chapter 38: dream? Nightmare?

As he came back to searching for a way to defend, Luke first observed how space cut and space run acted on the space surrounding him. Smirking as the difference between barely feeling something and seeing it in great detail was as wide as the difference between the sun and the moon.

Luke first saw that as he activated space cut, his dagger, which stayed in place created a disturbance in the translucent gray space waves a few meters away, where he intended it. Then, when he activated space run, as he was barely moving, he saw the space waves actually rise for each of his movements, even the minor ones.

The raising of the waves provoked the chasm between said wave and the next to grow and the two waves to connect. When he moved his arm, Luke saw that his arm ignored the chasm and directly got to the next wave. But unlike what one would think, his arm wasn't disconnected from his body. All his body was ignoring the chasm.

' If I continue like this, I might actually upgrade my speed instead of my defense… Anyway, what if I connect multiple waves at the same time, or enlarge the chasm? I wonder, which one would be the most efficient? '

Not willing to wait any longer, Luke began to use his mana to try to connect multiple waves but it wouldn't. He increased the output of mana he used and finally managed to make three waves connect, at the cost of ten mana points for a single second. Considering that his space run connected four at the meager cost of 50 mana/min, the efficiency was minimal.

Not stopping and observing why the difference in efficiency was so extreme, Luke saw that unlike his spell which only affected the waves used for the movement, his way of connecting the two waves was chaotically affecting almost every wave in the room, the nearer they were to him, the fiercer were they affected.

Stopping his attempt, Luke reflected on it and thought that he didn't put enough concentration on the two waves he wanted to affect. Currently, his control of space was horrible, to say the least, so he needed to focus on what he wanted to do with perseverance. Allowing his mana to refill, Luke thought for a while and decided to use all his remaining points first.

As he already purchased an example of each potion for future experiments and as it would need time to bear fruits anyway, Luke resignedly began his spending thrift. ' Shop, potions and show me my money. '

* tier 2 potions :

vitality enhance: 100 PTS

intelligence enhance: 100 PTS

strength enhance: 100 PTS

agility enhance: 100 PTS

resilience enhance: 100 PTS

healing potion: 100 PTS

mana enhance: 300 PTS

mana replenish: 200 PTS

Money: 14760 PTS *

' The more important stats to enhance right now should be intelligence and mana, but I still want to invest in agility and resilience… Furthermore, mana enhance is so expensive… sigh, buy 10 vitality, 5 strength, 20 agility, 20 resilience, 20 intelligence, and 25 mana enhance. '

* 14500 PTS deducted, 260 PTS remaining. *

Luke then tearfully consumed each mana enhance slowly, as if to make it feel less wasteful before consuming the remainder. ' Show me my status '

* status :

name: Luke

Species: tier two human(50%)/ unknown(50%)

vitality: 206

strength: 156

agility: 500

intelligence: 406

resilience: 451

mana: 380

Inherited ability: spatial storage ???

skills: dagger mastery B

firearm mastery B

stealth mastery C

poison mastery C

intuition D -> intuition B

spells: space run tier two

dark blast tier two

haunting march tier two

space cut tier two

dark slash tier three

dark laser tier three

unknown: space vision???

money: 260 PTS *

Seeing his status, he sighed at the unknown in his species and the space vision he earned from apparently being part of it. Though, he was more than happy to see the improved intuition.

After letting his mana recover, Luke began to focus the best he could on connecting two waves near his arm while not affecting the surrounding space. This somehow succeeded as the space waves connected while the surrounding ones were way less affected. The mana expenditure also greatly diminished, being 1 mana/second now. This made Luke smile as he thought that his efforts were rewarded, although the increase in intelligence should have equally helped.

Like this, Luke spent the entire afternoon and the beginning of the night on reducing his mana expenditure and lessening the amount of attentiveness performing this action needed. Like this, he was able to experience how convenient his new vision was. By the end of the day, he could connect four waves at the price of 1 mana/second.

Moreover, although he was not near creating a new spell, he felt like as Lion said, he set himself on a path. It's ironic how he wanted some quick results by correcting obvious flaws but instead set himself on a path. Fortunately, setting himself on a path, even though it takes longer to show results, was way better in the long term. Thinking about Lion, he was very eager to see his reaction when he will learn that.

From how he talked about it, setting oneself on a path is not only more difficult, it brings way more benefits.

Probably tired by the awakening of his unknown part, Luke went to sleep. As he slept, he had a nightmare, one he didn't think he would ever have again. The phenomenon which happened when he was 7 became a nightmare which haunted him since then for at least two years. As he always tried to forget about it, he stopped having nightmares about it.

But now, 13 years after his last, he once again dreamed of it. The purple skull within the tornado sent shivers down his very spine. Not only did the phenomenon come back to mind, it even repeated itself incessantly.

Violently waking up the gentle, blue morning sunshine revealed a pale, heavily breathing Luke. Calming down after a few minutes, Luke went to his bathroom to wipe his face with some freshwater. Looking at his reflection on the mirror, or more exactly at his still shining violet eyes, Luke smiled wryly as he thought ' Is my unknown part related to that thing? I don't think it was friendly though. Was it an enemy who, for some reason, just left? Or did it just integrate my body to haunt me? Sigh, I hope this nightmare won't come back. '

Putting this matter aside with great difficulty, Luke got back to training. Strangely, his vision of space was clearer and he could faintly perceive fibers constituting the waves, though, it was only for a moment as they disappeared when he tried to focus on them. ' In the end, was it a blessing or a curse? '

Shaking his head, Luke got out of his house as he wanted to see the range of his vision of space. Right now, his normal vision permits him to read a book from 50 meters away and see quite well from 20 kilometers.

Once he was out of his house, Luke looked everywhere in wonder. His space vision apparently had a limit of 20 meters. After this limit, his vision is normal, though, while not obstructing it much, the space waves still affected his vision a little.

While he was in his own little world, his teammates who were already near the monolith looked at him slack-jawed. Raising an eyebrow at their gazes, Luke stared back at them questioningly.

Lou, who was usually quiet sprang to his feet and shouted " YOUR EYES, THEY ARE SHINING! "

Rolling his eyes at this obvious fact which he overlooked, Luke just nodded in a bored manner.

As if he finally found salvation, Lou shouted something which earned him a death stare from everyone, Ozz included " Then, the group's name really is fitting right? RIGHT? "