Eric picked up his black umbrella, opened it, put it on his right shoulder, and grabbed its handle using both of his hands, making him look magnificent from a distance. Before leaving, he whispered in the same place where he had set the zone of silence. The place turned back to normal. Now, if anyone were to sit there, their voices could reach others again. Adrian also started to walk with him away from the café; both of them didn't look back.
They both walked for ten minutes and turned around many blocks. The person who was staring at them also followed them. In the meantime, Adrian and Eric talked about normal stuff while walking, trying to avoid any talk about Auras as much as possible. Finally, they felt the gaze on their backs disappearing. The person who was following them stopped following them and disappeared somewhere else—most likely teleported out.
After the follower disappeared, Eric and Adrian looked back and saw normal people walking around and talking with each other. Adrian's heart was beating crazily fast. He couldn't believe what he had just experienced; he was scared, but it was also exciting!
"Who was that just now?" Adrian asked Eric as a drop of sweat rolled down his forehead. "We were just followed—nothing else. Who was the one who followed us? I don't know, but we are safe for now."
Eric then looked at Adrian with a gentle smile. Looking at Eric's bright smile made Adrian's emotions calm down. "So, you had questions, right? Ask one right now."
"Ahh." Adrian blinked as his eyes widened. He was shocked that Eric had gotten out of the emotions of being followed so fast. They had been followed just now, avoiding talking about Auras, and now the moment the follower left, he was back at it again. What if the follower was just hiding for the moment? Adrian couldn't help but feel that Eric was a little crazy.
What Adrian didn't realize was that Eric had already sent a Lysi Nova-level Angel spirit after the follower using his the imperator's cross. The follower sensed the Angel spirit and ran away. It told Eric that the follower was most probably an Auri Nova or Nova-rank Aura user. For now, he posed no danger to them.
"Uh… yeah! You told me that resources are needed to be absorbed while advancing to the next rank, but where do you get these resources from? It can't be normal stuff you find on Earth—no way! They must either grow in special environments or be gained from monsters, but as far as I know, there are no monsters or special environments that grow resources with magical powers."
Eric put his left hand near his mouth and chuckled before putting it back on his umbrella and looking down at Adrian. "It seems you are already growing. You are right—there are no resources that can be used to advance, at least not for higher ranks, and there are no monsters too. So where did I get the resources to advance from? From whom did I buy it? With which money? I will tell you everything about it.
"The first way to buy resources is from the interstellar merchants. These are merchants who travel among different planets, selling and buying resources from the Aura users living on that planet or just normal stuff from normal people. They hide themselves very well but can be easily found when one needs to do trade on any planet. An Aura user can even send them a request to send someone to come buy or sell something.
"The second method is the one that I mostly use. I won't tell you about it right now. It is also the same place that I was talking about."
Saying that, Eric walked toward Adrian, stood beside him, and put his left hand on his right shoulder as a golden aura came out of his hand and entered Adrian's body. After doing that, Eric told Adrian to be focused. Adrian did what he asked without asking any questions.
Eric took a step forward, and Adrian did too. Suddenly, as if entering water, his vision turned wobbly. He closed his eyes in fear and didn't dare open them till he heard the voice of someone which sounded like Mike's but wasn't as gentle and empathetic.
Adrian opened his eyes and looked in front of him. He saw hundreds of people walking in front of him; most of them had hoods on, some were alien-like creatures with blue, red, green, all sorts of colour of skin, some had four arms, and some had gills. He raised his head and saw that it was a dark place, only lighted by the lamps that hung around the buildings. The ceiling was made of metal pipes and cardboard. He saw small shops selling plants, fishes, food, clothes, jewelry, and some other stuff. He couldn't comprehend where he was.
"Hey, look over here." Adrian looked to his right. Eric was still holding on to his shoulder, which he was grateful for, but when he raised his head and looked up, ready to see the shiny blue eyes of Mike, he saw an entirely different person.
