How did one truly prepare anybody for what was to come in the future? Would exposure help? If the Core expected pain in a few years, did it need to slowly expose itself to more of it over time so it could get used to the sensation? Or should it try to avoid it entirely through other means? The entire question depended on the scenario. Was the situation avoidable? Could the Core survive the experience? How bad was the pain?
In the current case, the situation wasn’t really about the Entity itself. The Core was merely a spectator to the whole ordeal, not needed nor required to be there after the initial setting things up. It did suppose that it did stay around to help keep data aligned with the actual results since it had a better vantage point than the Queen but that was only a minor detail.
But what was happening? Well at the current moment, they were watching a man lying on the floor with his eyes clenched shut. There were some small mutterings about a rock jumping up at the Druid’s back as well but the Core ignored those claims. It had made the floor perfectly smooth meaning the only thing causing the pain was the man’s inability to relax.
“We’ve been at this for ten minutes now,” the Queen said, even if it had been eleven and a half. “Are you going to start this up or not?”
“I am trying to do as you asked right now,” the Druid replied pointedly, the position he was in making his voice slightly croaky. “But it is not that easy when I can very much sense the things floating five fucking centimetres above my head.”
It was closer to ten, actually, but the Core didn't think that mattered much to the annoyed man. There was not much going on in the man’s Mana other than a small burst coming out at the closed eyes. It seemed that even without any smell or air manipulation, it was quite easy to detect the Queen’s Mana-Tendrils. If a weaker [Enlightened] could do such a thing, it was becoming more clear how the other intruders a few hours ago had been able to do the same with a bit more ease.
“We have to get good readings on how you enter and leave your body if we are to improve your skill,” the Queen started with a bit more glee than what the situation called for. The Core was getting closer to thinking she was sadistic. “Now get out of there and take a walk.”
“Can we at least do one attempt where you don’t have that thing on my face?” the man pleaded.
“No,” the ant flatly rejected, very much in favour of keeping it on his face.
The Core had no real opinion whether it was there or not. Security was already in place to make sure the man didn’t die during the attempt so there was no actual need for it to be so close all the time. Yet the Queen, in all her wisdom, said it was funny if it was done this way.
And it wasn’t like it didn’t work out in the end. After another five minutes of the man looking extremely uncomfortable with his standpoint in life, those eyelids of his did finally relax. With it, the Mana once again started to show abnormal reactions to the outside. The Core had only seen it once before yet even now it could tell how much more restrained the movements were. There were fewer bursts of energy leaving the body, everything being more contained within a new medium.
‘Does everything look alright to you?’ the Queen sent over to the Core. ‘The legs don’t seem as well-formed as they should be.’
Looking to see what she meant, the Core was quick to find her point. While that particular part of the body certainly existed at some level, it was more… see-through. It wasn’t as dense, the Mana seeping out every time it moved. The barrier that controlled the safe-keeping of the Druid’s essence wasn’t as thick as it needed to be at those places. Was this the reason for the shorter distance the man could travel? It was possible.
‘I do,’ the Core confirmed. Snatching up some of the energy seeping out, the Core was sad to find that it was just regular Mana. No real soul was seen in that. There went the plan of replicating the man. ‘From what I can see, however, the damage is centred around the Mana itself. No [Soul-Leakage] can be seen at least.’
‘That because you don’t have access to [Soul-Sense], little rock. Your Mana variant doesn’t show everything,’ the Queen chided. Which was fair, truth be told. The Core had seen something it would have liked to call a soul previously but it was likely something else. Those patterns that it could use to recreate races? They were something special. ‘But, their soul isn’t getting damaged. Some small parts are hanging out in the empty air, however. Those legs need to be improved next time or we won’t be able to have him travel more than those couple of meters he keeps mentioning.’
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
‘What did you want to do with that skill?’ the Core asked, still not too certain what good it entailed. Watching the man finally starting to move around, the Entity was quick to notice how he walked. Every small pebble on the ground wasn’t reacted to, the man’s feet just moving through them without care. The floor itself, though? That remained hard as anything to him. The Entity wondered if that was due to a mental idea or if the [System] was behind that. ‘I haven’t been able to find many uses for it yet.’
‘That’s because you have not seen the power that such a skill holds,’ the Queen stated as she carefully overlooked the man’s movements. They were slow enough that one could study it all, the Druid a bit nervous about how things were going. Frequently looks back at the body told as much. ‘While the utility of [Astral Projection] might not be much alone, the things you can learn in that state of being are quite immeasurable.’
