novelAlta Chapter 140 : Chapter 140
Chapter 140 : Chapter 140
Chapter 140 : Illusion
Sal sat cross-legged in a large armchair in the Sky Lounge.
This was a high-end study space that had caught his eye on his way to register his skills for the first time.
Beyond the massive glass windows, the city view stretched to the ends of vision, and towering energy barriers formed lattice walls in the distance.
They were scheduled to approach one of those barriers in a few days.
That place was the reclaimed zone, recently liberated from monsters.
The newly reclaimed area was recognizable at a glance.
Buildings that must have once been skyscrapers remained like husks stripped of glory.
In time, they would be developed into habitable spaces again by restoration guilds, but for now, this appearance merely testified to the horrors of the monster war.
Barry, sitting opposite him in the same posture, began explaining the training guidelines once again.
"When the ability activates, it will pull at your mind. As half-formed thoughts or concepts try to take shape, you'll feel overwhelmed at first. Keep your eyes closed and hold your hand out. Imagine a ball placed on your palm. Visualize even the detailed appearance, but don't tell us. It doesn't take much power to maintain. Just let a very small amount of essence flow."
Before closing his eyes, Sal checked on Divinity, who was sitting with her arms crossed in the armchair opposite him.
Her disapproving expression clearly revealed her stance on Sal's choice.
Sal wanted to try Barry's image training method.
It was because of the thought that someday he might be able to apply it to make sleep training possible.
Of course, Sal wasn't naive.
He knew reaching such a level would require tremendous time and effort.
Since Divinity hadn't offered to coach or guide him with her foresight ability, he thought he eventually had to learn on his own through trial and error.
Sal closed his eyes and activated Barry's thread.
The structure was absurdly complex, so he struggled to replicate it, but after a few attempts, he managed to succeed somehow.
As Sal poured essence into the thread, it activated immediately, and dizziness washed over his entire body.
Just before he staggered and fell to one side, Barry grabbed his shoulders with both hands to steady him.
"Too much essence. Flow only about 5% of the amount you just used."
Barry's voice was surprisingly calm and reassuring; Sal hadn't expected him to show such an encouraging teacher-like side.
Sal withdrew the essence and, as Barry instructed, let only a tiny amount flow into the thread.
Then the dizziness subsided, and he felt like he could control his body again.
He nodded as if he was okay and focused on the next step.
'A ball is placed on my palm.'
To imagine a ball with an appearance easy to visualize on the surface, Sal pictured a purple ball engraved with a white circle.
He wondered what the next instruction would be.
"Very well done. It's very good right now. Keep your eyes closed. Now let's carefully move to the next step. What you imagined is a purple ball with a white circle pattern, but the circle is only on the side you see now, right? This time, imagine that ball floating above your palm and rotating in front of your eyes."
Barry seemed excited, satisfied with the progress, and Sal felt encouraged by those words.
He tried as instructed, but imagining the arrangement of the circle pattern engraved on the ball was much harder than he thought.
So Sal solved it by slowly rotating the ball and engraving the circles one by one in his mind.
Floating and rotating the ball was no problem, but matching and drawing the pattern on the surface was really hard.
"Over time, you'll be able to create texture maps to apply to illusions too. It's like a kind of skin, so you can reuse it in various situations. But right now, since you're making it completely from scratch, applying patterns on a curved surface feels slow and arduous. This time, keep rotating the ball but change the white circles to white lines of constant width. Lines are much easier to connect."
Barry led Sal with an excited voice.
How much he was enjoying this class was evident in his voice.
Sal couldn't tell if Barry was just excited to have someone to talk to about his ability, or if he really had a talent for teaching people.
Anyway, he gave advice at a reasonable pace and played a surprisingly decent mentor role.
Sal suddenly wondered if Barry could teach this patiently if someone wanted to learn the Appraisal skill.
Then he recalled helping students with patterns in crafting class before.
Teaching others was an enjoyable experience.
He wondered if Barry was feeling the same way right now.
"Don't lose focus... If your mind gets too distracted, the ball will distort. Later you'll be able to do it unconsciously, but at first, you have to pour all your strength into maintaining it."
As Sal nodded in understanding, Barry continued.
"Good, you made one ball. Then if I ask you to make the exact same ball in your left hand right now, could you do it immediately?"
As if answering him, Sal raised his left hand and imagined a ball identical to the one in his right hand.
Hearing Barry's laughter, it seemed he had succeeded.
Creating two illusions took almost no essence.
Sal was surprised by the fact that this ability was quite efficient in terms of essence consumption.
"Very good. Now let's go to a harder step. This time, open your eyes while keeping imagining the balls in your hands."
There was a hint of nervousness in Barry's voice.
Sal pushed away all other thoughts in his head and focused only on the balls in his hands.
Visualizing the room and space he was sitting in, he slowly opened his eyes.
He didn't look at Divinity or Barry, but only at the illusions of the balls in his hands.
Then, a rotating ball floated above his right hand, and its twin ball floated intact above his left palm.
Thinking they would disappear soon if he looked away, Sal held onto that image in his head as much as possible and continued concentrating.
