Chapter 159 - Dungeon Dive (3)

As my thoughts expanded to the surroundings, the world I was aware of changed completely.

In an instant, I felt countless pieces of information flooding into my brain. The speed of the wind, the moisture in the air, the deep of the mud, the shape of every tree, leaf, and branch, plus many other things.

Most of the information was things I could not understand. I felt as though an overwhelming flood of knowledge was trying to squeeze into my brain.

The feeling was so overwhelming that my mind became completely blank, followed by a sharp pain that almost made me lose consciousness.

"Ugh!"

[Boy!] The demon suddenly shouted, cutting off the flow of information.

I gasped violently and held my head in pain while retching.

"Cough, cough… Ugh… F-Fuck, w-what in the hell happened?"

[… Nothing much. You were just about to turn into a fool. You were lucky I stopped you in time.]

My face became pale.

The sharp pain did not show signs of subsiding. In fact, I felt it was becoming worse.

[Calm down. Take a deep breath and circulate your mana around your body. That should help.]

I nodded and followed the demon's instructions. Soon, I felt the pain starting to diminish.

Around five minutes later, I was finally mostly recovered, save for the sweat on my forehead and a slight fever.

"What happened, demon?" I asked in a tired tone.

[You tried to take more information than you could endure, and your brain went into overdrive. You were very close to turning into an idiot, or worse yet, dying.]

I smiled bitterly. "So I bit more than I could chew, huh."

[It was partially my fault. I underestimated your talent in soul laws and your ingenuity. What thought did you imbue into Confidence?]

"To understand the world around me… Did I make a mistake?"

[Indeed... Your mind and soul are not strong enough to do something like that.] The demon sighed. [Do you even have an idea how much information is there in the world around you? Even trying to understand a grain of sand completely could fry your brain. You were really lucky this time.]

A wry chuckle left my mouth.

[Nevertheless, the fact that you succeeded in something like that is impressive. Your talent when it comes to soul laws is really high.] The demon praised me.

I did not know whether to feel happy about the compliment or scared due to my close shave with death.

"What should I do then?" I asked the demon.

[Your approach is not wrong, it's just that you should limit the information you receive. Try again, but this time, just limit yourself to perceiving the environment around you.]

I nodded and took a deep breath before closing my eyes.

Remembering the feeling of just now, I tried again, but this time, I wanted just to perceive my surroundings instead of understanding them.

Quickly, I received feedback from Confidence. I was slightly scared, but fortunately, the previous situation did not repeat itself.

Instead, an image appeared in my mind.

It was an image of my surroundings.

It was quite weird. Unlike sight, the feedback from confidence did not contain things like color, depth, or shape. It was just information describing what was around me.

At the start, the feedback was from only a couple of meters around me. But as I got used to it, I started to expand it slowly.

Soon, the world around me became clear in my mind. The trees, the mud, the leaves, the branches.

I consciously filtrated the unnecessary information, only retaining what was necessary to perceive my surroundings.

Eventually, my perception had extended one hundred meters away.

I basked in the wonderful feeling brought by this state and opened my eyes. Without turning around, I threw my spear towards a place seventy meters to my right.

The spear flew sharply and pierced an alligator hidden below the water.

Even without looking in its direction, I knew that the spear had pierced its left eye, nailing it to the floor and killing it instantly.

"Amazing…" I could not help but mutter.

The feeling of perceiving everything in my surroundings could only be described as breathtaking. I felt like my way of seeing the world changed completely.

"How should I call it?" I asked myself.

Even though this technique was derived from Confidence, I thought it deserved its own name.

After a few seconds of contemplation, I decided on a name.

Understanding.

"What do you think, demon?"

[Simple enough, and it makes honor to its effects.] The demon approved.

I smiled satisfied. Then, I headed in the direction of the lizard I just killed to recover my spear. 

But after taking the first step, I staggered.

I hurriedly tried to regain my footing with a startled expression, but my sense of balance seemed off. My body swayed like I was drunk until I kneeled on the ground, barely stopping myself from falling facedown into the mud.

"It looks like I have to get used to using this technique first." I sighed with a wry smile.

Although Understanding allowed me to perceive my surroundings in a much better way, it seemed like it was not easy to use this technique.

Just having it activated made it almost impossible for me to walk. I felt like I was walking in several directions at the same time.

Sighing again, I turned off the technique and walked toward my spear.

However, I did not give up on using the technique. Even while walking, I activated understanding regularly to get information about my surroundings.

The repeated bursts of information made me feel a bit nauseous, and I occasionally tripped while walking, but even so, I insisted on continuing to use it.

Even a fool could understand that learning to keep this technique active all the time could increase my abilities greatly. I was determined to master it as soon as possible.

The demon seemed to like my idea because he occasionally advised me about how to use the technique better.

After recovering my spear, I continued advancing in the direction of the core of the dungeon.

This time, though, I was using Understanding regularly to scan my surroundings.

Thanks to that, I managed to locate all the monsters within 100 meters of me. As soon as I located one, I immediately killed it.

None of the alligators was strong. The strongest one I met was a six-meter-long tier-three alligator, but without the factor of surprise, this level of monster was not a threat to me.

Just like that, I continued advancing and killing alligators.

But around one hour later, my ears caught the sound of a battle.

I furrowed my brows and focused on the sound. At the same time, I activated understanding to see if I could locate the source of the sound.

Unfortunately, the battle was happening beyond the range of Understanding. I soon got an idea, though, and tried aiming Understanding in a specific direction instead of a radius around me.

This method seemed to work and my perception expanded to two hundred meters, two hundred and fifty meters, three hundred meters...

Finally, when my perception reached three hundred and fifty meters, I located the source of the sound.

Three students were locked into battle against six alligators.

The battle seemed to be in a stalemate, but one of the students had been injured.

After hesitating briefly, I headed toward them.