Hey soul... something

"I can't do it."

"Yes you can, feel it inside you. Feel it pound and throb, find where it is."

"It's too hard!"

"You're never going to get better by giving up and saying it's too hard."

Opening his eyes, Kai glares at The Ever-changing and uncrosses his legs while staying in his sitting position.

"Meditation is useless, I've tried it before and it just doesn't work. If you can see my memories you should know I can't do it."

The Ever-changing raises an eyebrow, looking at Kai questionably.

"Did you have a God teaching you then?"

Damn it...

"No, but-"

"Well then that's your problem, now suck it up and get back to meditating. We don't have long before you'll have to wake up."

Why can't we just go back to drinking.

For the last few dream hours, The Ever-changing has been nicely asking Kai to meditate to find his soul. At first, Kai thought they were kidding. He thought that souls were just a metaphor, not something actually in his body.

Trying to find a soul by meditating is not fun, to say the least. Kai never was one for sitting still for long periods of time, in fact, just being still in general wasn't for him. If he didn't have Nonchalance while in the white room he doesn't know what he would've done.

"Every soul looks, feels and tastes differently-"

Kai's eyes snap open as his jaw drops, looking up at his master like he's just said the weirdest thing ever, which they have.

"Tastes?"

The Ever-changing gazes down at Kai as he takes swig from a can of the apple beer, as if teasing Kai.

"Of course, there's many races in the world which consume souls, though you wouldn't really want to meet or associate with them as the ones who eat souls are seen like how your home world saw cannibals by majority of the other kingdoms."

That's weird.

"So what, I should use my toungue to find my soul?" Kai asks in a slightly annoyed tone, the fact he has to meditate when he could be doing really anything else annoys him more than-

"If it works" The Ever-changing shrugs. "Souls are different for everyone, if you can find it with your toungue then try it. Just make sure you don't get addicted to the taste, you'd get hunted down like a rabid animal or galactic criminal."

Rolling his eyes behind his eyelids, Kai complains to himself under his breath as he goes back to trying to find his soul.

"The first step to soulcery is to find your soul, after that the world is your oyster. That's a good saying from your home world, I'm going to steal it for future use."

"I'm starting to think you were overexaggerating how good this skill was."

Sighing, The Ever-changing puts down their can and makes their way over to Kai. Sitting down in front of him, The Ever-changing puts out their hand and says:

"I'll give you a hint."

A small, silver orb manifests in The Ever-changings hand. The orb has seems almost transparent, yet you can't see through it. A slight glow surrounds the orb as it twinkles.

"This is what a soul can look like, this soul belonged to someone I knew before I was imprisoned."

The Ever-changing then took Kai's eyes into their own and placed the orb in his palm.

"Etch the sight of it into your mind, if you have even the slightest idea of what to look for it will always be easier to find."

Kai looked down at the orb, then back up at his master. The fact he was holding a soul in his hand creeped him out a little.

"Who did it belong to?"

The Ever-changing waved their hand dismissively.

"Unimportant, now, use that to help you find your soul. Then, we will have one last conversation and I'll let you wake up."

Inwardly grumbling, Kai got into the common meditation position. Sitting with his legs crossed and his hands resting on his lap with one tenderly holding onto the silver soul. Closing his eyes, Kai tried to find his soul within him.

Easier said than done...

Suddenly, an idea sparked in his head. Opening his eyes, Kai looked down at the little orb as a plan started forming.

What if I used Will of the Kaiser?

Holding the orb in his hand, Kai slowly activated his innate ability, not sure if it would even work. Concentrating on trying to use the powers of a soul is a strange experience, but also kind of calming.

A few moments pass and nothing happened, so Kai opens his eyes, only to see The Ever-changings face pale and their mouth open to shout something. Frowning slightly, Kai wonders what the big deal is.

"What-"

Then all went black.

The purest form of darkness warped around him, consuming him. It wasn't like the darkness of the forest, this darkness was almost unnatural.

Surrounded by darkness, Kai panics a little but everything about the situation he's in feels off. His gut tells him he's about to die but it also tells him he's going to be fine.

A single face could in the darkness, its features undecipherable but also familiar. Trying to focus on looking at the face, it vanishes as quick as it appeared.

"Hmm, a new soul... this should be interesting."

Those words echoed throughout Kai's head, reverberating off the walls of his mind. Pain flooded every fibre of his being as he let out a guttural scream of pain.

Silence.

Having no physical body meant having no vocal chords. The pain Kai was feeling was ten times worse than what he went though with the moon.

What seemed like an eternity passed, yet it could have only been a few moments. The voice in the darkness spoke again.

"Go now, child, I look forward to seeing what you do in the future."

