“There’s something not that far ahead of us, maybe a few hours at our normal speed. It feels… Strange?”

Ten monster encounters had taken place since they escaped the chaotic one where a unique monster with spiritual powers intruded into.

And Astryde seemingly decided that what her instinct was telling her was strong and important enough to talk about it as they traveled east.

What followed however made even Arik, the normally unconcerned one, flinch a bit.

“Oh,” Rune exited his bubble and reacted to Astryde’s words almost immediately, “I was having exactly the same, but really the exact same, thought in my mind.”

And then the three stopped completely a few seconds later, looking at each other inquisitively.

“Since when?” Astryde asked.

“2 or 3 fights? A slight heaviness in my perception, but there’s nothing wrong, it didn’t increase or decrease from the moment it started.”

“Mine is telling me there’s a big, like really big, gathering of ether resources in that direction,” she pointed east as she said that. It was exactly their planned direction.

“And do you know anything that can create a gathering of ether resources other than an ether crystal mine?”

“Yeah, but I need to be closer to make sure. And I never felt one anyway, so I can’t say if it’s one without visual confirmation.”

“Why not just record the coordinates and dodge it for now? If it’s still here when we come back then we’ll check it. Rune’s heaviness is not at all a good sign for me,” Arik proposed, speaking for the first time in what felt like an entire day.

The three looked at each other, waiting for someone to challenge the proposition.

Then Astryde got her own ether tower out, activating it in an instant.

“I need to record that feeling,” Astryde stated, “If it’s something to a bait and not an ether crystal mine, then I can feel it better if we stumble upon a similar one in the future.”

Nobody objected to doing that and the two not concerned took to waiting for her to make adjustments to their itinerary, making sure to dodge the thing that was “a few hours ahead” by circling around it.

When Rune hid Astryde to let her have her peace, he got a new insight having to do with "affinity for ether sources" not being included in his 1st through 3rd stage cosmic mist intent.

‘I never added that to my list, right? Like hell it’s not possible to use affinity to somehow get any entity’s position, I’m sure it exists.’

And he found a few tens of affinity specializations in the guide that he added to his cosmic mist note document.

‘Does hiding from affinity specialization belong more to my 4th stage chaos interference or 5th stage nature assimilation? I’ll need to research that more in the future even if I’m pretty sure it's the 4th stage’s domain.’

For half an hour, where Rune and Arik took down a grand total of 1 monster, Astryde settled down and recorded what she “instinctively” felt, then created a new itinerary that made them circle the supposed bait, possible ether crystal mine, and likely weird things.

This deviation, in terms of distance, wasn’t enough for them to change their objective coordinates to new ones, so it turned out to be only a minor inconvenience that took less than a day to circumvent completely.

During that time, Rune made sure to note the number of monsters they encountered in anticipation of comparing it to a normal one, trying to see if what Astryde felt or what himself felt had an effect.

But to see if the precautions they took were truly deserved or not would take until their return trip. If they didn’t forget about it in favor of something they judged more interesting.

Once Astryde and Rune stopped feeling that something was amiss in their own way, this event was completely swept under the carpet and nobody brought it up again.

…

‘It’s here again… It was exactly this feeling…’

Rune felt something he couldn’t really describe appear all around him.

Previously he called it slight heaviness, and now, a few weeks after he felt it for the first time, he knew its origin.

After dedicating intermittent days to doing different minor perception manipulations, close to none with tangible results, he finally found something.

‘But how come I can even do that? I don’t think my specialty has anything having to do with feeling others' perception.’

To be sure, he brought up his soul specialty window.

Innate Dimensional Perception

Soul Specialty (Tier 4)

All the potential remaining in your ether soul has been unlocked and used to create your own path, a path where your perception is an impregnable fortress that affects all of your spirit.

Your perception sphere resistance to external and internal changes is increased by 800%. Your awareness resistance to external and internal changes is increased by 300%. Your spirit’s ability to create momentum is rendered harder by 100%. Your perception’s resistance to abnormal perception changes is increased by 600%.

‘Harder awareness and momentum? I can’t see any possible links. I also don’t think foreign perceptions are considered abnormal perception changes, and I likewise don’t think they can cause external or internal changes… Looks like a problematic dilemma dear myself.’

As the group was still on break for at least another half a day, he didn’t try to rush a conclusion and opened his guide on the last page he left it.

Feeling other entities’ perceptions was something with a lot of applications in numerous domains, so he had a lot to read. That wasn’t even talking about all the references to new specializations he never heard before that were present almost in each new paragraph.

He wasn’t sure why, but compared to his expectations, what he was reading was very entertaining.

