"Let's wake up."
Before collapsing his previous universe. Visdre had deviated the technique and had made it so he didn't need to sleep.
This was no longer the case.
You could say in a sense that Visdre was starting over completely. He had lost his old visualization technique and needed to start things from scratch.
But he was no longer the same person.
It wasn't that his essence was different. He had endured endless torture. Now that he had used his mysterious book to construct a spiritual brain.
He had never felt such fluid thinking before.
Visdre looked around at the heavenly palace that was his new source castle. It looked as if it was about to collapse.
"When I was just a normal person. I modified the technique and did something that wasn't even an option."
Visdre looked at the cane in his hand. This was the transformed previous owner's spiritual body.
"If I am able to trap a version of my self like this... what is to stop another from doing the same thing to me?"
Visdre waved his hand and felt a slight sting as his source castle fell apart. He then shifted his consciousness. It was like waking up from a dream.
Visdre got out of his bed.
"I am still locked out of all my accounts..."
"I am also jobless."
Visdre smiled.
He could feel ECHO running in the background of his mind.
[ECHO]: Sta-ERROR!
[ECHO]: Error... deviation from technique.
[ECHO]: Transforming...
[ECHO]: Create loop? Y/N
"No."
[ECHO]: Technique collapsing...
Visdre sat down cross legged on his bed and focused on his sea of consciousness.
He remembered an earlier message of ECHO in his last universe.
"Revival, huh?"
"What exactly am I?"
Visdre had no special powers. He was completely ordinary. The hidden rules of this universe made it so even the tricks he had learned from the dream realm were useless.
"The book told me that I was destined..."
"It is some sort of inheritance. There is more then one version of me out there."
Visdre started to laugh. It sounded distorted.
"Who am I? I am Somnus!"
Visdre waved his hands and tried to distort reality just like a dream. But, as expected. Nothing happened.
"Tch."
"Fine. Boring! I guess I need to just build myself a foundation. I had already figured it out last time, didn't I?"
Visdre remembered when he was researching into astral projection.
Visdre's thinking was no longer so simple. He didn't trust whatever entity created 'ECHO' or the written instructions of 'Path of Somnus: God's Death'.
"The core of my existence has been corrupted by ECHO. It is helpful in its functions... But I will not allow something I don't understand to lurk in my subconscious."
"I'll only trust it once I fully understand what sort of entity I am dealing with."
Visdre focused on his sea of consciousness.
It was completely empty!
Visdre remembered when he seperated his spiritual body from his physical body and kept both aware at the same time.
He called this phenomenon 'spiritual weight'.
Basically, it was like splitting your awareness.
Back when he was aware of both states. He was throwing around half of his spiritual weight.
"I lack a fundamental understanding of the technique. This is due to me making the mistake of not reading ahead."
"I won't allow such a thing to happen to me again!"
Visdre planned on reading through all the content available to him.
Visdre got up and went to his computer, he quickly opened up his browser and found the webnovel. He planned on reading through the entirety of the technique.
"As long as I know the future steps of the technique. I won't have to worry about being locked up or put in a similar situation in the future."
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
He went to the main page of the book and scrolled down.
"Let's start with this..."
Step 12: Kill God
"I see... a 'constant', huh?"
"What exactly is this entropy?"
"It also warns me that I will need to do the 60,000 hours. But I lack my 'key' now. I'll need to fix that. But I have a feeling that constructing a key will be far more efficient with full knowledge of the technique."
"Let's continue..."
Step 13: Hidden Existence
"An ordinary body possesses something even nonexistence fears... normal limits... no extraordinary power."
"How interesting... I am currently in such a universe..."
Visdre made a mental note that this was an incredibly important chapter. As it was the birth of your 'hidden existence'.
He planned to revisit it after reading through everything.
"I will do this step once I pass the first bottleneck."
"As for losing my progress? Or not being myself anymore? I don't trust it. Because I am a foreign entity already. I have already 'stolen' my body. My spirit should also be tough and have natural resistance to such tricks."
Step 14: ECHO - System Genesis
"Creating a unique golden finger? This 'system' is likely to be busted... but I don't understand how it works. It would seem I will need ECHO to develop sentience..."
Step 15: Hivemind
"!!!"
"So that is the secret behind the 'key'! It is much clearer now in my mind."
"Throwing away your soul... or should I say transforming it into a global existence? Then using a true existence to explore the multiverse safely."
"My origin universe is destroyed. But I have escaped it..."
"My circumstances are rather unique."
"If I followed this technique blindly and worked on it slowly one step at a time. There would be flaws in my foundation. By starting over and reading like I am doing now. I gain a better understanding and can make a perfect global existence."
"My understanding of the global existence still isn't as great as I would like. But things are making more sense. There is far less vagueness then before."
Visdre felt as if a fog had been covering the technique previously. But now... that fog was gone! The mystery of this book was disappearing and was becoming something he could follow.
