Rain didn't think she had been gone for very long, just long enough for the sun to set and for the moon to rise. To her surprise, the moon was much larger than the one in reality. So large that one could actually see the craters clearly on the moon. A pair of binoculars would probably be enough to study the surface of the planet effectively. Looking at the sky, Rain was also able to find two other moons, yet these ones were much smaller compared to the other moon. They were even smaller than the moon in reality, so they must have quite a distant orbit. Even odder, was that one of the smaller moons looked to be red, rather than the normal gray, while the other small one appeared to be a deep shade of blue. Rain could only shrug it off, it was a fantasy world after all. Who says a moon couldn't be red or blue?
On the way back, Rain took her merry time. She took slow steps, casually feeling the tall grass with her hands, feeling the wind blow across the plains, listening to the sound of the waves crashing in the distance, and hearing the soft sound of the ground crunching under her feet. This is an experience she'll never get in reality, so why not enjoy it while it lasts? Rain took a few more steps before she paused. She hadn't used her 'White Mist' all day. She was curious about it, and she now had the time and space to use it.
Rain called out her 'White Mist', which quickly flooded the area around her with fog. Now that it was night, the 'White Mist' looked a lot more ominous. The kind of stuff you see in horror movies sticking around graveyards. Rain hoped her 'White Mist' wasn't something that could create undead or do anything like that. The rotting flesh and its disgusting smell was something Rain hoped she wouldn't ever have to deal with. It's not like she ever has dealt with it, but from all the descriptions she's seen, it never looked to be a pleasant experience.
She reached out her hand and touched the 'White Mist'. She could feel a connection to it, she didn't know how she knew, but the feeling was just a certainty. It was odd, but the closest thing she could relate it to was the fact that you always knew your limbs were yours. It truly was weird, it was strange, yet Rain didn't mind. This was a new experience, something new she had, that she never would have gotten before. She moved her hand through the mist, it glided across it. The mist would cling to her hand the instant it touched before instantly getting thrown off by the movement of her hand. Rain tried to manipulate the fog, try to move in any way she could, but she just simply didn't know how. Whether it be hand movements, voice-controlled, or her thoughts, no matter which way, the mist never reacted. She could only recall the 'White Mist' before heading back to Aeitha.
Along the way, she passed the same two guards she saw when she left. They nodded at her, and she nodded back. When walking through the town, Rain saw that most of the buildings were closed. The only ones still open were the taverns and more unique and exotic stores. The streets were rather quiet, the only sounds coming from the open taverns and the occasional drunks. Finally, Rain made it back to the AGB and opened the doors to get inside. For the first time, Rain saw that the open courtyard was empty. Dead quiet, and completely empty. 'Almost looks like a ghost town,' Rain thought to herself and she closed the large doors. The only sources of light in the courtyard were the occasional lanterns and moonlight. She moved towards the courtyard and took off her boots before stepping. She stood in the center of the courtyard and looked up into the sky. She could see the red moon far out there, and the large moon was already taking up a portion of the sky so she could see that as well. She would've continued staring, but a notification took her attention away.
*Ding*
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You are tired and your body needs rest. To gain the benefit of rest, please sleep or only perform light activities for the next 8 hours. The rest does not need to be cumulative, but if in a 12-hour period, the 8 hours of rest are not completed, the 'Exhaustion' de-buff will be applied for the next 12 hours.
Current Rest: 1/480
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Rain read through the notification rather quickly and was given a fun little surprise. Sleeping apparently wasn't necessary in the game. All she needed to do was 'light activities' in order to gain the same benefits of sleeping. Rain wasn't sure what exactly constituted as 'light activities' but she could assume it was things that didn't get the heart up too much. Rain thought back to the tour Kalic had given her earlier. There was a small library she could go to waste some time. In order to gain the full benefit of rest, she had to do 'light activities', and Rain didn't think swordsmanship practice could be considered light. Plus Rain didn't want to waste her time sleeping in this world, so why not go and read for a bit? She walked back out of the courtyard, and put her boots back on.
Rain started to make her way through the building, passing by many rooms that had their doors shut. She could hear the occasional loud snore. 'Kalic definitely snores,' Rain thought to herself, and couldn't help but smile to herself. However, she quickly found herself in front of the doors to the library. She opened them and walked in, but she was quickly surprised because she wasn't the only one in here this late. The skinny kid that didn't like girls was in there as well. He looked up and saw Rain and his face also contorted into surprise. However, he quickly recovered and gave Rain the stink eye before going back to reading his book.