He had become used to reading a guide where all the pieces of information were thrown around and he had to be the one to piece everything together, but recently, things seemed to have changed.

‘I’ll check things I already read and see if they’ve been edited later, I hope it has really been edited.’

It was only a passing thought, and he was too focused on finding an explanation for his current situation anyway, so he thought about it and then forgot it.

A few hours of reading later, as he finished the whole introductory section of this part of the guide, he had found a few approximately coherent theories but no sure one.

The most likely theory for him, and the one he accepted to conclude this side-project, was that the perception he felt without even trying was really super-duper strong, and with a bit of his soul specialty hidden properties, that sealed the deal.

The only problem with that explanation was that now, by trying to purposely feel foreign perceptions with the efficiency of a minor manipulation, he could feel the presence of the perception of his 2 travel companions.

‘Well, let’s just thank my specialty and be done with it. I can’t even use this new ability as long as they don’t retract their perception, so… I’ll just know for the future.’

“Or maybe…”

He spoke aloud.

“I think I know from where the slight heaviness I felt back at the probable bait was, I was going to shelve it and then I realized I could just ask you to retract your perception completely. Just do it for a minute now, then another single time when we travel, and I’ll be able to conclude this project.”

There was no answer for a while, but he knew they heard him as suddenly, the slight feeling of heaviness disappeared completely.

Not losing time, he stopped doing the minor manipulation allowing one to get a specialization for feeling others’ perception, and nothing changed.

10 seconds later he tried again, and nothing changed, so he stopped again, and he repeated this cycle 5 or 6 times before he felt the heaviness back.

“Ok. It’s pretty much confirmed but I still need to try it with a monster.”

“So what we called a bait was really supposed to be a bait?” Astryde asked, a bit excited at the prospect of having dodged a disaster just like that.

“I would say yes, but if we want to confirm it we need to backtrack and affirm it was a bait by dying under the clutch of a wild tier 5 or 6 monster who’s leisurely farming EP. Who’s with me?”

There was no answer.

…

“This region is becoming a bit boring,” Arik reported this fact as he was released from Rune’s cosmic mist bubble with Astryde after their latest escape from a scary mothermonster.

It wasn’t the first time he said something like that.

“Is it?” Astryde was the one answering to his frustration. She completely understood why he was saying that, but she had made up her mind long ago.

Rune was only listening from the side without interrupting, having his own opinion he didn’t share as he knew he wasn’t that seriously bored.

The bone region exceeded his expectation in some way, but overall, the only serious regret he had about it was not preparing a way to make up for his missing sight.

He had found solutions in the guide, but again, as if it was the universal answer to everything, and it maybe was, without a mastery slot available his options were cut short to extremely time-intensive ones.

By extension, his problem was also the problem of Arik and Astryde, and their only comforts were their high leveling rate and the rapidly approaching dusk stage, past the twilight one, of their first long travel journey.

‘I understand Ether Law, I should be thankful. But you know! No pillars! No ruins! No surprises apart from monsters whose mystical power I cannot fathom!’

Feeling a burst of frustration, he waved his hands a bit and shadowboxed the air in hope of releasing it, to moderate success.

What Rune wanted to do first and foremost was see new things that people had never seen before him in new environments, and after now more than 6 months in the bone region, he had started to learn that his endless adaptation was only half of the work.

The other half depended on his willingness to adapt his build.

‘But should I?’

The answer to his new insight concerning how to become a true exploration immortal, or immortal explorer as he recently rephrased, wasn’t clear for now.

And the best way he found to accelerate the solving of this dilemma was reaching tier 5.

So when a monster appeared again in his perception, he prepared for yet another fight in this dreary, bleak, dark, and unique bone region.

…

‘That’s a true time watcher for you.’

Traces of civilization, something that couldn’t have possibly been made by nature or coincidences even in a trillion years, that’s what Rune saw in his perception for the first time since they exited site 58.

A thousand years was a very short time.

It wasn’t him who said that, it was his education in geology and Astryde.

With less than a thousand years since the ancient civilization evacuated this region, probably, what they built hadn’t been swallowed by the earth, razed by environmental events, or eroded by the rare rain, it was still standing even if a bit… A lot, damaged.

“6 months and a half! Finally!” Astryde was the first to exclaim at their discovery and the first to get her ether tower out.

“And here I was, worrying that we would have to search for a few weeks before finding our interest point,” Arik also added to the mood in his own way.

With the end of their journey in sight, Rune got out of his portable peace haven and also shared in the celebration, “I’ll finally be able to leave you two burdens and be free! And I need to do a purge too!”

