"AAAAGGHHHH!!! IT HURRTSSSSSS!!!!"
*thump*
"Wha—?! That counts as one truth too?! It was just a reflex!"
*thump*
"That shouldn't count, damn it!"
The left half of his body screamed and burned, as though billions of ants with needles for legs stabbed all over it.
"GOD!! IT HURTS!! IT HURTS SO MUCH!!"
James writhed on the ground, wailing, rolling, thrashing, kicking, stomping, anything to fight the pain. Finally, he kneeled and, with his free right hand, hammered at the dirt over and over.
"It's weird! It's really weird! I'm in so much pain right now! So why? Why?!!"
Dirt flew all over the place, and he could feel his skin tear. But the pain was nothing more than a drop in the ocean compared to what he felt so clearly in his left arm.
"Why does my head feel clearer than ever?! It doesn't make sense! I should be passing out!"
Even as the throbbing pounded on and on with each complaint, James didn't stop complaining.
Who cared if the pain grew sharper with every word? Who cared if he lost his mind? The truth was, his mind refused to blur— he couldn't even go crazy.
His mind only sharpened and became clearer with each throb.
Then, he noticed it, the haze.
Colors swirled around him— red, blue, white, gray, magenta, a shifting storm of colorful haze.
When he paid more attention to it, he noticed that while most of it was just hovering around, two colors clearly appeared for a purpose.
The white and red ones clearly aimed for him, to his ruined left arm and leg, to be precise.
"Is this haze… healing me?"
Through all the pain, he forced himself to focus on the haze; what he saw made everything clear.
The haze was healing him, and not only that, these two hazes originated from the construct— the tesseract in the distance.
He didn't know why the owner of the construct saw it fit to heal him, but he was thankful for their help regardless.
Gritting his teeth, he made sure that his voice was as sincere as possible.
"Thanks, whoever it was creating that construct, but can you at least sedate me again, please? Pretty please?"
Silence. He didn't hope that much, but with there being no response to his plea, he felt a bit pissed.
"Oh, the gre—"
"SILENCE!" a voice resounded straight to his head. "Don't speak any praises that you don't mean, child!"
The voice was ancient, heavy, and carried the feeling of authority, unlike the voice he heard from that mysterious place.
With an 'Oh shit, here we go again' attitude, he quickly tried to find out where the sound came from.
This time, he has his body, so he can look around him and try to find the owner of the voice.
As expected, he couldn't find anyone.
'Of course, there's no one. Damn powerful figures who talk with telepathy. Why do these figures always try to look so mysterious? Speaking of which, why did they answer me in English? There's no way English is the main language in this world, right? And goddamn, this regeneration is painful!'
With a huff, James folded his arms across his chest, only to remember that he was currently missing his left arm.
Not wanting to look stupid, he just left his right arm awkwardly hugging his body by itself.
"So, what now? I shall speak no falsehood from now on; the throbbing shall serve as proof that I don't have any intention of speaking a single lie from now on."
He grimaced, trying his best to endure the searing pain.
"So please," he continued. "Can you explain what's happening? And please, with all my heart, I beg you, numb my body again."
He wiped the corners of his eyes while saying so.
"Don't you realize it yet, child? I've already numbed you, just enough so you only lose the feeling of pain. And you can drop the act, I can see right through you, child."
James scratched the back of his head, a sheepish smile plastered across his face.
"Oh, you're right, thank you so much, Oh, gre—"
He paused once again. This time, he literally couldn't move at all, not even to blink his eyes.
"I even warned you," the voice reverberated down to his core. "I warned you not to speak any praises you do not mean. Was your promise a falsehood as well?"
That's right, right after he stopped feeling the searing pain, he innocently, without any guilt in his heart, reflexively praised the being who helped him.
After a few moments of wiggling his eyeballs around, the being finally saw fit to let him out of his paralyzed state.
"Oh, Gre— ah, sorry, force of habit," pointing to his chest, he continued. "See? When I said force of habit, I'm saying the truth! The promise was not a lie; I just forgot about it!"
He smiled, then looked at the construct in the distance, still pointing at his throbbing chest.
When there was no response from the mysterious being, James was pretty sure that if the being was humanoid with eyes, there was no doubt that they were currently rolling their eyes.
'There's no doubt about it, I'm even willing to bet my monthly wage of 300 USD to whoever doubts me right now.'
"Hahhh, alright, that's it. Let's just get you somewhere you can lie as you like," the mysterious voice sounded rather tired as it said that.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
His question went unanswered. Instead, he felt his whole body pull inward to the center, followed by a profound sense of weightlessness.
The feeling was familiar, the way he couldn't tell above or below, the sense of how he could 'see' with his whole body…
'Oh shit! I'm dead again!'
Before he started to panic and run his nonexistent mouth, the familiar, mysterious voice boomed again.
"No, you do not, child. You are not dead."
Hearing the mysterious voice's rebuttal, it cut through his panic, leaving him confused.
He quickly surveyed his surroundings; the expected alternating black and white plane was not there.
Instead, he found himself floating, unbound by gravity, just above the vast, green, and empty plain he was on before.
Then, he saw it, a figure close to him, sprawled with its left hand regenerating at a visible pace.
'Wait… is that… my body? Oh… I see, it's one of those out-of-body experiences, isn't it?'
When he saw that the figure lying on the ground had a small string attached to it, with the other end connected to his floating self, he was convinced.
'So, oh great being, with all your graciousness, please tell me what do you mean by 'I'm not dead yet'?'
As he said that, he tried to bow and plant his head on the ground, only to find he couldn't move in this unfamiliar state of existence.
"Just cut the theatrics, focus your consciousness on the soul-body connection. Although I won't allow you to go back to your body just yet, we can meet there, in the middle between soul and body."
Although he didn't know whether he could trust the mysterious voice, he decided that there was nothing he could actually do at the moment except follow the voice's advice.
'Let's see… soul-body connection, was it? It should be this weird string, right? But how do I focus my consciousness on it? Do I just think about this string?'
Perhaps tired of seeing James struggling, the voice finally gave him an explanation.
"No… that is not how you do it. Try to focus your panoramic vision into one tunnel. Only after that, focus on the 'string,' as you call it, and will it to ferry you back to your body."
'Vision, was it? How do I even focus my vision? Let's see, just like how an eyeball could turn, maybe this weird way of seeing could do the same.'
Thinking like so, he tried to turn his sight just like how one would turn their eyes. Slowly, he managed to turn every point of view into looking at the white, translucent string connected to his body.
Right after he had done so, he thought about the string pulling him back to his body.
The moment he did, he felt his entire existence pull inward toward the string.
"Oh my, that feels just like going down the slides at Water Park… Oh, I can speak again! That's nice."
He quickly surveyed his surroundings and found himself standing right beside a small pond, with a tree in the middle.
"So, this is how your 'plot of land' looked, child. Never knew that you were such a pure soul, even with how nasty your mind was."
A talking, burning scroll floated over the pond, just right beside the tree.
He was not quite sure what to say when all this time he had literally talked to a dead object.
"Uhh, thanks, I guess? Wait, no! That's not it!"
James was about to offer his own rebuttal to the scroll's accusation, but before he could say anything more, the scroll just wiggled, its flame flickering.
"Let's stop there. You can explain why most of your foreign-language vocabulary is swearwords later. For now, we have much more important matters."
"Uh… okay? So what are these more important matters that my defence has to wait?"
The scroll quietly floated closer, "Simply put, I have already promised a certain planewalker that I would teach you some things in exchange for their help."
When the scroll finally stopped just before James' face, it continued.
"The first lesson: The Three Paths of Ascension and how to understand your Unique Ability."