Aur's vision was filled with mist as he surveyed the metallic room.
"Hello," he said, and as expected, multiple echoes of his voice came to him at the same time in the same tone, "hello."
Aur nodded since there were no sound-absorbing materials in the room; it was natural for his voice to echo.
Without wasting time, he took a deep breath and took his first step.
Surprisingly, the step was relatively easy to take with no pressure descending on him, which made Aur heave a sigh of relief.
"Sigh, thankfully, I can open my mental space with no trouble for the future," he thought to himself. Although Aur didn't care much about becoming a mage or not, becoming one could avoid troubles in the future from just being a mortal man.
There was a saying: "Being weak is a sin in itself."
The eyes of the children lit up when they saw this. "Another mage," they whispered to each other.
"Now I wonder how many steps I could take." Aur started to slowly take steps one by one with a calm expression on his face.
He pressed forward as he walked step by step. Although the terrifying pressure didn't descend on him, Aur could feel a weight that was increasing as he walked further, squeezing every inch of his body.
But this much weight was nothing to Aur.
Ten steps!
Eighteen steps!
Twenty-four steps!
Aur's body was already soaked in cold sweat.
"Looks like this place isn't as simple as I thought…" He frowned as the body he built was entirely useless to him. Aur was like other kids, getting tired as he walked forward; however, he could still keep going, and he did walk forward.
Twenty-five steps!
Aur's vision started to dim.
"Looks like we have another talent in the village…" The village leader said; however, he had a frown on his face. "Can no one have advanced grade talent?" His face was laced with disappointment while the other elders were silent.
A middle-grade talent could become a village elder quite easily, a second-tier wizard; however, continuing to progress after that was the hard part.
Since the mental space of the middle-grade talent was very small, the mana it could store was so limited that breaking through with that much mana was very difficult unless you had countless resources, which was challenging to obtain in their small village.
There wasn't once a third-tier wizard who had a middle-grade talent in the records of the village simply because of these difficulties.
Aur wanted to take another step; however, the terrifying pressure descended on him again. He couldn't go any further, or his condition might be like Gertrude's.
The surrounding mist gently all came towards him as it entered Aur's body and started to temper his mind.
He closed his eyes as a blissful face appeared on his face.
As the mist travelled through his body, Aur could feel his body being gradually strengthened. Before the mist moved to his mind and a strange reaction occurred.
Aur could feel a strange sensation from his head before he finally opened his eyes.
All he could see was deep darkness surrounding him.
"Huh, where am I?" He thought as he looked around at the deep darkness, starting to walk curiously around the place.
As he walked ten steps.
Thud!
He hit a wall. Aur frowned as he walked in another direction. However, this time too, he hit a wall.
Now he followed the wall all the way to his left and found a corner that stopped him from moving.
"So it is in a triangular shape." Aur mused to himself.
He now pretty much had an idea of what this place was; it was his mental space, which was as large as a small room, taking about twenty steps for Aur to reach from one side to another.
And from what Aur had the knowledge of Mental Space was in a square shape.
Although he had a plethora of knowledge about mental space his dad taught him, experiencing it for oneself was still astonishing.
"I wonder how large the higher-grade Mental space will be or even the supreme-grade Mental space…" Aur mused to himself. In fact, since he was barely able to reach only Twenty-five steps, barely reaching the requirement, he was at the bottom tier of middle-grade mental space.
Aur thought of flying, and instantly he soared in the dark. However, since it was pitch dark, he could only feel like he was flying only because his feet didn't touch the ground.
"Let's return back." Instantly his vision changed, and he saw the mist-covered metallic room.
Mental space was like a dimensional space that one could enter from one's mind, which was formed when world essence tempers the brain..
In that space, the person was the god there, where one could manipulate the inside space to whatever degree they wanted. Of course, there were limitations, such as they couldn't enlarge the space or make it smaller, and they couldn't materialise things out of thin air.
"You can come back now."
He heard the gentle voice of the old man again, prompting him to turn back. As Aur returned outside the room without any hesitation on his face.
As he returned to his peers, they were looking at him with different gazes—some with reverence, some with jealousy, and some with a competitive glint in their eyes.
Aur quickly went to the circle for middle-grade talent and started to make friends without much emotion, quickly blending in with the other middle-grade talent. After all, he didn't want to draw too much attention to himself.
While he was at it, he curiously looked at the other one who was about to enter and was stunned.
"You may enter."
The golden-haired boy nodded. The boy looked rather fit now with a gentlemanly expression. His eyes had dark circles, but there was always a self-righteous expression on his face.
Aur's eyes widened when he saw him.
"This guy William's awakening is also today?" His expression morphed into a contemplative expression.