After Ben sat down, meditating, he could finally slowly fight this feeling of wanting to puke his guts out.

However, what shocked him was feeling this partial push. This instinctive suggestion and Spirit flow influence.

'So that's it!'

He knew what this feeling was! He had felt it before.

In a cold place, when Ben's already broken dreams evaporated, that was the time he felt something similar. A suggestive pressure poked at him about what to do.

For the first, Ben felt like he could read fate. This mysterious force. And what moved some people around.

'No wonder so much has been happening lately. Everything just overwhelmed me.'

Now that the influence was slowly receding, Ben read it as he did with his Formation Core. Although not perfect, he could at least be aware of the illusion.

'The influence was very little since I would've noticed anything else. It also aligned with what I was going to do it anyway. So rather than suggestive, it just over confirmed stuff. The weirdest thing is how it just threw events at my face.'

Ben couldn't name this manipulation like he could with the core. It was an overall control of the flow of everything.

'It does fit as heaven's favorite. They come and go and hit you like an uncontrollable truck.'

'Making a mess of my strings freaked me out somehow. I've never been grateful for being so puppet-like.'

Ben's body refinement had the unique consequence of building himself like a puppet. However, the control wasn't in someone else hand, as Ben himself had been slowly crafting himself to abide by a set of instincts.

When confronted with his crumbling memory, Ben developed a system to transform explicit memory into implicit ones. And he chose that because he noticed the latter to be more resistant.

Over time, Ben pinpointed that every event of sudden amnesia involved powerfully triggering the memory, thus burning the related neurons. As a result, he theorized that disabling the catalyst should hamper the crisis. So far, his conclusion was still valid, as he had yet to lose something from his bank.

What he created in his mind followed the same logic seed banks did on Earth. To avoid the catastrophic reality of forgetting everything overnight, Ben separated meaningful memories and isolated them from the rest of his brain. And after testing it, he concluded that such a system minimized the risk of erasure.

However, this sometimes led him to know what to do, but not why. At least not until he unsealed his state fully again. But since he conditioned himself to keep his backup as secure as possible, Ben often felt like a puppet.

Yet, he followed through, miraculously avoiding death.

'I should do it again, shouldn't I? I'm not as sure anymore, and this has been triggering me lately. No wonder I've been slowly spiraling even with my fine control.'

After deciding what to do, Ben removed some fancy paper from his ring.

He carefully folded it into a bird origami and imbued it with Spirit energy, imprinting a small Array into it. And as soon as the bird flew off, Ben put his right hand on his eyes.

He chose to scout around. So as a result, Ben's vision in his right eye shifted to the high ground position.

Despite being so small, the cold and hot wings flapped at incredible speed as the bird zoomed around.

Because he was in a unique place, Ben didn't take as much time to confirm his location as he expected.

"Grimhorn... I ended up closer than I expected."

After finding where to go, Ben immediately uncovered his eyes and began to move. Above, the little origami burst into flames once the technique stopped.

But he first forcefully cleaned his body from the mud with Spirit. Small stones from the payment crumbled on his hands as the dirt slowly fell.

'It's trying to erode my body...'

However, Ben burned a lot more money than he expected.

Yet, he didn't stop until he was completely clean. So he could put some appropriate clothes on and some practical shoes.

After all that, he walked out of this area fully prepared.

---

As the sun rose a few days later, Ben Higgs stood closer to the edge of a precipice.

He saw below a thin veil of clouds and a sea-like green forest very far down.

Furthermore, to his side, he saw the continuation of the precipice of this immense tableland.

"Grimhorn..."

'I hoped it would be closer to the Myriac's Ruins. Like this, I would've to travel through the whole Latwelia and a good part of Slet to arrive there. Besides, the worst part is still to cross the Myriac Range.'

Before the teleport, Ben held a bit of hope to appear closer to the place that interested him.

