A soul, in its most basic form.
Is defined as a collection of natural mana equal to the body size of the living being it resides within. Simply put, your soul in its most basic state looks exactly like your body, same size, same color eyes, all with a notable golden yellow tinge, oh yeah, and depending on the density of your soul certian… details may be missing, so you may or may not have legs… the methods used for soul densification are in chapter seven of this book. (Don't skip ahead yet!)
Please note, this is the basic explanation, we will go more in-depth about what a soul is in the sequel to this book 'Souls and Your Inner Path'
This is the last part of the summary of the fourth chapter of the soul book
- - - -
I rub away my eye snot as I blurily get up and get ready for the day, my body still hasn't fully gotten used to waking up at 4 o'clock every morning, even after a year and a half or so… especially after I started reading that total slog of a book, I've only made it to chapter four because of the stupid practice barricade!
…As has become a possibly concerning habit over the past few weeks I mutter to my empty home "… system, show countdown till 'reward'…"
[ding.]
[reward's. Manifesting. Will. Take. Two. Months. One. Week. Three. Days. And. Twenty. One. Hours]
It's been three weeks and I'm still on the gods forsaken practical portion of chapter four…
Chapter one's practical was preparing the body for first contact, which was easy enough, then chapter two was about actually coming into first contact, which was a little bit harder, chapter three was about learning how to maintain a connection with your soul, even when your asleep, look me a few days to figure out how to trick my body into keeping the connection twenty four / seven…. And the fourth… and what's been giving me the absolute most trouble recently… the visualization of your soul… sounds simple, right? You'd think that'd be simple right?!?
But noooo, apparently you have to 'connect spiritual bridges betwixt you and your soul within the path ways of all one hundred and eight of your meridians' or some bullshit like that, do you know how much concentration it takes to form 108 bridges between you and yourself!?
On top of all that shit, trying to manipulate 'spiritual connections' is like trying to guide a fist full of ooblek through a silly straw, it's hard, and messy and sure a little might make it in to the place you want it to go but that doesn't account for the 99.9% that didn't even get close!
The author of this book 'Igris C. Uzos' is a total hack! Hell is too good for him! His name is too cool for someone so bastardous! He deserves to rot in super hell for all eternity as a nameless fool!
—-"sigh…."
…
At least the runic arrays are going okay, though, I don't really have anyone to base my progress off of, but I know I'm nowhere near close to where Zora Ideale was in the anime…
On top of all that the hearth festival is coming up, so I've gotta get on helping prep for the celebration…
'I wanna take a break…'
- - - -
After deciding to take a break and help out the towns folk I decide to make my way to town, when I get there, i am designated as a hearth preper, I went to the hearth logs with the rest of the people on the team, these logs are big, so most divide themselves into smaller teams with a person of similar size to themselves and haul a log together, however, since I am the shortest person here, no one feels inclined to help me out, all to busy with their own duties, not that my doing this by myself bothers me, infact, this is a perfect time to practice with a simple trick I have been experimenting with lately.
Enveloping my legs in a thin layer of interweaving magic strings, i pulse these strings in such a way as to act as extra leg muscles, effectively boosting my leg strength by a half, using the same method I spread these strings to my back as well, in order to stop my back from giving out…
This is of course, still in it's experimental stages, meaning it drains far more from my mana reserve than I'd like.
I suppose it's close to how reinforcement magic works, except this way seems a bit harder than it was shown in the anime, ahh well, as long as it works.
I here by dub this little trick 'Mana Manipulation Form: Exo'. Exo as in Exoskeleton, as such a thing would do the same as this form of mana manipulation does, also it just sounds really cool…
With the aid of the Exo form I am able to maintain my pace with the rest of the people in the prep squad even with an around six foot (a little bit less than two meter) long log to the hearth pit.
This festival is meant to last as long as the hearth does, the hearth typically has enough fuel for us to have a week long celebration, it's meant as a way for everyone to come together and appreciate warmth as a community during the coldest part of the winter.
there isn't anything like a big feast or anything but the local church hands out free fire wood for anyone so that any who don't have enough can get through the worst of the snowy months, and there is food as well, extremely cheap and very tasty, generally, it's just a time for everyone to remember to come together to help each other escape from hypothermia.
