CHAPTER 24: POINT SYLVIA

Soren woke up only a few hours later. The brief corruption he had experienced at the end of his exit from the Three Layers had definitely done their damage. Luckily, Myrin's healing magecraft was able to solve the issue—he'd gotten used to it by now with his consistent overuse or [Eyes of the Fairy]. Though, that still didn't really fix the psychological problems. He wondered if there was magecraft to help with that too (which he doubted).

Aside from that, the group also took care of the rest of Malevolent Hexes and made a mass grave to bury them—at least what remained of them anyway.

After he awoke, he was bombarded by questions from all of them, which he happily answered, excluding what he discovered at the bottom of The Heart’s Shroud. There was no need to reveal the oddity of what his True Self looked like, at least not yet.

As sad as it was to admit, Soren still couldn’t fully trust them. Although Tina and Myrin were extremely friendly to him (excluding the moments when Tina loses her cool), their relationship was still pretty shallow. He knew close to nothing about their personal lives aside from their names, and the only reason they allowed him to tag along in the first place was solely because it was beneficial for both sides.

A lingering thought always remained in Soren: what if he arrived in this world but never obtained a Soul Weapon? Excluding the fact that he probably wouldn’t have found Myrin and his group in the first place, Soren was of the belief that they would not have helped him if he wasn’t special in some way.

He knew however that he was being extremely harsh. Myrin’s and Tina’s actions so far had not been antagonistic at all. In fact, they were more than helpful—most of his requests were rarely denied. And their supposed Star Fate Guild being inclusive of other backgrounds also gave him some hope that they weren’t simply playing an act on him.

Still, habits die hard. It’s not like he didn’t want to trust them, he just hadn’t really connected with them deeply yet to give them his full benefit of the doubt. He had already decided within The Heart’s Shroud to let go of his past for good and to view this world as a new chapter in his life.

Aside from Soren’s deeply rooted trust issues, the announcement that he had unlocked his Soul Realm truly shocked them. It was particularly surprising that even Tyrel, who rarely showed emotion, appeared slightly bewildered—a reaction that most definitely satisfied Soren.

According to them, it was entirely unprecedented—at least from what they know of the countless successful magi within the various kingdoms. Even the magical capital of Yarian, Luvinica as Myrin called it, had only a few rare cases of people manifesting their Soul Realm in their first try. And most of those instances weren’t on purpose or they were nobles that had countless court magi helping them.

So for Soren, who was already half-dying to do it with just a few days of training during a carriage trip was insanely miraculous.

According to Myrin, all Soul Realms are born with an inherent ability. These inherent abilities usually have deep rooted meanings to one’s true self. Myrin’s for example allowed him to interact briefly with other people’s soul layers (specifically the Echo of Mind), letting him parse thoughts and tell lies from truth.

He wasn’t too sure what Tyrel and Tina’s situations were, but he did know they too had Soul Realms, and most likely an inherent ability of their own.

When Soren first activated his Soul Realm during the encounter with the Malevolent Hex swarm, he had somehow used his inherent ability accidentally.

It was only after discussing the matter with Myrin that he discovered a few things.

Firstly, inherent abilities come pre-learned the moment one unlocks their Soul Realm. He remembered Myrin saying something similar in the past—how the moment a person manifests one, their ability to use it would be similar to moving another limb—entirely subconscious.

Secondly, his inherent Soul Realm ability… It was tied to [Eyes of the Fairy].

When he first discovered this with Myrin, he wasn’t entirely shocked. Afterall, it made sense for his Soul Realm to be deeply connected to his Soul Weapon, which is in actuality, his True Self—whatever that meant anyway.

Myrin on the other hand was rightfully confused. A Soul Weapon’s inner workings rely on a person’s Runic Existence and the surrounding Soul Chain to function—the Abstract Runes of which only existed conceptually in The Beyond. A Soul Realm on the other hand needed a person to understand their True Self before blossoming. One was heavily influenced by the will of the world, while the other was influenced by the will of one’s inner self respectively.

For them to mesh in such a way was completely nonsensical and broke a bit of Myrin’s understanding of the Mysterious World. This only made him more curious to know what Soren saw deep in the fog, but he disappointingly declined giving any details.

Either way, Myrin was grateful his ability manifested in such a paradoxical way. They would have all died if that wasn’t the case—something which Myrin berated himself over. It was rare for Soren to see Myrin so depressed. Their fight against the Malevolent Hexes that time came extremely close to ending them. Without Soren’s [Eyes of the Fairy] paired with newly manifested Soul Realm, they would have all been doomed to die without even knowing where their enemy was.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Myrin had told him that a Magi’s strength comes from their preparation. And this time, he was clearly not as prepared as he thought he was. The intel they had on the anomalies of the forest weren’t exactly detailed—their mission was to investigate after all…

During their brief camp stop, he even overheard Myrin speaking to Tina about possibly doing a study on how to pierce the veil of The Beyond using regular magecraft. He did not want a repeat of the day before to ever happen again.

