Chương 144: Book 3 Chapter 22 - Dreamweaver Essence

Jaden complied, blasting as much mana out from both hands as he could. The mana, as it left his hands, was ripped from his control, dissipating harmlessly into the air around him. Victor's domain at work, he realized, protecting the house they were in. Comforted by the fact that he wouldn't accidentally destroy the room around him, he went all out, venting every last drop of mana from this core. The next thing he knew, he was standing atop a mountain, as mists swirled all around him.

Monstrous beasts, larger than the house he had been in, shook the ground as they walked, stepping through the mists. He jumped into action, dodging their falling feet, running headlong down the mountain as fast as he could. He reached a clearing, where a large dragon swiveled its head to lock eyes with him. Jaden froze, unsure what to do. Faster than he could react, the dragon had snaked its way over to him, its body moving with a slithering grace.

It grasped him in one paw, then unleashed a torrent of fire on him brighter and hotter than anything Jaden had ever experienced. Strangely, the fire only burned his throat and his insides. He was hurled from the dragon's grasp, flying through the air in a large arc. As he crested the arc of his trajectory, he rose above the mists, and the landscape beneath him became clear to his view.

Streams joined into rivers, which joined into raging bodies of water too large to be called rivers, although they flowed much like a river would. The water all flowed toward a central point, a massive body of water in the distance, large enough to be an ocean. And yet, Jaden was given to know that it was a lake, rather than an ocean. The water's movement slowed, then stopped altogether, then reversed direction, raging away from the massive lake as eagerly as it had been drawn toward it.

As Jaden flew through the air, he watched the same process repeat over and over, as if the lake was a beating heart or a lung, alternatingly pushing then pulling water in and out. As he crashed back to earth, his vision went dark, and he found himself next on a barren landscape, where everything was gray. Ash floated lazily through the air. As he breathed in and out, the ash burned his throat and his insides. The visions continued, and soon began to blur together.

Jaden lost track of time and space, and eventually even his sense of self. He floated aimlessly in a void, the infinite blackness around him all encompassing and complete. He felt a presence then, a consciousness that focused its attention on him. It felt infinite and all-powerful, as if reality itself acted as it did because this entity had organized it that way. Congratulations! You died. You have… No, wait. You shouldn't be here yet. Let's see…

Entity: Jaden Snow Species: Human Class: Mage Age: 27 Status: Alive (Hallucinating) Ah, yes, Dreamweaver Essence. Processing… It appears you have spent considerable time near the entity Kiara Dunsun, now known as Shian Yountal, which has affected the normal interactions you otherwise would have experienced from ingesting Dreamweaver Essence. Just a small adjustment here… Jaden jolted awake back at the Yountal estate, breathing heavily. His heart was pounding in his chest.

Victor jumped up from his chair with a start.

"You shouldn't be awake yet, what happened?"

"I was floating… blackness all around, there was a… A monster maybe? In the mist? A dragon? Yes! A dragon. Then ash, then…" He scrunched his brow, trying to remember, but the dreams were already slipping from his mind. All that was left was an overwhelming sense of awe, as if he'd glimpsed into the depths of eternity itself. Victor hurried to make some more notes on his piece of parchment.

"You should have been out for at least two hours, but it's barely been one. You don't remember anything else?" Jaden shook his head. By this point he barely even remembered the dragon, and only because he had mentioned it right after awakening. He wasn't even sure that he did remember the dragon, only that there had been one. Even then, dragons were a thing of myth and legend, so he wasn't sure why his mind had dreamed up such a thing. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

He felt Victor's domain press in around him a bit more fervently, searching for any hint of what had happened.

"Hmm," Victor muttered.

"It seems the Dreamweaver Essence has vanished from your system entirely. Even after waking up, traces of it should have stayed in your mana channels and bloodstream for a few days until your body could flush it out. My domain was active the entire time. That doesn't seem possible, unless…" He trailed off, lost in thought. Suddenly, he looked around as if searching for something or someone.

"I wonder if Shian returned? Hmm." He furrowed his eyebrows, and thought in silence for a moment. Jaden didn't interrupt him, content to simply lay there as his body slowly calmed down. Victor's mention of Shian's name prompted a hint of a memory, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something from his dreams just now… Victor took a deep breath.

"Well, on to the next test, I suppose." He handed Jaden what looked like a small, jagged rock.

