Chapter 19: Challenge, Reawakening the Inner World!
Kaian inhaled until his ribs began to ache.
Then he slowly breathed out.
"Relax."
It was the third time Eldarin had told him the same thing.
You think I can relax just because you tell me to?
Kaian's closed eyelids trembled.
Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw darkness.
It was the same darkness that visited him every night.
The darkness that demanded to know why he had survived.
The darkness rising from Kaian himself felt even colder than the air inside the cave.
"Do not turn away from your fear."
Eldarin's voice gently showed him the road ahead.
"Fear, pain, and sadness are all parts of you."
"Do not reject them. Accept them."
"To enter your inner world, the most important thing is clearly recognizing yourself."
"Keep breathing."
"Feel the blood moving through your entire body."
"From your heart to your arms and legs."
"All the way to your fingertips and toes."
"Focus on the life spreading through you."
Following Eldarin's guidance, Kaian tried to concentrate on his breathing.
But every breath made him feel as though he were swallowing the darkness of the cave itself.
His concentration broke.
Haah.
Fine.
Don't turn away.
Recognize it properly.
Instead of telling himself to relax and concentrate, Kaian asked a question.
Where does darkness begin?
His closed eyelids.
That was where physical darkness began.
In other words, darkness was something temporary.
Something that disappeared when he opened his eyes.
Then instead of focusing on something that disappears, I should focus on things that definitely exist.
For example...
His nostrils drawing in air.
His slightly open mouth breathing it back out.
His chest rising and falling.
And beneath it...
His beating heart.
And the blood spreading from my heart.
Warm.
Bright.
Restless.
A stream that kept him alive.
Fwoooosh...
Kaian imagined the blood flowing through his veins, faintly illuminating the darkness inside his body in red.
He followed the same path the cooling sensation of Flame Veil had traveled when he drank the medicine.
And then...
It truly felt as though the inside of his body were gradually becoming brighter.
His physical senses also became clearer.
The cold feeling that had gathered in his fingers and toes from nervousness disappeared.
Yes.
This is my body.
Kaian continued breathing comfortably.
"In..."
"Out..."
With every breath, his awareness of his own existence became clearer.
Then he realized something.
The darkness tormenting him did not begin from his closed eyelids.
It began deeper.
From a wound buried inside his soul.
That was where the true darkness leaked from.
Don't look away.
Kaian stared directly at the anxiety inside him.
At the pain that felt as though his insides were twisting.
Body and soul.
As those two became clear and blended into one world...
Kaian suddenly felt an overwhelming presence in his chest.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
His heartbeat had never sounded so clear.
Kaian immediately realized it.
My inner world is there.
Goosebumps rose across his skin.
Eldarin noticed the change too.
"Can you feel that turbulent power?"
Her satisfied voice guided his next step.
"Your inner world is the powerful source of life that can make your wishes reality."
"A world belonging only to you, connecting you to the greater world."
"Do not hesitate."
"Enter."
This was the moment Kaian had been waiting for.
Without hesitation, he pushed every sense and every piece of his consciousness into the violent beating of his heart.
A fierce wind exploded around him.
WHOOOOOSH!
Kaian instinctively lowered his head and covered his eyes with one arm.
But he did not stop walking.
After several steps...
The storm disappeared.
Kaian raised his head again.
Instead of painful darkness...
A familiar, beloved landscape stretched before him.
Shhhhh...
Wide land filled his vision.
A pleasant breeze brushed over the grass.
Then it climbed all the way to the tree where Kaian sat, as if coming to greet him.
Kaian immediately recognized the place.
"This is... the Valancia Empire!"
"It's my home!"
He was sitting on the tallest tree of the Valentin estate.
The same tree he used to climb whenever he had the chance.
His inner world began there.
There was only one small problem.
His precious, beloved homeland was currently drowning in a sea of fire.
FWOOSH!
Seeing the flames directly was completely different from watching them indirectly through the mirror room.
"So this really deserves to be called an inferno..."
Kaian swallowed.
"Dangerous."
"This is really dangerous."
What would have happened if he had ignored Eldarin and continued using magic?
The thought alone made Kaian shudder.
The inferno would have happily grown stronger.
Eventually...
