Luke was on a race against time, his mission was to locate the target quickly, if not Atlan.

In their current wounded state, the odds were stacked against them. But together, they might just survive.

Out of desperation, he resorted to a technique he had not fully mastered: Consciousness Duplication.

"The human being is dual in so many ways. It flirts with opposites constantly, yet marvels at the idea of coexistence... But let's not digress. Let's talk about a more 'tangible' aspect of human duality," the voice of his master, the Wise One, echoed in his mind.

Luke was mentally transported to the time when he was studying the mysteries of psychic energy.

He found himself seated on a coffin in a crypt.

In front of him, the apparition of a child spoke with noble wisdom, belying his juvenile appearance.

"Is he the one talking about contrasts?" Luke thought, observing the spectral figure's animated gestures.

"Your physical body isn't your only form. There's another, invisible, concealed within the physical: The psychic body. It's atrophied in most people, useless and unexploited. But for the fortunate and brave, those who recognize its existence and work to revitalize it, it presents a world of possibilities," The Sage explained with a passionate intensity.

The Wise One existed in a spectral form, a remainder of his psychic body that had detached from his physical one at his death.

This explained the existence of ghosts: they were souls inhabiting deteriorating psychic bodies.

In a way, ghosts were slowly dying, again.

Luke often pondered over the Wise One's poetic view of death as a new beginning.

Was it a result of the Sage's fear of non-existence? Or a byproduct of his scientific investigations? Or perhaps it was mere fancy.

Was the Wise One's favourite symbol, the ouroboros - the snake consuming its own tail, a profound mystical truth or simply a comforting fabrication created to dispel fear of death?

Luke found it amusing to imagine a ghost afraid of dying.

But let's get back on track. The Sage knew the psychic body well because he was one, but since he wasn't attached to any physical body, he couldn't do much with it.

The psychic body drew its energy from certain physical organs: the glands.

No physical body, no glands; no glands, no energy.

Therefore, his knowledge was primarily theoretical when it came to the true potential of the psychic body.

Stolen story; please report.

However, he was still able to explain the necessary basics to Luke to develop his abilities.

The psychic splitting, for instance, allowed him to temporarily separate his psychic body from his physical body.

This meant he could be in two places at once; somewhere physically, and somewhere psychically. But this technique wasn't supposed to allow one to use both bodies simultaneously.

"It's impossible. It would be like… Hmm… Being you and me at the same time. You'd have two bodies to manage. Decisions to make in two different situations, different information to analyze simultaneously. And to move independently in two bodies? Can you imagine the difficulty? It would equate to duplicating your consciousness. It's impossible," the Sage had told Luke when he asked if it was possible to control both bodies at the same time.

Despite this refusal, Luke had trained to achieve this.

After all, the Sage's knowledge was limited, he didn't have a brain to strengthen to aid in this task.

Luke began training until he mastered psychic splitting.

Once he was comfortable with this technique, he started to try to use it while remaining physically standing.

And when he accomplished that, he began using his psychic body while performing a repetitive task, physically: mowing the lawn, cleaning a grave, or doing push-ups.

It took months to finally be able to split while remaining partially conscious in both bodies. It wasn't exactly the goal he had aimed for, but it was enough.

Back in the bunker, Luke focused his attention on his psychic body.

He felt this body vibrating, just beneath his skin.

He was in familiar territory, he knew by heart the sensation he needed to feel in order to split. In an instant, he was out of his physical body.

He saw himself from above, psychically; and at the same time, he saw straight ahead, physically.

This strange effect had made him nauseous many times in the past, but he had since become accustomed to it.

He wasn't really mastering consciousness splitting, but a technique similar.

This technique involved allowing his psychic body to exit, 'transmitting' his will to it.

In this case, to find Atlan, or the target.

He didn't have much control over his psychic body using this method, but it allowed him to be completely conscious in his physical body.

However, he still received 'impressions'. These 'impressions' were fleeting images, and sensations picked up by his psychic body.

In the bunker, he had released his psychic double, which moved at high speed freely; darkness, walls, traps were no problem for him.

The will Luke had instilled in him made him move more by instinct than anything else. One moment he was near him, the next he was several hundred yards away.

When his psychic body was out of his physical body, Luke couldn't use psychic techniques. So he was vulnerable.

He hoped for one thing: not to come across an enemy before finding a lead. "Walls, walls, walls... a huge hole and blood? That must be where the explosions came from... No, farther. Walls, offices... Farther. Walls, a door… A room with screens and... a man sitting in front of them?" Luke stopped.

His double had found something. Luke focused on this last impression.

He now saw clearer images. A man in military gear was sitting in a small room, watching screens before him.

"On the screens, not much is happening, one man is running, another seems to be hiding from something? And the last... Is that me?" Luke thought. Suddenly and hurriedly, he recalled his psychic body and turned around, his eyes fixated on the corner of the wall behind him.

His eyes shone in the dark, like those of a predator. An infrared camera was watching him; he destroyed it with a swift slash of his sword.

Hundreds of yards away, the man sitting in his chair shivered at the sight of this scene.

"I thought these guys were cannon fodder and would die quickly without requiring too many traps. But between the veteran who slaughtered my bears and him..." He rewound the scene by pressing a series of keys on his keyboard, then resumed his train of thought.

"He started to become apathetic because of the poison gas... Okay, that's normal so far... Then everything changed, his way of holding his sword, his movements, his speed. It's like he's not the same person, such violence! And then he stopped, and suddenly he found the camera, and his eyes were glowing. What's this madness? A new mutation?" he wondered.

He pressed a button and the black screen left by the destroyed camera gave way to the view of another part of the bunker, empty.

The man was staring at the screens, not paying attention to what was happening on them. He was absent.

Then he closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands. "Loyre, I promise I'll make your task easier, I'll kill at least one level 2, at least one... I won't die here, not now, not before I've done that. I promise you..." he muttered.