I awoke in a familiar place. I found myself lying on the floor looking up at a deep blue galaxy-like ceiling, the hue of the room emanated this oceanic vibe.
I don't remember what happened before I slept, just that I went right into my room and went face first into the pillow. Hell I don't even think I responded to Lilith when I went into the room. How'd I even get here?
And standing close to my face was Duvul. His long black hair tickled my nose as he bent down and looked at me with a smile.
"Good to see you were able to get here, Travis." He simply Greeted me. "Almost thought you couldn't pull it off…"
"Ugh…" I groaned, pulling myself from the floor. The floor was shimmering in a rainbow light as it rippled from my movement. "I didn't even know I was heading here…Just kinda wanted to sleep."
"What, didn't want to see me?"
"I wanted a good shut eye after all I've been through the past couple of days."
Duvul chuckled, he whisked his hand away from us. Suddenly, a table and chair formed before my eyes as he casually walked his way towards them. They seemed to be made of oak wood.
"Let us talk about that. I've been looking through your eyes and wanted to talk about this…Mandy woman."
"Y-you really have been seeing everything I've seen?" I asked, following him and sitting.
"What else is there to do in your body?" Duvul whisked his hand once more, I noticed his eye emanating a bright green light as he did so. Suddenly, a cup of tea formed along with a Metallic kettle.
I stared at the now formed cup of tea and kettle, confused. Am I…am I actually going to be able to taste the tea? What's it even going to taste like? I don't even remember having tea here, so how would I even taste it?
"Come now, sit down." Duvul waved at me. "It's just tea."
"Yeah…and how the hell am I supposed to even figure out what it tastes like?"
"Just take a sip." Duvul pushed a cup of tea towards me. "Here in my abyss, Magic happens." There was a sly smile that crept on his face.
I gave him a suspicious look. He's acting very…sus right now. What's in this tea? Hopefully not anything too crazy, maybe his own bath water? That'd be absurd, he's anticipating something else.
I cautiously grabbed the cup of tea and looked at it. A clear liquid was inside of it that swished to my movement.
Motherfucker, this is just normal water! Why's he trying to make me question this?
"Have you been drinking plain water?!" I looked at him with annoyance. But all he did was shrug.
"Just imagine what you want to drink. And magic will happen." He simply said. "I think once you figure things out, you'll have a laugh."
This some kind of joke to him? I looked back at the cup and thought for a moment. What would I want to drink? Hm, you know I haven't had soda in quite a while…
With that in mind, I cautiously took a swig of the clear liquid in the cup. Then something happened.
There was fizzling, that sensation of drinking soda enveloped my mouth. It was like I was really drinking a cup of it!
Duvul eyed me with a sly look as I placed the cup back down onto the table. He adjusted himself on his seat so that his leg was over his other, he had a plain smile on his face.
"Enjoyed something you remembered?"
"What'd you do?"
"Hmph." He smirked. "Mana. The ever flowing energy that flows through all sources of life here. It reconstructs, deconstructs, changes into whatever you need it to be." He then pointed at his head. "You just used mana to create whatever you just tasted. It isn't real, but it's a nice illusion to use. It's why I said magic…May I have a taste of what you've made?" Duvul gingerly grabbed the cup I laid down and took a sip of it.
Mana? Is this whole space just mana flowing around?…This is kinda throwing me all off guard at the moment, I just literally tasted soda…
"Ah! This is great, Got a bit of fizzle to it! Reminds me of a tea I had while journeying!" Duvul happily said.
"Is this…Whole place, The Abyss…Is it all mana?" I asked him. I looked off into the infinite void that glimmered. "Is that why you were able to just create the table and chair?"
"Did you not listen to what I just said?" Duvul looked at me, disappointed. "Mana. It flows through all things." He stretched his hands out wide. "This abyss of mine is all created by my own mana. Same with Arael. All abysses share this same space, it's like…we are in the storage within ourselves."
