guessed it was probably good considering he didn't die when it happened. His soul was truly a mystical sight. Cage thought that it looked really cool now, but he could only help but wonder why he now had two cores and rings surrounding them though...
While in thought Cage realized that he was drained of energy, he began to feel inexplicably tired and promptly lost consciousness.