(Ch.3) Another Step Forward, Part 1.

On the third day of my arrival in this world, Darren decided to teach me a technique called 'stone bullet'. Although there were some similarities between 'Stone levitation' and 'Stone bullet', the latter was more advanced and effective. That being said the idea of the 'Stone bullet' was to have the swirling bondor launch the stone forward with speed. He did mention that the power of the attack wasn't that high.

That day I spent our entire journey trying to master the ability. Despite how simple it sounded, it was quite an arduous task to split my attention on both keeping up with my companion's fast pace and also on trying to manipulate the bondor with my intent. But thankfully by the time Sirius decided it was time to camp for the day, I was able to successfully use 'Stone bullet'.

It wasn't like their effect was much and someone like Octus could easily catch them, I was still quite satisfied with my progress. After all, another skill was added to my arsenal.

We were still following the lake of tuberson as doing so ensured the need for water and also provided direction for Darren. Having camped and eaten the onex boar meat that was leftover from yesterday, I went inside the tent.

Lying down, my mind drifted back to the fight with Eadric. In the last two days, we had talked plenty about him.

When Eadric attacked Sirius and the others, Darren was able to sense his approach but with his artifact, he could've easily decided to hide his presence. My theory was that he might have hidden his presence before and observed them to get more information and then before attacking intentionally let his presence leak out.

In that manner, he was not only able to gather more information but also stop Daren from having any doubts.

Eadric also was able to fool them regarding his powers. My companions had assumed he was close to ascending to the next rank of 'Mindless Wanderer' but from his display of power, he seemed more like a newly awakened 'Mindless Wanderer' than an advanced one.

Even after awakening or ascending to their corresponding rank, one wouldn't get the full abilities of that particular rank, instead slowly as their insight regarding their abilities goes up their strength will too. Besides that, by gaining experience one might be able to find some creative use of their powers. And that was why even among mystics with the same rank, there remained differences in power. The difference would be magnified when one side had any artifacts…

Eadric was certainly a rank above all of them but with three mystics all of whom belonging to the first rank, and one of them being a pathfinder normally their chance of victory would have been much higher. But that chance got lowered because of the artifact that Eadric carried.

Even after that Sirius seemed to think that without my help they could have somehow won and I was once again forced to admit his tenacious side.

Sirius didn't think Eadric was on his own, attacking them solely based on his interest but instead, someone was behind him. I revealed what I learned as Eadric mumbled to himself when he caught hold of me. That there was someone who gave Eadric the information. Someone who didn't tell me about me.

It was natural that whoever gave Eadric the information about this group wouldn't know about me but the main part was that someone was there behind him.

With his suspicion confirmed Sirius mentioned that someone from the big families in Xavier might be behind Eadric. Sirius's team was under direct order of the council and as such it would be highly illegal for someone to try and harm them. Most importantly, most of the artifacts were under the control of either the families or the council.

Although their inner politics were interesting to me, my current focus was on something else entirely. During that fight I was easily caught by Eadric despite my eyes being able to sense and see his teleportation. It should have given me an edge, something to shield myself of. But it didn't. I was just too slow to react properly then. Sure, I'd been tense and got caught but it didn't exclude the fact that my speed to avoid an attack was and still is too slow.

Even for the last three days, I was attuned countless times that even Darren was able to outperform me on my durability. He was a support-based mystic for god's sake!

I felt a sense of urgency grow inside me when that subtle thought took root in my mind. I needed something that made me more agile and allowed me to escape from attacks unharmed. Something that would also allow me to cover a large distance fast, allowing me to catch my enemies off guard.

Agility…

A sudden realization hit me in that moment and I shot up straight inside the tent. What if I used the bondor similar to how I'd use for 'Stone bullet'?

Immediately, multiple thoughts popped up in my head. Some of which I discarded while others I kept as they made more sense.

But I calmed my nerves down soon enough. Lying down again, I decided to wait until tomorrow morning as I wasn't so keen on disturbing others' sleep just because of my excitement.

There was no guarantee that my theory was even going to work…

The next morning I found myself waking up with anticipation. But that was nothing but the fleeting excitement of trying something new-something different, which I'd forgotten years back. It wasn't so simple.

Initially, I tried channeling the bondor through my legs and increasing my speed which worked but it wasn't anything major. Anyone could do that. And something like that wasn't so enough.

The next idea was to somehow make my body levitate in the air, similar to how 'Stone levitation' worked. But as it turned out, levitating a stone and a human were two entirely different feats. In the case of stone levitation, I had to connect the bondors outside my body but in the case of making my entire body float, I had to manipulate each fiber of my body separately to pull myself off the ground. It was near impossible to do something like that…

Holding onto my knee, I breathed heavily after having exhausted my mental capacity trying to levitate my body. Was there no way that I could utilize the same process as 'Stone Bullet'? I wondered.

I went through the entire process of firing a 'Stone bullet' in my head, pausing and observing each little step. By the end of it, I had another inspiration. One that I was pretty confident in.

When firing a 'Stone bullet' I didn't need to actively channel the bondor outside to push the stone further instead all it took was an explosive burst at the start which made the stone fire. It was somewhat similar to a rubber band snap. By gathering a certain amount of bondor into a place and then snapping it forward!

It should be possible to do it with me too. All I needed was to guide the bondor into my feet and then push my feet up in the air into a flight.

Standing straight I took a deep breath calming my nerves once more, feeling and sensing the bondor coursing inside my body, circulating through the invisible bondor channels. Slowly my focus deepened on the present moment, my breath anchoring me to it and I started to feel the presence of atmospheric bondor around me, existing in its entirety.

