I looked around the world — everything in black and white, only the contours of the physical world visible, and I could see small souls floating randomly.
"So this is how souls see the world… which concept is enabling this vision?"
I knew the soul contained various concepts I still couldn't fully comprehend, but I could feel their effects operating on my matter.
— "Seems like it's enabling the capture of a light spectrum, but passing the data to another concept… forget it, let's explore."
Looking at the black-and-white world, noticing the outlines around me, I realized I was in the middle of a forest. Since my form was now high-dimensional, I could float freely — souls didn't have gravity concepts — and I could move just with my will.
— "Incredible."
I turned my gaze to where I had been before and noticed the damage I had caused: a large, perfectly round crater, the result of matter absorption.
Observing the souls floating like large fireflies, I didn't hesitate to chase them. They could provide large quantities of particles and even carried valuable concepts.
But there was an obstacle.
— "How the hell are these things so fast?"
Unlike me, who floated slowly, they moved like lightning. Before I could get close to one, they had already shifted to the other side of the forest.
My soul form was also round, pale blue, seeming somewhat incomplete compared to the others…
— "I need to grow."
Since I could now move by absorbing matter, everything became much easier. I began traveling underground as fast as possible, leaving trenches wherever I passed.
I continued until my soul began to squeak. I tried to identify the cause and noticed something in the sky: in the black-and-white world, the only thing with color was a red star.
— "Am I getting burned?"
Feeling my own matter, I realized the star's light was weakening the bonds between the high-dimensional elements. Essentially, they were evaporating…
Seeing the vapor floating around, I tried to order it to regroup, but it had already stabilized — I could only sense it, not control it. So I searched for refuge.
Even underground, among shadows and underwater, the light continued affecting me. It was annoying.
Seeing I couldn't hide, I began refining the matter I had collected so far, which took some time. By the time I finished, my soul had already evaporated halfway. Without hesitation, I started ejecting particles to replenish what had been consumed.
— "How curious." — I murmured, observing my surroundings.
As the particles rose to a high-dimensional state, they emitted an intense blue light, shining like miniature suns. The energy was so powerful that the surrounding water boiled and evaporated instantly, forming clouds of vapor that glittered in blue light.
— "So that's why the crater was perfectly round… and it also protects me from sunlight."
Soon, I felt a sense of relaxation coming from the soul. I hadn't felt anything like it in a long time, as if an old weight had finally been lifted from my shoulders. The feeling was subtle, yet clear: peace.
— "Only when I was assimilated by the void…", I thought, realizing I had never truly rested since then.
For a moment, I just relaxed and enjoyed the sensation. But soon it passed, and I woke to see my soul evaporating again… The sun remained, and now my soul had already doubled in size compared to its original form.
Without wasting time, I went in search of more matter, determined to sustain and continue its growth.
"I overdid it again," I looked down at the forest below; some parts had collapsed because I had consumed the ground underneath. My soul form was already massive, almost touching the clouds.
— "Just because you can grow doesn't mean you should." — I thought. If before I was already somewhat slow, now a snail would be faster than me.
— "And this too…" — I felt a chill: the presence of a foreign will watching me. It was more than curiosity: there was malice in that invisible consciousness, a silent warning seeming to pierce space itself. Every movement I made seemed monitored, every expansion of my soul felt and judged.
The feeling was clear: "Try to grow more, just try…", clearly a veiled threat.
At first, I thought it was an existence similar to mine, the consciousness of this foreign domain. But something in the energy it radiated said otherwise.
— "Seems like a concept with will?" — I thought, amazed. Incredible… I was dying to study this life form, but I couldn't even see it.
I became curious: what would happen if I grew more? What kind of attack could a concept launch?
— So I grew a little. — and immediately felt a surge of fury from the concept. An attack was launched. Looking at it, I saw a fire that had appeared out of nowhere.
— "Wait… let's talk." — I murmured, trying to control the situation.
The attack was a concentrated form of the same energy the red sun emitted, intense and almost tangible.
To protect myself, I began converting particles into souls, releasing blue light to counter the attack. However, the area of effect was small, insufficient to contain the fire's force. In the end, I suffered greatly, losing half of my soul in the process…
— "I need to control myself a bit…" — I thought, torn between the satisfaction of the experience and guilt for letting curiosity lead me into this.