While he could indeed travel through the whole continent eventually, he found it too mentally tiring because of the danger involved. Such long travel would entail Ben passing through bigger cities or regions ruled by dangerous and mighty people. For Ben, staying in some small town and mixing himself in it was simpler and within his comfort zone.

The fog had consumed the Plateau, so Ben saw almost nothing further into it.

In addition to the warmth from the rising sun, he also felt the sharp, cold wind on his slightly bald scalp.

"Cold morning dew, the sight is so beautiful. The ground wants to erode you. The plants want to eat you. The wind wants to cut you. The air wants to suffocate you. There are no animals anywhere, and all one can find is a type of silence that doesn't seem to care. Indeed, so beautiful."

Ben stood 10000 meters high on a plateau around 2000 km wide. The place was very flat and covered in its unique ecosystem.

However, due to the altitude and nature of this ground, living here was impossible for ordinary people and even very difficult for cultivators. And because of its historical instability, this place was never used by people for long periods.

Yet, a sense of beauty belonged to it, as he couldn't find many places so unique and untouched by humans.

'First, I should go down to enter seclusion again for memory maintenance. Second, I need to decide how to proceed with my fellow earthling. And third, I should make some long-term plans since I got some extra time and money.'

Due to the tragic recurrence of sudden amnesia, Ben developed a lot of countermeasures. But even then, he still needed to analyze everything to avoid letting the emptiness consume him.

Everything had worked quite well so far, at least when considering the means he had in his hands. However, Ben avoided making critical long-term decisions while the seal was active. It felt wrong, like the one making the decision wasn't fully him.

Unfortunately, despite his advance in mind and energy manipulation, Ben still had no way to avoid the corrosion from time. As he lived on, his mind wore down.

Many old memories were gone, some new ones appeared, and this cycle continued. However, Ben didn't want to embrace such a life, as he found it the same as reincarnation, equivalent to dying.

So he struggled and struggled, clutching to whatever he could.

His abilities and the limitation he confronted every day shaped the Ben that exists today. Someone obsessed with memories.

While thinking about the maintenance to come, Ben looked around, searching for a reliable way down. Unfortunately, he found nothing within sight.

'I don't think anyone is keeping some way up and down... I heard no news of something happening up here lately either.'

Ben looked into his ring, searching for something, despite not knowing exactly what.

"So be it." having found something, he jumped down without hesitation.

The feeling of the cold in his skin intensified, his clothes wiggled to the wind, and he closed his eyes, using his spiritual sense to feel the surroundings.

After free-falling for a while, a white, fluffy material appears around Ben. After using a small amount of energy, the material folded and came closer to him.

When Ben was a few dozen meters above the ground, the material expanded into a large sphere with a diameter of four meters.

Despite the cushioning, quite a few of his bones broke from the impact.

Ben had shut off most of his nervous system to avoid the intense pain. And the moment he hit the ground, a wave of energy flew from his dual-energy core to heal his body.

A few minutes later, Ben stood up. The white material retreated into the ring but was now covered in dirt and with some blood.

Ben looked up and took a big breath. Following, he cleaned up the surrounding impacted area, eliminating any traces left.

After finishing, Ben stretched his body.

Then, as he looked up again, he thought, 'I'm becoming crazier by the day.'

At this moment, he quickly turned around, looking at the line of trees not far from the cliff. His fast movement scared a dear-like animal, making it jump back and run into the bushes.

"The contrast is too big." Ben noticed the sounds around.

---

Ben was now in the middle of a forest. The area was dense, and he was carefully hiding away.

He feared that his blood might attract some wild beast.

While he coded a few changes into it, it was still blood until it evaporated.

'The shock attracted more than I expected. Luckily, nothing too troubling that could ignore the wariness from my blood appeared.'

While focusing on his chest, Ben slowly activated another of his one-use cards.

An expensive hiding technique enveloped him as he slowly sunk into the ground. Ben chose not to play around with his fate and isolated himself as much as possible to make sure he was still himself.