It was a weird sensation to feel. As if there was a sense of completeness out there somewhere. But they were beyond my reach, just existing as a glimpse for me to see…

I had kept my vision inactive to let my attention be only on my senses. The silken threads were ever present around me, floating around. They merged amongst everything but were incorporeal. The flesh of my body pulled them toward me gently as my intent deepened.

Slowly I channeled the bondor from my torso into my thighs and my legs. As it did, I felt my leg muscles bulging with newfound strength and the unrestrained power cracked the ground underneath my feet to shatter into pieces as I felt my body lowering just so slightly. I did not bother with it and continued channeling the bondors.

I knew the connection between me and them would snap the moment my attention drifted away from the present moment. I'd to somehow keep my mind present and it felt more like I was meditating.

My bondors were too erratic that it took extra effort for me to not lose control over them and have them leak out of my body. According to Darren, it was just another sign of my half-awakened nature. Other than me getting too mentally fatigued when I tried to use my bondors there was no other extra sign of my impending doom that Darren mentioned before. But in case it was true, I intended to become a true mystic as soon as possible.

As the bondor reached my ankle, I imagined the same sensation of releasing the bondor and gently guiding it into my feet and then over the boot I was wearing. And when it reached the boot underneath the sole of my feet, I let it glide over its outer surface, imbuing it with an external layer of cover.

I snapped my eyes open and pushed my feet back into the little hole and the next moment my world shifted, everything rushing past me like I was in a train, hurling forward to an unknown destination. But before my mind could catch up with my body's momentum, I crashed against a giant tree, breaking the silence that surrounded me.

There was a sharp mental jab right after which was then followed by the buzzing sound of some insects that were around me. As the static noise deafened out, I looked ahead. I was sitting on the ground with my back laid on the tree.

At the stop where I'd been standing just a moment prior, there was a thin line etched in the ground which stretched from there to where my feet lay currently. The trail was at least ten meters in length.

Observing the soles of my boot, I found they weren't damaged because of the outer protective layer that was formed before I dashed ahead.

Perhaps it was the loud noise or that I'd been away from the group for far too long, but my companions rushed toward me, especially Darren who had a worried look on his face.

"What happened?" Sirius was the first one to ask, his eyes gazing at my forehead and I realized blood was trickling down from my injured head.

It probably wasn't a big wound seeing how I was still conscious but Darren still kneeled beside me and planted his hand on the back side of my head, after asking me to tilt my head forward. The warm sensation flowed in, and I thought how Successful the experiment was. It was a success but not complete yet.

After being healed, I thanked Darren and tried to stand but an unbearable pain assaulted my legs as I almost fell only for Darren to catch hold of me and act as my support. Holding onto his shoulder which was at my arm's resting height, I asked if we should sit down first somewhere.

Octus was crouching down at the line caused by my boots and ran his finger over the solid soil that had formed on both sides. He got up and followed behind us. When we reached back to our camp and I found myself a decent spot to sit down, I started revealing everything related to my experiment.

I didn't intentionally hide anything from them as now was perhaps the right chance for me to build trust with them. And there was no doubt in my mind that it would be useful in the future.

"So that's why there were remaining traces of bondor there?" Octus asked.

While he was examining the mark in the soil, he seemed to have sensed some remaining traces of bondor there with his 'minor institution'—a passive ability of his. It was to be expected that there remained some traces as my boot was layered with my bondor and there was direct contact between it and the soil.

I nodded at his words, clearing the last bit of confusion.

"In short, you have managed to get some inspiration from 'Stone bullet' and even managed to create a technique of your own, am I correct?" Sirius summarized what had happened and it made me feel like it was a big deal.

"Yes," I replied.

Darren sighed from beside and said, "I have never heard of something like this happen before but forget that. What are you going to name the technique?"

He pointed out something important. If I'd managed to create a new technique it required a name. And since it was my first creation it had to be something cool, right?

I took a moment to think of something with my hand on my chin.

"Alright. I will call it 'Skyburst'," I smiled.

For the next couple of days, I continued improving 'Skyburst' as much as possible. This time Darren and Octus helped me by giving me more ideas on how I could use this properly and efficiently.

It took me a while before I was able to keep my feet afloat for the entire duration of the flight. Once I was able to do that, it ensured a near-instant teleportation-like effect when I used Skyburst. Of course, it wasn't as instantaneous as a teleport would be but it was good enough for me. Normally I was able to cover ten meters in distance and by pushing myself to the limit I was able to add extra two more meters to it. The more I pushed, the more strained my legs became and that was the reason behind the unbearable pain that I felt after my first try.

But the next problem that I was faced with was my landing. Because of the fast speed of the technique and that part was much appreciated by me, it was quite hard for me to land properly. Not only I had to chart the flight pathway during the use, I had to land straight on my feet. The charting part wasn't so hard but I wasn't able to change direction once I took flight and flew straight. Otherwise, I would crash land.

In the end, I was forced to roll on the ground every time I landed to reduce the impact on my legs. It was just a temporary solution and I'd to somehow figure out some other alternative. But in the meantime, it was more than enough.

During those days, Daren filled in some of the information that he thought I might need later when we reached Xavier and also during the remaining bits of our journey through the forest of Zoria.

Despite the curse that was placed upon their town, they weren't able to go to the outside world. At this point, they couldn't even tell whether an outside world existed or not. But it wasn't like they couldn't leave their town border. Instead, the forest of Zoria that surrounded all around Xavier made it impossible. Most people in their town were normal citizens, with only an insignificant portion of them awakening as mystics.

The forest of Zoria had been slowly mapped out by these mystics over the last couple centuries and up to this point they have managed to map out up to the third zone. Currently, we were traveling through the first zone and almost into the second zone.