Moving past their regrets, Soren was actually relatively thrilled with what he obtained from his Soul Realm’s inherent ability, even with the existential questions the experience left him with. Now that he could connect his Soul Realm to [Eyes of the Fairy], the spiritual zone he expands around him acts as a way to remotely view things from a distance—an ability that Myrin said most Magi would fight each other to the death to have.

He didn’t fully believe his praise—after all, he’d seen Myrin and the others do way more incredible things. Being able to shift his point of view while looking into the beyond seemed relatively simple in comparison.

It did prove extremely helpful in their navigation however. Now that his vision could see further ahead, the threat of the illusionary barrier somewhat subsided. He was mapping more and more of the Feylith Forest at an insanely quick speed. And what was even more surprising was that aside from a few Spirit Beast encounters, they had still not encountered a single Malevolent Hex since that incident—something which Myrin found highly suspicious.

Sitting at the front of the carriage with Myrin, Soren glanced down at The Records which was displaying the updated map while chowing down on some Jerky.

“Point Sylvia is just around the corner I think,” he said with his mouth stuffed with food.

Myrin chuckled. “Indeed, I can already see the Beacon of Guidance from here.”

In the meantime, Soren checked back on his status page which had slightly changed. A glint of pride masked his eyes as he read the page again.

Status

Name: Soren Andersen

Race: Human

Age: 22

Vocation: Scribe

Magi Rank: Minor Apprentice (No Circles)

Magi Affinities: ???

Soul Realm: The Hermit’s Eye (Unique) (Nascent Stage)

Soul Weapon: The Records (Unique) (Tier 1 - Tome)

Skills:

[Record] (Rank 1) - Chronicle the information around you.

[Eyes of the Fairy] (Rank 1) - See the unseen.

[The Faerie Court] (Rank 1) - Enter the realm of realms.

Titles:

[Traveler] - You have embarked on a journey across space and time. Echoes of the rift will no longer shatter your sanity.

Rune Collection: ???

To say he wasn’t shocked when he first saw the new sections was an understatement. It seemed that his Soul Weapon had recognized the qualitative changes and accounted for that new information. Though, his Affinities being marked as ??? confused him—he assumed he’d be able to know them the moment he unlocked his Soul Realm. But according to Myrin, there’s an entire other process to finding that out.

According to Myrin, his Soul Realm being marked as nascent was completely accurate. Even though he could manifest it out into the world, the duration was insanely short—roughly thirty seconds according to their tests. And that wasn’t the only issue either. His anima within his Soul Realm was flowing evenly throughout the entire manifested zone, so overusing it could spell instant exhaustion. He had to learn how to create something Myrin called, ‘Channels of Willpower’ that led his anima to where it needed to go.

In short, there was still so much left for him to figure out. The more he learned about how complicated magecraft really was, the more he began to question the ritual he conducted. How was he able to pull it off? And without a Soul Realm to facilitate the complete movement of his own anima at that.

Something told him that he would probably never find an answer to all of this unless he revisited Earth, something he was reluctant to do. And most importantly… His eyes shifted toward [The Faerie Court]’s description on his status page. That skill was still a complete mystery to him, but he did know its origins.

The Rift.

The mention of it made him shudder as the memories poured back in. At the end of his Soul Realm manifestation test, he had been attacked by those whispers again. They clawed at his mind, desperate to be heard. But the moment he returned back to reality, the whispers stopped following him.

Soren took this as confirmation that Unknown’s obfuscation techniques had worked, but they limited the corruption of the rift to his Three Soul Layers.

He sighed to himself. This was another problem to solve. If the whispers permeated his Three Soul Layers, then there was a possibility of them interacting with him directly through his Soul Realm. He would need to be extremely cautious while practicing this new ability.

“We’ve arrived,” Myrin’s voice cut through his reverie. Soren watched as the surrounding trees unfurled, creating more road for the carriage to move in, until finally, they reached a clearing.

Soren froze, his mouth agape. Never in his life did he ever see such beautiful scenery. What reflected in his eyes was a large lake with a glistening blue reflection—nothing like what he imagined a swamp to be. The lily pads were enormous, but aside from them, there were entire blooming lotuses that glowed in the dark as well, illuminating the scene even more.

The biggest light source however had to be the Beacon of Guidance which was positioned directly at the center of the ‘swamp.’ Countless lily pads surrounded it from all sides.

Just as he was about to get off the carriage and rush to explore the surroundings a bit, a small silhouette appeared beneath the blinding light of the pillar.

A gentleman appeared—one with elven ears. From what Soren could tell, his hair was jet-black and curly, swaying in the moonlight wind. He was wearing a silky, flowing robe that reflected the light of the Beacon of Guidance. The fabric shifted in a dreamlike manner—Soren caught himself almost falling asleep just by glancing at it. Aside from that, he was holding onto a staff that was just as tall as he was—three black bells were attached to the top of it which chimed at the faintest breeze.

Both he and Myrin looked at the stranger curiously, until Myrin realized something. “A Saint…” He blurted out.