Chapter 134 Invisibility in the Extraordinary World

Chapter 134: The Art of Invisibility in an Extraordinary World Nighttime.

Maric was invited to Hastur's home. Upon arriving at the door, Neil, the butler, came out to greet him.

"Where is Hastur?"

"Lord Baron is dealing with some matters. Please, sir, proceed to the upstairs study and wait there for a while."

"Alright, fine."

Neil led Maric to the second-floor study. The study door was ajar and opened easily with a gentle push from the butler.

Maric glanced around, not seeing Hastur, and naturally took a seat on the sofa.

"Please take a seat, sir. The Baron will be with you shortly," Neil said before taking his leave.

At first, Maric sat quietly, but as time passed without Hastur's appearance, his gaze turned to the bookshelf on his left, which held many books.

Most were about legal knowledge, with some on linguistics, such as Elvish, Giant, and ancient Gohemish.

Aside from these, there were only a few books on the knowledge of mysticism.

With the thought that he might as well do something while waiting, Maric stood up, picked a book of interest from the shelf, and began to read while sitting on the sofa.

After about fifteen minutes, Maric put the book down on the sofa, frowning slightly, feeling something was amiss.

In his memory, Hastur was always punctual. It was unlike him to leave someone waiting this long.

Could something difficult have come up?

Maric pondered but decided not to go looking for Hastur, choosing instead to stay in the study.

Neil, the butler, came twice more, once bringing drinks and snacks, and another time bringing several bottles of fine wine.

"Something's not right."

The more Maric thought about it, the stranger it seemed. He got up, walked around the study, and when he returned to the sofa, there sat a familiar figure—Hastur.

"When did you come in?"

Maric spoke while glancing at the still-closed door.

"I've been here all along," Hastur said with a smile.

"Don't joke. If you had been here, I would have noticed you."

Maric sat down next to Hastur on the sofa.

"Perhaps, your eyes deceived you."

"Heh, I'd rather believe you deceived me."

Maric chuckled, casually opened a bottle of wine, and poured himself a full glass.

"Maric, do you know why people's eyes can see things?"

"…"

Maric paused and said, "If eyes couldn't see, would they still be called eyes?"

Hastur laughed and added, "Do you know how blind people lose their sight?"

"Because their eyes are broken, naturally, they can't see anything."

"That's not incorrect, but it's not precise or scientific."

"??"

Maric was full of question marks, feeling that today's Hastur was a bit odd, speaking in riddles.

"If only Miss Sharon had come today."

Hastur sighed, and Maric felt as if the remark was mocking his intelligence. Before he could react, Hastur, who had been in his line of sight, suddenly vanished.

Maric's expression turned serious, and he tentatively called out, "Hastur?"

No response.

"Invisibility?"

Maric's eyebrows raised slightly, he put down his wine glass, and swiftly slapped towards where Hastur had just been.

Nothing but air, no contact with a person.

"This magic is quite interesting."

Maric's interest was piqued, intent on uncovering Hastur's little trick.

He stood up, walked around, occasionally swinging his fists and kicking towards the empty spaces.

But he never found where Hastur truly was.

At this point, Maric became serious.

He began to understand why Hastur had invited him over and had him wait so long in the study.

Clearly, Hastur wanted to test his new ability using Maric.

"The naked eye can't see, but can spiritual vision also be deceived?"

Maric activated his spiritual vision, scanning the study again, but still, Hastur's figure was nowhere to be found.

"You didn't slip out while I wasn't paying attention, did you?"

Just as Maric finished speaking, a sound of flipping pages came from the other side of the bookshelf, as if Hastur was indicating that he was still in the room and hadn't slipped out.

"How interesting, a game of extraordinary hide and seek?"

Maric quickly went to the source of the sound. There was no one to be seen, but he wasn't discouraged; instead, a smile appeared on his face.

A pale blue chill emanated from him, spreading in all directions, as he transformed into a werewolf form, his wolf ears perked up to listen.