Step 16: Remember ECHO
"ECHO may be able to help me in certain situations. If I use commands, I may be able to directly do stunts that would otherwise take lots of effort. But it isn't all powerful. The path needs to be possible."
Visdre felt this 'step' was a bit useless. But he remembered it just in case. He also remembered how in his last universe. When he used to have the same dream every night. That black book started to update to match the words he had read in this technique.
"That book is part of my spiritual body... It is also able to revive me. It should still function simiarly to before."
"My memory is a lot better as well. But if I need to check the details of the steps. I can easily do so through the book."
Step 17: Revival Ritual
"I see... It would seem this entire time. I was right! I am using some form of energy to power my consciousness. Well... especially now that i have a body again."
"Back when I died and was stuck in that room. I was using a form of energy to think without a body!"
"Imprints..."
"Creating a beacon. This might be a rather useful step in the future."
Visdre read about two forms of revival in this step. One was physical and the other was spiritual. When thinking about his 'symbol'.
Visdre thought about the black book.
He remembered the advertisement he initially saw that led him to the book in the first place. Three circles...
"I have some ideas for my symbol..."
Step 18: Contracts
"Hidden existences battle using knowledge."
"I see, I must construct a working ritual. Contracts are important. I suppose I must pray to a higher being. That entity being myself!"
"The black book must be a natural spiritual artifact!"
"Relying on contracts to shape the world. I wonder if it is actually possible?"
"A battle with the alternate versions of myself? Interesting."
Visdre felt like this step would be quite different for him, since his case was a bit unique. He still hadn't even designed his ritual yet!
"It seems like hidden existences have some level of distortion over consciousness. This can allow them to do things like mess up the mental state of a person or influence their decisions. It should be a good idea to make a shield against this just in case some entity is messing with me now..."
Visdre was starting to have a lot of ideas for paths he could take. These ideas appeared seemingly out of nowhere, as a consequence of reading the inheritance.
He felt this path was almost too good to be true.
"Preying on desperate people. This inheritance is a little evil. I am an upright and righteous person! I would never... probably..."
"The concept of deals and contracts is quite interesting, if not a bit demonic."
"I will have to experiment myself to see how effective it actually is! Not because I'm evil... I must control this power to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands..."
"Souls are currency?"
Step 19: Extreme Sanity
"Becoming extremely insane through reversing the technique? Going back to the source? By reversing the flow of information to the brain. You can become manic and delusional..."
Visdre saw that one needed to be delusional in the first place to practice such a technique.
Visdre's eyes lit up.
"You will no longer need to sleep? Could i have been on the edge of performing this step- No. This is a different level entirely. It is a manic state. My mood back then was normal. Nothing like what is described here..."
"Rebuilding reality from the ground up... how fascinating..."
"I guess I will call this state 'God's Death'."
Step 20: Energy Field
Mental Force
Mystic Force
Transcendent Force
Entangled Force
"I see! By reversing the technique in the last step. You gain another sense. It is similar to looking within your sea of consciousness. But this supposedly exist on a mystic level. It is more then imagination. It is the storage of your energy."
Mental Energy - Gas
Mystic Energy - Liquid
Transcendent Energy - Solid
Entangled Energy - Degenerate Matter
"Energy decay? I must condense my energy. This is too advanced..."
Visdre felt as if he wasn't suppose to be reading this part without having even broken through the first bottleneck. But he felt it was too late to stop now.
"A 'shuttle'. The ethereal dimension, the mystic realm..."
"This realm seems to be insanely dangerous. The real hidden existences lurk within it... I would probably become a puppet to a higher being at best and become completely wiped out at worst... maybe there is an even worse fate."
"I must become proficient as manipulating my energy field!"
Visdre said this... but he couldn't even visualize his energy field! He hadn't achieved the state 'God's Death'. He naturally lacked the experience required to even mess with his energy field.
"60,000 hours is the time it takes for someone with average aptitude to condense a single unit of mental energy!?"
"I haven't even passed this simple bottleneck..."
"Yet... I'm thinking about manipulating my energy field."
Visdre felt he was a bit cocky. This thought made him smile.
"It's good to be alive!"
He remembered his death and felt new hope for the future.
Visdre clicked the next chapter.
Step 21: Shuttle
'Access Denied'
"What?"
The text started to squirm.
Visdre felt as if someone had thrown boiling water on top of his head. It burned! It burned so bad! This was what he felt before he had died previously!
But this weird situation disappeared in a flash and he found that he was back to chapter 20.
Step 20: Energy Field
"I have a feeling... I can't go further then this chapter."
Visdre hovered his mouse on the 'next chapter' button.
But he felt a bad premonition.
"It seems some entity is watching me..."
Visdre moved his head, seemingly looking at a random direction. It was as if he was looking at [YOU].
"Who are you?"