A watercolor painting

°°One day you will have to leave this place and, as you have experienced firsthand, you will not only have to be careful of monsters like me, but also of men…. For this you will have to become stronger, not only you will have to learn to cradle the mana in and out of you, but you will also have to become mentally strong enough not to get lost… for this and because I love you, I will train you°°°°

It had been a month since I woke up, my body had gotten used to the mutation a bit, my legs had finally become strong enough to let me run, and my arms strong enough to lift even boulders as big as me.

Having undergone the metamorphosis was certainly beneficial as far as physical growth was concerned. However, already in that month alone, many times I felt as if I had been forced away from my rational reason, as if I unconsciously wanted to embrace my animal instincts which had become increasingly strong and pressing.

I agreed with her, I had to get stronger, however, some of her words left me a little uneasy.

'Do I really have to leave this place? With her, right?' I wanted to ask her but I kept silent.

°°First of all, you will have to get used to the new way in which your senses act, and above all, for you who are a human, your eyesight… you will see things more and more differently, you will see things that you never seen before, things that will leave you enchanted and things that will disturb you, for this I will show you again some parts of this cave… your first training will be based on learning to control yourself…°°

Having said this, Arachne bent down inviting me to mount her.

As soon as I get on her back, Arachne takes off at full speed.

The first destination was a room in the "Demomachia" cave which had already left me amazed the first time I had seen it, it was a huge room of an average height of 4 meters, with a deep pond in the centre. The bed of the pond was dotted with luminous crystals of various colors, which created spectacular reflections on the surface of the water. Green, red, yellow, blue, and violet, were the colors that excelled.

Inside the cave room, there were also a multitude of cute animals and monstrous beasts.

In the depths of the pond, carp-like fish, other fish with tentacles, and others small moving in schools, swam freely.

Around the pond, there was a lush and luminescent vegetation. On the walls and stalactites grew vines with purplish-green pentagonal leaves as big as my face; from these vines randomly grew bell-shaped orange fruits that emitted a soft orange light.

Closer to the pond basin were shrubs with long thin red leaves and gray twigs studded with sharp thorns. These shrubs emitted a slight greenish glow from the tips of the younger leaves.

To fill the gap between the walls of the room and the banks of the pond, there were then trees that were a little taller, but never reached 3 meters in height. From these trees with leaves that varied from green to blue, a myriad of different fruits were born, some sharp and crescent-shaped and yellow, others, instead, had more rounded shapes and were in color that varied from pink to red.

As different as they were, all of these fruits emitted a faint glow.

On the other hand, the floor and the stalagmites of the room were carpeted by bronze or silver-colored fern-like plants which, together with the numerous mushrooms present in the room, poured into the room a multitude of luminescent spores of white light.

Arriving at the cave tunnel that led to that heavenly room, I descended from Arachne's back. She immediately turned to me in a serious tone.

°°You have already seen this cave room…°° I nodded, °°…this time, however, the room will present itself to you in a completely different way… it will be even more spectacular than you remember it… too spectacular.°°

Hearing her words filled my heart with excitement.

'Even more spectacular?!' I was excited.

°°Buried in this room there are the remains of a monster who died many years ago, this monster was even stronger than me and he was also like you and me "bound to mana"... when I arrived in this cave he had already been dead for some time… however, even now, his remains release a huge amount of mana into the environment…°°

'Stronger than Arachne…' I couldn't even imagine it.

°°As you will soon experience on your skin, he died happy and without rancor, it is precisely for this reason that the room presents such a rich and extravagant flora and fauna…°°

Arachne took a break to reflect, it seemed she was about to say the most important things of her entire speech…

°°Now that you are sensitive to mana, you will see and experience the same emotions that monster had before he died, the emotions that still influence the mana of the room, you will be able to see an excerpt of what I call the "playful dimension"... being able to be yourself in this room will be your first training… at first you will probably only last in there for a few seconds… however, I'm sure you will be able to spend up to an hour in there in just a couple of months… after all, you are my son…°°

Her last words made me both happy and confused, after all, the first time I entered that room with her, I hadn't felt anything strange.

'Does it really make you that different to be bonded to mana?'

After she finished speaking, Arachne led me to the entrance of the room and then invited me to enter.

I entered the room with a touch of arrogant cheek.

'Uhm-'

I saw it all and then dreamed I was flying among thousands of stars of different colors, a comfortable calm shut down my brain, while my eyes and muscles relaxed.

*Whiff

I was pushed backwards at great speed and then landed rolling on the ground.

