Golden specks of light floated in the room like fireflies, illuminating the room in their golden radiance. The room resembled a golden hall with everything having a golden radiance to it. In a corner of the room, where a bed stood in all its golden glory and luminescence, a beautiful figure floated just a few inches above the messy bed. Clothes and underwear were strewn all over the place, but it couldn't dim the glow of the figure bathed in golden light. She radiated with such intense light that anyone who looked at her would expect to be burnt in the eye by the intensity of the light, but it was the opposite. The light radiated a soft, calm and healing aura just like its source (even though she isn't that most of the time).
Her normal bluish blonde hair now glowed with a gold light and fell to bed in a small heap. It was obvious it had grown longer. Her eyes were closed in a calm manner and her beautiful face exuded such calmness that Ethan would faint from disbelief. The Harley he knew and the Harley floating on her messy bed were two different people. At least the bed said otherwise but still...
A beautiful golden symbol, a lotus with open petals glowed softly on her forehead with four of them releasing an occasional white glow. Her aura screamed "Advanced Mage!" but instead of the normal ferociousness, it was calm and serene. Oblivious to her surroundings, her consciousness floated in a world of lotuses and gold light.
"What is Healing? What is its essence? Why did I even awaken Healing? Will Ethan love me or hate for having Healing affinity?" These questions repeated in her mind like a broken tape. She could feel it. The mid of the Advanced level but it seemed something was holding her back and she couldn't achieve the enlightenment needed for that advancement.
She had been for the past 2 days hoping to advance and meet the expectations of her beloved Ethan. Advancing in levels after the Novice level was a bit difficult and it was more difficult for some affinities as compared to others. Normal elemental affinities like Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Plant, Lightning just needed comprehension of different uses of the affinity, or you could just copy skills and spells of your predecessors. Affinities like Shadow, Light had similar requirements but when it came to specials and variants like Psychic, Telekinesis, Healing... the requirements were absolutely different. It was the perfect definition of walking your own path. No wonder those group of mages awakened the more powerful paths. Their requirements to advance weren't normal and orthodox. Why?
For one, they could copy skills of their predecessors but they won't be as powerful as the real thing so that wasn't advisable plus it was very hard to copy. In actuality, they had to comprehend and understand what they were dealing with. They had to become one with their affinity, the final destination of mages, to be one with their affinity. But this was something special and most variant affinities required. The more you advance, the more you become one with your affinity. Because of this, it was very hard to find, for example, a Puppeteer saying a spell. They just do it. They were more of action than words. Not that they couldn't use spells or skills, but this was more straightforward. Besides, the skills and spells they use are infused with their affinity more than just mana or the effect of what the skill or spell was supposed to do. With this, you could say that those with affinities in the special and variant were somehow overpowered but that was where the requirements came in. Without fulfilling the requirements, you wouldn't advance and that was what Harley was experiencing now. Her requirements were fairly simple than most. She just had to nurture the lotus on her forehead. What would she achieve? That was for the future, but it seemed that she had done some with how some were slowly turning white, but it seemed she was at a roadblock.
As her face scrunched in concentration and determination, she remembered the day Ethan left, just three days ago. She remembered whatever transpired on that day and the face of confidence and belief, trust, love that Ethan directed towards her even though he was saying otherwise. Her hardened face softened as a beautiful smile appeared and then it happened. The lotuses floating in her consciousness all turned into small golden butterflies in imitation of her spirit beast and flew towards a huge golden lotus on top of her. It had seven petals standing out from the rest with three in the middle of the lotus and four under the lotus pointing in the four cardinal directions. The four lotus petals had their tips turned into a bright shade of white which glowed as intensely as the initial gold.
On the outside, a similar representation could be seen on Harley forehead although smaller. On her back, four beautiful butterfly wings sprouted, gold in color and designs with their tips and ends in white. The golden light surrounding her moved towards her drunkenly like moths towards fire and formed a huge halo, the size of a truck tire above her. Around her, a faint manifestation of a lotus could be seen pulsing with power.
And then, it exploded outwards in invisible energy, spreading to 4 kilometers from her home. The energy passed through everything, and its effects were instantaneous towards living things. Normal humans who hadn't yet awakened and with some illnesses were healed mysteriously, crying and hungry babies stopped crying and fell asleep peacefully with content and comfortable smiles on their faces. Everybody 4 kilometers from Harley felt a peace and warmth like never before. Like the embrace of a mother.
This phenomenon continued for an hour and then light around Harley dimmed and turned off. It was already nighttime. She slowly floated down to the bed with a happy smile on her face. She was clearly satisfied and happy with her advancement.
'Finally! I can be by his side. I will go there tomorrow and surprise him. Hihi! I'm so happy. I will take his virginity, and he will take mine and we will be one! I can't wait till tomorrow.'
With these not so encouraging thoughts, Harley drifted into the land of dreams, already experiencing the stuff she had imagined in preparation for the main event.
Love or Lust, only the future would tell...