I was about to absorb matter to replenish my soul, but even before starting, I felt the foreign will's gaze on me, filled with doubt. When it realized I was about to absorb matter, it issued a silent reprimand, accompanied by a new implicit threat, making me hesitate.
I tried absorbing air particles discreetly, but it noticed. A lightning strike hit my soul, reverberating through its structure and slightly damaging it — nothing serious, but enough for my soul to register discomfort, which I ignored naturally.
— "A warning… how did it notice something so small?" — I thought, intrigued and cautious.
I remained still, hoping it would relent, but it showed no intention of shifting attention. Soon, I found myself in a cat-and-mouse situation.
— "What a nuisance…" — I thought, realizing it was now impossible to continue absorbing matter. I decided to move to the next step on my list: exploring soul matter.
Since my consciousness was connected to it, I could control it and make it assume various shapes. But that wasn't my goal; I wanted to harden it.
I began compressing the soul through my consciousness. Feeling its different states through the connection, I quickly found a stable point — a hundred times denser than its current state.
The process was similar to refining matter in my domain, but I didn't have absolute control as I was used to. Everything had to be done through soul manipulation, though I could monitor the status via the connection. Not too bad, after all.
— "How do the natives do this?" — I wondered.
Soon, my soul began shrinking and taking on a human form, but featureless. Just a humanoid outline, an empty silhouette, no face, no details — a minimal representation, yet enough to perceive its new structure.
— "I even tried giving definition, but I didn't exactly remember how humans looked. I know they had two eyes, a mouth… but why bother modeling everything so finely?" — I thought, satisfied with my form, peak efficiency.
I felt a look of surprise from the will observing the process. Soon, it began acting strangely — as if it had "caught" me. An invisible force started dragging me, and I was quickly pulled out of the physical world.
— "Wait, let's talk! No need to expel me like this!" — I tried to communicate, but got no response.
My black-and-white vision suddenly disappeared, and I was thrown into an abyss. Time seemed to distort as I fell, until, with a violent impact, I was hurled into a river.
— "What?" — I murmured, looking around as I was carried by the current. I was astonished. The river wasn't an ordinary "river"; it was made of pure soul matter, flowing as if alive, forming its bed and banks in its own way.
— "A treasure…" — I thought, about to start absorbing the river.
But before I could touch any part of it, the foreign will realized its mistake of putting a "wolf in the sheepfold" and swiftly removed me from the river.
— "…" — I stood there, watching the river disappear into the distance as I was pulled to another unknown location.
I soon realized where I was being taken: a massive palace floated above a huge whirlpool, emanating a mysterious, almost mystical aura.
I glanced briefly at the palace but quickly lost interest. What truly caught my attention was the whirlpool; even through soul vision, I could sense something special there, something different from anything I had ever experienced.
As I tried investigating the whirlpool's mysteries, I was abruptly slammed against the palace's main door. I felt the impact reverberate through my soul.
In the midst of this, I thought — "How rude…" — as I was used to break the palace door and dragged through the main hall.
I was thrown right into the center of the room, where a masked person sat, focused on writing in a book.
She looked up, tilting her head in confusion.
Shao Yi had a headache — as always, checking if any soul had improperly altered their lifespan. Suddenly, a sound caught her attention, and upon looking up, she found something unexpected: a young humanoid soul, right in the middle of her hall.
— "How dare you invade the afterlife?" — said Shao Yi, voice firm, preparing to act. A great will intervened, traversing space and influencing the situation.
— "What…" — murmured Shao Yi, surprised.
[Reincarnation]
"Yes, immediately." — Without hesitation, Shao Yi took the humanoid soul and sent it into the cycle of reincarnation, exactly as her superior had ordered.
As for why she had to send that soul to the cycle of reincarnation, it wasn't her place to question. If heaven had decreed it, she simply had to obey.
"What was that?" — I thought, expecting some dialogue upon entering the hall. But the figure merely looked at me for a moment, and without further explanation, teleported me to a completely unknown place.
While traveling, I felt my soul sending sleep signals, but I blocked them naturally — after all, it only served to perceive and interact with the world; it had no power over my thoughts.
Soon, I realized my soul was connecting to some unknown matter, becoming trapped.
— "Have I been trapped?" — I thought, growing uneasy.