Euphoria was the only way Day could describe this feeling, and even that didn't do it justice.
It washed over him and engulfed him in a torrent of gripping pleasure, and tore from him that biting pain that he was forcing himself to push out of his mind to replace it with something ever-the-more magnificent.
His bones, broken or intact, strengthened. His mind, of which the integrity was trickling away, exploded with life. Each and every part of him down to his very cells were altered, and all it brought to Day was benefit.
When Day's pleasure ended, all that remained was a cool calm– accompanied by a breeze that ruffled his hair and sent chills rolling up his spine.
"Haaa…"
Day stayed staring up, his eyes half closed. His arms laid hanging by his sides, and his knees crumbled ever so slightly.
'How is this possible? I thought…"
Day looked back forward and opened his eyes with a soothed, soft, deep breath. His knees straightened, and his flailing arms were locked back in place next to his sides.
Day opened his runes, and his eyes languidly ran down the list. His Name, Rank, True Name, Aspect Ability…
Until they landed on the source of his delight, which read:
[Remnants of Kindness: [143/1000]
It didn't take him even a moment to figure out where these Remnants of Kindness had come from…
'It turns out that after all, these things aren't reliant on my Flaw…'
That boy he had saved from the stone-skinned Awakened Creature… Day knew it must have been him.
'But then that poses a new question in place of the previous ones… What are the deciding factors for how much I gain? When I saved Caster, I gained one hundred, but I saved that boy, and this time, I got less than half of that.'
Day racked his mind and tried to think of the possibilities.
'Could it be based on the severity of their situation? No… That doesn't feel right. Caster's situation in my vision wasn't much worse. In fact, arguably, that boy's death was much more terrible. Having 3 people around you but nobody to save you– that's a sad way to go out.'
'What if the scenarios from my flaw give me more? Hmm… I don't really think so. I feel like there would need to be a factor that gives a precise conclusion so that there's a way for the Spell to judge how much to give me, since it was such a random number this time around... I don't think it'd be like an unknown quest or anything like that.'
Day really, really thought about it… and then a small, inkling of an idea popped into his mind.
'If there are only Awakened, Fallen and Transcendent creatures in the Forgotten Shore, apparently only sleepers, and there's no escape… Who knows how long that boy has been here? Caster is a legacy with endless resources… What if…'
Day stopped, and then put his hand on his chin.
'I don't know… It feels weird, but I think that maybe it could have to do with soul core saturation. A Legacy boy gave me one hundred, and then someone who has been stuck in this Forgotten Shore gave me forty three… That could be the case. There aren't many people who have their soul cores fully saturated as a Sleeper, and he also has six companions. I'm not quite sure how long they have been together, but… '
Day nodded at his own assessment and decided to stick with it. In truth, there was no way to know if his idea was actually the reality of it, but this was, with the information he had– the best conclusion he could come to.
The next question to be posed was…
'I'm curious… Do I really get more light to surround myself with whenever I gain Remnants of Kindness? The difference was extremely obvious when I gained one hundred, I wonder what the difference will be with forty three? I went from barely being able to cover one leg to being able to cover two… Ah, it's no use pondering– I'll check when I get to my room!"
Day stood around tapping his feet for the next ten minutes, and then, finally, after what felt like an eternity– Harper had arrived back to grab him.
Without speaking, he walked into his stand and reached down to search for another key. When he grabbed it and stepped out his stand, he smiled at Day and gestured for him to follow.
"Come with me, I'll take you to your room now."
Day nodded, and then began to follow.
The walk there was quiet, apart from the occasional sounds of chatter coming from people passing by.
Melri really wasn't lying. The place was quite busy… but it wasn't busy enough. Not as busy as it should have been, at least.
'All those people stuck outside of the walls…'
Day clenched his fists so hard that it made an audible noise. Harper glanced back at him for a moment, and then quickly looked back forward and sped up slightly while gripping the key in his hand.
But Day didn't notice that.
'I'm not going to delude myself… if they are outside of the walls, they probably aren't provided with anything needed to survive. I was told it gets safer when you get near the hill, not that it is completely safe…'
Day frowned deeply.
'I'll need to figure something out later… I won't make too many conclusions. Soon, I'll check it out, and then when I gauge the situation, I'll do what I can. It simply won't be possible to provide them with soul shards based on how many I saw, I know that much…'
Harper and Day were now nearing the Tower of Dusk. Day pushed the bitter thoughts out of his mind.
Suddenly, as he was entering the tower, he remembered something.
'Ah– I forgot to ask Caster about that charm…'
Day reached up and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
'I'll find some time to do it in the near future. I'm not going to worry about something like that right now… It doesn't matter that much.'
Day was still walking. He turned another corner, and then one more– then bumped right into Harper.
The boy stumbled forward a few feet, and then collected himself and stood up tall with his arms in front of him.
Day stood there, un-phased by the collision, with his eyes wide open.
"Oh, uh– Sorry about that. I was thinking about something."
Harper slowly turned around with a smile.