Time seemed to pass in a blur after that. Kai knew he was no longer in that dark place, yet he had no power to do anything. Sometimes, he could make out faint words, but they sounded to far away to be made out properly.

Only this time, he could hear.

"Wakey Wakey, it's time for school."

Jumping up, Kai frantically looks around his bedroom and-

"It's about time, I was getting bored. And it's a bit surprising you jump awake at the mention of school and not all the other things I said. Your mind truly is a strange one.

Looking to his left, Kai spots The Ever-changing sitting calmly on one of the outdoor chairs puffing on something that reminds Kai of a cigar, only the smoke his master exhales is purple.

"What... happened?" Kai asked in a pained as he tenderly holds his head, the remnants of the pain he felt is still inside him but he doesn't know where.

"You nearly died." The Ever-changing answered with a smile.

Then why are you smiling?

"In fact, you would have died if your amazing master didn't step in."

It's because they're praising themselves.

"I mean, honestly, what gave you the idea to do that? A god gives you a soul and your first idea is to try and borrow its power."

Feeling a faint blush rise on his face, Kai casts his gaze away from his smirking master.

"It seemed like a good idea, and it worked... kind of."

The Ever-changings eyes widened slightly. Putting away their cigar, they lean down towards Kai and say:

"Really? That's surprising, another surprising thing is I can't see the memories of what you saw."

Kai blinked. The expression on his master's face gave away everything they needed to say without words. Inwardly sighing, Kai explains what happened.

"I used my innate ability, but nothing happened-"

Oh... nothing happened.

The fact that nothing happened is honestly stranger than the weird darkness he saw. No goblin mode, no wraith mode, nothing.

Maybe that was the otherwordly creature.

"But then I, like, blacked out and saw a weird face. I couldn't make it out though, only the rough outline. I think it was a man's face though. Then they just talked about how there's a new soul and how they look forward to seeing what I do. Then..."

A shiver runs up Kai's spine as he thinks back to the pain he felt. Every ounce of his being was being violated by whatever it was, just the fact he can still think straight is a miracle. The weird thing is that no part of his body hurts, yet the pain still lingers, a type of phantom pain.

"There was a weird pain I felt. When I felt it I thought I was going to die, but I feel fine now though. It's weird."

The Ever-changing nods.

"Of course you didn't die, I am here. As for the pain, it was done directly to your soul. If I weren't here, you would have most definitely died."

Kai's blood turns cold. At this point, how many times has he come close to dying in the last month? Too many times for him to be happy about it anyway.

What happened to characters who are isekai'd being OP? Wait... It wasn't only me who was brought here... Am I a side character? I do seem like the funniest one in our group. Oh no, am I going to di- Wait, I'm fine, I'm not actually that funny.

Mumbling something under his breath, Kai crosses his arms and glares up at his master.

"And you said the soul belonged to someone unimportant. They seemed pretty important to me."

The Ever-changing snorted and took back the silver orb from Kai.

"I said it was unimportant who the soul belonged to, not that the one who owned it was unimportant. There's a difference."

Rolling his eyes, Kai stands up and walks over to the chair he was sitting in earlier. Once sat down, he looks back towards his master and asks:

"Anyways, what now? I'm letting you know that I will be taking an indefinite break from meditating."

Sighing, The Ever-changing sits down on the chair beside Kai and hands him a can of the apple beer.

"You're about ready to wake up now. Honestly? Put a hold on soulcery for now, I think I overestimated how well the skill suited you. What I recommend you do is spend as long as you can practicing using your innate ability with Umbra. You don't want to rely on luck to get a good creature in the heat of battle."

Cracking open the can, Kai drinks the sweet liquid before wiping the residue off his lips.

"Alright. By the way, isn't this just cider?"

The Ever-changing blinks.

"Kind of? If I'm going off your memories I can see that cider is just apple juice mixed with yeast and some other things, but the beer from the Malus Empire is just apple juice which gets you drunk, nothing added in."

Nodding at the explanation, Kai finishes his drink and gets up out of his chair.

"Okay then, wake me up."

The Ever-changing smiles and follows Kai by standing up.

"If that's what you want. Oh, by the way, I'm going to follow my ingenious idea of giving cryptic pieces of advice at the very end of our meetings, I'll leave you with this little gem."

The Ever-changings eyes narrow, dangerously serious. Its a little creepy to see the person who was so chill and free a moment ago act like this.

"Trust is nice and all, but only for those who deserve it. Spend some time figuring out the inner workings of those around you, or don't. This is only a cryptic warning, my words could be spun in any way. But let's leave it at that, good luck, my apprentice."

Then, Kai woke up.