As soon as the mana entered the stone, it crumbled in Nora's talon, and suddenly she felt a very bright flash of light engulf her. In an instant, it was gone, and when she opened her eyes again, she felt that she was much farther off the ground than she was used to.
Quickly looking down, she saw human hands and the body of a woman.
'Oh, thank god, back to a form I'm much more comfortable with. I do feel a lot heavier now, though.'
Nora quickly looked towards the basin of the mana pool. Inside, she could see her reflection. She was stunned; she looked nothing like she had before, but she still looked good.
The first thing she noticed was her deep black eyes, which had a slight white ring around their pupils, making her eyes look ethereal and inhuman. Her hair was also jet black and had slight waves to it. Her hair was much longer than in her past life.
Previously, her hair had only reached about her shoulders, but now it stretched down to her shoulder blades. And speaking of those, on top of having proper arms and hands now, on her back were two rather large black wings. Her vision stayed the same as it was in hr bird form. She could still see much more than she could have if she were fully human.
After admiring her reflection for a little while, Nora decided to test her vocal chords slightly. She cleared her voice and started humming a slight tune. The voice that she heard was high and had a melodic tone to it.
She felt pretty pleased by these improvements. Now she could actually talk for herself; Torin would have to do all the talking for her anymore, and now their conversations wouldn't be so one-sided.
Nora was about to head out the door and show Torin her new form when she remembered that she still had no clothes on. She looked around for some clothes after this revelation, spotting the small pile of clean clothes in the corner. She quickly began to put them on.
It looked like a simple white dress and some shorts to go with it. Initially, when Nora put the dress on, she was worried since it was a little too big for her small figure; however, once she had put it on fully, it shrank slightly to fit her body perfectly.
'Interesting, it looks like these clothes are actually condensed mana... no wonder they said that I could use these till I condense my own.'
Nora felt a flicker of excitement at this. She had always wanted to design her own clothes, but she lacked the sewing ability to make her ideas a reality until now.
She put on the shorts and found a small pair of shoes underneath that she also put on, both shrank to fit her perfectly like the dress.
Satisfied with how covered up she was, she decided to head out of the ritual room and back to Torin.
Torin, having heard the door creak open again, excitedly looked over, wanting to see what Nora looked like. Setting his eyes on her, he was immediately stunned.
Her small stature, combined with the simple dress and black, mysterious eyes, was a lethal combination for Torin, and he was entirely not prepared.
"Oh, hello again… uhm" Torin blushed heavily, realizing that he just said something awkward.
Nora chuckled, feeling happy that the tables had turned now. "Hi Torin."
Her voice seemed to be even more lethal for Torin, as his mind went blank the moment she spoke.
"hehe… hi," he chuckled nervously.
"Oh, no need to be so nervous, Nora teased, it's still just me.
"Oh yeah, right," Torin shook his head, feeling the embarrassment fade away. "Ok, I'm good now, sorry, I don't know what happened there."
Nora laughed, "It's all good, I must say it's really nice to be able to talk finally." She almost said it was nice to talk again, but that would give away her reincarnation, and Nora wasn't prepared to share that. 'Not until I know more about this world, let's see if I can grill Torin on this world for a while.'
"Yeah, I bet it's been difficult. How long have you been able to understand the language? You seem to talk really well."
"Oh…" Nora stuttered a little bit, "A couple of years, I guess, I learned from a… book."
"Oh, interesting, that's really pretty impressive," Torin said. "It must've been torture not being able to speak for that long. I couldn't even imagine."
"Yeah, it was pretty rough, I managed though."
Nora and Torin began heading out of the building, realizing that they didn't need to stand by the ritual room anymore.
"I talked to the receptionist briefly when you went into the ritual room. We can get your housing assignment in the building next door, and then we're all good."
"Thank god, I am exhausted."
"Yeah, I bet, I mean, after going through whatever that phenomenon was, and then having to do the oath, get your lifestone, and then a human form, you must've spent a lot of your mana recently."
"Yeah..." Nora agreed while casually glancing at her full MP bar.
"Anyway, I've been meaning to ask, how did that whole phenomenon thing happen? I'm so curious."
