Illusion Part I

A few hours later, Bryan exhaled a deep breath and opened his eyes. His pitch-black eyes were brighter than ever before. He had finally advanced to Rank 3 Apprentice!

He took a moment to observe his mind runes and confirmed that everything was smooth and perfect. He grabbed his silver pocket watch from the bedside table and looked at the time.

"Hmm, it's only 8 pm," Bryan mumbled as he got up from his bed and went to the kitchen.

He was planning to make himself some dinner and then start refining his pocket watch as well as get used to the three Rank 0 Spells that he had gotten from Detective Watson. Bryan was really excited at the prospect of finally being able to cast spells.

However, he couldn't cast them in his apartment as one of the spells was destructive in nature, the other could only be used in the dark, and the last one was only effective in a fight and not practice.

As Bryan was cooking himself some steak in the kitchen, he thought to himself, 'Fuck, should I get myself a maid? Cooking food and doing household chores is really time-consuming.'

After having a hearty meal, Bryan went back to his bedroom. He sat on his bed and started to refine his silver pocket watch. Two hours later he switched to memorizing the three Rank 0 spells.

By the time he was done with all this, Bryan was completely and utterly exhausted. He kept the three spell books beside him on the bed and instantly fell asleep.

Bryan opened his eyes and found himself standing in front of his apartment on 7 Robinson Street again. He was in a dream!

He looked around in puzzlement and thought to himself, 'What the fuck is happening? It's the same dream I had when I advanced to Rank 2 Apprentice.'

After taking a few steps to look around, Bryan suddenly froze in his spot as he said, "Wait! I can think!? And even control my body? This is way different from the last dream!"

Bryan calmed himself down and thoroughly inspected this dream. He had to find out why he was pulled into a dream every time he advanced a rank.

In the Transcendent world, strange and mysterious things happened all the time. And most of them weren't a good thing.

The colors in this dream appeared to be very saturated. And when Bryan observed a particular object or area closely, he would begin to see them start to form beautiful patterns.

As he marveled at the beautiful scenery around him, Bryan turned his head and looked up at the sky. Then his mouth went wide as his eyes filled with incredulity.

Up in the sky, he could see a vast number of stars and nebulas. It looked as if someone had used the night sky as a canvas and painted the cosmos on it.

The night sky wasn't just black. It was full of all sorts of colors; purple, green, blue, yellow, orange, etc. Bryan had never seen something so magnificent in his entire life.

Just as he was admiring the beauty of the night sky, Bryan was pulled back into reality as he opened his eyes. He looked around and saw that he was back in his bedroom and it was already morning.

The early morning sunlight shone in his room through the window. The leaves on the trees outside continued to turn brown and orange as Damascus City welcomed the arrival of the fall season.

Bryan sat up on the bed and sighed, "What a beautiful dream!"

He had never seen something so beautiful in his life. His heart was filled with awe as well as a hint of fear. Every time he advanced, he was pulled into this dream and he couldn't even resist it.

Bryan didn't know if this was a good thing or not. He contemplated whether to ask Detective Watson about this strange dream or not. Ultimately Bryan decided to ask him about this after becoming a Transcendent.

He got up from the bed and stretched his limbs. Then he went to the bathroom and prepared for the day ahead.

…

98 West 10th Street.

Inside the bedroom on the second floor of the slightly dilapidated, red-colored building, Kenny lay on the bed, writhing in pain.

The muscles on his face kept contorting, as a gray-colored mist continued to phase in and out.

"Arghhh!" Kenny grabbed and pulled at his hair as he screamed in agony.

Worm-shaped pustules kept forming all over his face and started to wriggle. All of a sudden, Kenny's eyes turned bloodshot as he arched his back and started laughing maniacally.

"Hahaha kill, kill, kill! Heart, liver, kidneys…hungry so hungry! Gotta eat, gotta kill, gotta eat! Hehehe!" Kenny sat up on the bed. Gray mist covered his face and it returned to its handsome appearance again.

To be precise, he used his Transcendent innate ability to create an illusion over his face.

His face was still the same, covered with pustules but to others, he appeared to be a good-looking man with black hair parted from the middle, brown eyes, and a thin black mustache.

Kenny got up from his bed and just stood there silently for a minute. Then his eyes curved like crescent moons and he grinned from ear to ear as he mumbled, "Time to kill! Time to eat!"

…

Bryan had just finished eating dinner after returning to his apartment. His day was the same as usual.

Studying with Detective Watson, practicing gun shooting at the underground shooting range in the police station, meditating, and refining his silver pocket watch.

Starting tonight, he would go and investigate the list of 27 people in the middle-class neighborhood whom Detective Watson suspected to be the killer.

He wore his windbreaker on top of his three-piece black suit, exited his apartment, and called for a public carriage. The public carriage services in Damascus usually stopped by 11 pm at night. Currently, it was slightly past 9 pm.

Bryan instructed the driver to head to 10th street. He had to go investigate two suspects who currently lived on 10th Street. One was at 7 East 10th Street and the other at 98 West 10th Street.

He first went to the suspect on East 10th Street.