This is a passion work. So, I would really appreciate it if you leave behind a review when you're done reading.
***
CH62: IMPROVED STATE OF MIND
Korede's Will Manifestation had finally made its first appearance. Since Korede completely awakened his Will, he was never able to find his Manifestation. Now in his time of peril, it made its first appearance.
Aon was stunned.
From what it could tell, this Will Manifestation was feeding off Korede's pride and arrogance to fuel itself and get stronger.
To Aon's shock, it was capable of doing what should be impossible or, at least, Aon in its long life had never heard or thought of such a thing happening.
[How is it possible for a mere Will Manifestation to hold off the effects of Apotheosis? Not to mention it's still in its infancy. It shouldn't be possible.]
The effect of Apotheosis was a sort of test for a being on the path of power. It was supposed to be a test above the capabilities of the being, such that the being was reduced to only being able to struggle and hold on till the effects subsided or the being grew stronger.
However, here was a Will Manifestation which was part of Korede's current power being able to match the test.
[This host of mine is something. It looks like even the test of Apotheosis can't completely gauge his potential.] Aon thought with a 'smile'. Then, almost immediately, it shook its 'head' [However, this won't be the way to pass this Apotheosis test.]
Exactly as Aon said, after preventing the flames from continuing to burn through his mindspace, Korede's Will Manifestation entered a stalemate with the flames.
Nothing else happened.
Only a small amount of Korede's mindspace was being protected by the Manifestation. More than 90% of the mindspace was being burnt by the raging flames.
[Apotheosis will last for a while. Unfortunately, this Manifestation can only last for as long as there is Will strength. With how rapidly Will strength is being drained, this stalemate will not last till the end of the Apotheosis. You have to come up with a different solution, Korede.] Aon said.
Unfortunately, same as before, Korede could not hear him.
The stalemate continued for a while more until the area of protection formed by the Manifestation began to shrink.
The flames began to gain ground.
As Aon predicted, Korede's Will strength was being consumed and his Will Manifestation started to shrink its coverage area to save as much strength as possible. This was just a stop-gap measure, however. Soon and surely, the Manifestation would lose ground and the flames would consume Korede's mind.
Korede's consciousness was blank. He had nothing to anchor himself to. As the people in the restaurant continued to be oblivious to his presence, Korede sort something to anchor himself.
At this point, he would take anything.
In his hour of greatest need, he found something.
The children, who had been prevented from going out by their mothers, had snuck away from them to continue playing. They returned to the parking lot in Korede's view from the window.
"Are you sure about this?" A child asked the oldest.
"Yes, it's fine. The bad guys are gone already. Why are we afraid of them in the first place?" The girl replied.
Korede's consciousness, which was looking for an anchor, latched unto the final statement made by the girl.
'Yes, why am I afraid of the flames? Is it wrong to be angry at the thugs who ruin the peace of society? No, it isn't. As long as I don't do something rash, why can't I be angry at them?'
As Korede's thought process followed this route, his Manifestation stopped resisting the flames of rage in his mindspace. It disappeared as silently as it came. The only thing to prove its existence was a faint golden glow it left behind. Even the glow was very easy to miss. Luckily, Aon saw it.
[Is that…? So that's what happened.] Aon mumbled. [But why go to such lengths?]
Alas, no one was present to answer him. He turned his attention back to its host.
[This kid is still as unpredictable as ever. Can't he give me a moment of peace? This is supposed to be a resistance test but you're actually…]
Korede was doing something radical.
He was allowing the flames to burn his mindspace… but in a controlled manner.
[It's almost as if he's… yes. He's using the flame to refine and forge his mind. This daredevil!] Aon figured out what its host was doing.
It laughed.
[Haha. I wish I could see the expression on your face, Universal Law. Someone actually used your 'Oh so mighty' test to forge his mind, literally. You must be so pissed.]
Aon laughed so hard that if it had a body, it would probably be rolling on the floor.
Like metal in a furnace, Korede used the test flames to refine his mind.
He gathered his remnant Will strength into a 'hammer' and 'hammered' out the impurities in his mindspace.
Impurities that were burnt to nothingness by the flames.
The refinement continued over and over until the flames were used up.
Unlike normal forging, Korede had unconsciously avoided directing the final form of his mindspace. He merely hammered down to remove the impurities. As for the final shape it took, it was up to the mindspace.
With the flames used up, all that was left was a spark. Intuitively, Korede's Will strength flowed into it. The spark was soon marked by it and became a part of the mindspace, preventing it from disappearing.
The spark changed and took the form of a sun in Korede's starry mindspace. The Origin Rune Scripts and Will Techniques took the form of planetary bodies. The Mark of Time was now visible in the mindspace. It took the form of an everflowing, everchanging river that flowed throughout the mindspace while constantly changing its form and having no fixed shape.
Something else also happened.
During the refinement, every entity in Korede's mindspace lost a very small piece of themselves which combined to form a very small sphere. Compare to other forms in Korede's mindspace, this sphere was the size of a thumb compared to a human.
However, it was easy to tell it was special.
Not only was it able to combine everything in Korede's mind into one without conflict, most intriguingly, it also released a green-golden glow that rejuvenated all of Korede's mindspace that had been 'dried up' by the flames from the test of Apotheosis. Finally, by the time everything in Korede's mindspace settled, it took a form that gave off the feeling of a 'seed' before settling at the centre of the mindspace.
