Like never before

Geography of the World - Bensomnert Library - required books (for ages 1 to 6)

The world soars into an infinite height and presents, like a tree, an enormous central trunk, and like a tree, robust branches of elastic rock of various colors (mainly brown or gray) depart from it. On these branches, like leaves, islands are born, called for this reason leaf-islands. These leaf-islands that we live on are mostly rocky, some of these leaf-islands can be so close together that they create larger environments in which a simple bridge is enough to pass from one leaf to another, these groupings of leaf-islands are called leaf-archipelagos.

On the lower surface of each island-leaf there is a sphere, luminous for most of the day, which illuminates the underlying leaves and determines the duality of day and night.

Usually, the branches of the world themselves are used to switch from one leaf to another. Branches, however, are more dangerous environments than leaves as more monsters swarm there.

According to Samuel Frank (1177-1248), a well-known scholar, the world we live in has the shape that resembles that of an oak tree, a huge oak tree, whose branches and trunk are made of a strong and elastic material which he called "rockwood".

The leaves, on the other hand, are the environments in which the diversity of flora and fauna explodes, making the leaves the most livable and beautiful places in this world.

Frank, in 1212, managed to measure with extreme precision (as far as we know) the area of the horizontal section of the trunk of our world, an absurd area of 670 square km, while, according to his calculations, considering our world similar to an oak, and if we simplify the crown of our world, i.e. branches and leaves, with a sphere, the area of its great circle would be frighteningly large, reaching 79,000 square km.

The theory that our world is similar to an immense oak was immediately considered ingenious and revolutionary.

Other scholars, believing Frank's theory valid, also calculated the height of our world. Considering that the diameter of an oak trunk is normally 15 times smaller than the height of the tree, the height of the world would be 438 km.

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I watched my son enter the chrysalis state, by now the most dangerous part of the metamorphosis had passed, now it was just a matter of waiting for the hatching.

I decided not to do anything in the meantime, I dangled upside down, with my paws firmly attached to the cobweb coming out of my backside, precisely from the spinnerets.

I was tired, like never before. I knew what I had done, however, I couldn't help but be happy.

The weeks went by, weeks in which I had a lot of time to spend in my thoughts…

I was happy, and even though I had been less free to do what I wanted for the past two years, I was still happier than when I was traveling free around the world.

I didn't quite understand why, maybe being free isn't so good after all? Maybe having no worries isn't so good after all? Maybe living only for myself wasn't for me?

When I escaped from the laboratory where they created me, I thought freedom was the maximum expression of life, but what does it really mean to be free?

Recent times had made me change my mind about some concepts that I thought were obvious.

Freedom equals doing what you want, it's not having chains, this I thought, and, precisely for this reason, I never created bonds with anyone in my life, at least not until two years ago.

Now that I had one of the strongest chains that bound me to another life and that is "maternal love", I was even happier than in the past, why?

Maybe even wanting to be free at any cost is nothing but a prison?

Perhaps we living beings are not meant to be free... or perhaps physical freedom is not what to aspire to... how much perhaps... mental freedom... the freedom to be able to think and change one's thoughts, without embarrassment or obtuseness.

Maybe freedom is the endless pursuit of freedom itself... or, it is precisely always seeking freedom without ever stopping for a moment in the present that never makes us free…

'Ahh… even though I have lived hundreds of years, thinking about these things still leaves me with a feeling of bitterness…'

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'Ahh, how warm' I rolled with a smile between the sweet silk blankets on which I was wrapped. I felt a comfortable feeling for a long time, so much that I didn't want to stop feeling it.

However, slowly, that enveloping warmth faded, and my senses slowly awakened.

I opened my eyes, around me it was almost completely dark, however, I could still see the silk that wrapped me and even all the filaments that made it up, all in absolutely detailed way.

I moved instinctively, producing an almost deafening noise, always instinctively, I tried to bring my hands to my ears.

'Ah… right… I don't have them… wait…' I gasped with emotion, I could feel my hands again, I had hands again!

I rubbed my head excitedly with my new hands. I felt the roughness of my skin, I felt my nails, I felt the bones inside my hand and even the pulse of my blood.

Without waiting a second, I moved my legs like a swimmer, I could move them, I had legs again and with them new feet!

I had an exaggerated smile on my face.

Strange as happiness is, I don't think I was ever ecstatic to have limbs when I still had them, however, after I got them back, to call myself ecstatic was perhaps an understatement.

At that moment I understood something important: 'Don't forget what you already have'

I wriggled in the cocoon, I wanted to get out as soon as possible, I wanted to see my mother again and show her my new limbs.

So I slowly made my way, digging with my weak new arms into the silk in front of me, until a trickle of cobalt blue light blinded my vision which was by now accustomed to the almost absolute darkness inside the cocoon.

Without waiting a moment, I reached out my right arm towards that hole, piercing it hard with my hand. I pushed to the left with all my strength, not that I had much, slowly widening that little gap.

I also slipped my left hand into the crack, trying even harder to create an exit, until that crack became a hole and I managed like a worm to go through it.

'Free!' I thought.

'Probably the silk with which the cocoon was made was not that strong, it is my arms that were so weak.' The thing, however, didn't matter to me who knows, the happiness I was feeling was too much to care

The light outside that cocoon was blinding, a mixture of pungent and repulsive smells enveloped my nose, so much that I almost threw up. in Meanwhile, deafening sounds filled my ears.

What used to be just a guess was now something I was sure of.

"My senses are sharpened…"

I got up, my legs were shaking, they were still too weak to fully support me, and, after a few moments, they gave way making me fall.

°°Welcome back…°°

A voice as gentle as familiar speaks in my head.

For me, who had remained unconscious during the metamorphosis, it didn't seem that much had passed since the last time I had seen her, however, I still missed her, and, above all, I wanted to show her my new legs and arms.

'Is this what it feels like to have a mother?' I asked myself, with a smile on my face.

'What a good feeling…'

She was behind me, so I turned around.

"Did you see?"

°°Bravo, you succeeded, as I could expect from my son.°°

Actually, Arachne was sure of the success of the thing, otherwise she wouldn't even have proposed it, and then, much of the credit for the success of the metamorphosis was obviously hers, but hearing her say those things made me even happier if possible, so much so that I feel almost drugged by this emotion.

"However, I still can't walk…"

°°it's normal, by training them they will also become stronger than those of a normal person, as well as for your arms…°°

°°You'll also have to get used to your new senses... and now that you've become a fully-fledged mana-bound being, you'll also need to get used to your new way of living in constant contact with it.…°°

That day we talked for a long time, two months had passed since my metamorphosis had begun, we talked about things of no relative importance, I should have trained both in body and mind, things of no importance, then other things a little more important, the hours passed and I began to feel less weight in my heart.