“My eyes!”

“What is this!”

“Someone close the doors!”

Esperanza heard yells from everyone around her as the blinding light covered her senses. Fortunately, her eyes seemed to be able to adapt to the sudden glaring brightness within moments, and while it was still annoying to look through, she could see things relatively clearly once more. The first thing she did was to take measure of the situation, and she felt relief when she noticed that other than the brightness, there was nothing untoward happening.

Then Esperanza noticed that the matron yelled for someone to close the doors, so she extended her limbs and did just that. The brightness died out as she closed the door to each chamber, either being contained within them or otherwise turned off. After she closed all the open doors, the chamber returned to its previous, more comfortable level of lighting.

It still took a while for the others to rub the glare out of their eyes, though, since every one of them was caught by surprise. The matron included.

“Ahh… Thank you! My deepest apologies, Exalted One and Honored Ones. We use these chambers to train beginners in the masking and infiltration skills of our tribes. Those orbs were designed by the local clergy to flare up with light when they detected the presence of those who followed the Deities of Yore in the vicinity,” explained the matron apologetically. “I had been so excited by your presence that I had completely forgotten that your mere distant presence would have likely caused this sort of reaction from the orbs.”

“Apology accepted, matron. I was also at fault as I didn’t consider reining in my aura in such a place. Should have expected you to possess something with a similar function to train with,” replied Esperanza with a nod. “Let me take care of that issue real quick.”

With a flex of her will, Esperanza reined in her aura and confined it inside her body once more, the way she usually did it while they were traveling. She had allowed her aura to flare unimpeded after meeting Abr-Niz and throughout the previous days in Zikeal because it was honestly more comfortable that way, and the locals were also unaffected by the negative effects of her aura.

If anything, they seemed to be invigorated by it instead.

Given how she usually kept her distinctive and very noticeable aura under wraps though, it took mere moments for Esperanza to rein her aura once more. The [Progenies of Yore] behind her had no such skills for the most part, other than Legisvula who had a skill that hid his aura as part of his skillset. Similarly, out of Ani’s people, it was the two scouts who had skills along that line.

“That should do it. Let me try to open one…” said Esperanza as she extended her arm to open the door of the nearest chamber once more. The moment she opened the door, bright light – maybe a little less bright than before – flooded the chamber once again, though, so she quickly shut the door closed once more. “Guess that’s not good enough, or else it’s you kids who’s triggering it this time…”

“It is probably the Honored Ones, Exalted One,” replied the Matron with a slight bow. “They are far more attuned, far closer to the deities than the average person here. Not even the priests from the temple ever got that sort of reaction from the detectors, and there are many of them together on top of everything. It is not unexpected to have this sort of reaction as a result.”

“Would they still be able to train, then?” asked Esperanza. If the presence of the [Progenies of Yore] was enough to cause the orbs to overreact like that, it might cause difficulties if she wanted them to train the infiltration skills.

“The chambers are designed to isolate the inside from the outside, specifically when it comes to auras like these. As such, as long as they are alone inside a chamber they should be able to gauge the results of their training effectively. We could even have it open to have some people who are skilled in the technique watch their progress and guide them, if desired.”

“Interesting. Let’s give it a try then, shall we?” asked Esperanza to the rest of her group. They all nodded as while many of them aren’t suited for infiltration regardless of whether it is in the Human Kingdom or the Demon Territories, the ability to hide their aura could come in handy some day. Esperanza herself was already quite skilled with it, but other than the three scouts most of the rest lack such a capability.

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“Might as well,” noted Ani as she walked towards one of the chambers. She quickly opened the door while squinting her eyes, entered, then closed the door behind her. The others repeated her actions, one person to a chamber, until eventually only Esperanza, the matron, and the five agents that volunteered remained in the main room.

“Let me try as well,” said Esperanza as she opened the door to the next chamber over. To her surprise, however, this time there was no light whatsoever emanating from the room. The crystal ball that detects the presence of Oldies’ power lay inert and quiet on its pedestal. She even touched it and saw no change before she turned to look at the matron questioningly.

“I believe this means that your control of aura is so perfect already that the power of the Deities of Yore couldn’t be detected by others easily, Exalted One,” explained the matron with an unsurprised look on her face. The five behind her looked quite impressed as well. “If you could try to leak a little bit of your aura? It should trigger some reaction from the detector.”

“Okay…” Esperanza did as the matron bid and allowed a tiny bit of her aura to leak out. Almost immediately, the crystal orb shone with a blinding brightness which almost caused her to flinch. She quickly retracted and suppressed her aura once more, and the brightness faded right as she did so, returning the room back to normal levels of lighting.

