"Wake up Zadi~"
"Waaake up Zadi~"
"WAKE UP NOW ZADI!"
"Aaaah! What just happened!? Where am I!? The island!? Why do I sound like a girlish man again!?"
Having awoken to a stranger's voice that felt like a soft hissing within his ears, Zadi looked around in order to try and reason what just happened to him and where he is now. At the moment, Zadi seems to have washed up on the shore of some deserted island that seemed to stretch endlessly with sand on one side and water on the other. To Zadi, it neither felt like nor looked like the Shrouded Isle in which he was burnt to a human potato chip. In fact, he himself felt different as well. He felt around all over his body like he did when he used the body alteration potion but this time he felt less on his chest and more on his crotch. That must mean he looks like his old self again. Zadi had mixed feelings about his "disguise" wearing off, but he felt good being a man again! His muscles felt more defined while his hair didn't feel heavy and obnoxiously long. Zadi wondered if he was finally able to grow a beard like he wanted to using the potion but to his dismay such a thing was apparently not possible.
Would have been nice to at least get a mustache. Anyway, it seems as though the Shrouded Isle did something to my corpse when I was "asleep". Better figure out if this is the afterlife or if I was able to be reborn again.
Zadi got up and ended up feeling a trinket around his neck. Zadi looked down and noticed two things; his kimono was black and he was wearing a charm with an animal or sorts on it. A bear? Sure seemed like on from the descriptions that Zadi had read about when he was a child. Having never seen most of the animals he'd read about makes wearing a charm about one that much more confusing. Was it magical? A compensatory gift from the afterlife? Zadi couldn't tell until a crab pinched his ankle. Zadi was surprised and yelp, jumping away with his right leg in an attempt to get away from it. However, that wouldn't be the greatest surprise from this crab!
"Hey! You awake now!? Seems that way. FINALLY! Alright, time to give you the message-"
"IT CAN TALK!?!?"
Without knowing it, the charm around Zadi's neck allowed him to understand animal speech as if it was human speech. In this case, the crab's speech and vice versa in the case of the crab.
"Whoa! What are you getting so worked up over? I didn't pinch you THAT hard."
"It really can speak my language. Ummm...hi? My name is Zadi, are you God?"
Due to Zadi's imagination and thoughts of the afterlife, he actually thought that the crab was God. Sure it could be possible that the crab was just an image that Zadi may be used to seeing as he grew up near the ocean, but really, a crab of all things? God could have picked a better image to present himself with, thought Zadi. Wait! Maybe this wasn't even heaven! Zadi started to panic before the crab scurried up to Zadi again and pinched Zadi's remaining ankle, causing Zadi to flinch and fall to the ground.
"Calm the hell down! I'm just a crab with a message and super muscular claws! I've also got abs and the ladies LOVE me for them!"
"Wait, so I'm not in the afterlife? I'm not dead!?"
"Nope. You are very much alive. You are also not dreaming as my pinching has probably discerned for you. That charm really is a wonder."
Zadi quickly got up off the ground and danced like there was no tomorrow! It seemed that he finally realized that he was reborn much like when he was engulfed in that explosion from Aquillia's arrow in the coliseum battle. Zadi jumped up and down so much that his metal vessel dropped from inside his black kimono. The string holding it in place must have come loose. However, this thankfully stopped Zadi's insistent dancing and jumping. He picked up the metal vessel and secured it back within his kimono again. Now that he was settled down, the crab was ready to give Zadi the message.
"Alright then, now that you've settled down, it is now time for me to give you the message. Erhmhm; Your belongings aside from your metal vessel have been scattered throughout the Desert of Forgotten Souls. In order to find them again, talk to the animals of the sands."
"Quite a long message. For a crab, that was some good memorization-"
"Well screw you human! You know, for a hue-man you sure don't dress very colorfully! Now screw off and find your stuff before stop giving a care about you! Your lucky your friend even found someone as nice as me to relay his message to you!"
The crab then scurried back into the water, pissed. Before his buddies would show up, Zadi went on his way into the Desert of Forgotten Souls in order to find some animals to talk to. Though Zadi was rather confused. What sort of "friend" does Zadi have that would be able to "help" him like this? And why would he scatter Zadi's items like a complete douchebag, too!? Zadi stopped thinking so hard about it all and just decided to follow the message's "advice" since that was the only clue that Zadi was able to pick up.