It would have swallowed his Core Area too.
Kaian pressed both hands against his chest for no real reason.
"Ugh."
"Just looking at it makes my insides hurt."
Then Eldarin's guidance returned.
[Kaian.]
Unlike before, her voice sounded muffled and distant.
Almost as if a wall stood between them.
[We do not have time to leisurely explore the Outer Region today.]
[You should be able to feel your Core Area calling you.]
[Go there.]
Just as Eldarin said, Kaian immediately knew where his Core Area was.
The second floor of the main building of the Valentin estate.
His room.
The room deepest inside that floor.
He knew exactly where he needed to go.
But he could not move.
FWOOSH!
"Um... Eldarin?"
"I'm kind of sitting on top of a tree right now."
[Your entry point was on a tree? How unusual.]
"Was that a compliment?"
"No, that's not important."
Kaian looked down.
"The whole area beneath the tree is burning."
"Is it safe if the fire touches me?"
[Hmm. Can you feel heat around you?]
"Yeah. Quite a lot."
[Then what do you think will happen if you touch it?]
"Oh..."
Kaian's face fell.
"It'll hurt."
He looked down from the tree.
FWOOSH!
There were a few places where the flames looked weaker.
Some places were almost clear.
But if the wind shifted, the flames would shift with it.
I don't even have Cobalt Poultice now.
Could I cross that?
No... even with Cobalt Poultice, this seems impossible.
Seeing his hesitation, Eldarin answered calmly.
[The closer you get to the Core Area, the weaker the flames will become.]
[Your inner world should be using all its strength to protect that place.]
"But that's not the problem."
"To reach it, I still have to jump into this sea of fire first!"
[Hurry.]
"Ugh..."
Kaian sighed.
"Fine."
"Talking to you only makes my mouth hurt."
"It's not like this is my first time getting injured."
He tried to think about the situation as casually as possible.
If he waited until he felt completely mentally prepared, he could prepare forever.
As for his body...
If all four limbs moved properly, that was good enough.
So Eldarin was right.
He should hurry.
"Amber!"
"If I get hurt again, you have to heal me!"
"Here I go!"
Kaian climbed down the tree with far more skill than before.
Then he searched for the weakest path through the flames and sprinted toward the main building.
Tap! Tap tap tap!
FWOOSH!
Heat rushed over him.
Kaian instinctively closed his mouth and held his breath.
He tried to avoid the flames as much as possible.
But there was an obvious limit.
As he desperately dodged through them, Eldarin's voice returned.
[Do not worry.]
[That is your inner world. You will not burn to death there.]
Why does Eldarin always tell me important things so late?
But there was no time to complain.
Kaian threw himself directly into the flames.
He assumed he would only suffer burns a little worse than the ones from the volcanic region.
But...
FWWOOOOOSH!
"...!"
The moment the flames properly touched him...
Unbelievable pain struck.
And then Eldarin's perfectly calm voice followed.
[Ah.]
[Although it may hurt enough to make you wish you were dead.]
YOU SHOULD'VE SAID THAT FIRST!
Unfortunately, Kaian was already surrounded by fire.
He could not even scream.
When I get back, I'm definitely going to complain.
Whether she knew his thoughts or not, Eldarin continued explaining like a teacher giving a pleasant lecture.
[Senses are often far more sensitive inside the inner world than in reality.]
[Even the same level of injury can feel much more painful.]
[You won't burn to death.]
[But you could collapse from pain before that. Isn't that fascinating?]
Kaian found the lack of empathy in his insane mountain-goat elf teacher far more fascinating.
Still...
Something really was strange.
There are no burn marks.
Not only was his body uninjured, but even his clothes remained completely untouched.
Whenever the flames touched him, he merely experienced a kind of pain unlike anything he had ever felt before.
Kaian had absolutely no way to deal with pain so severe that fainting almost sounded pleasant.
So...
He simply continued walking.
One step after another.
Toward the Valentin estate.
FWOOSH!
Suddenly...
Beyond the flames, Kaian saw the elders of the pre-Magical Civilization era waving at him.
Me?
Are you calling me?
Maybe he had seen their portraits in books.
Their smiling faces seemed strangely familiar.
If he went over there, they looked like people who would happily listen to him complain about Eldarin.
