11 11. Sweet sweet un-life

Seeing that the demon was no help, Kai started wandering around his mindscape.

Long story short, there was a whole lot of nothing. He saw the giant crystal, the purple sea beneath him, a useless chuuni demon, and a few scattered golden strands dissolving in the purple sea.

Not much to work with.

While Kai wasn't dead, he was pretty damn close. His master plan was to overdose on mana and thoroughly destroy his body. Hopefully, without a body the potion would recognize the overflowing mana and try to bind it to his mind. The book never specified what qualified as a body in the first place.

His working theory was that by binding his mind/soul to his mana, he would become some kind of mana-spirit or something similar.

Was it an absolutely brain dead plan in hindsight? Of course it was!

Although, Kai would much rather die on his own terms due to some harebrained plan than as a puppet on strings.

The only being great enough to kill Kai should be Kai himself dammit!

Feeling bored, Kai started trying stuff at random. It wasn't like he had any better ideas.

Trying to directly manipulate the purple sea didn't work, it was like trying to move a building with his mind. Even on a smaller scale Kai ran into difficulties. It was just too hard to hold his mind together while focusing on the mana as well, lacking limbs certainly didn't help.

Eventually, Kai and his demon started a mana-ball fight out of pure boredom. The liquid mana was surprisingly malleable, forming into a ball in the demons hands with barely any effort.

Well, the demon was able to manipulate the mana, Kai still didn't have a body and was relegated to more of a moving target than equal participant. Dodging fastballs was still more fun than wandering around a bland and boring landscape.

After a few more hours of just killing time, Kai and his companion figured out a few different games; mana-snowman building, mental chess, mental checkers, twenty questions, I-spy, musical chair, and tag. Granted, most of the games didn't really work with Kai's lack of a body or were just plain boring. 

Admittedly, I-spy, musical chair, and tag were stupid ideas in hindsight.

Eventually, Kai and the demon circled back to their game of mana-ball. Kai stood in place as a practice target while the demon practiced its baseball pitches. Sharing the same soul, the demon was just as bad at baseball and was rarely even close.

Suddenly, the demon managed to nail Kai in the forehead with a nasty circle changeup. This shocked both of them, how could the demon hit an intangible target!?

Taking a closer look, the demon saw a few floating purple flecks where it could sense Kai's mind.

Seeing a change for the first time in a while, Kai stood still while the demon started pelting him from a few meters away. They tried to mold a body for Kai earlier to no avail. They had no idea what was happening, maybe it had something to do with forcing the energy into his incorporeal form, but it couldn't possibly be making things worse right?

This went on for hours and hours. Before they knew it, Kai's ethereal figure was filled with swirling specks of light. He could even feel hints of sensation in his limbs!

Sharing his excitement, the demon crouched down to grab another scoop of purple liquid only to have its hand come up anlmost empty. In their frenzy, just about the entire sea had been used up.

The towering crystal was letting out a few drops of liquid every now and then but it was not nearly fast enough for their liking. Kai and the demon were well past their tolerance for boredom and weren't willing to wait.

The demon scrambled up the crystal and tried to crack off a few pieces, if the liquid mana was helping then surely the more dense crystal mana would be even better. Having more impulse control, Kai tried in vain to stop the demon but it was never a good listener. It wasn't surprising, Kai was a poor listener as well.

The crystal must have been weaker than the demon expected. After a few slashes with its copycat-wolverine claws, a massive chunk of crystal was sheared off and crashed to the illusory bottom of the mindscape.

Thick pillars of purple lightning shot out of the crystal's fracture, blasting the demon into some faraway corner in a direct example of instant karma.

The lightning's appearance shook Kai's mind. He felt his mana leaking from the very fabric of his being. It was like someone put a bucket over his head and was beating it with a club. Their progress with the purple specks was slowly being undone.

This was definitely not a good thing.

Mentally cursing his demonic side, Kai could only hunker down and do his very best to hoard his mana. He felt like he was back to square one, floating in the blackness and desperately trying to hold himself together.

Suddenly, a burst of light appeared above the crystal and a few strands of energy appeared in its wake. Feeling a slight reprieve, Kai strained his eyes and saw a few strings of unfamiliar runes emerging from the light.

Inexplicably, the runes reminded Kai of his storage ring, but he was too preoccupied to pay attention.

This happened a few more times in succession. Kai wasn't really sure of the exact number, he was more focused on not dispersing into nothingness.

