The Return of My World

Standing was something that had become impossible after my accident. I didn't feel bad about it though, what happens, happens. I could get mad at the mana snake, but the thing was that getting mad at a creature dumber than myself felt, well… dumb. So, I didn't get mad. Instead I just resigned myself to my fate and the tide take me away, so to speak.

I felt useless, but that didn't get me down. All that changed once I failed to receive the divinity seed. I got this strange parasite in my head, and further than that I had to abandon what I called home (even though it lost its' warm feeling years ago.

It has now been five years since I left my home and I have regained a lot of things. First off, I regained my movement thanks to my familiars. I have regained control over my life with my power, and I have regained my sense of purpose.

Something I realized along the way was that I wanted to live comfortably. Even when I wasn't crippled, even when I wasn't forced to train for 5 years straight, I just wanted to lay about. I just wanted to do the things I wanted, not being carried about by the whims of other people.

I had taken the first steps towards this by regaining the ability to walk. But something my father had said to me once stuck. I liked being alone and not interacting with people, and this worried my father. He had once told me that if I wanted to live within and be accepted by society then I would need to interact with it. Even if I didn't want those things, I would have to interact with it.

I hated that. It wasn't that I didn't want to be accepted by society, far from that. Instead I hated how much of an obligation it was. It was social blackmail and I hated it.

The point of this story wasn't to relive my glory (cringey) days, it was instead to lay out my goals. If I didn't want to live within a society then wouldn't it be just easier to remove society from the equation in totality? Wouldn't it be kind of fun to devolve a whole continent to war in chaos? I would think so.

When I first came upon this idea about two years ago, I was worried. I had thought that maybe I had finally succumbed to The Voice and this was the beginning of the end. But then I realized that there was a fundamental difference between what I wanted and what they wanted. If I got my way there would still be people, animals and the like but there wouldn't be a systematic relationship between people and their world. In other words, I would force people into isolated communities and leave them there. It was fun to watch people struggle. On the other hand, if The Voice had the power too, they would want to destroy the whole planet, which would not be a good thing for me.

In other words, I was on a slippery slope, but I believed I had the control to keep myself here without worry.

After five years I had a lot to show for my growth. Thanks to the return of The Voice and their guidance I had reached the peak to my mana control. I hadn't taken the steps to use mana outside of my control, as I was still apprehensive about it gaining control over me, and when I asked The Voice about it, they refused to give a straight answer. In other words, not going to try it for the time being.

But, my mana control had reached a ridiculous level, I had no real benchmark since I was alone on the island, but I believed that most people wouldn't even notice the smaller actions I do with mana, such as exploding someone's heart. See I had made an interesting discovery when my affinity for the water element had reached a certain point, I found I could manipulate infinitely small particles of water. This discovery didn't really net me much, until about a year ago when I noticed that the monk had died but wasn't decomposing which I found odd. Instead of asking The Voice about it, as they probably would have bugged me about learning daemonic powers from them again, I instead reached out with my mana to examine the long dead monk. I found that I could feel the water within them, still, but still there. Reaching out further I could also feel the water that was within their innards, curious I instructed the water to exit the heart, which resulted in their heart exploding. I had to cut them open to confirm this, which was gross, but lo and behold what I found was a shattered heart, literally. It also meant that I could see through walls (kind of), by closing my eyes I could sense where there was water and see the outline of the shapes of the water. In this way if it was made from water or mana, I could see the outline of it. I would assume in places where there was high mana concentration or during the rain this power would be useless.

From what I knew this was a generally unknown/unused power and it didn't really make sense. For one, while it took me awhile to gain it wasn't that hard (I mean it took me four years but this was literally someone's job) and for two, it was really, really, strong and would seem like something that would be common knowledge. The Voice told me that this was simply because mana and mage powers were sorely undeveloped. Why? Because everything that mana could do, divinity could do it but easier, faster, and better. I could only see the outline of people, but with a minimal amount of divinity you could see and hear through walls. Wanted to walk on water? You could do that with mana, but you could also do that with divinity. But why bother with that? With divinity you could just simply fly. So, in simpler terms people weren't doing this with mana because they were just doing it with divinity. Hearing this, I silently cursed The Voice for robbing me of this opportunity for months.

My two familiars had mastered control over their forms and could transform for months on end, serving their purpose as my limbs perfectly. It was hard to gauge their intelligence—unlike what I had learned about growth type familiars. They had long grown past the intelligence level to speak (or so I thought) they instead only communicated through our shared mental link, and while this was easier, I did miss the sound of people talking, strangely enough. But it is what it is, they were strong, having just as much control over mana as I. They were extremely obedient which I appreciated, and it allowed for a harmonious relationship. They had also managed to learn some form of magic (not sure what kind it was to be honest, and they rarely answered questions like these). It seemed to be a type of illusion magic (even though this wasn't really a type of magic in the first place) that allowed them to change their colors like a chameleon. It meant that I wouldn't need to cover my hand all the time when I was around people. While it wouldn't exactly be an issue if people realized I was using a familiar as a type of crutch, I wanted to blend in as much as possible and something like that would have stuck out enough to be memorable. I really appreciated the considerations they took for me.

Another fun ability I had mastered was controlling the density of water, I could make it as dense as I wanted it to be, meaning I could walk on water! While reminiscing over everything I had accomplished in these past five years I was speeding across the ocean at a hundred knots an hour, speeding far enough away from the people I could sense so I wouldn't be spotted. I wasn't heading straight for the shore, instead I was heading up and around the northern coast, so I could reach the east side of the continent. The capital city was in the south west, and I wanted to be as far away from its influence as possible, at least to start out with.

After a couple days of travel I could see a coastal city, and I once again pulled my hood over my head and once again lamented the fact that I lacked a mask…