CHAPTER 5 - VANISHING INTO THE MIST

While trying his utmost to comprehend the strange book, MC 1 fell asleep. When he awoke, he found himself on his bed cocooned in blankets. He groaned. This was definitely the work of his grandma.

After rolling himself off the bed and then another couple times he finally freed himself. That’s when he noticed that there was a paper tucking out of the corner under the book. Pulling it out for a closer inspection he read “Vanishing into the Mist”.

There were 40 weird circular things written on the page, nothing more than that though. It really made no sense as it wasn’t from any of the languages he had learned from the villagers. However, it still left him with a vague sense of familiarity. Just what were these weird symbols?

“You are awake,” The enchantress spoke as she appeared inside MC 1’s room. MC 1 did not even bat an eyelid to her soundless appearance as he had become accustomed to it over the course of the many years. She refused to teach him how she did it though.

“Good morning Grandma,” MC 1 greeted but his eyes refused to leave the paper in his hands. It appeared like he had become completely absorbed in some other world. As he continued to stare slowly the image of galaxies and nebulae began to be reflected in his eyes. If there was one commonality than it would be that his eyes were turning a shining violet. The reason was because that is what he saw. The longer he stared at the page, the more those circular runes began to appear as different galaxies from some remote corner of the universe. And then, whoosh.

“Oi, what the hell da ya think yer doin’ plebe” the voice of a parrot broke him out of his reverie. Looking around MC 1 suddenly found himself out in the forest. He was standing on a tree branch that was roughly as thick as his waist and a parrot was perched directly across from him nibbling on a giant fruit the size of his head.

“He is learning astral spells. There is no reason to be bothered,” the enchantress spoke. Somehow, she had appeared right next to him.

“Woah grandma! You know how we got here? Wait, you said astral spells? You mean like the magic thing those magicians in the north do? Am I a descendent of those magicians? Wait, but haven’t you always been training me to be a cultivator?” Seeing his grandma, MC 1 quickly got over his surprise at the change of environment and immediately started buzzing off multiple questions.

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“Yes, yes, yes, no and yes,” the enchantress replied. “Go on, use that astral spell again. It doesn’t require you to use your energy so it will only require you to concentrate and recall that star arrangement”.

“Okay!” MC 1 enthusiastically looked back down at the paper and began focusing on those circles again. After almost a full minute his eyes began shining again. This time when he vanished, he shifted his focus to his surroundings. He felt sort of cheated when he performed this trick the first time as he had no idea how he disappeared. Unfortunately, this time was no different. By the time he came around he was already someplace new. At the same time the mist around him clustered and formed his grandma, which left him gawking. They were in the training valley now where he had learned “Demon Decimating Sword Slash” many years ago.

“The technique you just used is called an astral spell. It was a technique the Far Sighted sage created 30 years ago. It is still relatively new and with the exception of some of the villagers and myself, the number of people in this world who can use this technique does not number over a hundred” The enchantress explained.

“So that means I must be pretty awesome right?” MC 1 asked.

“No. This is considered one of the most useless techniques in the world,” the enchantress retorted.

“Huh? Why is that grandma?” MC 1 was curious.

“Because no one has the time in the middle of a fight to open up a scroll with 40 galaxies printed on it and then spend a full 60 seconds entering a reverie in order to be transported to a random spot within 4 kilometers of their location,” the enchantress explained.

“Eh! The location I appear in is random and it's not possible to control it?” MC 1 was confused. If that were truly the case, how come his grandma was appearing right next to him 2 out of two times!

“Don’t jump to conclusions. It is possible to control it, but the only ones who are able to do so need to be able to visualize all 40 galaxies drawn on that paper with every single star in the correct location and distance from one another. Only when they do not need to look at the paper can they use their eyes to look in a particular direction and move in that direction. Otherwise, they will just be randomly shot off somewhere by the technique.”

“Huh? I have to memorize the location of every single dot on this page and then be able to recall it immediately to get rid of the 60 sec lag and then also somehow hide which direction I am looking in to ensure that someone following me can’t just appear right next to me like you did” MC 1 frowned. Now that his grandma explained this to him he began to see why this was so impractical. Indeed, only those who were considered monsters by the outside world would be able to use a technique like this proficiently. That is why the villagers were probably able to.

“Keep practicing, if within 2 days you can’t memorize it then I will confiscate all of your birthday loot.”

“...”