This person was no less handsome than Mike, with his own unique features. He had pink hair with a ponytail. His eyes were heterochromatic pink—the left one was bright pink, the same as his hair, and his right eye was rose pink.
He didn't have a smile on his face, and his eyes looked cold and dull. He had no air of charm and elegance around him. Adrian stared into that Eric's eyes with a shocked gaze.
"Who are you?" Adrian asked with a shaken voice. He wanted to run away, but the grip of Eric's hand on his shoulder was too strong.
The ends of Eric's lips curled up into an amused smile as he removed his hand from Adrian's shoulder and introduced himself. "My name is Eric Heisenberg. Mike Jackson was just a persona of mine. I changed my body features using a relic. In this place, except rank 0 relics, no other relic works. This is my real appearance. Did you notice anything else?"
Adrian listened to Eric's every word with great attention. He was confused at first about what else had changed except the disappearing of the charming and elegant aura around Eric. However, he realized it soon enough: he now wasn't fully trusting every word he was saying!
Adrian's eyes widened as he realized the fact that he had been listening to and believing every word that Eric was saying to him, following his lead with no doubt in his heart, before coming into this… underground market?
"You do realize it then—quite fast for a newbie like you," Eric praised Adrian with a cold voice.
"Which pathway is this shapeshifting relic from?" Adrian asked with fear and curiosity in his voice.
"Deceiver pathway. Remember, you have seen its effects on your mind right now. Even though the effects had already taken place on you when you were just a normal human, just a relic was able to affect you so much. What can the real Aura users of this pathway be able to do then? Make sure to be careful around every Aura user you see."
Hearing his words, Adrian gulped down his saliva as his Adam's apple bobbed up and down. He couldn't digest the fact that he had so much blind trust in someone he had just met—he was telling him everything! How terrifying this was, also adding the fact that it all happened subconsciously. The world of Aura users truly was scary.
Eric then took out his gravitation Aura and willed it to become a string like material and shaped it into a pink string out of it. He connected one end to Adrian's right wrist and the other to his left wrist to make sure he didn't get lost.
Eric raised his left hand and removed the cross-shaped earring that he was wearing and put it in his suit's pocket. Eric then looked around with his cold gaze, seeing no one suspicious. Eric started to walk with Adrian among the crowd and started to explain.
"There are two types of Auras that exist in the Aura region: primary and secondary. The Aura that you naturally awaken is known as your main primary Aura. You can later get a different Aura through multiple means, which will be considered your second primary Aura. All primary Auras are unique, and another copy of them can't exist no matter what. However, secondary Auras don't follow this rule. Only two secondary Auras have existed till the universe formed. One is Meditation Aura, also known as Survival Aura. All Aura users can learn and awaken Meditation Aura in them with proper training. It gives the user a lot of different abilities that resemble the Aura abilities of various pathways. The second secondary Aura is known as the Plasma Aura. However, the way and training that is required to awaken it is kept confidential by the leader of the Hoshina Family, so except for a few, every Aura user has Meditation Aura.
"This is a different dimension which connects to every Meditation Aura user. It was first mysteriously formed during the Dystopian Era. It was found by an unknown figure and has become a market and home for many. This is just an area of a layer. There are practically infinite layers—only 108 layers have been completely searched. Aura users use this as a meeting place and a market, selling and buying resources, trading information, making teams to hunt monsters, commissioning missions, and on and on. Only those Aura users who have Meditation Aura can enter here. The reason I was able to get you over here is because you were just a newly awakened and wasn't rejected by the Meditation Realm too much, so I was able to take you here with me."