Then, the leak stopped.

Kai could feel a sturdy barrier encapsulate his mindscape, disallowing any more energy to leak out. The space's edges were no longer indistinct, Kai could clearly see a crystal shell marking the perimeter of his mind.

After a close inspection, the shell looked eerily similar to the inside of God's paperweight. Kai assumed Momo was the cause of such a sudden change. Nobody else would have had access to the godly object. Well, except possibly God, but he definitely wouldn't be helping Kai at this point.

A few seconds later, purple energy started absolutely flooding into the space. Orders of magnitude more than the initial sea filled Kai's surroundings. It quickly started filling up the spherical space and Kai could even see his demon flailing around in the swirling currents off in the distance. At least he hadn't been vaporized for his stupidity.

This time, the energy started rushing into Kai's form as if determined to finish the job. Flowing specks swelled and Kai's figure quickly became solid, cracks sealing up as if time flowed in reverse.

He felt a distinct pressure form in his mind, as if he could no longer fit inside the ginormous sphere despite only taking up a fraction of its volume.

The pressure grew and Kai's body was forced to the sphere's top, pressing him against its inner surface. He could feel himself sinking into its material, although the force was too weak to press him through. Realizing this might be a way to escape and possibly resurrect, Kai stopped resisting and tried to mentally assist the pressure.

It seemed to be working.

Far below in the rapid currents Kai could see the demon say a few words, though they were completely indiscernible from such a distance.

It probably wasn't saying anything important. Instead of a heartfelt goodbye, it was likely trying to get out a few one liners or puns making fun of Kai. That's what he would do anyways.

Slipping out of the sphere, Kai could vaguely see actual colors. He flailed his arms around and eventually hit something solid. Grabbing it like a drowning man feeling a life-ring, Kai gripped the surface and pulled himself up.

He emerged from a pool of liquid and flopped to the ground. Real ground this time, not some weird mindscape adjacent.

Kai tried to take a deep breath but didn't feel anything fill his lungs. Curious. His chest was definitely moving.

Shakily rising to his feet, Kai looked at his hands. They were far paler than they used to be, closer to the color of clouds than any natural skin he had seen before. The skin was slightly translucent when hit by the flickering torchlight.

Slightly less than ideal, but he lived!

Kai couldn't help but drop to his knees and let out a bellowing laugh. Every step of this insane plan could have failed catastrophically at any point. It was a scheme built upon half-baked assumptions and crossed fingers but it worked! Kai felt pure catharsis upon realizing he made it out the other side with his soul intact.

Silently swearing to himself, Kai vowed to never let himself feel so desperate again. He hated leaving his life to chance and vague guesses made in an altered mental state. This was the first time in his short life that Kai had been forced into such dire circumstances.

Kai couldn't promise himself that he would never do anything this stupid again, but next time he would be more prepared.

Rising to his feet, Kai looked over at Momo. She was laying in a heap on the cold balcony surface, slightly shivering as the wind ruffled her fur.

Kai raced to her side and felt relief upon seeing his familiar's chest rising and falling. She was just asleep. He picked her up and moved her to the bedroom where she would be more comfortable.

Kai would check on her in the morning.

[Two days later]

Kai always hated sitting still. Especially now that his body didn't particularly feel the need for sleep. Despite not sleeping since his transformation, Kai felt as chipper as ever.

Upon noticing his strange new body, Kai had been determined to uncover its secrets. Unlike his initial foray into the tower, Kai's mind felt clear and he couldn't stand not knowing something. If his body had any hidden dangers or weaknesses, he preferred not to find out the hard way.

After tucking Momo into bed, Kai started experimenting.

His first test was to try and cut his skin. It was rather fragile, puncturing with hardly anny effort.

Instead of blood, a purple gas spilled out as if Kai were a party balloon. His skin seemed to be the only solid part of his body, the insides completely filled with the dark purple gas.

Naturally, Kai realized he was some kind of construct made of mana. The potion must have successfully bound his mind to the tower's mana supply. Following this train of thought, Kai tried to manipulate the mana to great success.

He could alter his form nearly at will, changing his appearance with complete ease. Though Kai had yet to figure out the durability issue. It was a glaring weakness that Kai was determined to cover up ASAP.

In addition, Kai discovered that he could communicate with his demon while in deep concentration. He figured this one out while deep in focus trying to practice mana manipulation, only to start hearing the demon's faint voice ranting in his ear about being bored.