Where the chill passed, a thin layer of frost formed on the ground.

After a few seconds, Maric's wolf ears twitched, and he lunged towards a spot five meters to his left.

Bang! The speed was swift, knocking Hastur out of his so-called invisibility.

"Invisibility isn't so reliable."

Maric's chin lifted slightly, his tone revealing undisguised pride.

Hastur, rubbing his shoulder, said, "Indeed, there are still many flaws."

"Hastur, are you planning to use this ability to peep on some noble lady's bath?"

Hastur sized up Maric's face and sighed, "I am not like you."

"…"

Maric felt insulted for some reason.

"Cough, back to the matter at hand."

Hastur didn't give Maric a chance to get angry, changing the subject first.

"What do you think needs to be improved in my invisibility?"

"When you move, you make a slight noise. Even though you're restrained and gentle, it doesn't escape my ears."

Maric thought for a moment and added, "When faced with a wide range of extraordinary abilities, it's easy to force you out of invisibility."

"Also, there's a faint scent of perfume on you. Although it's very light, some extraordinaries have very sharp senses and can easily detect unusual changes in the air."

Hastur took the advice to heart; these were all areas he needed to improve.

"I can't think of other issues at the moment. You could ask Sharon to help you test."

"Miss Sharon would help with this?"

Hastur was somewhat tempted. Compared to Maric, Sharon was undoubtedly a more suitable tester.

"Don't worry, I'll talk to Sharon for you. She should also be quite interested in your ability."

Maric's smile was radiant, as if he had everything under control.

"Let's wait until tomorrow night. I need some time to improve my invisibility."

"I'm really looking forward to the shock you'll bring to Sharon."

Maric clearly enjoyed watching the excitement.

"It would be embarrassing to be found right away."

"No worries, losing to Sharon is not shameful. I became an extraordinary of sequence 9 before her, but she surpassed me later. Now, she's left me far behind."

Afterward, Maric stayed in the study, offering Hastur some related advice, never asking how Hastur managed to do it.

After seeing Maric off, Hastur stayed alone in the study to continue refining his invisibility.

Today, he was able to deceive Maric's eyes and spiritual vision because he had set two rules for himself in the study in advance.

The first rule: no light would emanate from his body within a certain distance.

In short, it was about deceiving the eyes to achieve the effect of invisibility.

This involved modern science and was quite complex. Without extraordinary abilities, Hastur couldn't have done it.

Besides this rule, the help of a hidden authority was also needed.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to conceal the fluctuations of the local rules.

From Maric's perspective, he couldn't sense the presence or fluctuations of the local rules, and his eyes couldn't see Hastur, thus forming the so-called invisibility.

The second rule was specifically to deceive spiritual vision, which was simpler with the help of a hidden authority.

Deceiving both the eyes and spiritual vision, preventing them from functioning properly, was the basic principle of Hastur's current stage of invisibility.

It sounded impressive, but in reality, there were many limitations.

The abilities of extraordinaries were far beyond what ordinary people could compare. As Maric mentioned, the senses—if any one sense was exceptionally keen, even with closed eyes, one could sense where he was.

Physical invisibility, which used the principle of light imaging, was not how all extraordinaries observed the world.

There was also the issue of the sequence hierarchy. Being only sequence 7, Hastur could easily be seen through by higher-sequence extraordinaries.

The so-called invisibility was more like the joke of the Emperor's New Clothes.

"If it were only a spirit body, it would be much easier to achieve invisibility."

Hastur quickly realized that no matter how he set the rules, the innate nature of the body meant it could never be completely hidden.

In a spirit state, the naked eye couldn't directly see, and it could float in the air, moving without making a sound, and without any scent to detect.

Like a ghost, the spirit state was inherently more suitable as a carrier for invisibility.

If he wanted to deceive an extraordinary like Sharon, only a spirit state might be possible.

With a direction in mind, Hastur continued to research how to improve the second version of his invisibility.

(End of Chapter)