On the third day of my arrival in this world, Darren decided to teach me a technique called ‘stone bullet’. Although there were some similarities between ‘Stone levitation’ and ‘Stone bullet’, the latter was more advanced and effective. That being said the idea of the ‘Stone bullet’ was to have the swirling bondor launch the stone forward with speed. He did mention that the power of the attack wasn’t that high.

That day I spent our entire journey trying to master the ability. Despite how simple it sounded, it was quite an arduous task to split my attention on both keeping up with my companion’s fast pace and also on trying to manipulate the bondor with my intent. But thankfully by the time Sirius decided it was time to camp for the day, I was able to successfully use ‘Stone bullet’.

It wasn’t like their effect was much and someone like Octus could easily catch them, I was still quite satisfied with my progress. After all, another skill was added to my arsenal.

We were still following the lake of tuberson as doing so ensured the need for water and also provided direction for Darren. Having camped and eaten the onex boar meat that was leftover from yesterday, I went inside the tent.

Lying down, my mind drifted back to the fight with Eadric. In the last two days, we had talked plenty about him.

When Eadric attacked Sirius and the others, Darren was able to sense his approach but with his artifact, he could’ve easily decided to hide his presence. My theory was that he might have hidden his presence before and observed them to get more information and then before attacking intentionally let his presence leak out.

In that manner, he was not only able to gather more information but also stop Daren from having any doubts.

Eadric also was able to fool them regarding his powers. My companions had assumed he was close to ascending to the next rank of ‘Mindless Wanderer’ but from his display of power, he seemed more like a newly awakened ‘Mindless Wanderer’ than an advanced one.

Even after awakening or ascending to their corresponding rank, one wouldn’t get the full abilities of that particular rank, instead slowly as their insight regarding their abilities goes up their strength will too. Besides that, by gaining experience one might be able to find some creative use of their powers. And that was why even among mystics with the same rank, there remained differences in power. The difference would be magnified when one side had any artifacts…

Eadric was certainly a rank above all of them but with three mystics all of whom belonging to the first rank, and one of them being a pathfinder normally their chance of victory would have been much higher. But that chance got lowered because of the artifact that Eadric carried.

Even after that Sirius seemed to think that without my help they could have somehow won and I was once again forced to admit his tenacious side.

Sirius didn’t think Eadric was on his own, attacking them solely based on his interest but instead, someone was behind him. I revealed what I learned as Eadric mumbled to himself when he caught hold of me. That there was someone who gave Eadric the information. Someone who didn’t tell me about me.

It was natural that whoever gave Eadric the information about this group wouldn’t know about me but the main part was that someone was there behind him.

With his suspicion confirmed Sirius mentioned that someone from the big families in Xavier might be behind Eadric. Sirius’s team was under direct order of the council and as such it would be highly illegal for someone to try and harm them. Most importantly, most of the artifacts were under the control of either the families or the council.

Although their inner politics were interesting to me, my current focus was on something else entirely. During that fight I was easily caught by Eadric despite my eyes being able to sense and see his teleportation. It should have given me an edge, something to shield myself of. But it didn’t. I was just too slow to react properly then. Sure, I’d been tense and got caught but it didn’t exclude the fact that my speed to avoid an attack was and still is too slow.

Even for the last three days, I was attuned countless times that even Darren was able to outperform me on my durability. He was a support-based mystic for god’s sake!

I felt a sense of urgency grow inside me when that subtle thought took root in my mind. I needed something that made me more agile and allowed me to escape from attacks unharmed. Something that would also allow me to cover a large distance fast, allowing me to catch my enemies off guard.

Agility…

A sudden realization hit me in that moment and I shot up straight inside the tent. What if I used the bondor similar to how I’d use for ‘Stone bullet’?

Immediately, multiple thoughts popped up in my head. Some of which I discarded while others I kept as they made more sense.

But I calmed my nerves down soon enough. Lying down again, I decided to wait until tomorrow morning as I wasn’t so keen on disturbing others' sleep just because of my excitement.

There was no guarantee that my theory was even going to work…

The next morning I found myself waking up with anticipation. But that was nothing but the fleeting excitement of trying something new-something different, which I’d forgotten years back. It wasn’t so simple.

Initially, I tried channeling the bondor through my legs and increasing my speed which worked but it wasn’t anything major. Anyone could do that. And something like that wasn’t so enough.

