Spiritual Metamorphosis (Revised)

Dreamland, a wilderness blanketed in ice and snow, where biting winds howled.

At the boundary between a stream dotted with floating icicles and a snowy white forest, Stan Duplessis stood in the snow, staring blankly at his recovered body.

The shock from a second ago still lingered in his mind.

He had heard that great, majestic voice, as though it belonged to a supreme being, yet he could not discern anything from it. He could only feel that as the voice fell silent, unbelievable information that completely overturned his former understanding flooded into the Depths of the Soul.

"I was chosen by a Great Being and have a chance to become one of Its followers? As long as I can pass the trial that is about to begin?"

Stan Duplessis processed that information while confirming that he was neither dreaming nor suffering hallucinations from being near death.

He watched the breath leaving his nose and mouth turn into white mist, then looked at the dense goosebumps rising beneath his tattered clothes as his body sensed the plummeting temperature. He quickly took several steps forward.

The snow crunched beneath his feet as he reached the stream.

He swiftly crouched down and stretched out his head.

In a small unfrozen pool by the stream, he saw a familiar face—his own.

Slovenly and dejected, and somewhat aged.

But he could tell that the body he now possessed was far stronger than the one he had in reality.

"At least it doesn't have that whole pile of painful but nonfatal illnesses. I'm probably in the same condition I was in after binge-eating in my villa for a month following the divorce."

As Stan murmured to himself, he suddenly recalled the last sight he had seen before being sucked into this mysterious land: his body