Circulating mana was many times easier with my body relaxed like this. I had never considered that the state of the body might influence the internal flow of mana. I was currently walking around in the jungle looking for trouble. I don’t believe anything here would be a threat to me. I felt amazing!

The wildlife is avoiding me though. Even those that are normally aggressive, run at sight. So many strange animals so many strange fruits! I’m making full use of my freedom!

I stumbled on a city after spending weeks in the jungle. It was floating on a large lake and it was simply stunning. The theme was blue, white, and water. I got more and more impressed the closer I got to it. Most of the walls were transparent and had water in them. colorful fish had made their homes in the walls. Did I find another paradise?

It was just like Gittrian. All types of races going about their day like it's normal. This should be normal but unfortunately it isn't. Everyone was friendly.

I spent a month in this beautiful city. Another place that was hard to leave but I can’t explore if I stop at every location. I admit, my sense of time is terrible. I might want to stick around for a while and suddenly decades may have passed. I need to keep moving!

Alledra was the name of this beautiful city and it was the capital city of the Aquini Kingdom. I have good impressions on this country. It was time to visit another country.

I flew over Hjuva toward Zanyr, which lies west of Hjuva. The largest country on the continent is named after its first emperor and shares its name with a river, its capital, and a mountain. I wonder how a conversation goes if you ask somewhere on how or where to find Zanyr.

And there it is! Zanyr Desert! I wonder if humans have lost their creativity in names over the years. This is my first time visiting a desert. I’m not too fond of deserts as a water user, they make water magic relatively weak or even useless.

I tried my best. I really tried my best to like this desert but I couldn’t! I was currently running away from a large sandworm. Although running was a big word. I’m not very fast and this worm is catching up. The sand makes running hard.

“I will give you some sand so please don’t eat me Mr. Worm!” It might be possible that this worm doesn’t understand Kaledonian. I tried old Kaledonian. It might be my imagination but it seemed to piss off the worm more.

So I was wondering if the worms eat anything else than sand so I kept removing sand from its mouth and flinging fruits and other edibles at it. I had gotten my answer. It only eats sand and perhaps a Misha here or there.

It didn’t seem as if I could solve this without getting eaten or peacefully so I hopped on my catalyst and flew up.

“Here eat a spicy [Fireball]!” I kept venting by flinging [Fireballs] from the sky until the sandworm died. It was time to leave! At least that’s what I thought but I spotted something in the distance. Is that a building? There are people here in this sandbox?!

The building seemed to be ancient and nobody was here. It had writing on it but I could read none of these. Is this building form before the Great Eraser? An event that wiped out information and memories of anything that happened before. As far as I know, nobody can read these. Can I hack into it by cheating with magic? The building in which I locked up that creep god was similar. Maybe I need to heat it up?

That didn’t work. Maybe water? My water magic was weak here but it was enough to douse the building. Also, nothing. I tried many methods and combinations of methods. I kept most conditions the same while adjusting one condition as a variable. After 52 sets of 40 different permutations, I concluded that I would not get anywhere.

It might be possible that specific conditions need to be met to have a shot at this and being able to read those languages might be one of them. I could make this another goal. Find out what is up with these buildings. They are spread over the whole country. Someone has to unveil the secret to them someday!

A plan started to form in my head but I got pulled back to reality when I saw something strange and black in the desert sand. It disappeared after a blink. Did I imagine that? I moved to the shade of the building while looking around. I couldn’t see it but something was here. I could feel a presence.

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I briefly saw it again but it disappeared. I had spotted some magic runes. I didn’t see anything but it seems something related to perception. It wasn'tmy imagination! Something is really here! I attempted to create water cones but they didn’t so well in the arid desert environment. I placed my back on the wall of the building to make sure it couldn’t get me from behind. What does it want?

Escaping was easy but my curiosity wouldn’t allow me. I didn’t get freed to escape from everything. I had only started to escape from the sandworm after I confirmed that it would only eat sand. It might also opt to eat meat from time to time as its chase after me had suggested. I’m sure that I’m tasty.

