Yoel leaned against the rails of his dorm room's balcony.
His eyes stared into the deep darkness of the night, a mysterious emotion hidden in their depths.
It had just darkened, so for a while no stars would be seen.
Yoel only had his thoughts and the darkness to keep him company.
He was taking a break from researching the best way to progress as a Blessed from this point onwards.
It was not.. looking good for him, really.
Why does this have to be so damn hard..?
Yoel sighed, as he recalled the information he had learned in the past few days.
When one became Blessed, a core of avon would form over the solar plexus inside of their body.
With the formation of a core, a core pathway, which connects the core to the brain is also formed.
This specific pathway functions as a way to send commands to the core, officially allowing the Blessed to activate their Enigma.
After that, the world left the Blessed on their own, allowing them complete freedom over how to form their next avon pathways, and so on.
Forming avon pathways was a chore in and of itself because Yoel would first have to meditate enough to be in a state capable of sensing precisely where his core was located, how the core pathway of avon looked and slowly replicate that design, while also having it the pathway he formed stay connected to the main one, which connected the core to the brain.
Failing this would not only be painful, but also ruin Yoel's future, or at least throw him off track for a very long time, at the very least.
Not to mention the pain he would have to withstand while the pathway is being formed.
How was someone even supposed to stay concentrated while being tortured?
The more Yoel thought about it, the more his brain hurt.
And on top of that, he had to plan out how and where to create the pathway, because removing one was way harder than creating one.
Yoel had also read somewhere that creating one felt as if you were trying to pluck out your bones through your flesh.
All in all, the more he read, the more hesitant and nervous he grew about his future self.
That must've been why he heard occasional screams at night…
Sighing once more, he drank cold water from his cup, trying to wash away this mental fatigue.
And after all of that, he was supposed to refine his core's avon, to finally bring himself into a higher rank of purity.
Refining his avon not only increased its density and power but also increased the speed at which his abilities activated themselves.
And when he reached a higher purity, his core effectively released impurities it had accumulated during its formation all at once, which was also supposed to be painful.
Why does everything regarding ascension include pain, damn it?!
All Yoel could really do at this point in time was curse at his future, knowing that he would inevitably have to do this at some point in time.
It was also important to note that not only did it feel painful, but black sludgy pieces of gods know what slipped out of the Blessed's body.
Since no human really knew what they were, they just referred to those things as impurities.
They would usually disappear after a few minutes, but they felt disgusting to the touch, according to the studies Yoel had covered.
Yoel decided to stop these thoughts before something unrepairable happened to his mental health and decided to look at the cube.
"What's the date today?"
[The Year is 3032. September 7th, Friday.]
Only 2 more days till the Academy starts its lessons.
Come to think of it, I haven't applied for any extracurricular classes.
Another weight had been added onto Yoel's soul, now.
He did not only have to focus on his own progress but also on his studies.
At this point, Yoel was getting dizzy.
At least… I can look forward to that meeting we discussed with Cole. Maybe I can ask them how they'd go about this stuff.
Yoel thought back to his conversation with Cole.
I didn't even exchange contact information with him… how am I even supposed to do that?
Can the cube even be used as a communication device?
The academy had used it to send important announcements to the students before, but Yoel was not sure whether such an action could be replicated by the students themselves.
Well, I can't be bothered to think about that right now. I'll figure it out when I see him again, I guess.
Yoel wanted to spend these last few days regaining his energy, so he decided to just stop thinking about all the things he'd have to do.
But, there was one last thing he really, really wanted to learn.
It was to what extent he could use his Enigma!
Leaving the cup of cold water on the table that was in his balcony, Yoel called upon his Enigma.
Now that he was aware of the whole process, he felt a slight tingle spread from his solar plexus, through the spine and into his brain.
It was nothing painful, and in fact felt kind of pleasant.
Yoel so far had realized many things about his Enigma.
First, he did not necessarily have to be occupying a shadow's eyes to gain the ability to see the motes of avon.
Secondly, he could not occupy the eyes of another person's shadow. It had been as if he was continuously smacking his head into an impregnable wall.
So for now, he held off on trying to spy on an enemy's movements through their shadow.
Plus, he was not sure what kind of abilities could detect him from where he was watching them, so he also had to be careful about that in the future.
Third, it required at least a minimum level of concentration to use this ability, so if Yoel wished to keep his avon-detecting sight activated, he had to reserve a bit of his concentration especially for that.
It was an arduous task, to split his concentration between two things would have been impossible for Yoel before.
But thanks to the Silhouette Art manual, which specialized in covering his true attacks until the last moment, it taught him on how to put effort into both the fake attacks and true attacks.
Therefore, splitting his concentration between two different things will not be too difficult for Yoel.
However, when it came to concentrating on more than two things, he was still having trouble.
It was normal, after all… Yoel was only a human. Multitasking was something many could do, yes… but in what situations, in what circumstances?
Could he multitask looking through a shadow and also fight someone? Could he fight while looking at himself from a different point of view?
Those were all things he would need to improve upon.
And finally, when Yoel used this ability of his, the colors of his vision drowned into a dull grey, with the only color being the motes of avon flying around, colored in different shades of purple.
This was also the reason why Yoel had named this particular aspect of his enigma "Shadow Sight".
While he had his enigma active, he could see in the night the same way as he did in the day.
The lightless and dull grey world did not discriminate between night and day. Allowing him to easily see even in the darkest hour of the night.
Therefore, no shadow could obscure his vision and he could see things through the eyes of shadows, therefore earning his ability such a name.
It was far from useless, really. Yoel believed that with just this ability he could improve exponentially and achieve many things.
And that had been just the tip of the iceberg, there were still many things he hadn't discovered yet, such as how far he could extend this Shadow Sight of his.
That was all while leaving out his other, extraordinary abilities locked behind Consequence.
Now that the sky was completely dark, with almost no stars piercing this darkness, Yoel believed it to be the best time to check how far his Shadow Sight could reach.
And with that, he closed his eyes and concentrated.
This was another feature that came with his ability.
After concentrating enough, he could very vaguely discern the amount of shadows that he could extend his sight to, and also whether he was able to look through them, or not.
For example, if there were human shadows near him, he would feel dreadful and cold, an oppressive feeling would compel him to turn his senses away from that location.
If he was staring at wild shadows, or otherwise known as shadows cast from objects, he would feel a gentle breeze and a sense of being at home.
As if the shadows hid a mother's embrace.
So just for tonight, he would try and to use his ability to his utmost limits.
He extended these senses outward, ignoring the feelings of dread that pushed him away or the gentleness of the shadows, encompassing the entire night…
Under his reign.