The next idea was to somehow make my body levitate in the air, similar to how ‘Stone levitation’ worked. But as it turned out, levitating a stone and a human were two entirely different feats. In the case of stone levitation, I had to connect the bondors outside my body but in the case of making my entire body float, I had to manipulate each fiber of my body separately to pull myself off the ground. It was near impossible to do something like that…

Holding onto my knee, I breathed heavily after having exhausted my mental capacity trying to levitate my body. Was there no way that I could utilize the same process as ‘Stone Bullet’? I wondered.

I went through the entire process of firing a ‘Stone bullet’ in my head, pausing and observing each little step. By the end of it, I had another inspiration. One that I was pretty confident in.

When firing a ‘Stone bullet’ I didn’t need to actively channel the bondor outside to push the stone further instead all it took was an explosive burst at the start which made the stone fire. It was somewhat similar to a rubber band snap. By gathering a certain amount of bondor into a place and then snapping it forward!

It should be possible to do it with me too. All I needed was to guide the bondor into my feet and then push my feet up in the air into a flight.

Standing straight I took a deep breath calming my nerves once more, feeling and sensing the bondor coursing inside my body, circulating through the invisible bondor channels. Slowly my focus deepened on the present moment, my breath anchoring me to it and I started to feel the presence of atmospheric bondor around me, existing in its entirety.

It was a weird sensation to feel. As if there was a sense of completeness out there somewhere. But they were beyond my reach, just existing as a glimpse for me to see…

I had kept my vision inactive to let my attention be only on my senses. The silken threads were ever present around me, floating around. They merged amongst everything but were incorporeal. The flesh of my body pulled them toward me gently as my intent deepened.

Slowly I channeled the bondor from my torso into my thighs and my legs. As it did, I felt my leg muscles bulging with newfound strength and the unrestrained power cracked the ground underneath my feet to shatter into pieces as I felt my body lowering just so slightly. I did not bother with it and continued channeling the bondors.

I knew the connection between me and them would snap the moment my attention drifted away from the present moment. I’d to somehow keep my mind present and it felt more like I was meditating.

My bondors were too erratic that it took extra effort for me to not lose control over them and have them leak out of my body. According to Darren, it was just another sign of my half-awakened nature. Other than me getting too mentally fatigued when I tried to use my bondors there was no other extra sign of my impending doom that Darren mentioned before. But in case it was true, I intended to become a true mystic as soon as possible.

As the bondor reached my ankle, I imagined the same sensation of releasing the bondor and gently guiding it into my feet and then over the boot I was wearing. And when it reached the boot underneath the sole of my feet, I let it glide over its outer surface, imbuing it with an external layer of cover.

I snapped my eyes open and pushed my feet back into the little hole and the next moment my world shifted, everything rushing past me like I was in a train, hurling forward to an unknown destination. But before my mind could catch up with my body’s momentum, I crashed against a giant tree, breaking the silence that surrounded me.

There was a sharp mental jab right after which was then followed by the buzzing sound of some insects that were around me. As the static noise deafened out, I looked ahead. I was sitting on the ground with my back laid on the tree.

At the stop where I’d been standing just a moment prior, there was a thin line etched in the ground which stretched from there to where my feet lay currently. The trail was at least ten meters in length.

Observing the soles of my boot, I found they weren’t damaged because of the outer protective layer that was formed before I dashed ahead.

Perhaps it was the loud noise or that I’d been away from the group for far too long, but my companions rushed toward me, especially Darren who had a worried look on his face.

“What happened?” Sirius was the first one to ask, his eyes gazing at my forehead and I realized blood was trickling down from my injured head.

It probably wasn’t a big wound seeing how I was still conscious but Darren still kneeled beside me and planted his hand on the back side of my head, after asking me to tilt my head forward. The warm sensation flowed in, and I thought how Successful the experiment was. It was a success but not complete yet.

After being healed, I thanked Darren and tried to stand but an unbearable pain assaulted my legs as I almost fell only for Darren to catch hold of me and act as my support. Holding onto his shoulder which was at my arm’s resting height, I asked if we should sit down first somewhere.

Octus was crouching down at the line caused by my boots and ran his finger over the solid soil that had formed on both sides. He got up and followed behind us. When we reached back to our camp and I found myself a decent spot to sit down, I started revealing everything related to my experiment.

I didn’t intentionally hide anything from them as now was perhaps the right chance for me to build trust with them. And there was no doubt in my mind that it would be useful in the future.

“So that’s why there were remaining traces of bondor there?” Octus asked.

While he was examining the mark in the soil, he seemed to have sensed some remaining traces of bondor there with his ‘minor institution’—a passive ability of his. It was to be expected that there remained some traces as my boot was layered with my bondor and there was direct contact between it and the soil.

