NOVEL NEXT Increasing Awareness
Chapter 45 Increasing Awareness
It had been several hours since Aleshia and the witch hat had last spoken. There had been no change in Kailey's condition except that Aleshia had been able to spread her awareness some more, allowing her to have some ability to move Kailey's fingers by herself. As the recovery period grew longer, Aleshia began to worry about what would happen if Kailey didn't wake up. She thought that if the body became inactive, it would decompose and be unable to create energy. Similar to an unconscious person.
She was reluctant to live in this new body. She knew she would be robbing Kailey of her life. Kailey would be unable to experience the world as she likely would. Aleshia felt she would be a sham and would tarnish Kailey's image. However, she knew if she stopped inhabiting the body, it would succumb to rigor mortis and perish before Kailey would have a chance to live again.
Aleshia realized she needed to stay active since leaving the body inert was not an option since it could lead to the body decaying. As that thought crossed her mind, she started working on gaining better control over the body. She began spreading her awareness to other areas and took control of the muscular system. She first concentrated on moving the arms, then focused on controlling each of the fingers separately, and finally managed to move all of them simultaneously. The activity was incredibly challenging. In addition to refining her capabilities and fine motor skills, she had to manage resources for different organs. Fortunately, some functions, like the immune system and other systems of that nature, were automatically managed by her and Kailey's intertwined souls.
Compared to the puppet she had tried manipulating earlier, the human body was equally challenging but far more effortless to control. Instead of manually controlling the puppet's parts with unintuitive movements that were disjointed due to the lack of proper foundations, requiring a lot of mental effort and making it difficult to use, the human body moved with much more fluidity. It had a better foundation, making the process much less demanding. Additionally, the human body could generate its energy by breaking down consumed substances, allowing it to function without direct input from the user. Instead, with the puppet, she would have to have it recharged every so often with an immense amount of mana, which would not be so commonly supplied, which could be disastrous if in the wrong situation.