Chương 89: Chapter 94: A Step Up

"Gladly, but first tell me about Grand Ritualist. It sounds nice, what does it do?"

"A lot of things! Well, for starters, the new trait makes the effect of compounding ritual circles and components even better than before, so I'm incentivized to create those kinds instead of a single big one. I know, I know, the name would imply the opposite, but I think it has a different meaning altogether, like a higher stage compared to a more normal ritualist. Then the new skills! They allow me to store a ritual I prepared beforehand, and another makes me much faster at creating them.

It's not only useful in a tight spot! Some of the rituals described in my guide will take days to prepare. The skill will cut down the time significantly, but for now it has more immediate applications. Still, it will always remain relevant, so I think the choice was good. As for the last one, I still haven't decided, maybe tonight, with a bit more time on my hands."

That was a lot of potential she had just found herself with, an overall improvement for sure, and paired with her achievements, some of which are specifically going to improve her rituals… she just became much more powerful, and much more dangerous in a direct confrontation too.

"Nice, a big step up. I could see it already from how you dealt with the birds, but what about the magic trick?" She smirked with schadenfreude while putting a finger on her lower lip.

"I changed my mind, but you'll see… c'mon, let's proceed. We are already here. I want to see what is over this place, I'm tired of the trees." What was that about? Never mind. We still had ground to cover. Then we should return quickly, just to walk back here again more slowly, with the group behind us. It was since we exited the cave that my curse started to act up.

At the beginning it was so faint I managed to ignore it, but despite my resistances it became progressively more insistent, and now I was reaching the point of not being able to resist the sense of depression and the emptiness that plagued me. But I dealt with this my entire life, and without extra stats, I could manage some more hours.

Especially because, while we resumed our journey with a high-spirited Rhea basically skipping around the forest in glee, we managed to pass the long cliff that housed the robin-like kamikaze birds. After two more encounters they just avoided attacking us, preferring to watch from up above. I saw bigger specimens too, but those were avoiding us even more than the little ones. Smart, because it would not end well for them. At one point I simply lifted myself up with my aura.

I created a kind of sole of hardened aura under my boots while condensing a couple of handles for my hands, then I tried to lift myself up. It was working, I managed to lift off the ground, but there was something wrong with this method, so I tried different approaches, from a full suit of the stuff to wings at Rhea's insistence. They looked really cool and could lift me up, but the problem was that spreading them from my upper back made me hang with my feet dangling toward the ground.

I could straighten myself up with my high stats, but it wasn't comfortable. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. In the end I found two methods that worked best: keeping a high amount of aura tightly around myself and lifting off the ground with that, or just creating a platform under my feet like I did before with Rhea. So I opted for that and told her to jump up.

The feeling of rising to the sky under my own power was not going to become less exhilarating any time soon, but I focused on containing my aura so as not to make her feel uncomfortable. I thought about something though, and tried a new thing. I infused aura into my eyes, only in them, leaving the rest of it tightly controlled under my skin. What happened was a qualitative improvement in my vision. It was like I had put on a pair of glasses for the first time.

The vision I had before was wholly inadequate, despite my stats, or maybe I had no idea how to use them until now. It could be either way, but the fact remained that my sight, now in monochromatic shades of grey, allowed me to see much better, much farther away, and gave me splotches of color on the otherwise black and white world whenever my gaze encountered any kind of lifeform. Not only that, but as I turned around to look at Rhea, who was holding onto my arm for support, I saw her aura too.

It was stronger than any other thing I had seen until now, but given the low level of the Lybi, that didn't surprise me. In my vision she appeared surrounded by a soft red haze. Her whole being was red, but her aura was chaotic, moving and swirling without rhyme or reason. I took a look at the arm she was holding. My own aura appeared as monochromatic as the world around me, an intense grey that robbed the color out of everything.

But the thing was, I was actively restricting it under my skin, so nothing escaped from there. As I let a bit seep through my arm, I could see that naturally it appeared as a flame. No… it looked like grey flames were licking my skin, but it behaved like water, flowing and shifting about. Very peculiar. I retreated my aura inside of me and looked forward to our destination.

"Is me holding onto your arm bothering you? I can manage to stay up by myself if you prefer…" My thoughts were interrupted by Rhea's question.

"No, I was only trying something new with my aura," I said while turning to her.

"I managed to infu—""Aahh!" She recoiled from me while screaming like a banshee, and I had to actually grab her as she stepped off the disk and was about to fall.

"Rhea, what the hell? Are you okay?" I said while pulling her up. She looked like she had seen a ghost. Her breathing was fast and shallow, and her skin went pale, well, paler than what it already was.

"Please don't look at me…" she said in a small voice. She sounded genuinely scared. I moved my gaze away, then removed the aura infused in my eyes. When I turned around and looked at her again, she flinched by reflex, but after a second she studied my eyes and, finding nothing strange in them, took a moment to calm herself.

"What the fuck was that! Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Do you know how hard it is already to stay on this aura flying thing and not jump off from the sheer unease it's giving off? You could at least warn me before you try something like that!" She huffed and puffed by the end of it. I had never seen her like this. She looked scared and angry all at once.

"I didn't mean to startle you. I just found another application for my aura. Apparently, infusing your eyes allows you to see better and to gauge the aura of others, a bit like understanding their level. But I had no idea it would have this effect on you…" She looked a bit calmer after I told her what it was, but she was still mad. After taking some deep breaths, she replied, "Please don't look at me with those eyes again… it's terrifying. I don't know why, but your aura is not something easy to withstand.

Maybe it is because of your trait, I don't know. Just don't use it to look someone in the eyes." Mmm, actually… that could come in handy to keep the most annoying people in check. Food for thought.