"Oh.." Nora contemplated telling Torin before eventually deciding to just come clean. "Well, don't tell anybody, but I was actually going through a set of trials from this pocketwatch I found."
"That's wild, I've heard of trial spaces but not from an actual artifact."
"Yeah, it was pretty weird. I had to go through these three mind challenges in a space where time didn't pass. It messed with my mind a bunch. I have no idea how long I actually spent in there."
"Yeah, that makes sense. You're lucky I showed up when I did. There were a bunch of high-level animals around the tree that you were hiding in."
"Oh, really? Darn, I thought that tree was going to be a good hiding spot."
"Yeah, you've still got a lot to learn about the actual mana control. I can tell that yours isn't great."
"Whoa, how can you tell that? And also, hey! I was unconscious, and I had no control over my mana."
"Haha, I know." Torin playfully patted Nora's head. "I've been training all my life with mana. I can clearly sense your mana signal from here; it's pretty prominent. Usually, you don't want to do that once you're out on missions since it'll make you a target for more powerful creatures."
"Oh, that makes sense, I have no idea where to start with that honestly…." Nora furrowed her brows, realizing this problem.
"Don't worry, I can teach you how to do it. That is, if you're willing to be friends with me." Torin stuck his tongue out playfully.
"Hmmmm, I don't know that might be a hard bargain." Nora pretended to seriously consider, acting like it was a pretty big decision.
She watched as Torin began pouting, realizing that maybe she didn't want to be friends with him.
After a moment, she dropped the act, "I'm just kidding! Of course I'll be friends with you, that's the least I can do for helping me so much today."
Torin smiled, "Great, oh, and look at that, we've arrived at the residence hall."
Torin walked up to the glass door, opening it gracefully, and he made an overly gentlemanly gesture.
"After you, my lady."
"Oh, why, thank you, good sir." Nora giggled, going along with the bit.
Torin stepped in after her, and they both approached the third front desk of the day.
"Hello, how can we help you today?" A rather short-looking male asked. He had a lean figure and was sporting black and light brown feathered wings on his back.
"Hey, I'm here to get a housing assignment?" Nora spoke in an unsure tone.
"Of course! I just need your name and species to look up in the system."
"Oh yeah, uhm, Nora, I'm a crow."
"Oh, good for you! We don't see many crows around here these days. Well, I see your file, and it does in fact look like you need a place."
"We currently have three different options for lodging. You can live in one of the nice tree houses that I'm sure you've seen around. We also have burrows built into the trees and houses on and in the ground. There isn't much difference between the houses, but birds that can't fly get priority with the ground houses."
"Is there a difference in fees between the tree house and the burrow?"
"Nope! If you do wish to have your house expanded, you may have to take on more tasks, but other than that, the standard amenities are pretty good."
"Ok, in that case, I would like to do a treehouse, please." Nora didn't have any interest in living on the ground or inside a tree, but she had seen the treehouses around and quite liked the style.
"Not a problem! Let me just get you set up with that. I'll need to check your lifestone as a form of verification."
"Oh. Yeah, of course." Nora pulled it out of her system inventory and handed the lifestone over.
The man examined the lifestone for a moment before handing it back to Nora.
"Alright, you are all set. Let's see, you can either have treehouse 108F, 156I, or any in the L sector."
Torin chimed in, hearing the options. "Ooh, you should go with 108F, it's not far at all from my house, it'll make it easier for me to visit and for you to get adjusted."
"That seems reasonable, ok, I'd like 108F please."
"Not a problem, let me just get some paperwork for you to sign, and the place is all yours."
Nora picked up one of the quills from inside a cup on the counter and began signing all the pertinent documents. Once she was done with that, the man at the reception handed her a small set of keys.
"These will attune to your person if you inject a little bit of mana into them. If they end up getting lost, you can simply call them back. And if you plan on having any other birds move in with you, please contact the residence halls, and we will get that sorted for you."
"Ok, thank you," Nora said, looking at the set of keys in her hand. As they walked out, Nora felt a sense of giddiness; she was finally the proud owner of her very own house.