False freedom.

Vroom!

The drill went spinning, making a loud noise reverberate throughout the cave while sending a cloud of dust behind it.

The dust posed no problem to Ace as a thin layer of spirit mold was attached to him that protected him from the dust particles.

Ace stopped after drilling for a while, took a deep breath for a while and then listened, listened out for the obscure sense of attraction he felt when he pictured the image of mana within his core.

'There!'

Ace grasped the direction from where the attraction was coming from.

'My path of digging has deviated about three meters.'

Ace noted as he adjusted the direction of the drill to dig towards its intended target.

Ace kept digging after the source of attraction, and after a period of time after time of using his spirit to drill into the ground, every moment became instinct; ingrained into his soul.

The best way to spin the drill,

The best way to sharpen the blades of the drill.

The best way to keep the shape of his spirit mold firmly in shape.

They all seemed so clear to him, it was as if the drill construct had opened itself up to Ace.

Every single detail about the drill, he could see, touch, feel, it was as if, He was the drill, and the drill was him.

"I am the dril–"

Plop!

The drill exploded into shards piercing a deeply into Ace's spirit barrier.

Ace cautiously watched the shards of the drill, dissolve into nothingness, with heavy breaths.

The fatigue accumulated on his soul had built up so much it was hard, down right dangerous, to try and construct something as complex as a drill; he had to rest.

"No more digging, I still have a lesson to attend."

When Ace was sure the rain of shards from the drill had stopped he dispersed his spirit barrier—he had to be frugal with his remaining soul strength—and looked up at the hole which he had fallen through.

'I'll go up to replenish my soul strength and then exit my core, I just hope I haven't spent too much time here.'

Boom!

Ace applied the maximum force he could procure with spirit force to his body, making him rocket upwards.

There was no air resistance slowing him down as he ascended the narrow cavern,

'I feel like a ghost seperated from the material world.'

The surreal feeling of ascending through the cavern with no hindrances made him feel a sense of freedom, nothing was limiting anymore, neither his body nor gravity was stopping him from reaching the skies.

He shot out of the hole and into the skies above the glittering purple ocean of his core.

At that moment Ace's soul seemed to be tinted with a strange colour, a colour that came from within, a colour that was called happiness.

"This feels awesome."

Ace yelled out loud like a little kid on a rollercoaster; full of happiness and euphoria.

Those feelings didn't last long, because an abrupt pain seemed rang throughout his body.

"Aargh! ~ God dammit."

Ace exclaimed as the sharp pain like needles stabbing his soul caused him to contort mid air.

The overload of pain filling his mind, made Ace feel like a vengeful spirit; full of hatred and regret.

"Why did I forget to minimise my use of spirit energy, now my soul is literally eating itself."

"aargh!, That feeling of freedom wasn't worth this pain."

Ace whined, as he slowly crawled through the air looking for release in the purple ocean.

"I just need to get there and all this pain will disappear."

Ace endured the agonising pain and forced his body to move, every inch was a struggle.

But his efforts were rewarded when he dipped his hand into the purple ocean.

"Hah ~ relief at last."

Ace said, relieved at the recovery of his soul as evidenced by the recovering translucent glow of his soul.

Ace observered the minute cracks on his soul's surfaced and summarised the current state of his soul.

'Although painful, the damage to my soul seems minor, It should be back to normal in two days, but during this time I shouldn't attempt to manipulate spirit energy.'

After Ace had accessed the damage to his soul he lay floating in the purple ocean, resting his mind and spirit.

A wandering thought passed by his head, as he drifting with the tides of the purple ocean.

'what is going to happen to the damage of my soul when I exit my core?'

A simple question no doubt but it contained countless mysteries to Ace.

' Will the damage somehow manifest onto my body through some mysterious connection? or would it disappear all together.'

Ace pondered for a moment before shrugging it off.

'Well there's no better time than now to find out than now.'

...

"why am I so…Nauseous this time around."

Ace muttered between breaths.

The world in his eyes spun round and round for a long time —lot longer than the other times he exited his core.

'This has happened before but it wasn't as serious as this, it was brief, almost unnoticeable, could this be the result of my soul injury? ~ I didn't know it would be this serious.'

'If I had known, I would not have used spirit force to fly anymore than I needed to.'

After a few minutes of seeing in a nauseating perspective, his blurred vision started to recover, the blotted dark spots in his vision started to reduce, making him able to see the classroom.

From his partially blotted out vision, he managed to see the state of the class.

Students filled their seats some chatting with each other and some other students lay on the seats in positions that made it look like they were sleeping.

"Wow, I'm a lot earlier than I expected, with how much time I spent in my core, I half expected the class to be over when I opened my eyes."

Ace muttered while adjusting to his regained his bodily senses.

"Is there a time difference in my core, or am I just delusional?"

The loud chatter of the students masked his mumblings.

He used his mostly recovered vision to survey the class, looking for outstanding faces in it, people who were his competitors, that were able to keep up to him despite his talent.

'If I was in a novel, what I'm doing now would be called finding the main characters, the ones who have great futures destined ahead of them.'

'It should be easy, right? all I need to do is to spot the obvious tropes.'

'Someone who is surrounded by plenty people especially female characters.'

'or the cold, introverted, detached MC who is all alone and staying away from the crowd to hide away from attention.'

Ace searched along the class looking for people who stood out more than the average person but found no one particularly outstanding.

'I guess real life really works differently than novels.'