CHAPTER 12: BENEATH THE SILVER-EYED MOON

An echo of shattered thoughts and memories slammed into Soren’s mind—like tumultuous winds meshing unevenly and brewing into a storm of colors and unending emotions. He frowned slightly from the pain as his thoughts slowly returned to him from whatever dreamscape he was in earlier.

It seems I’ve passed out again… Makes sense—I don’t think even the most athletic people back on Earth could have lasted that long… I'm not sure if I should be proud of myself or worried…

His eyes were still heavy. He could feel the familiar smell of grass next to his face—Tina and her group must have left him to sleep on the ground to get the rest he needed. Although his vision had still not returned to him, his hearing was much more active.

“What an interesting Soul Weapon. Myrin, have you seen anything like this one before? I don’t believe any of the known six deities can manifest one like this?” Tina’s voice reached him. He decided to eavesdrop for a bit.

“I don’t believe so.” Myrin chuckled slightly. “It might have an origin to the Beast of Knowledge. Though, I don’t sense any Draconic symbolism from it—the rune is different. He’s much more likely to be a Vagrant Phantasm.”

Soren kept pretending to be asleep, but their conversations made it hard for him to follow. Vagrant Phantasms? The Beast of Knowledge? Am I going to hear about aliens next?

“Do you two think he might have come from beyond the Endless Sea? Those Vynasian bastards and their rift-crossing ships always seem to come from that direction. You Yadrians should know more about it, though.”

“Nay. I was busy learning the arts when I lived in Yadria.” Soren recognized Myrin’s feminine voice. But he couldn’t tell who he was speaking to. There was a third person beside Tina and Myrin. The conversation continued. “But I did know a royal guard who spotted one off the coast—I believe he said it was large enough to fit the entirety of the Spirit Blossom Willow on its deck and still have room for more.”

Soren heard someone clicking their tongue—it was Tina. “All this talk of Vynasians is seriously pissing me off. When is this bastard going to wake up? There’s so many questions we need to ask him. I thought a bit of healing magecraft would do the trick.”

Shit, they won’t decide to abandon me in the forest if I take too long, right? Soren thought for a moment about ending his act and waking up when he heard Myrin’s cheerful chuckles.

“You don’t need to worry about that. He’s already been awake for a bit now. Right, Mr. Andre?”

Soren slowly lifted himself up from the grass. He kept his face stoic (to hide his embarrassment) as his eyes slowly adjusted to the blinding pillar of light. Before he could address Myrin’s question however, his eyes trailed off to the illuminated skies. He had not realized it before, but the clearing had a large opening within the trees that allowed one to gaze upon the sea of stars.

But what was even more dazzling and gorgeous than the very stars themselves was the celestial sphere radiating its silver grace upon the cyan-blue grass. It could only be described as a marble. Unlike the moon on Earth, the one reflecting in his eyes was flawless—its surface clearer than the finest sea-shell pearls. Not even a single asteroid crater could be spotted.

He stared up at its dazzling silver light in awe. Myrin looked at him with an amused expression, “Surely this isn't the first time you are seeing the Silver-Eyed Moon?”

Soren couldn’t help but say one word, “Beautiful…”

Tina crossed her thighs while flipping through the pages of The Records, which was sitting on her lap. “Interesting reaction. It seems pretty much confirmed at this point that you are not from this land—heck, you might not even be from Yarian entirely. How did you arrive here, Mr. Paranoid Andre?”

Soren closed his eyes and rubbed his temples to clear away the lingering pain. Should I just tell them? Myrin had already shown his capabilities—he could read Soren like a book. But that was what made it even more interesting for him. He wanted to test him—to see how far his “reading the tone of your soul” ability could go. Even back on Earth, half the fun of playing chess for him was reading his opponents and understanding what moves they made next.

“Let’s cut the Andre thing.” Soren smiled softly at Tina. “My real name is Soren Andersen. As for where I am from, it is a place called Earth. Though I doubt you’ll find it on any of your maps.”

Myrin’s lips curled up into a smile. “Interesting. You are not lying this time. Does this mean you trust us?”

“Perhaps…” He shrugged. “Perhaps not. The fact that you guys didn’t kill me in my sleep should mean I can trust you to a certain degree.”

Tina threw The Records toward Soren, who caught it clumsily. “Either way, it’s already pretty apparent that you aren’t from these lands. You’ve been speaking a weird language from the start—one we haven’t heard of before.”

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Soren lifted his brows. “A different language?” He then suddenly remembered their conversation. Although he was understanding what they were saying, the words and phrases did not match the English he was used to. In fact, the dialect didn’t match anything he had ever heard of on Earth, and that was surprising because he was fairly well traveled.

Myrin interpreted his thoughts and replied. “I've had my Soul Realm expanded around us this whole time. With it, our thoughts are shared directly to each other’s souls, regardless of language differences. Though, it is a little rough for me, haha.”

Soren didn’t fully understand what a “Soul Realm” was, but he chalked it up to magic being responsible somehow. I Seriously want to ask him more… His entire journey to Yarian was due to him wanting to discover magic in the first place. However, he knew that it wasn’t exactly the best to ask for lessons on magecraft now. Even if he did ask, he doubted Myrin would teach him anything—they were still nothing but strangers.