Unfortunately, Zadi couldn't stop thinking about his recent death and subsequent rebirth. The Shrouded Isle was a rather dangerous place, dangerous enough for Zadi to lose focus and die by fire...again! So far Zadi had only died by fire and rebirthed shortly afterwards, assuming it has only been at most a week since his last dead and nothing like years or months. All the same, was it the power of fire that allowed Zadi to be reborn? Zadi felt that he needed to meditate on this and consult the flow of rukh around him in order to check something. He would need to improve his skills as a magician if he is to do this. However, he already felt a little more powerful in terms of magoi reserves. It was strange, but dying actually made Zadi stronger this time around. Could it be that the more Zadi dies by fire the greater reserves of power he attains? It seemed to be the current pattern after all. Zadi decided to check something out using the charm around his neck as a medium. After talking to the crab, Zadi ended up figuring out that it was the charm, the only new item on him, that caused the ability to communicate with said crab. The design of the charm made sense, too. Zadi himself didn't feel magically divergent, much less magical at all for that matter. He is a magician but he feels like a human. Anyway, using the charm as a medium to strengthen his feel of the rukh around him, Zadi attempted to increase his knowledge as a magician by trying to learn exactly what his "dead" situation really is.
It took a while, but he was able to find out nothing at all! It was as if being reborn was totally natural within this world! Therefore, Zadi decided to look into history, however nothing happened because he wasn't able to use legitimate magic using just a charm. Aside from that, the only clairvoyance type spells that he knows how to use wouldn't help either. This frustrated Zadi and forced him to stop his walk through the desert and just sit to meditate underneath the hot hot sun of the Desert of Forgotten Souls, which seems to be amply named.
Zadi attempted to meditate his skills as a magician further as he had done many times before. However, the challenge was to use no medium to connect to the flow of rukh around him. Another challenge was to try and meditate within a vastly blank desert. No rock, no dead trees, no cacti, and certainly no water! Only the cloudless sky and the sand underneath his ass would be the guiding forces of rukh he'd be able to call upon during his meditation.
Meditating Zadi meditated with his legs crossed and his butt square on the sands. He hummed in order to attain a little more "magic" around him. Currently there were all but water, wind, lightning, and life rukh. Heat and light were certainly present and, as always, strength, with a touch of sound from Zadi's humming. Technically life was present within Zadi, but he couldn't trust his own being due to the strange ability to rebirth. Anyway, he had half of all the magic types at his disposal for meditation. All Zadi needed to do now was read their rukh patterns and attain a greater understanding of his own magic skills.
The feel of the heat on Zadi's body was intense. His skill felt the burning sensation of simply being underneath it. The light from the sun felt brighter than Zadi had ever felt within his lifetime. After all, there were no cloud above him. Due to some slight heat exhaustion, Zadi could feel the gravity of his own weight.
Rukh of the heat, help me understand how it is you function better within a spacious ocean of sand! Rukh of the light, show me your power of illusion within a heat-filled environment! Rukh of sound, how is it that you work so well within such grand openness? Rukh of gravity, have you created this desert's sand through crash, push, and subsequent pull of the waves and wind? Show me how I may improve myself, Rukh! Allow me to attain a greater understanding of this desert's emptiness! Let me become attuned to the elements to become a greater magician!
The wind started to blow, probably as a response to Zadi's will to learn. Due to the wind, sand started to defy gravity, heat became distorted, light was blocked by the flying sands of the desert, and even sound was deafened due to the howling of the wind.
It took about two days, but the rukh guided Zadi towards the answer and finally allowed him to understand what a desert naturally symbolized; peace. It was peaceful here, not desperate. Desperation is caused through thoughts of death within living beings, but since a desert is not alive like a forest or grassy plain, there is no natural desperation. What little animals that do live here are like those that live elsewhere, just in a different ecosystem. Before this revelation, Zadi usually thought that rukh thrived within living beings. That is true in a sense, but within a nearly lifeless environment such as a desert, the rukh seem to look freer. For living things, this feeling of freedom can be equated to the capability of flight. Flight gives a sense of freedom due to the openness the sky provides. In the desert, this openness is nearly endless, too.
The rukh aren't manipulated, contorted, and from what Zadi can see, not black either. The rukh within this desert felt free from the chains of magic. No magicians. No magic tools. Only the sands and the blue sky! Zadi too felt rather free, though because he is a living being, he must find his own path towards freedom and another death certainly wouldn't help. However, knowing that peace is attainable simply within the desert is rather tragic. Without someone to observe and experience the peace, what is peace? That question was for another time as Zadi's head wasn't feeling enlightened anymore, rather it felt hot. Though all the elements were at peace within this desert, that didn't mean they were peaceful towards life. Thankfully Zadi's meditation skills were better than the average person and he was able to slow his metabolism,; it was as if he had been sleeping for a couple of days. Zadi got up and began his long walk again, hopefully ending up finding some sort of animal that could help him.
2000+/2000 - Int B-tier to A-tier