But not yet.
Let's meet six hundred years from now.
Remembering the wisdom and determination of people who had survived with nothing but their own bodies and knowledge, Kaian kept moving.
Something felt strange.
He had definitely come here to learn magic.
So why did it seem as though only his physical endurance kept improving?
Right.
It's all training.
Everything is training...!
Rejecting the tempting hallucinations, Kaian finally reached the estate.
Just as Eldarin had said, the flames had not spread inside the building.
Kaian collapsed face-first in the entrance hall and rested for a moment.
Surprisingly, all the physical pain disappeared the instant he escaped the flames.
There were no injuries either.
My mental trauma didn't disappear, though...
Thanks to that, Kaian used the four-legged crawling technique he had grown strangely familiar with since arriving in Eldargrove.
He crawled up the stairs.
Finally...
He reached his room on the second floor.
Kaian threw open the door.
BANG!
[Kaian...!]
His mother's voice.
Liana's voice.
Kaian froze.
He hurriedly looked around the room.
But of course...
He was alone inside his own inner world.
Carefully, he called out,
"...Eldarin?"
[Have you arrived?]
"Oh."
"Yeah. I'm here."
[Well done.]
[Now sit somewhere comfortable.]
[Then close your eyes and breathe, just as you did before.]
Kaian sat on the sofa where he used to sit beside his mother while they read children's books together.
Haah. Focus.
The pain must've made me mistake Eldarin's voice for Mother's.
He calmed himself.
Then he began breathing in the same way as before.
"In..."
"Out..."
Once Eldarin confirmed that Kaian was stable, she guided him again.
[From this point, expand your senses.]
[The world always begins from yourself and spreads outward.]
[Now that you can perfectly recognize yourself, focus on your surroundings.]
[The cold cave air.]
[The sound of dripping water.]
[The wind entering through cracks in the cave.]
[And the place that wind comes from...]
Following Eldarin's guidance, Kaian slowly expanded his awareness farther and farther.
[Do not sense it only through your body.]
[Sense it through your inner world.]
[Then you will see without looking and hear without listening.]
To someone who knew nothing about magic, the explanation would have sounded hopelessly vague.
But Kaian immediately understood what she meant.
He had already experienced it.
When the attackers chased him through the forest, he had known which weapons they were drawing without seeing them.
That must have been sensing the world through my inner world.
Shhhhh...
The moment of understanding came surprisingly quickly.
Kaian felt himself and the world overlap.
As though confirming he had found the correct answer, Eldarin gave one final instruction.
[Once you feel completely connected...]
[Open your eyes.]
[Now you will see the world through the eyes of a mage.]
The eyes of a mage.
Kaian could hardly imagine anything he wanted more.
And yet...
He could not confidently open his eyes.
What if the reawakening fails?
What if I ruin everything here?
Even Kaian thought it was ridiculous.
He had walked and run more than twenty kilometers for Flame Veil.
He had remained alone in a dark forest.
He had fought an Obsidian Boar.
He had endured heat that nearly cooked him alive from the inside.
On the way to the Silver-White Vein, he had survived Eldarin's insane driving without a single safety device.
Then he had run through flames with his bare body inside his inner world.
And now...
He was afraid to open his eyes.
So there really is no end to mental preparation.
Only then did Kaian clearly understand.
If preparation had no end...
Then fear had no end either.
"Haha..."
A dry laugh escaped him.
Does that mean I'll have to keep fighting fear for the next six hundred years?
Constantly afraid.
Constantly preparing.
Could he really live a long and healthy life that way?
Wouldn't that be the fastest route to a short life filled with illness?
Come to think of it, I've never heard stories about human mages who lived extremely long lives.
Apparently, they all lived like this until they died.
"Haah..."
"In that case..."
Kaian suddenly felt lighter.
If fear is never going to disappear during my life...
Then I'll just have to keep facing it for my whole life.
A strange smile appeared on Kaian's lips.
It looked remarkably similar to Eldarin's smile.
A little twisted.
A little insane.
Apparently, all mages went through similar experiences and eventually became crazy.
Just wait, Eldarin!
On the way home, I'll have defensive magic too!
And finally...
Kaian opened his eyes.