"So…We are inside of me?" I pointed at myself. It seemed absurd, but thinking about it now…A lot of things Arael did in her abyss seem to be as if she was in command of everything.
"Not quite." Duvul shook his head. "Yes, we are within you. But my mana is much stronger than yours…We are in my Domain."
"Uh…Explain that to me more clearly?" I asked, even more confused.
"Haah…" Duvul sighed. "You know I wasn't planning on giving you a whole lesson on mana, right?" Still he continued. "Let's start off with what an Abyss is. An Abyss is a space where all Mana is stored, it could be within someone or…A Place that holds a large amount. Think of it as a head space. One cannot usually access this without fully controlling their Mana, which is why you cannot access your own."
"Wait, Then how did I get here?"
"I've merely invited you in. I Opened my Abyss to you to grant access. It's how I've let you in before, like how you were almost dead on the floor in Arael's Abyss…"
"Alright, don't bring that up…" I eyed him. Still, I took in what he said to me. So what we're standing in right now is the Mana that's inside me right now, which is quite an amazing view. An all but Infinite void that goes on and on…And not even mine. Even if I did manage to somehow get into my own abyss, it wouldn't even look like this…it'd probably look like a squared room or something. It'd be limited.
I keep thinking about how the hell Duvul knows all this…But I also keep remembering that he's the God of magic. Of course he'd know this and be capable of even managing to open his Abyss…
"Alright, I think I kinda get what an Abyss is now…But mind telling me why you even brought me here in the first place?" I finally said.
"Mmhmm…That Pink haired Girl." Duvul said. "I noticed her Mana usage was a bit…strange."
"Errr…in what way?"
"Those…humanoid things she created. They reeked of Mana."
"How can you tell? How are you even seeing them?"
He gave me a dumb look and pointed at his eyes. "My eyes perceive mana. I can see the flow of it all or I can concentrate on a singular one." He then gave me a curt look. "Kinda wish that you had my ability…you still haven't even tapped into my mana."
"I…Didn't know I could really do that. I thought I already was, isn't that what the Duvul curse is?" I looked at him with more confusion.
"The Duvul curse is that. The usage of my mana, except you haven't even been using it. Your own mana supply is quite large as well, so it probably hasn't been noticeable. But besides the better efficiency in magic and the ability to use all elements, you can tap into my abilities…my knowledge if you could." He explained.
"So…I haven't even touched the surface of what I can do?"
"Yes. And I find it quite boring watching you not use any of it." Duvul frowned at me. "Your lack of wanting to fight makes me want to sleep."
"Then don't watch me then." I frowned at me. "I think you should've noticed or at least figured out how I lived before. I don't fight for fun."
"But you will if it's for the good, right?"
I squinted my eyes at him with suspicion.
"Later on in this journey of yours, you will need to fight. No doubt about that, and I can see that your edging ever so slightly away from what you used to be. And that to me, seems interesting." Duvul continued. His smile seemed ever so friendly and yet so devilish at the same time. "Any who, we've gotten off track. We need to get right back into the pink haired girl!"
"It's Mandy! It's a guy!" I corrected him. "And you were talking about the humanoid things he was making."
Man, Duvul seems to really talk a lot…for a reclusive dude, I can see why some people don't talk to him.
"Mandy, huh?" Duvul rubbed his chin. "Weird name."
"Duvul is a weird name." I said his name.
"Travis is an odd name." Duvul then shook his head. "Anyways, the kid had those monstrous things with him. Did you Notice anything with them?"
"Erm…Well they seemed like they could talk. They could cast things." I thought about it for a moment. "Hmm…They seemed human too?"
"Experimentation." Duvul quickly concluded. "Not that I have tried to do something of the sort. In my time while I was alive, I've seen those who wanted to resurrect a dead one. This looks familiar…" he leaned forward in his wooden chair, his hands clasped together as he looked at me. "Those dead who are forced to come back by mana are husk, brain dead monstrosities that only follow the ones who casted the resurrection spell on them."