‘How so?’ the Core asked, following the Druid as they took a few more steps away from the body. They had reached a whole five meters without issue. Their legs were slowly disappearing through… the Entity wondered if the man had noticed.
‘[Astral-Burst] was one of the more dangerous skills used during the old wars,’ the Queen started with a reminiscent tone. ‘Back then, there were a few able to control their Mana enough that they would be virtually undetectable while in their [Astral] forms. With the ability to then walk kilometres into enemy lines without ever being seen, they could assassinate whomever they pleased. Commanders suddenly losing everything above their necks while lying in bed was quite common back then.’
The ability to kill anybody without ever being seen… it sounded too good to be true. The Core noted the detail of only so few ever accomplishing that feat, taking that fact as the reason why the ability wasn’t regarded as god-like. It took work, time, and more dedication than most would ever reach before they could get to such an extreme level of skill. The Druid would likely die of old age before such a time was ever reached.
Or, maybe not actually. With how the Core had seen the insides of the body, it turned out that ageing was quite simply to reverse on a physical scale. Making the body more youthful only required that everything within be replaced with organs created by the Core actively. Anything with a lower efficiency could just be reactivated, anything damaged healed within minutes. It made the Entity wonder how so few immortals had been talked about. The act of self-healing should have been trivial.
‘Are any of those people still around?’ the Core asked. ‘If any of them still know, it might not be a bad idea to have one come and teach the [Druid].’
‘There is little chance anybody survived for much longer than me,’ the Queen answered, her voice turning more sombre. ‘Those alive by that point were too out in the open. Too many knew their name. It was only a matter of time before they lost their heads as well, their power too great for others to accept. Living while knowing you could die at any second because of an unstoppable force was not something most leaders in those days appreciated.’
That was fair enough. The Core had little hope for that to work anyway. With how much the Queen had fallen in power, there was not too high a chance any would have answered her call. Too much to lose just to help out a weaker friend from long ago.
Going back to the sight in front of them, the Druid had started to move forward again. By that point, he had just about reached the ten-meter point. Perhaps even a bit more, depending on where one measured from. Yet… the Core was starting to doubt the man would get much further. The Mana slipping out was too high to get through without fail, the legs in their entirety coming out of the Entity’s sight. How he was even standing befuddled the Entity quite a bit.
‘Do you think-’ the Core began to ask but the Queen was quicker.
‘Yeah, I know. Throwing him back in as we speak,’ Mother Carapace answered as one of her Mana-Tendrils collided with the [Druid]’s [Astral] form. It took little time to push the man back, though the half-elf did go the rest of the way without complaint. It seemed even he had noticed the issue coming up.
The last part of the process was quite intriguing for the Core to see. It was slow assimilation of the soul going back into the body, the connection with the Mana-Nodes being reestablished. Not all the Mana had left the physical shell, of course. All the veins were still having energy pumped through them. It was just at a level far below the standard, only high enough that it could sustain the body for shorter periods. The time frame for that likely needed to be changed if they ever were to try their hand at long-distance travelling.
The Druid gasped as he sat upright for the first time in nearly half an hour. The slower movements while inside the [Astral] side of the world had made the time spent in there quite long. Even the growling of the man’s stomach had been taken note of by the Core. It would do good to conjure something up soon. Perhaps some of those [Food Rations] which had been absorbed during that initial encounter. The Queen had noted those as being very healthy.
“I can’t say that it was entirely pleasant. Maybe try gently prodding me next time,” the man called Buck requested, holding at his stomach while talking. It seemed that the feedback while in astral form carried over to the physical one. How intriguing. “Not… whatever you did before.”
“I was just stopping you from killing yourself on the first try,” the Queen stated. “You need to focus more on your form while inside the different reality rather than what’s outside of you. It causes too many openings on the skin, allowing parts of your soul to seep out. If any of the [Unborn] had been in the forest, you’d be consumed within minutes.”
“What is that exactly?”
“A creature that consumes the pain of souls by torturing them for thousands of years at a time,” the ant bluntly stated. “Very rare but they are near-impossible to kill.”
“Oh, that’s good. You have me worried for a moment,” the Druid said with a sigh.
“However, they are not so rare that you need to only hear about them in tales,” the Queen continued. “There are over ten in this country alone. Some of them are powerful enough to detect such faults quite easily. We need to fix that issue before you even try and use that ability for anything.”
“So… more training?” the Druid asked, not happy at all.
“More training,” the Queen agreed, very happy with the situation. The Core just sat back yet again, even if its mind was beginning to shift towards a new question.
How did one gain the ability of [Astral Projection]?