Page 6

An even shorter Red sighed, “Yeah, that’s probably best.”

Lilly asked, “Do we have enough stamina to not pass out, or cause a scene?”

Red, the most knowledgeable on the body's condition, replied, “For sure, I haven’t been moving about every day for nothing!”

It had now been three months since they had awoken in this body and life was slowly settling in.

Jen and George gave them a lot of attention when they weren’t managing the crops.

Anna past the time by playing with the kids or drawing in the dirt to preoccupy themselves.

Jen had added more books to the rotation of stories, which meant funny enough they haven’t actually finished any of the longer novels yet.

For control of the body, they still hadn’t gotten used to having multiple people driving the body at the same time, but they did switch frequently enough. None of the adults questioned their behaviour which just led the three to realise independently, that they mustn’t be a weird kid.

White said, “Well we need to just wait for everyone to leave first.”

The awakening was an event where individuals gained the ability to use their mana and attributes. This usually happened naturally between the ages of ten to twenty but could be forced pretty easily, with the help of another or through a dire event. Either way, the awakening could be either really quiet… or very loud.

They were going to try and control it to make it as subtle as possible, but they didn’t want to take any chances of people finding out for the time being.

“We might be the first people ever to awaken their attribute a second time,” Red remarked.

“Someone hasn’t read through history,” White commented, “There have been multiple records of people losing their attributes, usually by some sort of painful event. Tis usually a tale of tragedy before an eventual rise.” She coughed, “But it has happened a few times.”

Many different types of magic or gifts–depending on where one was from it was called different things–existed.

However, using attributes outside of one’s own was extremely difficult, if not impossible for many.

Attributes varied from elements, Water, Lightning, Sound, Sunlight, etc.

More physical attributes–Body, Bone, Blood, Sight, Hearing, etc.

To more obscure, rare, or abstract attributes–Mainplation, Mana, Cycles, etc.

Upon awakening an individual's appearance sometimes changes slightly, reflecting their attribute, if not then this change could happen for individuals who have mastered their attribute to a certain extent.

Everyone besides Lilly was hoping the body would at least share a magic attribute they had in life. For Red, Blood and Fire magic were some of the cores she built her fighting style around. White, on the other hand, possessed Moonlight and Space attributes, but never got the chance to truly explore either of them deeply, especially Space which she had a deep curiosity to learn.

The three had entered the Heart Pool together and waited for everyone to move far into the fields.

[Man I’m excited to use mana again.] (Red)

[Same but I just hope we get a usable attribute, preferably a multi-purpose one so we can explore how each wants to utilise it] (White)

[I’m fine with just usable…] (Lilly)

They could’ve waited until they naturally awakened. But for the ex-mercenary and nun, the inability to use mana was frighteningly dangerous. They had lived near danger to varying extents, but both of them died while fighting. Which left a greater impression on either of them than they initially realised.

White would be fine living a peaceful life, but knowing the dangers that existed in the world she at least wanted the strength to protect herself.

[Everyone ready?] (Red)

[Yes.] (White)

[Yes.] (Lilly)

The usual non-natural way of awakening with the help of another was by jumping starting one's mana by sending in the mana of another.

Of course that requires skill on the sender's side, and Anna didn’t even have a person to do that job so they had to do the next best thing.

Pull mana from the atmosphere.

Anna’s body turned red and started sweating, then after the sweat started drenching their body, they started to hyperventilate.

[Er…] White dealt with the pain the body was feeling.

[Argh!] While Lilly was struggling, she didn’t expect it to hurt this much.

Utilising Mana from the atmosphere wasn’t worth using for multiple reasons. Compared to the mana within the body, there wasn’t a great degree of it around within most individual's area of control. It was hard to control, even harder than using other people’s mana. Finally, it tended to bite back when used.

Most of the work was being handled by Red and White who knew how to manipulate mana best. Lilly tried but she was less skilled and the pain was overwhelming her.

After dealing with the pain, they had finally achieved their result after five minutes of pulling mana.

[Mana!] Red exclaimed, unfazed by the pain, but soon shock appeared on Anna’s face.

Red, White, and Lilly could feel the mana overflowing from their body, ready to explode outwards.

[Crap it’s going loud!] Noticing the massive surplus of mana wanting to be expelled, Red yelled.

