Chapter 219: Pa.s.sed
When he opened his eyes, he noticed that he was in a completely different place compared to before. The battlefield was replaced by a grey stone room. The limp body of the Wind King was gone, as was the army behind him. The shouts in his head had disappeared too.
But most importantly, he could no longer sense any hint of blood aura. Instead, he could feel the magic in his body flowing around. His mind was clearer than ever and the flow of magic seemed even more free compared to before.
"Are you okay?" A voice sounded in his head. It was a familiar sound that he had started to miss.
"Yes, I"m okay. How long was I gone for?" He asked the voice.
"Gone for? You just entered the room. What do you mean gone for?"
Leo was puzzled for a second before realizing that the trial had only taken a second. Since it was all in his head, the progression of time was skewed. It wasn"t the same as real-time. So even though he spent more than a few days on the battlefield, it was only a few seconds in the real world.
As he was thinking that, Nefrati interrupted his thought process.
"Is the trial already over?"
"Yes. Good guess."
She sighed. "It wasn"t a guess. The trial was probably one that tested your mental fort.i.tude, right?"
"Yes, I think. How did you find out?"
"Well, your presence has changed compared to before. I am starting to dislike your talents at this point, Leo. Not only did you pa.s.s the trial, but you also reached a stage in your soul that took me over ten years to achieve."
"What are you talking about?" Leo was confused. The only thing that changed was his perception of himself. He was sure that he hadn"t grown stronger other than that.
Suddenly, it hit him. His flow of magic and aura were both just a little different from before. But that small difference was very noticeable. His flow was already very smooth before, so making it better would be helping him a lot.
It would make his attacks a lot quicker to activate and stronger too. And once he came back from the trial, he felt that his magic flow and aura flow were smoother than before. She was probably referring to this change. However, what she said next was a little different from what he thought.
"You reached the Dual Mind Stage."
"The Divergent Mind Stage?"
"Yes. Everyone innately thinks that they are one person and so they are one ent.i.ty. But as people get stronger, the different personalities in everyone develop slowly and start to branch off.
But the problem is that people don"t recognize this as a different personality. Eventually, they will either try to unconsciously kill this new personality, or be taken over by it. Normally, the new personality is only a little different from the old one and the difference isn"t as noticeable.
However, there were numerous cases on the battlefields where soldiers became killing machines once they partic.i.p.ated in war for long enough. They never left that state. There are other cases like people being introduced to other vices.
However, the Divergent Mind Stage means that you recognized that there are multiple personalities developing inside you. And instead of killing it, you are controlling it. It is a very high level of mind development that people generally reach in the 7th Circle."
Leo nodded. "Well, what benefit does it really give me? If is it worth it? Having another personality?"
"Yes. By recognizing its existence, you are considering it as a part of yourself. So that means it will merge back with you and make your mind and soul a lot stronger. Now, the soul itself is a very mysterious topic that even the strongest of my generation are dubious of. So, I won"t be able to explain how that will work.
All you need to know is that it will help you while circulating your aura and any other power that you use."
"Magic," Leo reminded her.
"Yes, magic. It should help in that too, if I am not wrong."
He nodded in response even though she wasn"t in front of him.
"Anyway, it will also help in making fast decisions during battle. Training will also be faster. Having it at a young age and low power like this is a boon to you."
"Thanks for the information."
Once he was done discussing with her, he looked up. The room wasn"t empty but he was too busy talking to notice exactly what was surrounding him.
The "room" he was in was a giant hall. There were ma.s.sive pillars supporting the ceiling that populated the entire room except for a single corridor.
The corridor was illuminated by white crystals emitting light. They only shone the path brightly, leaving the rest of the hall dim. He could only see the pillars outside the path in front of him and nothing more. Everything else was too dark and his perception seemed to be blocked off.
After coming back from his trial where he was seemingly omnipotent, his perception seemed very lacking to him. He could no longer look into people a mile away like before, nor could he kill thousands of people at once. Of course, his perception was blocked off by the nature of the temple itself and it wasn"t his strength that was the reason it didn"t help him.
The darkness around him seemed to highlight the path ahead. It lead down a long 100-meter tiled path to a shrine. The shrine was made completely of gold but it wasn"t the brightest object there.
Inside the shrine, the idol of worship was made out of a ruby. Leo had never imagined that a single ruby would be able to so ma.s.sive that an entire idol could be made out of it. He walked toward it to take a better look at it.
After a minute, he was standing in front of the idol. It was a life-size statue of the Blood G.o.d. He had experienced his body, so he knew that it was a perfect representation. The fact that there was a halberd instead of a spear also made sense to him. .
One of the things he realized during the trial was the importance of a weapon. There were differences between weapons that made a huge difference in battle.
Compared to the spear, the halberd was a far superior weapon. He wasn"t sure if it was because the aura it gained after being drenched in the blood of millions of death gave it a natural killing aura, but it made a difference. His attacks were stronger with it than with the spear.
It made him realize that he was very foolish for hiding the weapon of the Viscount. He had gained a staff from the Viscount back in Solhaven, but he never used it because he was afraid.
He was afraid that if he did use the staff and someone recognized it, he would be caught. However, that didn"t really matter to him because he only went around in disguises. It wouldn"t matter since he could discard those disguises whenever he wanted.
Apart from the halberd, another thing caught his attention.