"Tremendous progress. Good, next test. Keep maintaining those balls in your head and this time, raise your hands."
Barry was clearly excited, but Sal was too distracted maintaining the illusions to be conscious of that or feel pride.
Sal poured all his nerves into maintaining the illusions.
Following Barry's instruction, Sal raised both palms, expecting the illusions to just pass through his hands and disappear.
However, surprisingly, the balls moved following the movement of his hands.
The floating balls rose much higher, and followed exactly every time Sal raised and lowered his hands.
Barry shook his head, yet a bright smile was on his face.
"Good, learning speed is quite fast. I acknowledge it. You instinctively mapped the illusions to your hands. That's why they are tied to your movements, not just floating in a set space. Remember when I threw a knife into the crowd earlier? This time, try throwing one of those balls. But you have to imagine it's not tied to your hand. Because you have to visualize the trajectory in your head."
Divinity sat up and widened her eyes.
"You threw a knife into the crowd!?"
Barry waved his hand as if it was nothing and fixed his gaze on Sal.
"There can be two results here. telling you just in case you fail. First, if you break the connection, the ball will stop in place and you won't be able to move it with your hand anymore. Second, you might lose control completely and the illusion itself might vanish. Both are normal phenomena and just due to lack of control. I don't expect you to succeed on the first try, so don't be too discouraged. Okay?"
Barry encouraged him so incredibly gently that Sal almost became suspicious of his intentions.
Sal focused on the string of essence connecting the illusion and his hand.
Only after a few attempts could he barely visualize it, and the side with the ball floating on his right hand was much easier.
The idea of throwing the ball meant combining three actions simultaneously.
Sal judged it was better to just try quickly and fail rather than worrying uselessly.
'Since I can just try again later.'
Sal pulled his left hand back and made a throwing motion.
In reality, it was just a light toss, but in his head, he pictured the trajectory of the connection between hand and ball breaking and the ball flying across the room.
As the ball left Sal's hand and cut through the air, Divinity gasped in surprise.
The moment Barry grinned, a small trash can appeared on the floor and the ball went exactly into it.
"Bullseye!"
Sal stared blankly, unable to believe he succeeded on the first try, then frowned and asked Barry.
"Is this... my illusion right now, or yours?"
Barry raised both hands and laughed apologetically, but sincerity was in his expression.
"I swear, you did all of this. I just added the trash can at the end to make it look cool."
He paused for a moment, glanced at Divinity, and continued.
"He learns much faster than I thought. Think I can speed things up a bit?"
Divinity didn't react much, but her surprise was still evident.
Just that warmed Sal's heart.
He rolled the illusion in his right hand this way and that.
Then Sal suddenly thought of something and looked down at his right arm.
But there was nothing there.
Barry followed Sal's gaze, wondered for a moment, then soon smiled brightly.
"Ah, you mean this?"
The moment Barry twisted his arm, green runes appeared from wrist to elbow, rotating round and round in an unknown order.
"This is an illusion too. When I use my ability, there are no visible marks at all. So I made this on purpose. A trump card to use later? Since I can unfold illusions without even a trace that I'm using an ability."
Divinity sighed in frustration.
"Is there anyone you can trust? The more I talk to you, the more suspicious you seem."
She turned her gaze to Sal seeking agreement, but Sal understood Barry's position.
If others couldn't know when Barry activated his ability, it would be a tremendous competitive advantage for him.
Barry shrugged and pointed at the ball floating in front of Sal.
"I'm showing you two exactly how I control my ability. Up to its limits. Isn't this enough of a sign of trust?"
As Divinity hesitated for a moment, Barry's smile widened even more.
Meanwhile, Sal experimented with changing the anchor method between his palms.
Instead of the ball being fixed to one hand, he imagined the anchor as a giant magnet-like space that pulled it if it got far away.
He wasn't sure what result would come out, but curiosity came first.
The intention was clear, but more essence was needed, and Sal willingly poured essence into the thread.
Just before Barry continued speaking, the ball popped out of Sal's hand and started bouncing around in invisible space.
"Uh...?"
Sal panicked and tried to tie the anchor back to himself, but forgot to designate his hand.
Then the ball stuck to his essence and started circling around Sal.
When the ball went behind him, he couldn't see it with his eyes, but he could still feel its presence because he was clearly visualizing it in his head.
Looking at Barry with an embarrassed smile, what he saw was an expression full of surprise.
"You're controlling it like this without even looking? Already?"
Barry jumped up and stared piercingly at the ball moving behind Sal's back.
Sal slowly nodded and tried to explain how he did it.
Barry sighed and asked Divinity.
"When he used your ability, did you feel like this too?"
Divinity burst into laughter and sent an apologetic look to Sal.
"Probably similar. Since he learns so fast naturally."
Barry flopped down and stared silently at Sal with his arms crossed.
Then soon he laughed again and shook his head.
"Alright, then. Today's lesson goal was to make you able to throw the ball, and honestly, I didn't really expect you to visualize with your eyes open. But I have to readjust the pace. Need to raise expectations higher."
In Barry's tone, Sal felt an unknown anxiety.
"You better be ready."
Barry's words sounded more threatening than ever.