49 Office Hours (Part 2)

"What was that?" John asked shakily as he realized that despite all his training he'd been under an illusion the whole time.

"A Soul Illusion." Dame Eleanor said, "Every time you complete one of the trials I put another one on you that activates when you walk into this room outside of class hours. By completing the trial you break the illusion and it alerts me of your success... did you really think the school would let me install blow darts, arrows, massive swords, and wraiths in a classroom?"

John's eyes narrowed, "I thought Soul Illusions are incredibly difficult and take a long time to apply!"

"Yeah, it takes about 5 minutes to apply each layer." Dame Eleanor said with a smile, "So, what would you like to know?"

John took a deep breath, controlling his automatic reaction to ask about the Soul Illusions. She would only give him a few minutes of her time and he didn't want to waste this opportunity. "How do I talk using my doppelganger."

"The Illusory Swap technique is a combined skill using control over light and sound waves to create several duplicates of yourself that you can swap places with. Technically it isn't an illusion skill because it doesn't manipulate the minds of other people. Instead, it is an Elemental Skill that those training the Soul Wave Manual can learn."

"But I don't have any elemental affinities, how is this possible?" John asked in confusion, interrupting Dame Eleanor's lecture.

"I was about to get to that." She glared at John who quickly shut up and reminded himself that Dame Eleanor hates being interrupted. "There are several ways to gain and increase elemental affinities. You can be born with them, gain them through training, eat elemental treasures, and Grandmaster Alchemists can create pills that give you an elemental affinity."

John's jaw dropped as Dame Eleanor destroyed his entire understanding of elemental affinities, but had to get himself under control quickly as she kept going. "The Soul Wave is a technique that bombards your body with light and sound waves while you train. In the process of refining your body it increases your affinity to the Light element constantly. At the peak of Core Formation you'll have maxed out your affinity for the Light element allowing you to refine your soul with it. Sound is not considered an elemental force, but is just as strong a force and can be manipulated by a strong soul."

Dame Eleanor shook her head for a moment before continuing on, "We're getting ahead of ourselves, you don't really need to understand all this yet. Just know that the Soul Wave allows you to manipulate the light element to create the doppelgangers. So far you've been training and understanding more about the light element but haven't delved deeper into sound waves so you need to master some techniques using sound waves. I heard you had a windfall recently so buy all of these, you won't be able to pass the trial again until you master them." She handed a sheet of paper with 3 options over to John before shimmering and disappearing.

Watching her disappear, John sighed as he realized that he'd just spent the last few minutes being lectured by a doppelganger. Leaving the castle, John put regular bullets back in his pistols and noticed that he hadn't fired a single bullet. Shaking his head in disgust at how totally he'd been played time after time by Dame Eleanor he headed to the Maker's Club. "I'll be strong enough one day to play with her head like this!" He promised himself, not realizing that Dame Eleanor was still watching him at that moment.

"Guess I should make the next trial nearly impossible, can't have him getting any ideas..." Dame Eleanor muttered to herself from where she sat cross legged at the top of a tower created purely from light hovering several miles over the school. She rarely left the tower these days, her doppelgangers spread throughout the school monitoring and interacting with everyone while she trained.

Walking into the Maker's Club, John headed over to the technique shop and directly to the movement section. He'd long ago picked out the technique he'd get once he had enough money, and figured now was the time to get it. Picking it up he smiled as he reread the description.

Basic Blink Step - Entry level teleportation technique, uses mana to decrease the distance between two locations. With each step you move twice the distance you normally would move, at maximum proficiency each step moves you up to 5 times the distance normally traveled.

John had picked this technique the instant Dame Eleanor had forced him to buy the Illusory Swap. He was hoping that by learning about teleportation techniques it'd increase his chances at successfully activating the swap function. He had planned to buy it long ago, but at 30,000 credits it'd been too steep a price until the trial where he'd gotten a massive influx of credits.

Moving to the basic illusion section, John read the list of techniques Dame Eleanor wanted him to buy. "The Basic Art of Ventriloquism, Words of Truth, and Sound Bullets"

Walking into the section, John picked up the three technique manuals and read their introductions.

Basic Art of Ventriloquism - Before the fall ventriloquists would speak without moving their lips, using techniques to make it sound like someone or something else was talking. The Basic Art of Ventriloquism uses mana to manipulate sound waves to create sound at a location within 50 meters of the user. Higher levels of the technique can increase the distance and volume of the ability.

Words of Truth - The Words of Truth is an illusion spell activated by speaking the truth. Listeners are pulled into the illusion where they will experience exactly what you describe so long as it is the exact truth. After mastering this technique you can convince someone to do anything so long as it will aid them in some way. This is the most basic Soul Illusion, extremely difficult to activate and use but is recommended for anyone seeking to become an illusionist.

Sound Bullets - Sound waves are also known as compression waves. They thump against the air, slowly expanding and causing vibrations that our ears interpret as sound. The Sound Bullet uses mana to capture and further compress the sound waves made by firing a bullet, wrapping it around the bullet. When the bullet hits its target, the mana dissipates and the compression wave is released creating a massive noise while releasing a vibrational attack that ignores physical defenses to attack internal organs.

After reading the descriptions, John immediately started calculating how much it was going to cost to buy all four manuals.

The Basic Art of Ventriloquism only cost 2,000 credits thankfully, the Words of Truth cost 45,000 credits because it was the only basic level soul illusion, and Sound Bullets cost 20,000 credits. John still had the option to purchase a manual for free. He was originally planning on using that on the Basic Blink Step since it cost 30,000, but now if he used it on Words of Truth it would only cost him 52,000 to buy all four techniques.

Between the credits he'd made for selling the dragon eggs and the 10,000 from beating Tian Ji, John had made 140,000 credits in the trial. He'd spent 56,000 on evolving his croc, so he was left with 84,000. After buying the techniques he'd only have 32,000 left which sucks because he'd wanted to upgrade his pistols to mid-level spirit weapons which cost 40,000, but John had decided long ago to put his resources into buying techniques instead of gear. In his opinion gear was an external factor that increased power that could be lost at any time while techniques and strength where internal factors that stayed with you your entire life.

Walking up to the desk, John smiled at the lady who was always there and handed over the manuals. Since learning about doppelgangers he was beginning to wonder if the woman was one because the technique shop was open 24 hours a day and she was the only employee.

"That's quite the hall you have there." The lady smiled and rang them all up. "That'll be 97,000 credits."

"I won a free manual from a trial and would like to use it on Words of Truth." John said, handing over his phone after activating the app that tracked how many credits he had.

"Got it!" She smiled and handed John back his phone along with the 4 complete manuals. "Be careful training the Blink Step, it has a nasty rebound effect if you don't activate it properly."

"What are you talking about?" John asked, suddenly worried.

"It's a teleportation technique, those are all a pain to learn. Every time you don't activate it properly you'll do a little internal damage and stun yourself for up to 3 seconds. I'd advise you to only use it in training until you can activate it successfully 100 percent of the time."