I nodded at his words, clearing the last bit of confusion.

“In short, you have managed to get some inspiration from ‘Stone bullet’ and even managed to create a technique of your own, am I correct?” Sirius summarized what had happened and it made me feel like it was a big deal.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Yes,” I replied.

Darren sighed from beside and said, “I have never heard of something like this happen before but forget that. What are you going to name the technique?”

He pointed out something important. If I’d managed to create a new technique it required a name. And since it was my first creation it had to be something cool, right?

I took a moment to think of something with my hand on my chin.

“Alright. I will call it ‘Skyburst’,” I smiled.

For the next couple of days, I continued improving ‘Skyburst’ as much as possible. This time Darren and Octus helped me by giving me more ideas on how I could use this properly and efficiently.

It took me a while before I was able to keep my feet afloat for the entire duration of the flight. Once I was able to do that, it ensured a near-instant teleportation-like effect when I used Skyburst. Of course, it wasn’t as instantaneous as a teleport would be but it was good enough for me. Normally I was able to cover ten meters in distance and by pushing myself to the limit I was able to add extra two more meters to it. The more I pushed, the more strained my legs became and that was the reason behind the unbearable pain that I felt after my first try.

But the next problem that I was faced with was my landing. Because of the fast speed of the technique and that part was much appreciated by me, it was quite hard for me to land properly. Not only I had to chart the flight pathway during the use, I had to land straight on my feet. The charting part wasn’t so hard but I wasn’t able to change direction once I took flight and flew straight. Otherwise, I would crash land.

In the end, I was forced to roll on the ground every time I landed to reduce the impact on my legs. It was just a temporary solution and I’d to somehow figure out some other alternative. But in the meantime, it was more than enough.

During those days, Daren filled in some of the information that he thought I might need later when we reached Xavier and also during the remaining bits of our journey through the forest of Zoria.

Despite the curse that was placed upon their town, they weren’t able to go to the outside world. At this point, they couldn’t even tell whether an outside world existed or not. But it wasn’t like they couldn’t leave their town border. Instead, the forest of Zoria that surrounded all around Xavier made it impossible. Most people in their town were normal citizens, with only an insignificant portion of them awakening as mystics.

The forest of Zoria had been slowly mapped out by these mystics over the last couple centuries and up to this point they have managed to map out up to the third zone. Currently, we were traveling through the first zone and almost into the second zone.

And just like mystics, some foes possessed similar bonds or-related powers. They were like animals but more dangerous. The strength of these beasts went higher and higher the deeper into the forest one went and that was the reason why it wasn’t so possible to go beyond the third zone.

On our journey so far, we hadn’t come across even one monster as they called it but Darren assured me that the monsters of the first zone were all if not most unnamed.

These monsters were categorized into sectors: Named and unnamed. Unnamed monsters weren’t able to sense bondor and weren’t able to use any bond or-related abilities, but their strength was still higher than any normal animals. Whereas the named monster was able to sense bondor and even control. The more their mastery over their powers the stronger these monsters would be.

The monsters belonging to the first zone were mostly unnamed monsters with a few exceptions only. But starting from the second zone, there were barely any unnamed monsters. Sirius and the others were strong enough as a team to deal with them for the most part. The third zone was different though. Their exploration team had previously been to the third zone before and even the mention of it made Darren shiver slightly.

“In there lie monstrosities that are beyond one's worst nightmare,” Daren said, a little fear leaking out of him.

The mystic of Xavier wasn’t able to discover beyond the third zone even after centuries of trying and that told me enough about how dangerous it was. I took a chance and asked Darren at what ranked did the strongest of Xavier belonged.

“Third rank. A senior mystic.” He replied simply as if it wasn’t a big deal and I stored that information in my head.

Senior mystic? Huh? How long will it take me to reach there?

As the days passed, the group’s pace increased, and each day’s walking duration grew longer and longer. It wouldn’t be until sunset that we would stop to camp and rest for the night, far later than normal but it was fine. Although this meant less time for my training, I decided not to ask for the reason. The air of urgency that surrounded them told me they had a reason for hurry and I expected them to reveal their purpose to me in due time.

It wasn’t like a group of mystic would be sent here without any reason and from the pieces of clue that I picked up, they were here for a mission. A mission that someone wanted to sabotage and had sent Eadric for. It was bound to be something important.