“Alright, I got it, but I still think I should try to learn your language. I don’t want to rely on Myrin interpreting my thoughts all day.” Soren’s thoughts raced to see the unseen, and The Records recognized it and immediately activated [Eyes of the Fairy]. His ancient tome of a Soul Weapon glowed in a faint radiant gold as it levitated in the air. The smoldering pages morphed into butterflies that rushed into his eyes.

Myrin and Tina watched the spectacle with their eyes widening. Tina was about to ready herself for an attack, but she recognized how lax Myrin was and decided to drop her guard as well.

Soren viewed the world from beyond the veil. Countless shapes and interesting geometric formations filled his vision, but his focus was strong. He had only one purpose for activating this ability of his: to understand what language Myrin and Tina were speaking.

Despite the risks, he had two crucial reasons to use his ability now. The first being that ever since he had discovered [Eyes of the Fairy], a theory had been forming within him. He realized this ability let him understand information without direct learning. His attempts at using [Record]—first with the Blue Silver Grass and then with the Memory Void Spirit—highlighted this. The second usage yielded far more information, which he could only attribute to [Eyes of the Fairy].

From his understanding, learning involved the brain interpreting and storing information biologically. Yet, [Eyes of the Fairy] bypassed this. Most knowledge his Soul Weapon recorded was new to him until he read it in his book. Strangely, even skills like playing chess or speaking English appeared in The Records without using [Record]—showing that his ability could probably be used passively as well.

He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what all this really meant, but he did know that there had to be another aspect to one’s existence beyond their brain, and Myrin’s talk of “reading the tone of your soul” proved this.

Soren smiled slightly and tried to focus his otherworldly vision on Myrin. “Could you converse with me in your language?”

Myrin rubbed his chin slightly and smiled back. “Interesting… Your Soul Weapon seems to be of the Abstract class. That’s very rare.”

“Abstract?”

Myrin nodded. “Indeed. Its powers can take on unconventional forms. Though, I could be wrong—it could also be of the Object class. You would need to take a Soul Dive test to find out.”

Soren witnessed the words being spoken, but his focus was entirely on analyzing the language itself by activating [Record]. Weirdly enough, rather than hearing the words, it was more like he was watching them being spoken into existence—strange symbols were manifesting themselves before his eyes as the world shifted apart once more. [Eyes of the Fairy] had once again disabled itself—a sign that he had probably overexerted himself. And it wasn’t hard to come to this conclusion either. The moment his vision returned to normal, an overwhelmingly painful sensation took over him as his eyes felt heavy.

He frowned slightly while looking at his Soul Weapon, which had manifested the familiar fountain pen. “How long did our brief conversation last?”

Tina tilted her head. “What do you mean? Wasn’t it just a few seconds?”

A few seconds, huh? Good, I thought time would warp again, but I guess the cause for that side effect needs something else to activate…

“So what exactly were you doing just now? It looked fairly interesting.” A grungy yet unfamiliar voice startled him. It sounded similar to the third person who was speaking back when he was pretending to be asleep.

Soren tilted his head back to find a small child, roughly the height of a standing lamp, staring at him. His sharp onyx eyes pierced out from above the half-mask and hood he was wearing that covered his face. He was wearing a loose shirt with a leather tunic layered above it, paired with dark trousers and boots. A blade of some kind was strapped to his back. Unlike Myrin and Tina, a layer of darkness could be seen surrounding him that he couldn’t fully understand.

Myrin chuckled slightly, “I know what you are thinking. No, Tyrel isn’t a person from a special race or lineage—he’s just a really short human.”

Why the fuck did you need to air that out? He could clearly see the anger hidden behind his face-mask. Soren decided to just answer his question. “I have an ability that allows me to analyze things, even ones that aren’t tangible, and obtain hidden information from them. I tried using it during the conversation to hopefully see if I can gain some info on it.”

“So? The results?” The impatience was lingering in every word he spoke. I guess his first impressions of me are screwed from the get go. He made the choice not to provoke him any further.

Soren’s thoughts were recognized by The Records, which shifted its chapters back to the status page.

Event Log

New Entry Recorded: [Vinua] (Language)

“Bingo.”

Tina, Myrin, and Tyrel all curiously looked over his shoulder to view the information displayed on the book. Tina’s eyes widened, “Interesting… When I was messing around with it, nothing was showing—the pages were empty. Though, I still do not understand this script at all…”

They can read my thoughts to interpret what I am saying in English, but that doesn’t apply to my Soul Weapon. He noted that information in the back of his mind.

“It says at the bottom that I learned a language called Vinua.” He decided to explain it to them by commanding his Soul Weapon to turn to the page displaying the information about the language. Although they didn’t fully believe him, he could tell they were somewhat impressed by his abilities. This was the second reason for why he needed to do this. Although Soren doubted they would abandon him, it was still best to try to prove himself to them in some way or another. After all, he hated being seen as useless more than anything.