Mystical Journey

Garen nodded.

However, in his heart, he kept looking back to when he started on this journey.

He knew that his soul's space-time attributes weren't truly natural, but something that he gained from that strange red stuff, even his innate talent had been a byproduct of that.

After listening to Black Sethe's explanation, he started to suspect that he'd been the test subject of a higher being's experimentation on creating a soul with space-time attributes or possibly a byproduct from medication stimulating an evolution in his body. Whatever it was, he had definitely been 'created' by accident. It was all luck, yet it was his fate.

As long as he didn't suffer damage that could completely destroy his soul, he could continue to live on just like someone with a true soul.

Returning to his villa, his maid Marquilli poured him a cup of freshly squeezed juice and helped him hang his coat on the coathanger.

Garen went directly to the secret room and habitually checked on the demonic book, the masks hidden in the room, and of course, the most troublesome item, the coin.

Everything was where they should be, the five masks stacked neatly in a pile on top of the coin. The magnetic fields emitted by the masks were enveloping the coin to create an egg-shaped barrier.

Just as he was going to conceal the secret compartment once more, he discovered a change that stopped him in his tracks.

"This is…" Garen held up the first mask on top.

The mask originally did not have any markings or blemishes, but this time, he found a small marking on it.

At the bottom right corner of the mask, there was a marking in the form of a small black dot. It was very sharp and clear, looking almost like a punctuation mark of some sorts.

He used his hand to gently rub the surface. There weren't any bumps, and it didn't feel like it was artificially added to the mask.

He quickly looked at the other masks, and all of them had similar markings. The markings were similar in structure yet slightly differed from one another.

'As the energy fields strengthen to a certain degree, there will definitely be more clues,' Black Sethe uttered softly.

"According to the rumors, after one gathers all 12 of the masks, they will reveal the location of the prehistoric mask... Maybe the rumors were true. We're probably the first person to gather so many masks as originally, these masks were all split up and held on to by various big organizations and antique collectors," Garen pondered.

"Sleepless Faces, it seems that there's more to this than I thought…" Garen added.

"How is your training in the dream world as a void pursuer?' Black Sethe suddenly asked.

"Why do you ask?"

'If you've reached the level where you can freely move in the dream world, that means you have reached the level of visions,' Black Sethe explained, 'Once you've entered the visions level, you will be able to see things that you couldn't before. This may be helpful for finding out more clues about the masks.'

"Vision?" Garen repeated.

'Yes, the dream world is filled with disillusionment, but at the same time, it also functions like a radio that can receive a lot of weak signals. Some signals may contain some white noise and useless clutter, but some are able to reflect actual reality. Dreams are actually another perception sense of a human other than the conventional five senses. Hence, if you can fully wield and hone these senses, you'll be able to gain a lot of valuable information.'

"The dream world as a perception sense?" this was the first time Garen had heard of something like this.

'You can start trying to observe your dream worlds. Anyways, Nadia is currently being temporarily suppressed by the masks and the date of her attack is still quite far off, so you might as well use this buffer time wisely.'

Putting down the mask, Garen slowly deliberated on what Black Sethe has said, referring back to his memories of his dream worlds. Evidently, his dream world was sometimes constructed based on his own desires and imaginations, or from external influences. However, there were times that the dream world managed to reflect reality. What an interesting discovery.

'Over the next few nights, I'll be expending my energy to guide you in your dream world, I've already had quite a bit of time to recuperate, I should have enough strength now,' Black Sethe said.

"Why have you suddenly become so kind?" Garen was suddenly suspicious.

Black Sethe paused for a long time at this question, sitting in silence for a while.

"It's fine if you don't want to tell me," Garen broke the silence.

'There's no point in hiding it,' Black Sethe laughed, 'I am about to disappear.'

Hearing this, Garen was completely stunned. As time passed, he had completely gotten used to Black Sethe's guidance, both as a teacher an as a friend. Now, he completely trusted that Black Sethe was helping him without any selfish intentions.

After a moment of silence, Garen asked.

"Is it because of the Slaughtering Hand?"

'Yes,' Black Sethe calmly answered, 'Since the Slaughtering Demon Technique was abandoned, I'm being overwritten by the new secret techniques,' He laughed bitterly, 'I live within the Slaughtering Hand Secret Technique, I am nothing but a past memory of the Bloody King, I do not have any means of surviving independently.'

"Is there a solution?" Garen asked.

What answered him was a long silence.

Garen didn't say anything, he just placed the mask back into the hidden compartment and walked out of the secret room.

Maybe it was because of Black Sethe's company that he no longer feels lonely as he did before. To be honest, he didn't want Black Sethe to leave at all.

"If I continue to train the Slaughtering Hand would that guarantee that your existence?" Garen softly asked.