However, the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. He didn't look angry, instead, he looked rather afraid.
"It's fine." Harper said, his voice almost like a squeak.
"Here is your key," Harper said speedily, "the door is right here. I'll be heading out now, just be sure to come find me each week with the payment, okay? I'll be… Where I'll always be. "
Day opened his mouth for a moment, prepared to say something else, but then he simply closed his eyes and nodded.
"Understood. Thank you for your hospitality."
Harper immediately started forward, and passed Day in an instant.
When Harper turned the corner and started down the stairs, Day could have sworn that he heard a sharp breath of relief…
"..."
For the next hour, Day acclimated himself to his new home. There were no showers, he didn't have any changes of clothing, and the room itself wasn't particularly fancy, but he wasn't expecting much at all.
He was in the Dream Realm, and in an uncharted portion of it, nonetheless.
He still had no real clue about… really anything that had to do with the Forgotten Shore, or this castle. All he could vaguely understand was that people needed to hunt for soul shards or they would get kicked out, there was a king of some sorts, and that whoever entered really did have a lot provided to them.
Well… Day wasn't sure just yet if it was a lot, since he didn't know what other benefits there were, but being provided breakfast, lunch, dinner and safety was great.
After a while of pacing, Day started to lose himself in his racing thoughts.
The fact that there was no way home kept appearing in his mind incessantly and waging brutal war against his rationality.
"That simply can't be right…"
The Dream Realm was such a vast place. How could there be no gate?
Day sat down in his new bed and leaned back with his legs off of the bed and his feet touching the cold, hard ground beneath. Then, he put his forearm over his eyes and sighed deeply.
"I'm already sick of these thoughts… but I just can't help but want to fight it. Feeling trapped… just isn't right."
Day shot up from his bed and took a few steps forward to reorient himself.
"You know what, screw this! I'm checking my progress and distracting myself with something else!"
Day shut his eyes tightly and took a deep breath.
Then, just like he had many times before, he felt his body being covered by a warm, radiant light.
He opened his eyes, and after about a second, his left leg was covered. Then, it was followed by his right leg, and then, a mere second after that, his hand and right arm leading up to his elbow were covered by light.
He tried to push it further, and have the light cover his right arm, but his head began to pulsate, so he stopped.
As Day stared at his arm, and subsequently gauged the amount of light he had gained, he looked out of his window. Unfortunately for him, his window had a direct view of the crimson spire, but that wasn't what he was looking at…
'It's still light out… I'll test some things out, see what I can do… I shouldn't be too long, though.. I want to go meet Aya before nightfall. I'm not quite sure when it is, so I may as well be early… Damn, I probably should have asked Harper, I really did lose track of time completely… '
Day shook his head, and then focused back on the task at hand.
Day now knew that he could do more simple things like make claws of light and find benefit out of it, but he had to strain his mind to do that, even if the base for these formations was the expansion of his body and the muscle-like strain that came with it.
Day took all of the light of his two legs, and then squinted at his one intact arm and covered it in light entirely.
And then, for the next thirty minutes, he tested multiple possibilities.
He tried growing sharp spikes from his arm, which was successful. He even tested them on an object, and it pierced through it like it was nothing– much to Day's shock.
He tried making something less hard, in the form of a short rope that, when Day put his arm palm down, fell to the floor… and it worked. He even picked it up and tied a knot around his other arm, and it held on tight. Unfortunately, the rope still had to be connected to him, so this wasn't particularly useful.
After those two tests, Day tried to do something a little different… and use all of his light to enlarge his hand past the threshold that he could manage subconsciously. However, that did not work, even when he put effort into trying.
Why, Day wasn't sure, but he had a feeling that there was something amiss that made the muscle-like part of his Aspect Ability much less flexible in what Day could create.
He didn't think too much about it, though. If he couldn't enlarge it more than twofold right now, he couldn't. Day didn't even have a single idea on why that would be the case, and he wasn't quite willing to waste time thinking about it.
"Hmm, what else can I do? Let me think… Ah!"
Before he departed to go meet Aya, there was one more thing he wanted to try. This idea… was a bit of a stretch, but if it worked, it could be useful.
He picked up the key to his room and stared at it for a few moments intently. After he was satisfied, he put it down, looked away from it, and then…
He tried to form the key in his hand.
It took a grueling amount of time– even more than the time it took to make the Spear… but it worked.
Slowly, but surely, a key began to form in his hand. It took ten seconds for the base to form, and then slowly, the light began to coalesce and form the blade.
Day, with his Aspect Ability, created a perfect replica of a complex object like a key.
He stepped outside, and even tested it, and to his surprise, it actually worked.
'My Aspect Ability… It's really unbelievable.'
Day grinned widely and clenched the key in his fist. In that moment, it dissipated, and the sparks of light remaining floated out of Day's hand, of which the light was also fading away, followed by the light on his arm.
"When I gain more light… I wonder what I'll be able to make then?"
The possibilities were endless… and Day was excited.