POV Miria
After granting the farmer's wishes—which were so simple they could barely even be considered wishes, such as helping carry the harvests, giving him energy to continue his work, and granting a beautiful future for his children—I was left deep in thought. Those were the purest requests I had ever received. He didn't ask me to conjure riches, he didn't want to learn powerful magic, and much less did he demand mountains of money. I think if I had asked that man to set me free, he would have done it without hesitation, expecting absolutely nothing in return.
Unfortunately, I ended up missing that opportunity, because his wishes were so simple and honest that they caught me off guard, leaving me in shock.
I returned to the inside of the lamp, but one thing just wouldn't leave my mind: the final memories of the original Miria. In her last recollections, she was relaxing and watching the world through the vision of mortals when, suddenly, she felt a presence. It was a soul. As a deity, she possessed a vast knowledge of souls and the workings of the afterlife. When souls spend too much time in the world of the living, if they do not meet the criteria to ascend to the Divine Realm—and one of those criteria is originally belonging to this world, since beings from other universes cannot enter there—they begin a process of transforming into spirits. During this transition, they inevitably end up losing part of their memories.
The appearance of that soul was that of a 28-year-old adult. Yes, ten years older than the age I remembered being. That soul had crossed the rift between worlds and was turning into a spirit. However, since two magical beings cannot coexist inside the same magic lamp, the artifact fused us: it preserved the mind of the spirit—which was my consciousness, or at least what was left of it—and joined it with the body of the goddess, as it was infinitely more powerful.
So... did I really die?
I couldn't even remember my own death. According to the goddess's divine knowledge, the arrival of souls or people from other worlds to this side is uncommon, but perfectly possible. However, crossing dimensions and emerging precisely inside a magic lamp was a statistically almost impossible event. I must say I had a bizarre mixture of luck and bad luck. Luck for being in the body of a goddess, which allows me to access the Divine Realm despite being a foreign soul; but a massive stroke of bad luck for losing part of my memories and still being trapped inside a magic lamp. This theory made perfect sense.
So, am I a fusion? I am not entirely Alex, nor am I entirely the Goddess of Fire. Well, that makes me someone even more unique.
Furthermore, the divine memories I inherited allowed me to perfectly understand the inner workings of my captivity. After a few tests, I managed to catalog the 5 absolute rules of the magic lamp:
Negative emotions corrupt the artifact: The lamp is made of pure sacred mana. Sacred mana can be corrupted by malignant and hostile wills; the type of intention directly affects the energy. This is why I cannot kill people through wishes. Requests for treasures or material goods do not qualify as hostile, because sacred mana is actually neutral and is not driven solely by positive sentiments. However, there is a massive difference between neutral and negative. To corrupt the lamp, the intention must cross that neutral line with an incredibly dark force. Common anger doesn't cause this; it has to be the actual will to commit an atrocity. The lamp is so restrictive that it blocks these actions before the master even has time to fully conceive the idea.
Only one spiritual being at a time: As I mentioned, the lamp cannot process or understand the simultaneous existence of two spiritual beings inside it, which caused our fusion. However, it is entirely possible for flesh-and-blood humans to enter the lamp through wishes for a limited time.
Prohibition of internal magic: There is a clear difference between channeling divine power and casting mortal magic. I cannot cast the spells of mortals in here, nor can I use my divine power to escape. I can only manifest my abilities to influence the external environment. If I weren't sealed, things would be very different.
Internal indestructibility: I cannot destroy anything inside the lamp. Everything I create in here becomes part of the artifact's permanent inventory, and original objects always return to their proper places. It is because of this preservation rule that I can draw freely without using up materials.
Submission to the lamp's will: I am forced to follow the guidelines of the artifact, which is fueled by pure sacred mana and programmed with the strict order to grant the wishes of mortals.
Pure sacred mana is nothing more than corrupted mana that has undergone purification. When the lamps suffer this degradation, the energy is cleansed before the genie is placed back inside. Basically, a path exists to reverse the corruption from the outside world, but I am not the Goddess of Light to find someone capable of purifying me with ease. It is extremely difficult to find a mortal who has received the blessing of light, as the Goddess of Light is absurdly demanding. Furthermore, everything would depend on the person's character, whether they would use that divine power for the common good or for selfish purposes. In short: it's better not to risk it.
Taking advantage of my elemental connection, I tried to observe the people around the farmer to find out where the lamp would end up next. From what I noticed, he had never performed the ritual to receive the blessing of the gods; his family never had the financial means to even pay a church to conduct the ceremony. I couldn't feel a single trace of a blessing on him.
Shortly after, he walked into his cabin, cutting off my external line of sight. With nothing left to watch, I sat down in front of the piano and began to play, letting the notes echo as a lonely thought persisted: will I ever truly be set free?