Hoshina Family? Secondary Aura? Meditation Realm? Adrian's head was getting way too filled up with knowledge and confusing things too fast. It was getting harder and harder for him to understand things. Also, the fact that Eric was walking with a fast pace, pulling him with him, making Adrian bump into strangers and some strange aliens, which he got terrified of just seeing. Like an alien with a octopis head, his mouth had 8 tenticles of lips and inside his mouth, there were sharp teeths, He smelled horrible, Adrian froze from his heavy breathing, He thought he was gonna get eaten when Eric grabbed the shoulder of the octopus and stared at him, The octopus immediately got scared from his Aura and walked forward without any trouble.
Adrian was immediately curios on what was it about that made the octopus scared and thus he asked, "Umm, Mr.Eric, Why did that octopus human got scared of you?"
Eric was still moving through the crowd as he answered with a stoic expression, "Just call me Eric, The reason that octofi got scared of me was because of my 'Aura pressure'. Every Aura user always releases a bit of their aura all the time which can sensed through different means to find what rank a person is, An Aura user can put pressure on others just by releasing their Aura, be it primary or secondary, It causes pressure on the other person or the people around, it depends on how much control the person has over their Aura, The higher the rank, the more pressure they can put on other, That octofi was a Auri Nova who had a hundred percent control over his Aura, He was here looking for resources to advance, He could have fight me but the different between ranks is much bigger than people think, He had no time to waste too. Thus, He left."
Adrian nodded and stayed quiet then.
After walking quietly for a while, Eric suddenly stopped in front of a stall made up of wood supports and ragged clothes. On the ground sat a brown-skinned burly man with a square-shaped head on a dirty carpet. He had a medium black beard. He wore a simple hood and was looking down at the jewelry he was selling. He raised his head to look up at Eric, revealing his light brown eyes that seemed to glow with nostalgia upon seeing Eric. He seemed to be in his 40s.
"Oh, look who decided to come today. How have you been, brat? I thought you were past the rank of buying cheap charms?" He turned his eyes and looked at Adrian, who was linked with Eric with a thread of pink string that was made up of Eric's gravitation Aura. "It seems you have brought a new customer for me. I am glad for that." The burly man then laughed loudly for a few seconds as Eric sat on his toes and started to check the charms. "He is just a newbie that has awakened only today. I was gonna take him to Visie's place. I was telling him the basics on Earth just when an Aura user started to spy on us. I was gonna lead them to a trap, but they figured it out and ran away."
"Sounds like an Aura user of the Deceiver or Beauty pathway with that much trap-evasion skill," the burly man said while stroking his beard.
"That's what I thought too. You should be careful in case they found out that I know you," Eric advised the burly man while observing a black bracelet. "You don't need to worry about me." He spat out as he looked at Adrian. "Hey, kid, welcome to my shop. Since you have just awakened, you must be a weak Nova right now. You should buy a charm as protection. Here, take a look—I have the best quality of charms."
Adrian sat down on his knees and started to look around. There were a lot of options to choose from. Every piece seemed like a quality piece in his eyes. "Don't be fooled by their appearance. This man seldom gets good pieces; most of these pieces are just better than the average."
"Hey! Don't expose me." The burly man screamed at Eric. However, Adrian didn't feel any anger from his tone.
"What are charms? I have heard you say 'relic' to refer to your magical items. Then how are these different from a normal relic?" Adrian asked with a confused look on his face.
"Charms are also a type of relic, but they are not dreadful or mystical relics who have proper negative effects and a longer and proper usage time. Their effects are also much inferior to a mystical relic. These are normally used by low-ranking Aura users due to them not having money to buy a mystical relic or not being able to find a suitable one for their pathway. Same kind of charms can be mass-produced, but there can only be one kind of a mystical or dreadful relic."
Adrian nodded and started to look around the jewelry. After a few minutes of observing, he couldn't keep his curiosity and finally asked the burly man, "So, when did you first meet each other?"