On the seventh day of my arrival, we came across our first named monster during our travel. It was a reptile monster called ‘Mareux’. The ‘Deux’ suffix at the end was used to denote all reptile-like monsters. Knowing that I wondered if I could get a chance to read through their encyclopedia about beasts later.

These creatures were like big green lizards, with their body’s length being around a meter each. And just like normal lizards, they were similarly capable of climbing on trees or any walls for that matter. Even after being a named monster, they possessed no bond or-related abilities except for being able to sense us, which was a common trait of all named monsters.

Octus cut through one of them, spilling green slimy liquid all around him. I sidestepped avoiding an acidic blast coming from behind me which my enhanced senses picked up. The acid splattered at the ground where I had been standing, most of it burning the soil into a charred crumble but a few droplets managed to slip on my lower garments burning tiny holes in them.

I spun on my hills and used skyburst to instantly close the distance between the lizard which was above a tree branch and me. I slashed my sword from above with pressure building on my shoulders. Its eyes diluted and turned round for a moment as it awaited its impending doom but my sword wasn’t able to slash through its hard shell protecting the soft flesh underneath.

Noticing the same event occur, it shot another acid blast at me, forcing me to drop my head low and dodge it. My body dropped down to the ground and from the corner of my eyes, I noticed the lizard taking another aim at me.

“Shit!” I cursed aloud, realizing I was in no position to dodge that one.

But the next moment a wave of wind flew past my head making me turn my head upward and there was a spear piercing the mareux through its hard shell, impaling its body into the tree. It was Sirius’s spear which he threw after having killed the one he was fighting before.

The mareux in front of me shirked and then its body went limp as it took its last breath.

“Thanks,” I said and Sirius gave me a terse nod.

There were half a dozen of them of these ‘Mareux’ and only two remained. Octus effortlessly killed one of them in front of my eyes and another one desperately pounced toward Sirius but waving his hand upward, he manifested an incorporeal blade cutting the matrix into two unequal parts.

With the fight finished-although it would be better to call it a one-sided slaughter, Sirius decided to take a small break before resuming the journey. Darren instantly got himself busied trying to skin the dead matrix for its eyes. With green slimy liquid all over him, he explained that the eyes or the crystals inside of Margaux were quite valuable and sold at a very high price.

But I ignored him and found a sitting spot on a rock.

I was easily able to avoid the mareux attacks by using Skyburst but my sword wasn’t able to pierce its shell and Sirius was forced to lend me a hand. There was no point in being able to escape from an attack if I wasn’t able to counter it with something else. I didn’t bother using ‘Stone bullet’ there as its impact wouldn’t be anything different from throwing a soft water ball at an adult.

When I’d ascend to being a proper mystic, I’d gain some abilities but what those were would be unknown to me until then. In case I gained a rank like Darren’s then I’d sorely lack attack-based abilities, putting me in a very bad spot. For someone like Darren whose abilities were all support based, he needed a team who could support him and provide cover for him when needed. But that might not be the case for me. After all, our chance of separating after reaching Xavier was quite high.

Although I couldn’t tell when I was going to awaken, I’d personally prefer awakening before we reached the town of Xavier. After all, I didn’t know what awaited me there.

My gaze landed on the sword that Octus had lent to me at the start of our journey together. It was a spare sword that he carried in case his main one broke but he laughed while mentioning it as if the chance of his black blade breaking was just impossible.

If I could strengthen the sword like Sirius did to his spear.

According to Darren, The incorporeal blade that Sirius used during his fight earlier was a different and more advanced form of the first phase of Bondor coalescing arts. A little that the ever-stone statued Sirius shared was that he had been stationed at a council-organized training camp for sprouts and it was there where he awakened.

While that was the first time they mentioned the training camp or whatever it was, Darren’s initial introduction to mysticism had him mention the second method to awakening, that being through training. So, I wasn’t as surprised about it.

Despite Darren having a wide range of mystic arts which he displayed many times through our short journey thus far, his arsenal severely lacked direct attack-based abilities, although I was plenty surprised when he nonchalantly mentioned that. When I asked him why he was willing to share such personal information with me that easily his response was surprisingly easygoing.

“I suppose, I’ve started to trust you zareth,” Daren replied, smiling.

He was younger than all of us but even for a moment I didn’t take him to be naive. It would be nothing but stupidity on my part to underestimate someone based on my previous judgment. People here were different, far more than on Earth. Their logic was too. I’d have preferred to take a diplomatic approach with them but for some reason, I felt an unknown, almost distinct connection with Darren. I just couldn’t point it out yet…

On the other hand, Octus didn’t know much about mystic arts from what he told, and my observation, which I recently discovered was way more accurate than I gave credit for.