- - - -
Little did the tiny Shepard know, most of the people in the hearth preparatory unit she was assigned to were looking at her with concern in their eyes, but due to her expertly maintained aura of 'don't fuck with me or talk to me', no one managed to gather the courage to go and speak with her out of lifting up the log almost twice her height, she was explicitly assigned to this unit as the one designated to pick up sticks and twigs, as was the job of most of the children who were old enough to help, it's simply that the hearth manager must have either forgotten to actually tell her that, or she just ignored him…
Most were surprised, than relieved when her legs and back started to glow as she crouched to pick up the log, 'sherif Manderbeck must've taught her reinforcement magic,' one of them thought, the rest simply didn't care about the source of this help, simply content about the fact that she wasn't going to need medical attention.
The group trudged along to the hearth, staking the logs one by one till all that was left was an eight foot (roughly two and one third meter) tall pire with Shepard having to go back for the sticks, twigs dry hay, and bark, with the hearth pire fully set up for the start of the festival, they threw a rucksack with a multitude of enchantments woven into it onto the pire as to make sure it wouldn't get ruined before the festival, as it would start on Saturday which was around three days from now, as that day is the winter solstice.
- - - -
After the prep for the fire was finished one of the managers told me to head to the wreath placement team, specifically something for the youngsters to do after their first task had been completed.
I met up with that team and found that of the few children that had completed their tasks before me, Robert was one.
Robert hasn't actually talked to me in the three weeks since the Alderbeste stuff, when ever he and I happen to be in the same place, he just stares at me without blinking and walks in the opposite direction while not breaking eye contact, I have yet to figure out what happened to him for this change to come so suddenly… maybe his head injury was more dire then we thought? Ehh what ever…
As I gathered some wreaths to set up poll to poll i starkly ignored the eyes being drilled into my back…
- - - -
It has been three weeks, one day, and thirteen hours since my memories came back, it is currently December 19th, in three days the true start of winter will be upon us, what the people in this town call 'winter solstice' and it will mark the eight years since I have started living this lie…
I suppressed my memories in order to escape-
I was given the end of a wreath by the one that brought me back from that forest, the cleaner side of town call her a mongrel, the people here simply call her Shepard, no last name reported in my memories, 'father' calls her 'Savior' for the fact that she supposedly saved my life…
I watched as she casually manipulated raw magic power into a thin thread of string then wrapped one of the ends of the wreathe in it, and simply floated it up to the place it needed to go on the post…
That was it, not chant, no sweat, only a partial hand movement, and she had the capability to wrap up that part of the wreathe around itself and firmly into the poll.
Then she took the part that was in my frozen hands and did the same with the other post…
Not even- had this amount of casual control the last time I saw-
Clover civilians are scary…
- - - -
After I finished with the wreathe I was working on I snapped my head over to the Annoyance, and he simply flinched instead of running, so progress, I guess…
Seeing as he's on the precipice of bolting for some reason, I quickly dart my hand into my satchel and pull out his book, I force it into his arms and go help, (read: do all the work for) Marline and Paul…
At the end of the day, all of the wreaths were where they should be and the children were called in for dinner by their parents.
And with all that settled I decided to head back to my place for some well needed rest…
But just as I was about to turn to the path out of town a hand clamped down on my shoulder, I turned and I paled as I met the glare of a dragon…
Metaphorically, of course no, in actuality I met the gaze of Ms. Hearte, as she found my gaze on her she jerked her head towards her Bakery…
But before I could start laying out platitudes and excuses as to why I couldn't come over for food, -as I had to do for the last few weeks.- she gave me a feral smirk as she dragged me by the shoulder towards the Bakery…
With no use resisting her I psyched myself up for the incoming interrogation…
- - - -
Good grief this one took weeks!
I just had to many tempting ideas, but I didn't know where to go with the story at all…
Sorry all,
The next should be sooner (unless I need to change something, which is likely)