It pulsed and a stream of lines from all around the mindspace, from every entity in the space, connected to it. It was like they were feeding the seed with nutrients. Yet, the connected entities didn't look to be losing anything. If anything, they looked to be gaining.
With all these in place, Korede woke up from his trance.
'What just happened?' He wondered as he shook his head. 'What was I doing?'
[Don't think about it too much if you don't remember. That's how the Universal Law works. All you need to know is that you have gone through a flash of Apotheosis required by someone to rise to the seventh level. It's very rare, almost unheard of, for someone to experience and pass it without first reaching the sixth level.]
'Apotheosis? Pass? What are you talking about?' Korede asked.
He was confused as he couldn't recollect anything about what just happened.
[As I said, don't think too much about it. It will all come back to you when the time is right.]
It wasn't like Korede lost all his memory. It was just that everything that just happened had become hazy and he couldn't put his finger on things.
He recalled sitting and enjoying the boisterous atmosphere of the restaurant, watching the children play, getting angry at the thugs and finally, the children helping him come to a realisation.
He couldn't recall anything else. He couldn't recall what happened in his mindspace. He didn't even know that his mindspace had changed. He also couldn't recall what realisation the children helped him to come to.
He just instinctively knew something was wrong/missing.
Since he couldn't recall no matter how hard he tried, he followed Aon's advice and decided to put everything to the back of his mind.
He stood up from his seat and made his way out of the restaurant. He approached the children in the parking lot.
"You kids should go back to your mothers. It might not be safe to be out here." He said. He pointed in the direction of their mothers. "See, they're already looking for you."
The children had a downcast expression as they knew their playtime was over. Korede chuckled at the sight of this.
He said to the oldest as he brought out some money from his pocket,
"Give this to your mother to help you get whatever you want."
The girl looked at the money and shook her head. "I'm sorry brother but my parents said not to take things from strangers."
"Is that so?" Korede said with a smile.
The little girl nodded her head.
She gathered the other kids before leading them back to their mother's shop.
Korede moved ahead of them and got to the shop before the children. However, the woman was currently concerned with her children that she ignored him at first.
"Where did you go?" She asked them.
"We went back to play but this brother said you were looking for us so we came back." A boy amongst them said, pointing to Korede, only to receive a glare from the eldest girl.
As she expected, their mother was annoyed, "Didn't I tell you not to go out to play for now? Now get inside before I get angry."
The children quickly ran into the shop. The woman finally turned to Korede and said, "Thank you."
"No problem." Korede replied. "They're good kids. They came back immediately I told them you were looking for them."
The woman smile as she was happy someone praised her children.
Korede looked into the small retail shop and noticed that the woman sold kid's toys.
'I should get something for Dare. I did promise to get him something when coming back.'
Korede picked some toys.
"How much for these?"
"That's one thousand five hundred naira." The woman replied.
"I don't have much cash on me and I'm not with my card. Can I transfer to you?" Korede asked.
"Of course. That's my bank details" The woman said pointing to a small poster on the wall.
It contained the name of the shop, the woman's name, phone no., and Account numbers.
Korede transferred some money to her from his phone.
When she received the credit alert, she was surprised.
She said to him, "The money you sent is more than what you bought."
"Oh, I know. Like I said earlier, your kids are good children. Please use the change to get them whatever they want."
"I'm sorry but I can't accept this." The woman said.
"Don't worry about it. Think of it as rewarding good behaviour." Korede said with a smile.
Before the woman could continue to refuse, he left. The woman had no choice but to accept the money.
Korede had sent her fifteen thousand naira which is why the woman wanted to refuse.
The money was nothing to him. It was part of the money the NDI gave him for expenses during the Op. Nobody would care how he spent it. Not after he made at least five million naira for the Department.
The woman went into the shop. She approached her eldest daughter and asked, "Did you know that man before today?"
The girl shook her head.
"We just met him today. He talked to us at the parking space and wanted to give us money. I refused since you said not to take money from strangers. He just smiled and led us back."
The woman was confused.
She couldn't understand why the man would just give her children money for no reason. After a while, she threw it to the back of her mind.
No one dislikes free money after all.
Korede had made his way back to his car. He hadn't given the money for no reason. Even though he couldn't recall much, he could tell the children had unknowingly helped him big time. He had insisted on rewarding the kids because he could feel that, because of them, he gained something big when he should have, otherwise, lost something. As for what he lost or gain, he didn't have a clue.
He had wanted to transfer more than he did but he held himself back because he knew the woman might get the wrong idea and become suspicious. She would definitely have refused the money.
Back in the car, he just sat in the driver's seat. He was still feeling the effects of the flash of Apotheosis. After feeling a little better, he was about to start the car when Aon asked,
[I can tell you care a lot about the people. What I don't understand is why you would put them in danger?]
'What do you mean?'
[The gang war. I'm sure you know that, in wars, it's the civilians that have nothing to do with it who will suffer the most. You're starting a gang war. Have you not thought about how you're putting civilians in danger?]
[A.N: Please, don't forget to leave a review of the work to encourage me. Your opinion matters to me.]