"Well, that's not nice," Rain muttered under her breath. Rain walked past Benji and walked over to the shelves that were filled with books. She read through some of the titles and found some egregious names like "Why Might is Right", "Mind over Muscles", and other ridiculous-sounding names. Rain almost gave up hope on finding a good book until she found one called, "Esper's and the truth behind them". Rain pulled it out and opened the book, reading through the introduction, she found out what it was about. A researcher was rather curious about Espers and how they got their powers. Every other 'powered' had a clear line of how their powers worked and how they gained them, Espers however didn't. The term Esper came about when people tried to categorize 'powered' individuals, whether it be based on their powers, or where they got them from. Clear distinctions were able to be drawn for a great majority of people. However there were outliers, and these outliers were listed as "Espers. Rain decided to read the book and went to go find a spot to read that was far away from Benji. Once she found a spot, she sat down and began to read.
No two Espers didn't have similarities to one another. Yes, their powers could be similar, as two people could be able to control a 'substance', say heat, However, the applications and usage would be different. One might use the form of fire, and be labeled as a pyrokinetic, however, the other might use invisible heat waves. Both used heat as their source of power but varied drastically in their applications. As such Espers were considered unstudiable and many attempts to study them were abandoned, however, one researcher pressured on. She went to find many Espers to see if she could find anything in common between them, no matter how small. It took years, but the researcher was finally able to find something. Although every Esper was unique, and the powers grew in their own ways, the way they had to grow were all similar.
The researcher was also able to find some way to categorize Espers. Although the categories were vague, they were able to encompass just about every Esper that has come around. The first category was 'Manipulation'. Espers inside of this category were able to manipulate something. The category was further divided by the ability to manipulate some sort of natural or supernatural force. This was the largest category as most Espers ended up falling into this. The next category was 'Psychics/Psionics'. Espers inside of this category were able to control an invisible force that could directly affect the mind. Espers inside of this category were the most similar to each other, and as such deserved their own category. The last category was 'Other'. Due to how unique and rare some people's powers were, the researcher didn't know how to categorize them and put them into this one. Such Esper powers included teleportation, the creation of additional bodies, and oddly, the ability to create and merge personalities.
Within these categories, there were subcategories that depicted if the Esper power leaned towards attack, defense, control, or utility. However, the researcher could never confidently claim one power ever only belonged in one such category. The subcategories turned into more of a scale and could label the strengths and weaknesses of a power. The idea was never fully adopted, but variations of it have been used by select groups in order to categorize their own Espers.
There was much more information within the book that Rain read, however, a lot of it wasn't that important. It went into greater detail about the information presented and how those ideas came about. Yet, Rain wasn't that intrigued by that part. The book contained a good amount of information that was relevant to her Esper abilities, however, Rain was far too tired of reading the book and wanted it to be done.
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You are tired and your body needs rest. In order to gain the benefit of rest, please sleep or only perform light activities for the next 8 hours. The rest does not need to be cumulative, but if in a 12-hour period, the 8 hours of rest are not completed, the 'Exhaustion' de-buff will be applied for the next 12 hours.
Current Rest: 432/480
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She had already almost finished resting and had spent an absurd amount of time reading that she didn't even realize so much time had passed. She looked around the room and saw that Benji had left at some point in time as well. 'Guess I'll just finish the book as well,' Rain thought to herself. There wasn't too much left anyway. Once she finished reading the book she received two notifications.
*Ding*
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You have completed Resting
Current Rest: 496/480
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*Ding*
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You have finished reading a book that pertains to your Evolutionary Path
- +10% Experience
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'Well, that's a pleasant surprise,' Rain thought to herself. 'Free experience is free experience.' Rain now understood why people would choose the Mage evolutionary path. If you could receive Experience from reading books that pertained to your evolutionary path, and the mage required you to study books, it was like killing two birds with one stone. However, Rain didn't regret her choice of choosing the Esper. She just needed to find something she could start doing during the nights in order to kill time.
However, now that she finished 'resting', Rain wanted to go and practice her sword movements again. She didn't know why, but it was extreamly calming to do the movements. She could easily become entranced by the process and that she could just go with the flow. Rain put the book she had read back into the book shelf and began to make her way back to the open courtyard. The halls of the AGB were quiet, but serene. There was an ethereal calmness to the building, and she didn't know if it was because thats the way it was programmed to be, or if that was just the natural beauty of the building. Rain didn't care which one though, because it was just amazing being able to experience something like this.