"Pump as much of your mana as you can into that. This is a training tool, you can keep it after we're done, if you'd like. As your mana powers it, you will feel the rock beginning to attack your mental defenses. Resist for as long as you can." Jaden blinked in surprise, then accepted the rock and did as he was told. The next half hour was spent in excruciating pain, as his mental defenses were torn apart over and over again by the nasty little artifact Victor had given him.

Victor simply observed, taking notes as usual. They did test after test, and after each one, Victor asked if Jaden needed to quit, but he was determined to press on. Whatever it took to accomplish his tier 4 breakthrough was worth it, in his mind. Some of the tests involved collecting Jaden's blood, which was then fed into various instruments and artifacts.

Victor had him pump mana repeatedly through a single mana channel, the one that fed his right index finger, until the channel burned with excruciating pain from the overuse. He ingested herbs, liquids, and monster parts that Victor pulled from his storage rings, most of which Jaden had never heard of before. Victor watched his body's reactions to the reagents, and had him perform various magic and breathing exercises throughout. After eight hours, Jaden was trashed.

Physically, he felt as if he'd been trampled by an entire herd of horses. His mana channels felt raw and weathered. He had a raging headache from the mental attacks he had undergone, and his mental exhaustion was beyond anything he had ever experienced. He struggled to keep his eyes open.

"One final test," Victor said triumphantly.

"Do you need to quit?" Jaden gathered his courage and shook his head. He would see this through no matter what. This close to the finish line, there was no point in turning back. Victor handed him one final vial of liquid, so small that it only contained a few drops.

"Drink this." Jaden knocked it back, swallowing before he could even taste it. Three heartbeats later, energy coursed through his body. His heartbeat echoed loudly in his chest, and adrenaline spiked all over his body. Mental clarity returned in a flash, and the world around him gained a sudden crispness and clarity he hadn't ever seen before. He leapt up from the couch where he was laying, flexing his muscles as mana coursed throughout his body. He needed to go somewhere, needed to do something. Anything.

"The last test," Victor said calmly from the side, "is to attempt to break through to tier 4 one final time." Jaden's body twitched just at the thought of sitting still and meditating. Attempt a breakthrough right now? Impossible. Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of calm pressed in on him from all sides. He felt his energy drop substantially in a very familiar way. Victor's aura was inhibiting him. Victor gave him a soft nod, then gestured to where Jaden had been laying before.

"One more attempt, if you can, Jaden." Jaden nodded, lying back down. Once he was supine on the couch, Victor's aura slowly released, and the energy came pulsing back in. Slowly at first, more manageably than the initial rush he'd felt, just enough to take the edge off of his exhaustion. Jaden closed his eyes and began to meditate. As he lost himself in the deep focus of his breakthrough attempt, the energy slowly increased as Victor pulled his aura back more and more.

Already in the process of attempting a breakthrough, Jaden was able to funnel each wave of energy into the breakthrough attempt, rather than having it drive him to physical activity. He strengthened his mana core walls, condensed the mana inside, then infused his concepts into the core. As he finished waving his second concept into his core, he felt something at the back of his mind. A small nudge, pushing his consciousness toward a glowing orb deep in his soul.

Now that he noticed it, he was surprised that he'd never seen it before in any of his previous attempts at breaking through. It was in the same location as his mana core, but somehow not. Maybe it was in the same coordinates in space, but in another dimension? Either way, to his senses it appeared as a miniature version of his mana core, infused with his concepts the same way his actual mana core now was. He grasped onto the small orb with all of his might, pulling on it with his will, bringing it toward his core.

He didn't know why, it just felt like the right thing to do. He knew that the two needed to merge. It seemed as if this should have happened automatically, but for some reason hadn't been able to in his case. He pulled them closer together, but neither one moved geographically relative to his person. They were already in the same place physically, but the orb seemed like it might be tied to his spirit, rather than his physical body? Yeah, that seemed right, now that he'd thought of it in those terms.

As he brought them closer together, the wall separating the two realities, or separating the two dimensions, whatever the distinction was, got thinner and thinner. He pulled the small orb out of the spirit realm and into the physical realm, feeling as it finally slipped through into this reality. The moment it did, it ballooned to the size of his mana core, and the two merged into a single entity.

He felt the familiar rush of power, energy, and joy that came from reaching the next tier, and his aura flared to life around him.