That left me with one person, Sirius. Taking the chance, I found Sirius as he was tending to the wound that the now-dead Eadric left him with. The healing art used by Darren wasn’t enough to heal it completely, with it most of its effect focused on stopping the bleeding.

“Sirius, do you have some time?” I asked.

When he nodded back-a typical attitude that he displayed- I went on to explain about the favor I wanted from him. I quite bluntly emphasized how my learning and getting stronger would help them. Words flowed out of my mouth smoothly until I was done.

As I waited with bated breath for Sirius’s response to my request, he first finished his task at hand.

Standing up, he answered while looking at me, “Alright. But I only know the first phase of Bondor coalescing art. Is that fine?”

It was more of a surprise that he agreed to teach me about it so easily. I’d assumed from the start that among all three, Sirius was probably the most cautious about my existence here but then his agreement slowly started to change that opinion of mine.

“Of course. It’s more than fine. “ I said, somehow stopping myself from grinning.

He did not reply to me, instead started walking toward the camp.

Sirius was a rather peculiar man. He would always put up a cold face with everyone, only speaking when it was needed. As he was tasked to lead their team, I didn’t doubt much about his leadership capabilities but it would be a lie if I said I wasn’t interested in his past. Maybe something had happened which led him to be like that.

The next day, Sirius taught me about the bondor coalescing art or well he explained it. Just as the name signified, the technique consisted of bringing the bondor to a specific point, in this case, it was my sword, and then strengthening it. While the process of channeling the bondor outside my body into the sword was kind of difficult as I wasn’t able to balance it properly, and if I slipped the sword would shatter at the pressure created by the bondors.

Sirius showed me a brief demonstration of the technique and went back to check the map, which he had been sharing for pretty long.

But after having learned stone levitation and stone bullet, it wasn’t that hard. Although there was some difference between them. In the case of a stone bullet, the task was to push the stone forward with an explosive speed but that wasn’t the case for the sword.

It was more of how long I can continue to channel the bondor outside the sword, creating a protective layer of bondor around it which had to remain as static as possible. Otherwise, if my focus drifted away, I’d lose the connection with the bondor and waste a useless amount of my bondor reserve.

The first phase of Bondor coalescing art required the use of a catalyst, that is my sword. It was the first time I heard the concept of catalyst from Sirius and he explained it as support to use greater power than one is currently capable of. For my sky burst, the catalyst was the boot underneath my feet. I didn’t consider that at first and only used Skyburst with my boot since I was already wearing them but now it was clear.

Once I was able to successfully keep the bondor layer active for a while, Sirius proclaimed that I’d managed to learn the first phase of Bondor coalescing art or however much he knew himself. His Incorporeal Blade had him manifest a pure bond or-made blade that he could use.

The strength of the sword with the Bondor layer was much more than it normally had. I was easily able to slice through a semi-large sized tree easily and the sword wasn’t damaged either. It was nice but what I needed was a long-range attack that would help to protect myself.

With that goal, I continued experimenting with the bondor coalescing art for the next few days. I’d have to stay awake later at night to experiment with them as my companions started to stretch our traveling time for twelve and sometimes even fourteen hours each day. Different from the first few days, I was able to keep up with them as my stamina increased. I understood that something was making them hurry so much but I didn’t ask about it.

Although my experimentation was going rather well, and I had a hunch that I would be able to have some results pretty soon, there was a constant increase in the number of flashes of memories that I had.

The first flash that I had was after was on the ninth day. It was an image of traveling through some forest but there was someone else with ‘him’ but that person’s face was blurry and I couldn’t make it out.

More and more of Basak’s memory-one of the latest alias used by the owner of the body that I’d occupied, flooded my mind. Sometimes I would see flashes of high ceilings of huge mansions and other times huge cities from a bird-like view.

I didn’t mind them at first since it wasn’t so hard for me to distinguish between his memories and mine but recently even my companion's faces would merge with some other unknown people’s visages from his memories. They would overlap although there weren’t many similarities between their features. And that accompanied a slight headache each time it happened.

I’d hear Darren’s worried voice each time I came to a sudden halt because of the sharp mental jab and I’d to convince him that it was nothing at all. The foreign memories slowly took their own space in my mind and I let them be.

But on the tenth day of my arrival in this world, we came across something. Something that was out of my wildest dream.

Before we stood the massive body of a creature, its four heads swaying above the canopy of trees.

It was a Corteus Hydra.