I never heard of a spell like that in the university…Though to be fair, I'd guess it'd be some sort of forbidden spell. One with that sort of knowledge would be quite dangerous…
Still…if that was the case, how would Mandy even know how to use it? And why would he be using it?
"You sure that Mandy used the resurrection spell?"
"My eyes do not lie to me. A huskless mutated body is the only sort of thing that'll come out of it." Duvul then thoughtfully rubbed his chin. "However…I would say that this Mandy seems to have done the spell better than most people I've known."
"Yeah, I mean those things…talked and casted spells."
"Hmm…Perhaps with my time gone, Magic has evolved to a new point." He then looked at me. "I'd like to know more."
I stared at him. "…what? Want me to look at a book in Ozoth and have you read it through my eyes?"
"As weird as it sounds…yes." Duvul nodded, grabbing his cup of tea and taking a sip out of it.
I glanced around the abyss, not knowing what to say. I didn't really intend on being here, and quite frankly…Talking to Duvul just reminds me of talking to an uncle you've met maybe once or twice in your life.
"Oh! Another thing!" I looked back at Duvul, This time the man was holding out his hand. "Hold my hand."
"Wha-why?"
"Just testing something." He smiled. "Go on, I'm not going to bite! In fact, you might even get something out of it!" He waved his hand playfully.
Cautiously, I reluctantly held my hand out. As my hand made contact with his…nothing happened. There was a slight warmth to the man's hand that I felt was odd, knowing that Duvul was dead.
"Hm…" Duvul frowned once more, he then began to rub his hand against mine.
Instinctively, I pulled my hand back from him and gave him a mean look. "The hell are you doing?! You know how weird it is for you to do that?!"
"Oh pipe down, I was trying to see if you were able to tap into my mana." He dismissed my outburst. "And I'll say, it's even more weird that a man like you is in an eleven year olds body."
"I don't need to tap into your mana right now!" I snapped back at him. "I'm fine where I'm at right now. You said it yourself, My mana pool is quite large."
"You don't want to see what I'm capable of doing? Not even slightly curious?"
"Hell no!" Angrily, I then promptly laid myself onto the rippling floor. "Now take me out of this abyss so I can have a nice dream about something other than this!"
Duvul looked at me with annoyance, the long black haired man got out of his chair and stood on top of me. His emerald eyes staring at me.
Then he began to stomp on me, landing blows with his feet onto my stomach. He frustratingly grunted as he stomped the hell out of me.
"You damn idiot! Are you a buffoon?! I'm bored to death here, and seeing you do nothing isn't making things better! You better somehow figure out how to tap into my mana once you get into Ozoth, or I'll crawl out of this abyss and choke you from the inside!"
I think I've annoyed the God of magic.
"Oof, Augh-Alright, alright! Stop stomping me out!" I batted at his legs and tried to block his stomps. "Jesus, are you that bored?!"
"Yes! I've sat here watching you for years and you've only fought maybe like four times!" Duvul then gave me a confused look. "And who the hell is Jesus?!"
"You don't need to know!" I wasn't going to tell this man that somehow the people of my past followed a man that resurrected and somehow made water into wine.
"You're so boring." Duvul scoffed. He pulled himself away from me and promptly sat back into his chair. "Some point, you'll need to tap into my mana. You'll need to stop rejecting it and instead embrace it."
I pulled myself from the floor, groaning. "Gah…Look, when I get to Ozoth, I'll find my way into the library there. Then you can read all the books I manage to grab, and maybe I'll manage to witness a cool fight there. Who knows, but I'll keep the book promise…"
Duvul stared at me. "…Fine. I suppose reading will satisfy me momentarily. But I still want to see you fight. Properly."
"…Could happen, but I can't guarantee that'll happen once we get to Ozoth."
"Hmph…It'll happen." Duvul then raised his hand. "Off you go. I'll allow you to leave. Close your eyes, Drift."
"…Thanks." I said, closing my eyes.
Suddenly, I felt the world around me enclose itself. And slowly, I felt my consciousness slip as I drifted back to sleep.