She had been in this pce for a couple of weeks already, in that time she had found a few things. First of all...That bloody moon didn't want to move, it always stayed at the same spot and it was always looking down on her.

  No matter art of the city she moved to, if she looked up the bloody thing would be above her.

  wo:

  This pce was always night, no sun ever rose on the horizon... Nor was she able to find the city limits, after some point, the buildings made a natural barricade that prevented her from getting above them. She did try to climb them once...

  But there were some live cables braided at the top that discharged lighting at her wheried to go above a certain threshold, and while she was immuo the fmes...

  She didn't want to test if she would be immuo lighting.

  hree:

  The warm motes of light didn't e as often as before, some days she wouldn't get a single one...Sometimes it would take several days, there was this week when she didn't get a single one even...

  But they would always return.

  Number four:

  She had been in this pce lohan she remembered, and this was more tricky to find out, her cellphone had a timer on it, and wheur on it was running and the number was [691,253] seds.

  A quick math operation came with around 8 days and some, she tur off and ted in her mind, then after a whole minute had passed by she turhe cellphone on again. The time matched with her mental calcutions...

  So at the very least, she had been in this pce fht days.

  How could she be so sure? When she saw the timmer running she got a fshback of a memory, a memory of someone givihe cellphoh the timmer open and of her starting it...

  And that was it, so that meant someone had been with her, but she couldn't remember their faor names. She had the inkling that it had been a kid...

  But no evidence across her travels had found anyone else in this pce, and that brings up to the finding...

  Number Five:

  She wasn't getting hungry or thirsty.

  This one was...more dangerous, it meant that either she was getting nourishment from something here...Or that this wasn't quite a real pce. If it was the first then it would be fi could mean these bck fmes were nourishing her somehow.

  If it was the sed...Then that would be more problematic to solve, it would meaher was in a fever dream (And all her testing seemed to think of this pce as something real) or those fmes were some kind of magic-demonic-alien shenanigans that had kidnaped her to another dimension.

  ....

  "No way it's aliens right Stabby?" She asked looking down at the spear in her hand.

  At some point, she had started to refer to the spear as Stabby...She inally called it Tabby as a diminutive of [Tabitha] but since she may find someone called like that and it could get awkward...She decided to call the spear Stabby. It was self-expnatory if nothing else.

  The spear had bee important to her si helped her in her search for supplies, the spear tio siphon the dark fmes whenever she brought the thing near an open fme, and sleeping with it had bee a habit at this point. You know a girl, a spear, and a rag(former b coat) normal stuff.

  So far she had explored most of the things ier yer of the city and a couple in the middle yer, but today ecial.

  "Today we return to the obnoxious building, what do you think we will find Stabby?" She was going back to the first building she woke up in.

  Why? Because most of the motes of light seemed to point that way, there was something there.

  Also because one day she woke up and in one of her pockets was an ID with the same emblem that the building had.

  The name was charred and the photo was bnk, but everything else was there. It also had a microchip on it that should open some doors...And since most of the buildings here had electricity (Somehow) she wao see what was behind door number 1.

  "What? No way..." She answered to the spear, "You overthink it, I probably didn't notice the ID card in the spicuous front pocket I use to store things...Yeah, totally not going nuts from solitude."

  The spear was getting cheeky too, implying she was going crazy, she wasn't alone, she had stabby!

  But she would o put her in time out, since she was rude tellihat she was crazy, "Anyway, you stay in your room till I call you okay?" And with practiced ease, she threw the thing against the shadow of a trash .

  The spear flew true and sank into the shadows, she had learhat her loyal Stabby could sink into shadows aurn at her call, the thing needed a shadow to sink into, so it couldn't sink into a light bulb.

  She learhat the hard way wheabbed a light bulb, at least she didn't get electrocuted that way...Stabby was good at isoting lighting it seemed, even if she had seen sparks of lighting in her hands while panig...

  And she was barefoot...And was standing on a metallic floor...That wasn't grounded...

  So surely Stabby had isoted the current!

  Yeah, no reason why she would be immuo dark ominous fmes, debris, and then also to lighting!

  Yeah...

  "I do o talk to someone live..." Sighed Elizabeth while walking towards the skyscraper.

  She was getting tired of this already.

  She missed...Something.

  The warm motes of light only served to remind her of this, that she was missing something, and it her, it bothered her while trying to sleep. And while sleeping in the bck fmes soothed her, she had noticed it also made her more lethargic, that was the main reason she kept stabby around.

  But the main reason she sent her away was ahing she found one m, "Okay you know the drill Smoky, get to it." Elizabeth said extending her hand towards the bigger cluster of bck fmes around.

  These started shaking and then, one by one small clumps of bck fmes started dang towards her, they in turn gregathed around her and jumped at her hand.

