Transcendence?

***Desert, Eastern Planes***

***Jazira***

I am alone. There is just desert all around me. Not a soul within a month's travel time. My mouth is dry and my skin is burned from the sun. I stopped bothering with applying healing magic every two hours.

“Whhyyyyy!?” I fall to my knees while screaming in frustration. “It's no good. Whatever I do! But I want to go! I want to go! TO THE PAARRTYYY!”

I start hitting the stupid sand under me. It's unfair! Even though I trained so hard for it.

Suddenly Lidith appears in front of me. “Hey! Stop that, you are scratching your beautiful skin.”

“No! Why are they allowed to go to the party while I am not?” I beat the ground one more time for good measure.

Lidith sighs and repeats her explanation for the seventh time. “I explained that already. To be acknowledged as a god, you need access to your mana pool and be able to use the pathways. You only have access to your mana pool.” She shakes her head. “I can't take you to the party in that state.”

I press my lips together. Then I point at Lidith. “But Celestial can't see them either! So why is she allowed to go!”

A few drops of sweat start to form on Lidith's forehead. “That woman is beyond me. She somehow gave up her external magic system and strengthened her internal one. According to her she can't see the pathways at all. She is only able to feel them. Like a blind one would follow a rope, she pulls herself along a pathway with her will alone.”

Lidith shakes her head. “To be truthful. I doubt that you guys are gods at all.”

“Huh? I don't understand. What else should we be?” I sit down and wait for Lidith to explain.

“I already told you that a god normally awakens all his abilities at once. You guys don't follow that pattern. On top you are far too young. I am starting to believe that our game is somehow at fault by summoning you. It's more like you slowly transcend step by step. Everyone of you according to his own abilities.” Lidith looks away while she ponders over something.

Then she claps her hands together. “That may be your problem. You excel in accessing your mana pool! Have you ever tried to manipulate very small amounts of mana? The pathways require a certain sensibility to see them.”

“How should I? As soon as I conjure some mana, it floods into me like a river! I have to get rid of it immediately, or I go up like a candle!” I wave my hands in the air.

Lidith squints her eyes. “How is it with your inner magic system?”

I shrug my shoulders. “No problems there.”

“Activate your battle aura.” Lidith smirks at me.

“Uh, sure?” I do as told and tap into my mana pool to pour the mana into my body. A strong glow of energy surrounds me and the sand under my feet starts to melt to glass. I stand up and swing my flat hand at a dune. The wind pressure alone blows the sand away.

I turn back to Lidith. “See?”

“You can't do better?” Lidith looks dissatisfied.

“Isn't that already good enough?” I gesture at the place where the dune was.

“You are wasting so much mana, it hurts my eyes. Look at your feet! The ground turned to glass! Your mana is wasted like that. That's the reason why you aren't able to tune your mana output. You are the exact opposite of Celestial.” Lidith turns on her own battle aura and repeats my action. This time a sandstorm hurls away from us and I fight to keep standing.

“So I am no good.” I wanted to go to the party. If I had been able to become a god I could have talked to people on equal footing again. The permanent bowing and buckling by my subordinates gets depressing from time to time.

NO! I can't think like that! Celestial managed it by relying on her talent. She didn't care about others and created her own path. If she can do something like that with her inner magic system, then why shouldn't I be able to punch through reason and belief as well?

“~Nyahahaha.~”

“I will show them!”

I tap into my mana pool and start pouring my power into a teleportation spell. But it's not enough! “MORE!” The ground under my feet turns to lava because of the leaking power which escapes my control.

“Stop it! Are you nuts?” Lidith has problems standing and retreats away from me.

The ground starts to shake as the teleportation spell starts to tear at the fabrics of reality. Maybe I need some fortification. “Barrier!”

I raise my hands to the sky and activate the teleportation spell.

Darkness surrounds me. I am in space! Inside a five meter bubble, which is formed by my barrier. There is no star nearby, so I must have gotten quite far.

Lidith appears beside me. “What the hell were you thinking!? You just created a five meter bubble of empty space right next to me! I was flung through the air like a doll.”

“~Nyahaha! No problem, you are a god. And I needed a little distance from the world. There is still another experiment. So which star?~” I state with a happy voice.

“No. We are going back!” Lidith crosses her arms in front of her chest.

I don't listen and tap into my mana pool. This time without holding back! The space around me is flooded with my essence. If I can't see the pathways, then I'll light them up by using my own mana as a torchlight! The power flows out of me like an ocean.

And then I see it! A fine web all around me. So I concentrate on one of the strings in front of me and hold onto it while firmly believing that it's one of the pathways.

From one second to the next I am on a wide cornfield. There are fields up to the horizon and strange looking people with violet skin are ploughing them. Some of them spot me and turn to run away.

This is certainly not my homeworld. “~Strike!~” I start a little dance and Lidith appears right next to me.

“You brute! You did it! I didn't even know that you could make pathways visible like that!” She looks shocked.

I stop dancing and face her. “So I can go to the party?”

Lidith sighs. “All right. All right. You can go. But you should do something about your tan. Your white hair doesn't match with brown skin at all!”

I freeze. “Brown skin?”

A mirror appears in Lidith's hand. It's a tool which every fine woman has always ready. She holds it out to me. “You shouldn't have trained in that desert.”

“~Gyahaha!~ My skin!” I start rubbing at my face, but it doesn't come off. “I can't go and meet people like this!”

“Maybe the witch can help you. She can transform people into mice. Changing the skin colour should be a cheap trick to her.” Lidith smirks at me.

I nod and look around. Then it hits me and I turn to Lidith with my politest smile on my face.

“~You know? It's a little embarrassing, but how do I get back?~”

“... you are so lucky that I am here...”

.