The burly man chuckled at his question as he stroked his beard and made an expression of trying to remember their first time meeting. "It was uhh… yeah! I remember it all now. It was at least 12 years ago. I was still a mere charm seller like I am right now. This brat right here had awakened his Aura naturally and was even able to awaken his Meditation Aura. He didn't know how to use his Aura properly at that time and accidentally reached here. I met him at that time. He told me where he was from and how he got here. I was shocked to see such a young Aura user. I helped him out, and he was able to leave. After that, he started to come here often, buy some charms, and help me out. He was very smart for his age. After becoming a Lysi Nova and getting married, he started to come here less often."
Adrian's head was still in a haze. He didn't care about how they both met now. He only heard one sentence: "awakened at 12 years old." He slowly turned his head and looked at Eric, who was still looking at the charms. "Didn't you tell me that only talented people awaken naturally before 16?"
"Yes, I did. Me awakening at 12 years old has nothing to do with the information I provided you," Eric said coldly. He was right, but Adrian still felt like he could have told him! He could have never guessed from his behavior and face that Eric was a talented Aura user.
"I don't think you should overestimate me too much," Eric said to Adrian softly. Adrian blinked his eyes in confusion and asked why.
"There are many that awaken their Auras naturally before turning 16, but it doesn't mean that it is everything. Talented people can be in front of many from the start, but hard work, consistency, and opportunities are what matters. If you don't have any of them, then talent is worthless. Being too prideful or arrogant is like a poison that eats you from within."
"He is right, son. Talent without hard work is meaningless. Just look at this brat—he was able to advance fast at first, advancing to the rank of a Lysi Nova at just 16, but it has been 8 years, and he is still stuck here. Opportunities, consistency, and carefulness are needed in this world. Even I, as a mere charm seller, know this. By the way, how much has your Aura's rate of control become? It must be quite close to completion?" The burly man explained to Adrian and then asked a question to Eric.
"I am close. I will be able to fully control my Aura in a few more months if I put all my focus on it but there are many things I am currently busy in and has to handle. Thus, I can only do the bare minimum to not lose control. Even if I do it then the problems of resources will come, and I will even have to perform a ritual to advance this time. It definitely won't be anything easy."
"Can't you just prepare them beforehand?" Adrian asked. "I think you have forgotten that you can only know what resources you need and the ritual you need to perform only after you completely control your Aura. No one will be stupid enough to shoot an arrow in the dark and waste their hard earned money."
"True," Adrian thought inwardly. He felt ashamed of asking something so stupid. Just as he was feeling bad, he looked down and saw a black ring like the one that Eric had him touch to awaken his Aura. Adrian picked it up and asked the burly man its use. "It can increase the luck of the wearer by a little bit and enhances their premonition to danger. It can still be used for two weeks more before its effects disappear altogether," the burly man explained.
"It works well with your pathway's uniqueness. Do you want it?" Eric asked Adrian. Adrian slowly nodded his head while looking at the ring.
"It usually costs 2 Aura stones, but I will sell it to you for 1 Aura stone." The burly man stated its price. "I won't bargain today," Eric said to the burly man. The burly man heaved a sigh of relief after hearing those words.
Eric put his left hand in his pocket and took out a shiny semi-transparent light blue stone with a white shiny covering and gave it to the burly man. The burly man happily took it, and Adrian put the ring on his left hand's middle finger.
"What was that stone just now?" Adrian asked Eric as they stood up. "It was an Aura stone. These are used to replenish your Aura in times of emergency and also used as the universal currency in the Aura region. You will understand their significance later on."
They both started to walk down the road toward Visie's place—or whoever the person was that Adrian didn't know.
"Thank you for buying this ring for me. I want to pay you back. I don't have any Aura stones, but how much will an Aura stone be worth in dollars?" Adrian asked as they walked through the crowd.
Eric just blinked and told him with a cold face, "You don't need to be indebted to me. However, if you convert one Aura stone into dollars, then an Aura stone will be equal to a hundred thousand dollars."
Upon hearing the amount of money an Aura stone was worth, Adrian jumped up in fright.