Consciousness

Sitting on the barren, the devil was perusing the various techniques that he had received. These techniques weren't exclusive to him, they were gifted to those who had ascended once they arrived in the Realm of Gods. Although every higher being possessed them, these techniques were essential for every god and devil for they allowed them to gain access to faith.

The devil focused on one of these techniques: World Search. As its name suggests, the technique allowed the user to send their consciousness outside the Realm of Gods to search for worlds to establish a presence on. However, it wasn't exactly an easy technique to learn, as it required a person first to separate their consciousness from their bodies. And as a newly ascended devil, he lacked any experience with the spiritual path, this was because the mortal power system only focused on Mana Accumulation and Body Strengthening.

For now, all the devil could do was try to sense his consciousness though he quickly gave up as he didn't know what he needed to do to actually sense it in the first place. This could only be attributed to his lack of knowledge regarding the spiritual aspect, which was quite shocking as he possessed quite a large array of knowledge due to the thousands of years he spent in the Mortal Realm.

'Have I had any experiences with my consciousness'

This singular thought occupied the mind of the devil. He scoured his memories, hoping to find something, something that could he use as a foundation. 

The devil's eyes suddenly widened with realisation, he stopped searching his older memories and called upon a recent memory. A life-changing experience. The Ascension.

During the ascension, the devil didn't let out a single sound, this could be attributed to the willpower cultivated through his quest to elevate his Devil Path to the level of Gods while still being a mortal. Alas, the devil didn't need to use his willpower at all.

Why?

Because at the start of stage 1, his consciousness was sucked into his Demon Core, which severed his connection to his body meaning he wouldn't be able to sense any pain being caused to his body. The devil didn't know if this occurred in every ascension process but this was something he would worry about later. 

Currently, the devil was attempting to recall the feeling of consciousness being separated from his body. Every moment he spent thinking about that feeling, he could feel himself slowly grasping a fundamental concept. And then it clicked.

Opening his eyes, the devil found himself in a dark world, nothing could be seen except a purple light that seemed to coming from behind him. Naturally, the devil turned around, his eyes trying to seek out the source of this mysterious light. This was surprisingly an easy task, for the source was right behind him. A set of majestic glass stairs led to an ancient throne which was emitting the purple light.

As if they had minds of their own, the devil's legs started climbing up the stairs, the soles of his bare feet transmitting the cold feel of the glass. But the devil ignored all this, his eyes hadn't left the thrones since he had first noticed it. He couldn't help but stare, something was calling him to it. Before he knew it, the devil found himself standing before the throne, it looked mesmerising up close. A sharp aura radiated from the throne, an aura of power and control, it was like the throne was commanding those who appeared before it to bow down.

But the devil felt something different from the aura, it was calling him, telling him to take his place. The only place that would be suitable for him. Upon the throne itself.

Without hesitation, the devil sat upon the throne and everything became clear to him. 

'So this is what my consciousness looks like'

Yes, the world that the devil found himself in was his consciousness, he was now able to sense it. Now separating his consciousness was no longer a matter of how, but of when.

And with no hesitation at all, he fused with the throne that he sat upon, it was a step required to separate his consciousness from his body. The fusion process took very little time and the devil opened himself to a familiar sensation; the loss of connection to his corporeal body. But he was introduced to a new experience, inhabiting his spiritual body, and with this experience came the view of the world from a different perspective.

His sensitivity to the God Essence that flowed around him had increased many folds, the vast, endless amounts of Devil Essence looked like a crimson galaxy, and within this galaxy, faint traces of white tried to fight against the infinite amounts of red, only to be brutally suppressed. Divine Essence. The Devil hadn't noticed it before, but with his spiritual body being many times more sensitive to energy than his corporeal body, its weak presence was no longer hidden.

Turning his attention away from the Divine Essence, the devil looked upon his vessel, it was sitting cross-legged; calm and unmoving. One would mistake it for a demonic statue for even the natural Devil Aura had disappeared. The Devil Aura was used to reinforce the connection between the spiritual body and the core that the devil was currently inspecting. It looked like an extremely thin purple wire, with one end disappearing into the chest of his physical body and the other connecting to his consciousness. This wire would pull his consciousness back into his body once his spiritual energy ran out, without it, his consciousness would simply remain floating in the atmosphere, slowly eroding until it would vanish from existence.

Speaking of spiritual energy, the devil realised he needed to quickly use World Search as his spiritual energy was being quickly depleted, most likely due to his lack of control over this energy that he had never interacted with before.

The devil followed the instructions of the technique, manipulating his spiritual energy with difficulty to form an intricate rune. Almost instantly after the rune had been formed, the devil's body was hurled out of the Realm of Gods and dragged towards the Mortal Worlds.

As time passed, the devil had been led past various worlds yet none of them had affinity for him. The way World Search worked was quite simple, it analysed the power level and the traits of its user and then searched for a world which would be suitable for them, and so far every world the devil had passed had zero compatibility with him. 

Naturally, this wasn't normal as most beings had extremely weak compatibility with the worlds lacked affinity with. Very few had zero compatibility.

Although very little time had passed since he activated the technique, the devil felt boredom creep in. The initial excitement he felt had been ruined by the lack of connection with any of the Mortal Worlds he had seen so far.

The bored eyes of the devil suddenly widened, not because he finally felt some level of compatibility but because he felt his body being pulled back.

He had run out of spiritual energy.