  She almost immediately felt a rush course her body and her cheeks blushed at the euphoria, "Hmm...." it was as if the bck fmes nourished something within her, aing a breath she didn't know she was holding, the bck fmes started burning hotter.

  All arouhe bck fmes danced more, shone more, and in the sky, the bloody moon dimmed, as if clouds wao hide it if only for a sed.

  She had found that like Stabby, she could absorb the bck fmes, and when doing so she could make those effects, this was the reason she had the theory that the bck fmes nourished her. The rush she got from abs them...

  And the reason she kept going at it was how the bloody moon seemed to diminish in color with each attempt she made. It wasn't much, hell, it robably a drop in the o. But she khe bloody moon was losing color.

  [She k.]

  "Wele to the HQ of The Saintsworth's glomerate on Terra Invicta." She stopped abs them as soon as the speakers brought her from her musings.

  She had kept walking towards this building, and like all the other times she passed by, she noticed how the building had less and less bck fmes around it.

  She wasn't sure why or how, but the more bck fmes she absorbed the less this building burned. "Bio-Sing in progress..." And the fewer bck fmes it held, the more funs it seemed to recover. "Warning, body dysmorphia detected...Biosignature of ■■■■■■■■■ Saintsworths detected. Body measures flict with current S... Do you wish to update the measures?"

  And this was the reason she hadn't returhe thing seemed to think her body was different from what it had in stock, and she had run away the first time it reported it...

  She...Wasn't sure what to think about it, "Update the measures." But she o check, so she bit the bullet and spoke, her voice low and unsure.

  "Updating biosignature of Alexanders Saintsworths to new model...Registered as Elizabeth Starbright. Wele home." The mae weled her back.

  It also said the full name of the person she hadn't been able to hear before, Alexanders Saintsworths...

  The Blonde S of The Saintsworths , also a whimsical asshole that went and did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. From oppressing someone for the fun of it to building a whole city in the middle of a s to prove a point.

  And...How was she able to recall those tidbits of information? "What?" Elizabeth suddenly felt the world inning, in front of her was a b coat and the ceiling of the reception.

  She could make the form of an eagle, the emblem of the Saintsworths. The eagle eternally searg for knowledge...

  And the scroll that symbolized the knowledge they wao safekeep.

  Her head was inundated by tons of information that she should not know...The name of the phe name of the city, the name of the building...The name of all the multiple ss of the brans...The name of her secretary...[His secretary].

  "My...Name...Is...Elizabeth...Starbright...Not...I will not....be....tainted....by.....[this]...[again]" She said with ched teeth as she held her head with both hands.

  She closed her eyes as the room seemed to tinue spinning around, and while tasting the fvor of ozone in the air she lost sciousness.

  Before hitting the floor she tried to open her eyes, and for a sed...For the barest amount of a sed, she could swear she had seen the face of a yellow-eyed kid looking down at her, he was dressed in a pristine white coat and a smirk on his face.

  He waved at her and gave her a thumbs up.

  Afterward....She lost sciousness.

  She would kick him after waking up. She wasn't sure why it annoyed her that much, but she was going to kick him.

  --------------------------------------------

  "IT WAS HOW LONG?!?" Elizabeth screamed after waking up, her phone was reading almost two months since

  quickly checked herself and found that her body was normal, but the ter in her phone was a grim remihat her dition was anything but normal.

  She had woken up in a normal room this time, uhe first time, when she woke up in a ruined boratory, this time she woke up dressed in fy pajamas sleeping in a silky bed with a fluffy bop her.

  She ditched the b and rushed towards the bathroom, how did she know where the bathroom was? She didn't want to think about it.

  She only had ohing in her mind right now "...I'm still me..." Elizabeth said while looking at her refle, her face anicked, and her eyes darted all over her body making sure everything was like before.

  She left a relieved breath wheiced that she was as before, returning to the bed and sitting on it she noticed how on the chair was a set of clothing, a pair of boots, jeans, a blouse and jacket, gloves, a backpack, and finally a pair of obsidian swords.

  And then oher side, atop aable was the clothing she had been using, her cargo shorts and tank top, and a lonely b coat...No lged mind you. But still a stark trast.

  She...Wasn't sure what to make out of it, the jeans would be surely more helpful and the boots could mean that she would no longer o mind where she stood. But oher hand...

  She was used to moving around without having to be restricted in her movements, the jeans would limit how far she could move, and the boots would mean that while she would no longer o mind where she stood... She would lose tactile sensation from her feet and that made her think of her options.

  In the end, she decided to go halfway there, she picked up her cargo shorts and the blouse and ditched the jeans but kept the boots, she would o be civilized at some point after all.