“A purge?”

“Of course you would decide that.”

The two weren’t that surprised. Rune had already been talking about this possibility for days.

“You decided you couldn’t go on without seeing a thousand kilometers around you when you wanted to? Is it really worth it for you?” Arik was the one who asked those questions, questioning his motivations for doing something he had judged as counter-productive.

“It’s worth it as long as I change my main spiritual passive training to my momentum. I decided on an awareness division specialization and nothing will make me change my mind! At least nothing short of an entire week of purge where I’ll be able to think about how life-”

“Stop it,” Arik didn’t want to hear his annoying empty bravado and interrupted him, “Just do it, not like losing a few weeks to reverse the change is important, and gaining your vision back will help us see more.”

“I planned to make drawings of the surroundings and use them for whatever. Considering few have their sight, I think I’ll get a new understanding and I love that idea!”

Astryde nodded imperceptibly following Rune’s ambitious and passionate explanation, although if she was nodding at what he said, at the ruins that were slowly becoming grander and taller, or at the two, only herself knew.

One thing was sure for the group of 3 however.

The ruin site they reached was certainly not an outpost.

It was a city.

After they reached what Astryde qualified as the core part of the city, they established their camp by creating a simple small dome of anti-perception measures.

It wasn’t the first time Rune tried his hand at those, but he clearly wasn’t proficient. To make sure he didn’t mess up, he read the guide for a bit before helping his 2 companions who miraculously had done that a lot before.

Adding yet another item to his to-do list, they completed the camp and started to sweep the city ruins of the few monsters that could be found within while at the same time doing scans with their ether towers to map it out.

Despite what one would think when an ancient civilization with close to no technological support was evoked, there was no city wall limiting different areas. It was Astryde’s job to make sense of tens of square kilometers by herself.

She could of course ask for help, but she had chosen to become a time watcher, and from what she said, before becoming a true time watcher she still had to learn a lot and make a lot of mistakes, and this occasion was perfect for her to practice her acquired skills.

From city planning to xeno culture, passing by sociology and archeology, she hadn’t been educated in all those before she decided to become a time watcher, so she had a lot to catch up to.

Once the city ruins had been secured as best as they could, neither of them procrastinated as they all started their own project.

…

*Ding* Body Control: Provided Prolonged Body Use has been purged

‘Sigh…’

Rune hadn’t even felt the time pass as he was doing his purge, he just did his usual routine and then drifted into the ever-increasing entertaining part of the net.

Arik was doing the same as he took all the time he wanted to do what Rune perceived as 1001 different projects. At the same time too.

One time he swaggered by and showed him the completely edited video of their 6 months and a half journey ending with a short glimpse at the city ruins they discovered, and he agreed that it was worth becoming their second travel video.

He didn’t know what became of the first Arik sent before they left site 58, whether it was used privately or released publicly, but he was sure it was also a good video.

‘Finally. I’ll finally get my vision back…’

Mobilizing his awareness, he started to manipulate it according to his plan. The minor manipulation he needed to do was called “sense invocation”, and it allowed one to forcefully change the foundation of a biological entity’s senses.

He had judged it the best out of hundreds of others for no other reason than it was easy to get and very versatile.

‘I should be happy to have learned this lesson so early after getting my growth mastery. I created it this way for reasons I agreed to, and I’m sure I’ll enter regions with law warping that will directly restrict me like the bone region.’

Not dwelling too much on things he had already taken for granted, his awareness started to move. His specialty didn’t really make it that much harder for him to do as he wanted, his fundamental was tier 4 after all.

His spirit didn’t have any more secrets left to unravel, he knew where all his senses were located so much that it had become an instinct for him to turn on and off his sight, even after now close to a year of having lost it.

So just brute-forcing his way with his tier 4 awareness division fundamental, he overloaded his vision with all he had, even deactivating his perception sphere in the process.

Now, with the complete absence of anything able to give him feedback on the world, everything became dark and silent, even his thoughts were muted.

Without his biological eyes, his sense of sight that was overloaded with so much awareness had no exit and could only continue to surcharge and then overcharge his broken sense.

Once it had reached this stage, there was only a single thing left to do: Manifesting spirituality, awareness in this case, in reality.

This was achieved by waiting until his spirit naturally tried to rectify the broken sense that didn’t work, wanting to disperse the gathered awareness, and Rune refusing to rectify the problem, stubbornly activating this broken sense.

And then that was it.

*Ding* Do you want to fill one of your empty mastery slots with Awareness Division: Specialized Sense Invocation?

Once he accepted, he would become able to get all his biological senses back.