Astral Odyssey: Dying Ember

World 2.2: Alice

**Disclaimer: This chapter may have some triggering content. Bullying/Harassment.**

Alice quickly realised that her spiritual energy could not flow in or out of her body. The air felt empty of spiritual energy and the existing energy within her felt contained with no outlet for it. She could only circulate and control the flow of the energy within her.

She started playing around with the flow and tested if she could concentrate the energy within her to a specific body part. Finding that it was possible, she moved on to test the effects. She used her left arm to punch her pillow. It ended up as a measly punch as the original soul had neglected training their body like many others do. She then concentrated the flow of energy into her arm and threw the same punch. This time the punch was faster and the hit was stronger. The pillow ended up tearing a little at the seams. 

Alice looked at her fist. So it's like an enhancement of the body's stats. I wonder if it can enhance the recovery rate of the body then. From here on, she began to focus the flow of energy to her right arm.

Alice next explored her ability. It was water ability, a pretty common one. She tested the current limits of her powers. She made a water ball then made it as big as she could. However, it could not go beyond her own size. She tried to morph the ball of water into different shapes while maintaining the size. It was possible but painfully slow. She finally tested the fine control by making it into a small water bead to weave it through her open fingers as fast as possible. However, the speed of weaving through was also quite slow and if she sped it up any further, it would crash into a finger and explode. She guessed that her endurance in keeping her ability up was unlikely great as well. 

Alice slightly frowned. The original soul was truly painfully weak and not very smart about her priorities. In her memories, she only remembered studying hard to stay in the school to avoid wasting her parents' effort in sending her here, but neglected to work as hard on her physical abilities. When she was injured, she really only rested instead of working on her ability. With how often she got injured, she wasted a lot of time just resting and recovering.

For the rest of the night, Alice brainstormed of different ways she could apply her ability as a defensive power and an offensive attack. She considered if there were offensive and defensive ones as well.

From the next day on, Alice set up a new routine for herself. She would spend half the day on physical training without her right arm, then spend the other half of the day training her water ability. While training physically, she would hone her endurance by keeping the maximum sized water ball she could muster constantly activated beside her. During her abilities practice, she would work on the manipulation then the precise control. The night would be spent on revision for her studies. The subjects tested in this world were the same as her original world except with the addition of abilities studies and the that some content was slightly different such as the geography of the country and the nature around her.

Due to her change in focus, Alice had to do some paperwork to withdraw herself from the classes that the original soul signed herself up for. Classes on subjects were not compulsory unless one has failed the subject or signed up for it. The only compulsory class was the abilities class which was held every morning.

BaoBao, being a very helpful assistant, would manage her food. Thanks to BaoBao's surveillance, they had managed to procure groceries without meeting any of Alice's bullies or Violet, Stephan and Ethan. The amount they got was enough to last them a whole month.

2 weeks passed. Alice could tell that her arm has completely healed. She went to get her cast removed early in the morning when everyone would be in class then returned to her room in the dormitory. Doctor Nina had been astounded by Alice's recovery rate and was beginning to think that Alice was undergoing some physical changes due to all the bullying she faced. The body's wondrous ability to adapt is amazing.