  She however decided to carry on the bcoat, in the end, she was dressed using parts from here and there, the cargo shorts and the b survived from her initial clothing. Now the blouse and the boots were added to it, it made her look weird sihe b coat didn't seem to mesh quite well with this ensemble.

  But if someone found a problem with her they would o stop hiding and pin to her!

  ...No one came tho.

  Instead, she exited the room and found....another elevator and an emerge, she frow that, this hallway only had a utility closet, some kind of security room, and the elevator and stairs. And eveairs seemed to have been forced to be there.

  Walking towards the security office she suddenly was aware that the guy that should be there owed her a couple of bucks..."What?" That...shouldn't be possible.

  She tried to recall how that had happened but the memory faded as soon as she tried to prod her mind, memory after memory they seemed to dissolve one by one, leaving only vague recolles of skills.

  She retty sure she now kly how electrolysis worked and a way to make it more effit for example, and had even a plex formu to turn the moisture in the air into hydrogen for multiple uses.

  She ainfully aware of arts of her mana o work in what way to create a current of electricity and...."Huh? Mana?" That made her stop on the spot.

  "What is mana?" She wondered aloud as more memories came rushing back to her, multiple tests and tables depig how that energy ied with the world.

  The test result of some samples iing and using it to increase their muscle mass, examples of wonderful applications and ways those made powers akin to those found in anime and manga.

  As of biopsies and autopsies of said test subjects, she almost puked as those memories came back to her, and wondered why her hands looked like that in those memories.

  Only to see the refle in the memory...The refle of an older man looking with i and glee at the scalpel.

  She turned her head to the security booth and looked at her refle on the crystal, her eyes were turning yellow... She grounded herself and focused on her name...

  "I'm Elizabeth Starbright..." She said as if in a t, fog on her breathing and looking at her refle to make sure it didn't ge again.

  Her eyes slowly but surely started to turn blue and the memory at the back of her head blurred, the face of the man dissipated and only the knowledge remained.

  The knowledge of a [Mana Core] as the man called it, a crystalized form of [Mana] deep within the body, somehow embedded in the middle of the heart, but not affeg how it worked.

  Meaning one couldn't transpnt one...Not that the memories didn't speak , she had plenty of those at the back of her mind.

  But she ighem, dismissed them, Burhem away with her thunder.

  She didn't want to know more about that man, she kept what was valuable, skills and muscle memory, she felt her body being [more], but even so, she still was Elizabeth.

  "I'm Elizabeth Starbright..." She said to herself.

  And so she walked towards the elevator and it started moving downwards...

  At the bottom, the door opened once more and she found herself in a pair of gigantic metallic doors destroyed, almost as if an explosion had gone behind the doors, inside she found a ruined garden, the trunk of a burnt tree in the middle and the rest of dry flowers around.

  She walked thankful to her new boots and in front of the tree trunk found a tablet with a message waiting to be pyed, so with some trepidation, she pushed the py button.

  ["If you made it here...Then gratutions...You either mao keep being you...Or we fot something important meaning this is quite awkward..."] The video started pying showing the image of the same blonde kid she saw before losing sciousness before.

  ["Either way I will pretend you survived Elizabeth, so gratutions...You are what I wished for but couldn't manage."] The kid started appuding at the camera with a smile on his face.

  ["Now...If you still are listening then this means that something didn't go quite right, and so you are searg for answers...So here is a resume of things."] The kid it seems, knew her.

  ["My name is Alexanders Saintsworth...I...Don't really matter that much at this point do I?"] And the blonde kid seemed to find that amusing as he ughed to himself.

  She had heard that name before, it was the name of the big boss that the buildihinking she was...Didn't the building say something about how her biosignature should match his?

  ["I died around what...21 years ago? Hard to tell, time doesn't work quite well...Anyway, I made a mistake and the city ruins you see around are what became my world...This isn't my world mind you...This is a refle of it."] Alexanders started speaking, dread climbing to her. If he was dead...Then was this hell?

  ["Afterwards when the world ended I was offered a deal...I would reinate in a new world and fix things that one of my smen ruined...In exge they would let me return to the past to fix my mistakes..."] Alexanders spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. To get a deal for a sed ce.

  ["I refused the deal, I asked for my soul to be stripped of anything that made me who I was. And then they would get to ask again...That is where you e into pce...You are what I ended as when all my memories, my life, my experiences got stripped..."] He giggled as a little kid who was telling the fu joke ["And you asked to be born without a shred of talent or power, to be average..."]

  Rude!

  "Being normal was the normal thing to ask when someone asked you to go save a world!" Elizabeth defended herself in the video.

  Only to blush at the fact that she was talking to a rec.

  ["Being normal is the normal thing to ask huh..."] But Alexanders answered her heless. ["I guess you had the right of it, anyway...Afterward, my smen gnant and your soul got stu her, because of course the world would get funny ideas."]