“As expected from one of such exalted stature…” muttered the matron as she approached and seemed to inspect the crystal orb carefully, she – as well as the other five – had apparently kept their auras strictly confined as Esperanza saw the matron make the crystal orb light up with varying degrees of brightness with ease. “It would appear that the Exalted One’s aura is so pure with the Deities’ power that the detector would immediately flare up even if only a little bit was leaked.”

“Is that bad?” asked Esperanza with some curiosity.

“No, not exactly, especially since Exalted One already knows how to control it. Otherwise its presence would have made Exalted One rather easy to find and track by anyone who is sensitive to auras,” replied the matron. “From the orb’s reaction, however, Exalted One should be able to hide it so well that it should not be detectable by most.”

“I see,” noted Esperanza. A confirmation that her control of aura was good enough to potentially infiltrate without having to cram herself into a grotesque corpse meat suit was a good thing.

“If the Exalted One pleases, we could observe how the others are doing now. Since we are the only ones present in the room and we all know how to hide our auras, we would not affect the detectors of the people we are checking on even if we open the chamber’s door,” suggested the matron, which Esperanza accepted. She was curious to see how the others were doing.

The first door they opened was the one to the chamber Ani occupied. The orb in her room had a bright glow, but not to the point of being blinding. The idea behind the chambers was to allow an individual to experiment with various ways to hide their aura, with or without guidance from others. The presence of the orb allowed them to check their progress and take note when something they did was more effective than other approaches.

“The level of brightness that the lady showed is about the higher end amongst the people here in Zikeal. We usually only see that in those who have achieved their fourth tiers, or particularly talented third tiers. I guess it was to be expected of the Exalted One’s companion,” noted the matron as she observed closely at Ani’s orb. After some small talk and a few tips from the matron they closed the chamber’s door once more and left Ani to her own devices.

When they opened the next door, which was the chamber Val-Kas’j occupied, they were all nearly blinded by the bright light once more. Val sat cross-legged in the chamber itself just before the crystal orb, though with his eyes squeezed shut from the brightness. Given the level of intensity from the light, everybody understood why he did that.

“You know, Val, why don’t you just sit with your back to the orb instead?” suggested Esperanza after a moment. “That way you could still check whether the brightness had reduced or not and not get blinded from staring at it.”

“That… The thought had not crossed my mind, Exalted One. I thank you for the suggestion,” replied Val-Kas’j somewhat sheepishly as he turned around and opened his eyes. “This is much better indeed, compared to before.”

“I guess we’ll leave you to your training then? We’re going to check on how the others were doing.”

“Go ahead, Exalted One, and thank you for the advice once again.” replied Val-Kas’j with a nod. They closed the chamber as they left it behind and went to check on the rest of the group.

In most cases, the orb shone brightly. Blindlingly bright in the case of the [Progenies of Yore], less so for the other members of the group like Iryl and Ani’s people. In their case it was more of a bright but still relatively comfortable glow, not one that would strain the eyes if one were to stare at it for too long a time. Surprisingly, Iryl had already made some headway in her practice, as her orb already shone dimmer than it used to, which she demonstrated before the matron and Esperanza.

As expected, Legisvula and the other two scouts from Ani’s team also already had a rudimentary grasp on the sort of skill the matron and her tribe practiced. They were not able to hide themselves as well as the matron’s tribe could, as their skills were intended to hide their presence rather than their aura, but it had some effect as well.

The matron speculated that as long as they practiced for a few days, chances were that they would be able to pinpoint which part of their skill actually helped with reining in their auras and eventually earn a general skill from that, the sort that the tribe’s ancestor discovered. From there it was simply a matter of practice to go further.

Esperanza thought that it was a good idea, since being able to infiltrate either the human or the demon societies – something her group could do since they had people capable of assimilating into those societies without attracting much notice – would allow her group to not only learn things they wouldn’t otherwise, but also would present them with opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t be available to them.

She herself would practice her bodily transformation skill instead, as at the moment she wouldn’t be able to pass for a human under close scrutiny, even if she could do so from a distance or through a cursory check. By the time her skill reached its next evolution, she should be able to disguise herself any way she wanted to with ease.

Of course, that course of action necessitated a prolonged stay at Zikeal, but fortunately the locals were all too happy – or rather, honored – to accommodate the group’s stay. If anything, they acted the way most fans in her previous world would have if their beloved celebrity suddenly came to their place and asked if they could stay there for a while.

It was a bit eerie at times, but she learned to accept the offered kindness and worship, as those came from pure intentions.