When Odin opened his eyes again he was at a familiar yet unfamiliar place

Unlike the previous time when it was dark in the night, he could clearly see his surroundings this time around

The land looked like a wrinkled painting with all the cracks caused by the summer heat. In contrast to them the boulder stood, alone and unchanging. Under the sun's golden hew, their surface shone brightly with the morning dew

It was the same surroundings as that night, a desolate landscape with boulders here and there. However, he wasn't at the same location as the last time

Well there isn't much to see here anyway but..

'That wasn't here the last time, or maybe it was but I just didn't notice because it was so dark' thought Odin as his hair stood on end

He saw a faint outline of what seemed like a castle wall in front of him. It was quite far away but its size was considerably big, at least as big as the underground mine.

After the previous mission he was sure about what it was, The ironclad keep.

As if it was waiting for this exact moment, another quest floated in front of him

[Quest: Destroy the orc patrol teams without being detected]

[Current progress: 0/10]

[Reward: Weapon selection scroll x1 (D grade)]

[Penalty: None]

[Note: This is a chain quest. Failure will terminate any follow-up quests and no further quests will be given in the same area.]

phew.. Odin took a deep breath and readied himself.

He was here to train anyway and regardless of how big that Castle is, it doesn't matter much to him now who's still struggling in the outskirts.

Unlike the last time, Odin could bring some things with him because he had the permanent key.

He had bought enough dried food to last him for 3 days, which was akin to a miracle but thanks to sister it somehow worked out

He also bought a pickaxe, it's not much of a weapon but it's better than having nothing

Despite all that, the biggest change Odin had was that he had now succeeded in the world resonance, on the first try after coming here at that!

Maybe because of the freedom he felt after the change in environment, or the psychological pressure he felt after predicting the future events in the underground mine, it made him succeed nonetheless.

It was a strange feeling, almost like a sixth sense. He could sense the world around him and the energy that was being emitted from everything around him

He felt the force in the air; the land he was standing upon, and even from himself. But that wasn't all of it.

He had the sensation that he was lacking something, that what he felt and observed was only a portion of the world and something was lacking in his comprehension.

He looked at the message in front of him in deep thought.

[Congratulations for taking your first step on the journey of cultivation]

[You have completed the mission: world resonance]

[New levels have been unlocked]

[Mission world essence: You have felt the world around you, but it is only the first layer. Find out what is the essence of the world and use it for your own]

‘Hmm as the mission entailed I was missing the essence of the world. Everything around me seemed dull and lifeless despite being full of energy, so that's why.’

Despite his gnawing curiosity, Odin didn't think much about it as he sat behind a rather big boulder and manifested the tome.

He had completed one of his goals for coming here, and this was enough. Even though he cannot comprehend the essence of the world and can barely utilize a tiny portion of the energy he felt from the world, it was enough to use in his current stage.

What he was lacking now was his comprehension of the law of illusion.

So far he only understood some basic information, but it was nowhere near enough for him to create a skill.

‘I should read more specific texts that can help me create a skill faster’ thought Odin as asked ominira for the same.

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Shortly after, the pages of ominira started flipping on it's on and Odin started reading the new text

A few hours later when the sun hung above his head, Odin finally closed the book with satisfaction.

The knowledge he got wasn’t enough to create a skill but that didn’t mean that it was useless. Sometimes finding the right direction is more important than progression.

His main strength was the law of illusion itself, and not the skills and abilities he could use. He should be able to use the law of illusion to do whatever he wanted, and having a skill is just one way of doing it.

He stood up with vigor and started to stroll around looking for a suitable place to lay out traps while pondering on the new knowledge.

He realized that the sensory information is never complete. For example, the eye is always in the situation of analyzing and interpreting the information available from what we’re looking at. So, in a way, we can say that there are no visual illusions as such, only varying levels of information about the underlying reality.

If the information from one scene is artfully arranged in a way that shows a different kind of visual scene from a glance, this is not an illusion. Why? Because the source of information that we perceived was indeed the reality for us at that moment.

For example, a person looking at a tree might not discover a Chameleon which has changed its skin color to blend in with the surroundings. Would that be an illusion? Not if you think about the previous statement.

The information he received from his eye would be the same with or without him discovering the chameleon, so it’s indeed not an illusion as what he “saw” was correct.