  So her mother was the sman who ruihe world? Yikes.

  ["And what left of me got sent bay former world to atone...A couple months ter Catherine came for help since her pregnancy was at risk, so I sneaked what was left of me in the soul of her unborn child and escaped my personal hell...Your mana was to and your body too weak, your Soul was tempering itself to withstand it, but we misuood that as if your soul was failing apart from stress...So we patched it."] Alexanders showed an image of an azure crystal with cracks surrounded by bck tar.

  ["I patched it creating a frame...A System if you will, I had experience doing so when I ruined my world...Then I got tacted by the local god of your world asking if she could use my tempte...So I accepted so long I could get a body for me and my sister...I accepted the Skill that she asked me to put in you and called it a day. "] And the image turned from the azure crystal into a new obsidian gem h over the azure crystal.

  The obsidian one superposed the azure gem and so, the image now only showed the bck gem in pce. [" Should have read the small letters...You ended up being part of my soul...And the skill was a trojan horse, she took my system and made it her own...Then her former pns backfired and someoook trol of your body..."] The s turo a rec.

  A video of a blonde girl being slowly covered by red cracks and her eyes turned red, a video of said blonde girl flirting with any man that was close to her, and then ended with her being pu slowly turned into motes of light.

  "Crap...I really died..." She pinched herself again and found it hurt, crappy hell that makes the feelings not go away.

  ["Luckily we mao pull a fast ohanks to your mother and father."] The video rewinded again, this time fog on a green-eyed blonde woman and a bck-haired man with azure eyes.

  ["Your mother struck your soul from your body. And stole the body of a powerful girl whose soul was weak..."] The woman in the video used some kind of magi the body of the corrupted blonde...On her body.

  And another video showed an azure blob of energy leaving her body and flying toward the body of a bck-haired girl who was surrounded by a mass of bck fmes.

  ["Then came the fun part...You see...That body now had three different souls...Yours...Mine....And the inal owner...Now the inal owner wasn't a problem, she didn't have the talent nor wishes to fulfill..."] The camera hovered over the sleeping girl and ht dismissed her.

  That...didn't quite sit right with her.

  ["Don't get me wrong, she owerful, but only because her body was good. You had the mana and talent while I had the skills and experiences...Realistically only both of us could fight for the body."] Alexanders tinued speaking.

  Crap...She was dead...That asshole had killed her and was ing her, wasn't he?

  ["But you decided to give Chloe a ce...You told her what was happening and what would happen afterward...I had already surreo my destiny anyway."] She...didn't see that one ing.

  But...wasn't he...An asshole?

  ["And that girl..."] Alexanders started ughing like a madman here as if it was the fu joke ever [" She decided to fuse all of us together so that whoever ended up would be a little of everyone...."]

  Oh...that was nice of her, but if that was the case then why couldn't she...

  ["Of course that is not how this works...And while I accepted the deal she offered I prepared myself to obliterate her Soul and make my best effort to rebuild your soul while ing mine somewhere safe to be reborn at ter venience."] Alexanders smirked.

  Oh...

  He was an asshole after all...

  ["And then I got blindsided by that brat...She didn't fulfill her end of the promise, wheiced how I reparing my skill to do so, she used her own to stabilize your soul...Not stabilize herself, not destroy me...But to stabilize your foundation...So that you would absorb us all..."] Alexanders was genuinely smiling, a genuine smile of someone who was happy with what they had gotten in their Christmas this year.

  ["So there, your soul got stabilized...I couldn't tamper with it...Then your Mother came around and made a divine decree to empower Chloe...So your soul gestated and started its owh, your own power rebuilt the soulscape and this in turn molded the body..."] Alexanders video turned into an image of the bck-haired's girl body slowly shaping itself to look like her body. ["And ade sure you survived above all...My memories got lost as your self re-affirmed itself...You will i some form of my skill meshed with the one Chloe had...You will get some of my soul bits, maybe talent? Maybe tenacity? I for one don't know...This is the st vestige of Alexanders Saintsworths..."]

  The holopad ged and turned into a yellohire ["And you shall not have it..."] And it suddenly crumbled into sand, leaving her alone in the ruined underground park.

  She....felt nostalgic by being here, as if she knew what this pce was...A...

  The nudging at the end of her [Soul] didn't seem to know why, a sensation of cold caressed her face, and wheouched it, she found that she was g.

  But she didn't feel sadness, it was as if something within her soul was g...

  She now knew more about herself true, she knew from where she had e, what made her [Soul]...And now she had a suspi about where she was...

  She knew where everything in this city was, didn't know why or how, but kly what she o find...

  She knew where the [Hidden Library] was, and what book she o search to firm her theories...

  She was going to iigate about [Soulscapes] and how to i with them.