Strangely enough, the demon was quite helpful when it came to figuring out Kai's new abilities. After being left behind in the mindscape, the demon did quite a bit of exploring and found a few runes floating about. After a few arguments and a little teamwork, the duo discovered that the runes possessed the abilities of Kai's artifacts.

After pushing a bit of mana into the runes, Kai now had access to a small 5x5 meter personal storage space and could teleport back into the depths of the tower's mana pool.

The overconfident demon bragged about being able to possess Kai's body and after enough harassment, Kai eventually let it try.

Despite its boasting, the demon was ultimately unsuccessful. It couldn't seem to bypass the crystal barrier surrounding Kai's mind on its own. Though this gave Kai some inspiration.

He raced out of the tower and into the woods, searching for some poor woodland creature to serve as his experimental materials.

Finding a chipmunk a few feet into the woods, Kai snuck up on the rodent and grabbed it. Kai's speed boost from the potion seemed to carry over to his new body, the chipmunk didn't stand a chance.

Pushing his mana into the animal, Kai achieved a measure of success before the chipmunk popped like a gory balloon. He could feel his consciousness slipping into the body before quickly running out of room. It wasn't big enough to fit Kai's body.

Trying to condense himself, Kai managed to shrink himself to his previous childlike form before being unable to continue.

His experiments cost the forest four birds, two squirrels, and a rabbit before Kai managed to possess a wild boar. While cruel, the animals served as great practice while Kai was searching for a proper host.

One thing he noticed was that without a body, Kai grew weaker the further he went from the tower. He felt fine when piloting the boar, but the moment he exited there was a sensation of weakness.

Granted, he was miles away from the tower at this point and the difference was quite minor. Definitely something to keep in mind though.

After teleporting back to the tower, Kai tied the boar up and kept experimenting with his new form.

He discovered that he had weak telekinetic abilities when Momo rocketed out of the bedroom and Kai accidentally froze her in midair out of fright. After a quick headpat and reassurances, Kai estimated his natural telekinetic abilities to be capped at a hundred pounds or so (45kg.)

This could be increased by throwing mana at the problem but Kai experienced diminishing returns at around 500 lbs (225kg.) His measurements were rather vague as he lifted barrels of crushed grain, the exact weight of which Kai could only guesstimate. 

Even his magic spell was much easier, Kai could shear the hair off his bear rug with a balding curse 10/10 attempts. He didn't even practice the rest of the spells as they were useless. 

Kai then summarized his changes and abilities; weak spirit form, weak telekinesis, possession of larger bodies, teleportation to his home, a storage space, better mana manipulation, and one shitty spell.

Kind of underwhelming when compared to his initial lofty aspirations. Instead of being a godlike wizard traversing the multiverse, Kai was essentially a juiced up ghost with a single underwhelming spell.

He really wanted to visit new worlds. The library was basically full of useless flavor text and it would take decades to sift through. Even if there were a few useful spells or bits of information, it would just take too long to find.

He couldn't figure out potions or alchemy either. Without someone to teach Kai, he just wasn't smart or brave enough to delve into their great mysteries. Especially with the warnings in the book, the consequences seemed vastly disproportionate to the procedure.

Kai was sure God screwed him over in this regard. Just creating an introductory antidote could cause the potioneer to spontaneously combust with a single mistake. What entry level antidote requires two handfuls of extremely flammable firepine sap to be added by hand?! The lab was equipped with measuring cups for crying out loud!

Visiting another world would at least give Kai access to other forms of magic and education. Hopefully even something that wasn't actively designed to kill him.

Kai had spent long enough plodding around and delaying his studies into magic. His first order of business would be to figure out a way into another world. The sooner he achieved this, the sooner he could start his plan for revenge.

Kai even had a few ideas for breaking the barriers between worlds, he had done it once before after all…

[A/N: I just posted a character sheet in a new Aux volume. It's pretty messy as I just repurposed my notes to help readers follow along. If anything is confusing then just drop a comment and I will do my best to clear things up. I appreciate all comments, good and bad. They are the best way to improve my admittedly average writing.

The next world will be HP and will be visited in the next 1-2 chapters. I will give two options for the time period as either would be equally fun for me to write;

1. Kai enters during Voldemort's school era. This means no golden trio

2. Kai enters during the plot of HP, I do not plan to have Kai follow the golden trio if this is the case.

Let me know what y'all prefer in the comments.]