[I got it!] (White)

White used the burst of mana she acquired to try and block the mana from escaping, but she couldn’t stop the large amount from leaking out.

[I… hel…p…] Lilly in a daze, focused on the feeling she felt in her previous life and forcibly dragged the mana back in.

After a minute, Anna collapsed onto the floor. She looked the same as she did before, but for a moment her eyes flashed pink, red, and amber which faded to grey.

Another minute passed before the three finally were able to pull themselves up.

The contained explosion affected even their soul forms which caused them all to awake back in their Soul Space home.

However, after the awakening, they all recognised the feeling within the body and they said aloud.

“Yes, Fire and Blood again!”

“Space! And Moonlight.”

“Manipulation…”

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

Which quickly led to a moment of joint confusion.

“Can’t you feel the Fire in the veins?” Red asked.

“No?” White wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t obvious from their current position.

Lilly muttered, “Four attributes…”

“Five Lilly, don’t discount yours,” said Red.

This caused Lilly to burst, “But I couldn’t even use it properly in my life, I basically died because of it!” Lilly cried before clasping her hands over her mouth.

The three still hadn’t really explained their past to each other. Lilly and White didn’t want to, and Red couldn’t care–her life was pretty simple in her eyes.

“Let’s… just continue with the talk… please…” Lilly asked.

“Fine…” White replied, understanding Lilly’s position.

They continued from where they left off.

“Five attributes… Assuming what we are feeling is correct, it’s amazing.” Red exclaimed, “That will probably make us pretty famous.”

Now it was White’s turn to snap, “Nope! We aren’t letting anyone else know about this.” She crossed her arms into an X and flatly refused.

“Why? It will help us get work?”

“Being famous might work for being a mercenary, but more than two attributes just puts a target on one's back. People from all over will keep an eye on you, and at the very least constantly try to rope them into their organisation.”

Lilly added after the tears literally vanished from her eyes, “...Plus… those with more than three attributes usually have a connection between the three… Earth, Fire, Water, Wind… Blood, Bone, Body… Light, Fire, Sunlight… We don’t have that at all… make us even more of an oddball.”

Red didn’t argue back, she did understand the risk of being the centre of attention.

“I just don’t understand why we keep our attributes from our previous life,” said White.

“You really need to stop thinking about it,” Red commented, “None of us are researchers in this field, most of the theories we think of will probably be wrong.”

Lilly quietly muttered out of range of the other two, “The soul reflects the body… and the body reflects the soul…”

“Crap, were there any physical changes?” Anna (Red) asked as she stood up to look in a mirror.

[Please be no changes.] White prayed.

They all had the feeling they didn’t properly hold back the mana from causing any changes in their physical physique.

Rushing to the tiny bathroom mirror that their family owned. All they saw was the same Anna, just extremely red and drenched.

“Ah thank the donkey,” said Red, “No idea how we were supposed to explain physical changes.”

[It would’ve just been, lie and say we awoke mana…] White sighed, [But I’m glad we didn’t have to do that, it would’ve been a mess.]

[...but we do need to get cleaned up…] Lilly mentioned.

[Yeah if Mum and Dad see us now.] (Red)

Anna (Red) rubbed her hand between her hair.

They moved over to a bucket full of water, tore off their clothes, washed themselves and started to put on new ones.

If the parents asked, Red already had the perfect excuse… She got them dirty while playing in the mud. She even was about to purposely add some dirt to the old clothes to make her alibi extra correct.

During Red’s clothes mudding operation White said, [Now that our attributes are awakened, we need to experiment with them as well.]

Red replied, [Yeah, but we need to let our mana settle first before we start examining it… I for one don’t want it to go boom.]

[Tis annoying not knowing how long to wait.]

[Oh it should only be about a week.] (Red)

[How do tho-you know about that?] (White)

[It felt like a week’s worth to settle type of explosion.] (Red)

Anna’s mouth opened flabbergasted, “It felt like…?”

[Trust me, I’ve experienced worse mana explosions…] Red laughed, [They usually weren’t internally though!]

After doing the deed, they made their way back home. Red’s plan was a success, any mess was chalked up to playing in the mud. Which also led to long lectures which replaced their story time. Much to the despair of White.