'You're willing to continue training?' Black Sethe instantly replied in a joyous tone.

"If I just maintain it at the first level, it's a simple task," Garen said calmly.

'I knew that playing the sympathy card would work! Hahaha!' Black Sethe laughed proudly.

"On second thought, continuing training seems so troublesome… I should just give up on it…" Garen playfully said.

"Don't!! Just name a price! I'll do whatever I can to fulfill it for you! When have I ever cut you short, believe me!" Black Sethe shouted in panic.

The two continued to banter, as Garen walked through the corridor, heading towards the reading room.

In a pitch black space.

Black Sethe was floating in the center of the space, his red eyes glowing. Only he knew that the moment the Slaughtering Hand was changed, it had destroyed the fundamental pillar of his existence. Even if Garen continued to train, there wouldn't be any use.

He silently stared at his increasingly transparent body, and couldn't help but let out a bitter smile.

Maybe if I just silently disappeared without a word, that would just be my fate as a memory…

To begin with, he shouldn't have asked for so much.

Maybe one day, if he calls me and I do not respond, he would remember my existence as a memory…

"Black Sethe, can you see it, they seem to be some sort of numbering system." Garen was already at his desks, drawing out the symbols he saw earlier.

Ignoring his own thoughts, Black Sethe moved behind Garen in the form of black gas and looked at the symbols on the table.

'It does look like some kind of numbering system,' He carefully observed each symbol on the table, 'We don't have enough clues yet, so it's hard for us to come up with any solution at this moment. Are there any other clues from the Men in Black?"

"If we gather even more stuff, maybe we can get even more clues," Garen frowned.

'There's another way. You can enter the dream world and learn the technique of using Visions. Maybe then you might be able to see a piece of the masks history,' Black Sethe suggested.

"History?"

'Yes. On a lot of items, there are traces that we cannot perceive normally using our five senses. Just like a painting on a piece of paper, although we can see it with our eyes, we are unable to hear it with our ears. There may be traces of these kinds of things that require a specific sense to perceive, and it most likely exists in the dream world. Hence, we might be able to get more clues if we go to the dream world,' Black Sethe tried to explain it in simpler terms.

"So how are we going to do this?" Garen asked.

'After you enter the dream world, you need to first differentiate the illusions from the reflections and refractions of reality. This is the first step, but take it slow.'

Garen thought back to the dream world technique he'd learned so far.

Black Sethe's dream world technique undoubtedly gave him a lot of help; from being unable to move at all at the start until now, where he could move freely, it was almost as though he'd reached a higher level.

He carefully sorted out the contents of the technique once more.

Focus your mind. In the dream world, it was very easy to be disoriented or distracted. The method was to find a point to concentrate on, for example, a body part.

You could not look for something based on the surroundings of the dream world. Since a large portion of the dream world was based on illusions, many parts of the dream world were constructed from the blurry memories dredged from the human body. If you paid too much attention to the details, it would cause the dream world to be broken. If certain details weren't in your memory, if you paid too much attention to a missing detail, it would cause your attention to be forcefully shifted and the dream world would be destroyed.

After you can guarantee your complete focus, you can start to use the corner of your eyes to rapidly observe the surroundings in the dream world. You cannot stop at any point, as if you do, you will start to shift your focus, breaking the dream world.

The entire dream world is essentially a very badly made illusion, so there will be many imperfections. Once you find these imperfections, you will start to distrust the reality of everything you see in the dream world, causing you to be disillusioned, destroying the dream world.

After you are able to observe the dream world, you would need to find the entrance, or rather the starting point to your own dream world, by realizing that you are dreaming. If you are able to feel when you have entered a dream, it would be even better. That was in preparation for the next step. Due to the high level of focus, this would produce a weirdly clear consciousness, so this process would be much simpler. However, if you started directly at this step, you would have a low chance of success, as you would easily lose your focus and attention without preparation.

'Now what you need to do is the 4th step,' Black Sethe guided him in a low tone, 'From this step onwards, if you succeed, only can you truly master the art of a void pursuer.' he explained, 'The other people of Endor and I viewed dreams as a process of inserting our consciousness into our souls, slowly going deeper and exploring the soul's deepest parts. This allowed us to access our true souls, then imprint all our memories onto it. That is the soul's most microscopic particles, the same particles that cannot be destroyed or disintegrated.'

"I understood what you meant, the dream world is essentially the process of us putting our consciousness into our souls. The deeper we get, the more we find out about our soul's hidden potentials. So the dream world is, in actuality, technically a level of the soul," Garen nodded in acknowledgment.

'Yes. You need to start from the starting point of your dream world, walk around intricately observing every corresponding detail around you, strengthening the dream world in the process. This will decrease the possibility of disillusionment, allowing you to remain in the dream world for a longer time.'