°°I warned you to be careful…°° She scolded me.

"A-Arachne, is that you? Wait… who am I?" I was extremely confused, and only a violently gentle paw from Arachne on my cup made me recover.

°°You didn't last even a second in there…°° she said a little disappointed.

Her words hurt me a little.

'I was overconfident…' *Slap!

I slapped myself and went back into the cave, now without a shred of presumption.

This time I lasted 1.2 seconds before losing control of myself.

The third time I lasted 1.6 seconds, the fourth I got close to 2.

A week went by and I was able to remain conscious for 5 seconds, after two weeks 13 seconds, after four I approached one minute.

Two months passed in a flash.

As always I plucked up my courage and entered the room cave.

The mana within the room spread in rays of watercolor paint, gently wrapping the leaves of the trees and wandering throughout the environment, sometimes forming spirals, sometimes arcs; these colors were liquid, shapeless, they varied continuously and enveloped all life forms there, as if the mana there loved everyone.

I saw a mouse surrounded by a dark blue aura running away from an animal similar to a wolf, but with two heads and with dozens of slimy tentacles coming out of its back, wrapped in a blood-red color.

This scene was distant from me, shapeless, even if it was happening a few meters away from me.

Everything in there was distorted by those colors, and I watched them with usual curiosity.

I took a few steps, completely immersing myself in that watercolor painting.

As always, I began to feel an unnatural calm, at times my mind got lost and made me imagine I was flying in a sky whose clouds slowly took on the most disparate shapes. Every time I got lost, however, I still managed to come to my senses, remembering who I was, remembering that I was me and I was there in that room.

The further I went into the room, the more these hallucinatory effects became more overbearing.

I saw bird-like creatures perched on tree branches, their chirping was almost deafening sweetness.

The fragrances released by the colorful fruits were accentuated and gradually took on a visual form, which was also colored. I saw colors in there that I had never seen before, and each of these colors made me feel calm and kind.

It was as if the whole environment around me wanted me to feel comfortable, too comfortable, and wanted to put my conscience to sleep.

'Remember who you are… Umut Arachne, son of Arachne… Remember who you are… remember…' I repeated this over and over in my mind.

I arrived at the small lake in the center of the room cave. It was the first time I had gone so far into it (since I was "bound to mana").

I looked into the depths of that small body of water. I saw fish colored in warm colors swimming in water colored in cold colors, sometimes distorted by luminescent beams due to the crystals present on the bottom and the walls of the pond.

I looked at myself in the reflection of the lake.

'I've changed a bit...' I thought.

I had shaggy shoulder-length dark brown hair, my eyes had gone from brown with green accents to full dark green, they were also sharper in shape and more mature looking than they used to be, they weren't the typical eyes of a child.

I had long, slightly thick eyelashes, and my facial details seemed to have softened.

'Have I become more beautiful or am I wrong?' I was not mistaken, 'Is this also because of my metamorphosis?'

I also glimpsed my physique. I was as lean as I used to be, yet looked slightly more muscular, or as if some of my fat had turned into muscle.

I was also a little taller than I used to be, perhaps about one meter and twenty tall.

Gradually, my reflection mingled with the multitude of reflections on the surface of the lake.

I continued to stare at the lake until the colors there took on well-defined shapes. I saw a lizard with big wings, a dragon! This fierce-eyed dragon with a crimson aura wandered aimlessly in a blue sky, its heavy body carried by the air currents and mana currents in the sky. Sometimes he passed through the clouds, which gently parted as if to let him through. Nobody disturbed him. He was free.

He wandered and wandered, always alone, for years, hundreds of years.

His sand-colored scales took on an increasingly orange hue, his gaze went from fierce to calm.

Suddenly, other flying animals gathered around him, but he didn't chase them away, on the contrary, he seemed to like it, and so he continued to wander without ever leaving that always blue sky.

One day, he went down to the ground, looked at himself on the reflection of a lake, then he began to walk in lush green forests observing them with amazed eyes until he saw a cave and entered it. He wandered and wandered through that cave, until he saw a room huge but gray, with a deep hole inside. He settled down in the depths of that hole and fell asleep forever.

The years went by and that room changed, the dragon's blood flowed out of its scales and the hole was filled with clear water, the scales left its body and stuck to the ground, creating colored and luminescent crystals, its organs melted into the water giving life to fish and other marine beasts, finally his bones were tied to the rocks of the room, giving life to extravagant and colorful plants.

Gradually, this cave was populated by various animals, creating a small ecosystem in which the comfortable mana of the dragon wrapped everything gently.