The only difference is in the process of ‘analyzing and interpreting information’ which was received from the sensory organ, the eye.

Another thing that Odin found absolutely amazing was that with the same thought process, one could say that color is an illusion because it is a way of encoding the spectrum of varying wavelengths into a format that throws away most of the spectral information.

So we can say that the colors we see are in a way an ‘altered’ or ‘distorted’ version of white light that spreads across the physical reality

Sensory information undergoes a relay from some physical energy source into a neural code, with an inevitable loss of information to some degree. So can we say that all these transformations are illusions? Of course not. Otherwise everything around us would be an illusion

Color illusions occur when an object that is usually experienced as one color is made to appear to have an objectively different color. So, an illusion is generally considered a deviation from the ‘normal’ or ‘frequent’ sensory code, not the source of the sensory code itself

For example, How we don't notice a different-colored leaf in a tree unless we look carefully

As Odin was looking around to find tracks of orc patrol teams, he got an unexpected surprise that pulled him out of his deep thoughts

[Level up!]

[You have acquired the related knowledge]

[Innate skill "Stealth" is created]

[Stealth: Hides your presence in a certain range. It's in the most basic form and it can be evolved further depending on the knowledge you comprehend]

‘I leveled up again! Although it'll be troublesome as the boost is no longer useful, but I finally managed to create my first skill.’ Odin clenched his fists in excitement as he observed his newfound power

He did find it confusing though, so he asked ominira about it.

“Is there a difference between innate skills and the skills I create using the knowledge of Corvidae?”

“Obviously there is. Innate skills are purely a manifestation of the comprehension of your law, While the skills you create are related to your class’s specialty”

“Hmm.. can you explain it in a more practical way?”

“It's troublesome because you've created your own class. Innate skills are weak but can be evolved in the future. While class skills are much stronger, they cannot be evolved fundamentally, however their scale and applications can.”

“Is it like creating one fireball and creating a hundred after that?”

“...yes”

Why do I feel like ominira's looking down on me?

Odin decided to ignore the strange feeling and asked the questions he had anyway

“Doesn't that make innate skills much better then? They can be evolved in the future and from the looks of it they are much easier to create. What’s the point of having class then? Why can't I just study about the law of illusion?

“Tch.. obviously you don't need a class. Do you think everyone has a self-created and complex class with an object like ominira with them?” a voice tinged with disdain rang in his head

‘I was right!!! But it doesn't feel good nonetheless’ thought Odin as he felt embarrassed by his questions but he still wasn't satisfied

“What are the advantages of class skills then? They can't be just stronger right”

‘if so no matter how much of a difference it makes, it feels like a waste of time to me..’

“It would be easy to answer if it was any pre-existing class, but not in your case”

‘Damn!’ Odin slouched as he Kicked an innocent stone to god knows where

“But it won't be a waste. You can add your innate abilities in skills, as many as you want depending upon your comprehension.”

‘What?’ Odin felt baffled and decided to ask thinking that what he heard incorrectly

“Does that mean that any class ability I create can also have stealth by default if I wish so?”

“Indeed. For example, if you had selected an Archer class that cultivates the law of illusion, all your arrows would have stealth on top of their respective techniques.”

“Whoa! That's really great. But I still find the whole system a bit confusing”

“Of course you do. You tried to understand the fundamental logic of every progression method in the entirety of Svemir, do you think it would be easy?”

‘Tch.. should I have just accepted the things as they are without trying to make sense of them with my limited understanding?’

Odin felt really grateful to have forgotten his class creation memories, otherwise his head would've exploded by now

“You shouldn't be discouraged by the hard work. You decided to create your own class because you liked the process in the first place.”

“Yeah I know... it's fun but I was curious as to how strong my abilities will be”

It was true. He didn't really hate working hard but it was just that he was both overly excited and confused at the same time

“It's hard to tell but self-created classes are stronger than any other classes, even amongst the rare and exclusive ones, a lot stronger than them”

Odin didn't expect to get an answer, especially the emphasis on the last part. After much struggle, he decided to act cool by not asking any more questions.

‘I'm sure I won't get any answer anyway.’

After conversing with Ominira in these past few days he was pretty confident in his prediction this time

As Odin was wandering around lost in his thoughts, he found something that stood out like a sore thumb in this desolate area.