Diving into the water, Finn felt liberation. He felt calm, letting control of his Ghost spirit body, merely drifting in the water.
With his back facing the deep ends of this lake, Finn looked up, beyond the Bats that flapped, beyond the crown of the trees that blocked the light, beyond anything in this world; he looked back to his past- his memories flooding in.
His spirit body was weakening, his spectral healing clearing up his injuries so that his Mana control would be more efficient.
As Finn reminisced, he once again remembered his goal to live a life he failed to have in his past life.
No creatures were around to interrupt him.
Soon, Finn gave in, as he drifted deeper towards the lake, where the sea was.
'When one dies, it is normal to sleep after all…'
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A long period of time passed, Finn's eye shot open, still facing the surface of the waters.
For the first time since his arrival in this world, Finn saw the moon reducing its nightly beauty.
He had left the region of the towering forest. The realization brought joy for Finn.
He inspected his current condition and his environment.
'I drifted so far… Since hours after dawn, I've been in these waters and it's midnight now. There seem to be creatures around me, but they aren't attacking… T-this!'
Sensing something, Finn moved his body, turning west, towards the depths of these waters.
"I've been moving west!"
The location he had been chasing after for days now, his only hope to save him from complete death at the moment; he was close to the source of what caused the strong Mana!
Finn's spirit body had already healed, making the leaking mana reduce. His mana had replenished passively to an amount that would last him 2 days if he used it for maintaining his body alone.
Using the levitating trait of his Ghost's spirit body, Finn dove deeper into the forest like a starved beast that caught the scent of stray meat.
Moving through the waters of the physical world reduced his mana, but it didn't outweigh the mana that was also being replenished passively in this mana-filled region.
The deeper he dove, the darker it became, luminescent flowers deep down the ground floor barely illuminating the water well.
Fortunately, sight was something the Mana Sense could substitute to a certain extent. Almost everything has mana within them, even the waters.
The surrounding creatures either didn't notice him, ignored him, or he outran them.
The closer he got to the source, the faster he moved. Some creatures gave up on chasing Finn further after a while.
He guessed a stronger monster was what repelled them, but his guess changed after diving deeper.
Two hours of diving non-stop, Finn suddenly stopped, and it wasn't because he wanted to.
He felt like something was stopping him from moving further. A will that didn't want him to go to that source.
"To hell with that. I will reach my goal how i want to. If this is what I want, I'll get it." Finn said, strengthening his resolve to move forward.
Finn 'stood' in the waters, looking deeper west, where the luminescent flowers appeared concentrated.
He could vaguely sense an extraordinary presence.
Very few creatures were here, the source preventing anything unworthy from entering its radius.
Finn dove deeper once more. He felt like he was moving against the currents of a raging water.
He spent another hour traversing a miniscule distance with eyes still determined to reach the source no matter how long.
It was initially that Finn felt he would speed run everything, get stronger, and go looking for a civilization as though he was a protagonist of the fictions he read back on earth.
Now he knows that not everything will go that way, unless he actively makes it go that way.
Another hour passed, Finn crossed more distance than the last, yet the distance between himself and the source remained.
In that instant, Finn felt an imprint within his core activate without his control. Following that, his spirit body's darkish blue color became brighter.
Oddly enough, Finn barely felt the imprint use any mana to activate.
To add to this unusual experience, Finn felt the resistance that repelled him from the source vanish. Additionally, he felt like a tunnel that led him straight to the source had appeared as he could now fully sense the presence of the source's exact location.
After assimilating all that just occurred, the first thing that Finn identified was what skill imprint was activated.
"Echo of God…" As Finn said, the description of his weirdest skill crossed his mind. "Did this skill give me the false identity it talked about and whatever was preventing me from reaching the mana source acknowledged the identity, even opening a path."
While he pondered, Finn suddenly felt like he needed to understand how this skill worked. What identity did it give him? What were the exact requirements that automatically activated it? And…
"How did I get the skill?"
Seeing there were only more questions left unanswered, Finn decided to think more about it when he had sufficient time.
He extended his senses towards the mana source's direction, feeling that he could go deeper where cultivating more mana was possible.
The luminescent plants that seemed to have less deem lights outside the repelling range of the mana source were now flourishing brilliantly here. Their sizes were even bigger compared to any other Finn had seen.
They seemed to ignore Finn as if he didn't exist. Looking at them deeper, Finn noticed they were all weak.
Based on what he saw, Finn had imagined they would be crazily strong, but they were all small and weak looking.
The best reason Finn could give for this based on his rough knowledge of these sea creatures was that they all had short life spans so they probably died before attaining the status that would qualify them as strong.
'How sad.. If they can evolve, their life spans might lengthen, but they die before they can evolve.'
Finn moved closer to the region where he felt the source of the mana, directly beneath him.
On reaching close to the region, he could sense it but he couldn't see it.
Beneath where he stood, Finn could sense an abnormality in space.
He went downwards making contact with this abnormality.
On touching the space that seemed to have a sort of surface, Finn felt a wave of understanding as his senses made contact with the surface.
The wall extended towards a wide range like a dome and Finn was directly at the center of said dome.
His hand couldn't enter the dome's surface further like a strong wall.
Finn didn't know why, but he could tell that this dome was a huge barrier that had something within.
After trying multiple things, even activating his Echo of God skill, Finn could not put his hand through the barrier, talk less of entering it.
Giving up on that, Finn sat cross-legged on top of the dome, his plan to cultivate his mana to strengthen his core and replenish his mana began. After this, he would try possessing a body again.