I will find out what this strange black blur is! I created countless [Fire Wisps] around me, floating at different heights and distances from me. They were packed quite close together. They would act as my ‘skin’. I would normally use [Flood] to feel out the area around me. Any disturbance in the water would tell me where invisible enemies were.

The desert makes this impossible so the densely packed [Fire Wisps] will do. The fire wisps reacted as if something was pushing them aside. But I had difficulties turning my head toward where this thing was supposed to be. I moved along the wall away from it.

I get it now. It’s messing with my perception by making me unlikely to look in its direction. It’s only possible to see it on accident.

How can I force another ‘accident’? I can’t see the mana runes of it if I can’t see it. I could have used Elgards eyes right now. I'm sure those would have no issues looking at this Blur.

I opened the magic circle of [Water Clone] and started messing with the magic runes in it. I removed the runes coding for water magic and added the ones for fire magic in its place. As a basis, this will be enough to create [Fire Clone] but each element has some properties specific to itself. I kept moving my back along the wall while replacing these. My clones also needed a wide field of vision and possibly something to counteract this ‘Perception Slip’. It was challenging without the setup of my lab but it was doable.

“Alright! I’ve had it with you!” I used 2 [Fire Clones] after its synthesis had been completed.

It took a while before the fire clones could see something but slowly but surely the Blur became visible. It was still a black blur and had large yellow eyes. Totally not creepy.

I read parts of the magic sequences. So it indeed messes with the perception. The blur is caused by a strange time dilation.

I moved away from the Blur as I still had no idea what it was. The magic circle was messy but I could find out what it was doing. I don’t know who made this but it was clever.

This Blur shortens the time someone can look at it. It will be easier to explain with an example! I had trouble figuring out exactly what it did but this example helped me.

I imagined a scenario where I would look at this Blur for 15 seconds, lose sight of it for 15 seconds and then find it and look at it for 15 more seconds.

This blur alters my perception of time and makes it seem as if I only saw it for 1 second or less in those 15 seconds. It will then have to stretch time of the 15 seconds I didn’t see it. So while I still didn’t see it for 15 seconds it has to stretch those 15 seconds for itself to 50 seconds, 100 seconds, 500 seconds or more. I’m unsure of how much it has to stretch time but it has to compensate for all the time it had ‘stolen’ while someone should have seen it.

So, in the last 15 seconds when I see it again. It will have to do the same as in the first 15 seconds where I saw it. But it won’t be able to do it as well as the first instance. So instead of trying to keep sight of it at all times, I need to periodically lose sight of it to force itself to compensate for the time it had stolen which will consume insane amounts of mana. I will wear it out and that will allow me to see it for longer.

The magic circles are sloppy but the thought and intention of it is intelligently constructed. The ‘Perception Slip ’is to make sure it doesn’t burn through its mana too fast but these parlor tricks don’t work on me.

Now that I knew the trick, I could dispel my fire clones. I kept the [Fire Wisps] around as this Blur is only interested in not being seen. I kept moving away from it along the wall, created clones and observed it at set intervals for set amounts of time. I had used the example of 15 seconds and I was executing this based on those 15 seconds.

15 seconds of observing it. Then not observing for 15 seconds and then observing it for 15 seconds again. I kept this up for 53 minutes. It was now unable to steal time for the 15 seconds that I was observing it. I was sipping on some juice and observing this blur without any problems.

This thing is a pain in the ass. It’s perfect for ambushes. Now what does it want? I stretched my arm and a fire clone walked toward it.

The Blur touched it and both got sucked into a portal and disappeared. I dropped my drink. It was brief but I felt mana emanating from that portal. I recognized that mana! It was Verruka Saltpeter’s mana! So that bitch is still alive and still at large! What are the Misha from Witchaven and Mildowa doing!?

So, this bitch is still after me? Well bad news for her! I’m free and upset! I had enjoyed my free time but there’s no point if she keeps sending these things at me. She wants a fight? She will get one! I won’t mess up this time! This means war!