Chapter 61 |
Within the underground cavern of the Misty Forest, vast dark power continuously compressed and expanded.
Until a bright silver star slowly emerged in the pitch-black cavern. The starlight transformed into strands of silver ribbons, interweaving with shadows and gathering once more into a humanoid figure.
At this moment, Isos was no longer like before—no longer the kind of existence that made fear surge and one’s integrity plummet at a glance. He was more like a Legendary lifeform woven from light and shadow.
Starlight flowed along the outline where silver-white radiance intertwined, and the star at his chest emitted a gentle glow, lending the originally pure darkness a trace of dawn-like warmth.
Just as Isos was about to carefully savor this brand-new power—
“Boss?”
Isos ‘looked’ in astonishment at Kyle, who had suddenly appeared in the depths of his spiritual consciousness.
“Isos?”
Kyle was also somewhat dazed. He had been nursing a headache while organizing the vast information within his mind, when in the next moment, his spirit had inexplicably formed a connection with the outside world.
Isos had not expected that just after his promotion—before he even had the chance to feel his new strength—he would first establish a connection with his boss.
“Boss, weren’t you in slumber? And how did you connect with my spirit?”
Kyle was equally puzzled. Leaving aside whether he was in slumber or not, the distance between him and Isos spanned who knew how many tens of thousands of miles—far beyond what spiritual power could possibly bridge.
“Did you just advance?” Kyle asked, looking at the starlit sea of consciousness.
“Yes, Boss, I just advanced!” Isos’s spirit was exceptionally excited!
“Then it’s probably possible. You likely awakened some kind of special talent.” Kyle had a rough idea.
All of his subordinates were rare special lifeforms. It was nothing strange for them to awaken a unique talent upon promotion.
“Tell me everything you’ve encountered recently. And carefully sense what changes you’ve undergone after advancing,” Kyle guided step by step.
Suppressing his excitement, Isos obediently recounted everything he had experienced since Kyle left, sparing no detail.
When Kyle heard that Isos had obtained a pure emotion from a scruffy bear-man named Mino—an emotion that would not be devoured by negative feelings—his eyes lit up.
After conducting some verification with Isos’s cooperation, Kyle had roughly figured out what new talent Isos had awakened.
“Your new talent should be related to ‘home’! All those whom you recognize in your heart as family, as your closest kin—no matter how far apart you are—you can establish a spiritual bridge with them.”
“Of course, this is only my temporary conjecture. It still requires further verification!”
Kyle felt that Isos’s talent was anything but simple. Especially after connecting with Isos, the sensation of his spiritual consciousness being torn apart by endless information had been greatly weakened—like being protected by some kind of force.
Fate was truly wondrous. If Isos had not encountered that scruffy bear-man, perhaps after advancing he would not have awakened such a peculiar talent. He might have continued along the path of dark strangeness, becoming an even more powerful shadow demon.
It seemed that in the future, he should help Isos further develop his abilities in the realm of emotion. Who knew—he might cultivate something extraordinary!
“Boss! Is this talent very strong?” Isos asked excitedly, the starlight surrounding him growing even brighter.
“Yes, very strong,” Kyle affirmed.
“Your ability might even help me awaken from my slumber faster…”
“Really? Boss!” Upon hearing that he could help Kyle, Isos became overwhelmingly excited, to the point that the starlight shone so brilliantly it illuminated the entire cavern.
“Isos? Are you alright?” Montoya’s concerned consciousness came from a corner of the cavern.
“I’m fine, I’m fine! Quick, you come in too!” Isos directly pulled Montoya’s spirit into the deepest part of his own spiritual consciousness.
“Boss?!!” Montoya ‘looked’ in disbelief at the other consciousness within this sea of mind. That sense of closeness could not possibly be mistaken.
“It’s me.”
“Boss, I missed you so much!”
Montoya’s spiritual consciousness lunged straight toward Kyle’s, but Isos forcefully pinned him in place.
“Hey, hey, can you show me some respect? Don’t fawn over Boss like that right in front of me!”
“Let me go!” Montoya’s spiritual consciousness roared!
“Alright, you two stop fooling around. Let’s talk business. I’m not going anywhere.” Kyle hurriedly interrupted them.
With Kyle’s intervention, Montoya quieted down as well.
“Boss, why are you in Isos’s spiritual world?” Montoya asked somewhat aggrievedly, feeling as if he were no longer favored.
Kyle was quite helpless. Among his subordinates, only Alvaro was relatively normal. The others, more or less, were like children who had never grown up. And yet, in truth, Kyle’s age was not even a fraction of theirs.
“Montoya, it’s like this…”
Kyle directly packaged Isos’s post-advancement situation and his own conjectures into consciousness and sent it over.
After digesting the information, Montoya grew even more dejected. He was almost maddened with jealousy toward Isos.
“Montoya, I know your problem. In fact, it still comes down to yourself!”
“There’s no issue with how you’ve developed your abilities. But you haven’t found the path you truly want to walk. You’ve simply grown step by step according to the norm. So when the time came to choose your future, you got stuck!”
“Intent is a stage of carrying out one’s convictions, and also a stage of preparing to choose a path for breaking into Transcendent. You need to find the road you wish to walk and carry through your belief. Only then will you find your breakthrough!”
Montoya fell silent for a moment, then turned in puzzlement to ask Isos, “What is your path?”
He truly could not figure out what route Isos had taken to suddenly move ahead of him.
The starlight around Isos flickered faintly.
“Me? I… my path is simple. To possess genuine emotions, to have my own ideals, to live like a true lifeform and live out a life that belongs to ‘me’… that’s all!”
Montoya was stunned by Isos’s words.
To live out one’s own life?
Kyle gave Isos’s idea a fierce thumbs-up!
No wonder he could awaken such a special talent. This was the product of pure self-will combined with a rare opportunity.
Did they really think special talents could be awakened whenever one wished?
Even now, he himself only had the special talent of causal threads. And even that was something others could only dream of.
“Montoya, there’s no need to rush. We do not lack time. What’s important is that you must think it through! You—what exactly do you want to become?”
“…I understand, Boss.” Montoya’s consciousness grew still, sinking into deep contemplation.
“Isos, can you pull Alvaro in?”
“Boss, I’ll try.”