The screen quickly flickered into his vision
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[Soul Chip Interface]
>Core Power: [Truth Seeker]&[Delusion]
>Proficiency: [0%]
>Rank: [II]
>Attribute: [Light]&[Dark]
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[Minor Skills]
>Slashes [G] Proficiency: [100%]
>Basic Aura Control [F] Proficiency: [100%]
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Although his consciousness was weak, it was enough to pick up on the strange changes.
He quickly willed the chip to show more about his new skill.
'Open Delusion details.'
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>[Delusion]
>Alters reality according to the users beliefs. Strong belief is required for the effects.
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Looking at the description Ash felt that this skill could be just what he needed.
There was only one thing he needed.
'I can get through today, that's what I truly believe.'
This one sentence played repeatedly inside his head.
And slowly he could feel his power returning.
He still felt somewhat sluggish, but his state was comparable to how he felt yesterday.
Not great, but good enough. And that's all that he needed.
He slowly got up, picking his things up and started heading for the mountain while thinking about his new skill.
The first question he thought of was. How he got the skill?
Though it didn't take long for him to connect it to the "warding stone".
While he was writhing in pain, the stone seemingly fused with his soul giving him a new core ability.
He never heard of anyone having two core abilities, but then again there were a lot of things he didn't know.
Still he felt he probably wasn't the only one. This was because the chip was able to display both, it was clearly designed with the idea that this could happen.
Then came the other thing.
The skill itself.
It seemed strong... like very strong.
The ability to alter reality, seemed super busted.
Of course it required strong belief in it, but Ash already found the loophole.
This skill was kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.
The knowledge that it would always work so long as the belief was there made the user confident, and as such the necessary belief would be met.
Super easy.
This requirement seemed so easy, that Ash didn't even see it as a drawback.
Of course it still had limits.
While walking Ash had tried using it again, but it failed most of the times.
He tried things like: "I will have god like powers." and "I am actually standing in Primus already.", but the skill still had limits.
It was still only a rank two core skill afterall.
Still this made Ash much more hopeful than his other skill Truth Seeker, which seemed to only be useful against illusions and lies. And liars would hardly be a problem during fights.
As the time passed he was soon at the foot of the mountain.
In truth, Primus was not exactly behind the mountain, it was actually a bit to the east of it from what he knew.
Still he contemplated climbing the mountain. With his current state and seemingly infinite stamina, he felt it possible.
The main reason he was thinking about doing so was because he had heard that a town was at the top of this mountain.
He wasn't sure how much further Primus was, nor if his Delusion could truly last him till then.
In the end he chose to scale the mountain.
The mountain itself was luckily not too difficult to climb, as it wasn't too steep.
Thanks to this he was able to just simply walk for most of the journey up.
The terrain was still mostly comprised of rocks and sand, not a tree in sight.
Ash wasn't surprised by this fact, he knew full well that outside of controlled environments trees weren't commonplace.
The Era of Darkness resulted in most of the life on Earth going extinct, how humans survived it is a mystery all by itself.
Continuing his climb, Ash had finally arrived to his first challange — a steep wall.
Surveying his surroundings, he could not find any work arounds, so he was left with no choice, but to do some wall climbing.
Ash was not overly confident at first since he had never wall climbed before, but just after a brief second his mind changed.
'Oh right, I could just use Delusion.'
So he did. His belief fed his confidence which fed his belief even further.
And as such while still clumsy he was able to scale the wall.
Arriving at the top, he could feel it, something has changed.
Looking around the mountain kind of stopped going higher at this point.
There was still a higher peak farther away, but it felt so far away that he wouldn't even bother with it.
Standing there looking around, it looked like he was on flat land, on an island in the skies.
That was when he remembered, the history of the Mediterranean Wasteland.
He had heard, that one a long time ago, the wasteland was no wasteland at all, that it used to be just a giant sea.
With this in mind he quickly connected the dots realising that this "mountain" was once an island.
And just now he had arrived on it.
Walking further his eyes were peeled, trying to look for any signs of the town he had heard about.
For a moment he had thought about the possibility that this town may not exist anymore, afterall the other towns neighbouring Blackheart had all disappeared too.
Floch seemed to have been the culprit, even if he had no proof, he was almost certain it was his doing.
'That Floch, if I get strong enough I swear I will kill him.'
Just as he was starting to lose hope he spotted something like a dome in the distance.
It seemed far away, far enough to where he wasn't sure he could reach it today, especially so since the sun was about to set soon.
'It seems I'm camping outside again today.'
Still the sight of something manmade, gave him the hope he needed.
It didn't matter to him if it took one more day, so long as the town was there that's all that mattered.
With the darkness descending, Ash didn't try anything and just simply layed down in an attemp to sleep.
But that was when he questioned something.
'Should the nights really be this peaceful?'
From what he had heard only seasoned warriors of high rank should be able to travel alone.
And while he did have a lot of fighting experience, he still didn't quite match the description.
The conclusion he arrived to was the same as what he had arrived to many times today, Delusion.
It certainly had something to do with it, otherwise it would make no sense.
After a bit of thinking back he remembered, that the "warding stone" that gave him the ability was something that was capable of keeping monsters away.
Still something was still off about it since it also supposedly killed people that were exposed to it for too long.
Could he be immune since he fused with it?
Possible, still he couldn't be certain.
And if he was right this posed a problem as he could accidentaly kill the people of the town, just by being near them, and he could also say goodbye to his megacity life.
'There is no way right?'
As he was already laying he slowly got up into a siting position to try something.
He used his Aura Control to try and get a feel for where his Aura was currently.
If it was truly the "warding stone" then he should be able to feel it in his surroundings.
After a bit of trying he was able to succeed in feeling his new Aura.
This Aura was different from the old one. While the old one was warm and welcoming this one felt cold and quite frightening, pretty much total opposites.
After feeling this Aura in his surroundings he tried to draw it back into himself.
After a bit of trial and error he was able to succeed, but then he realised his mistake and quickly stopped his experiment, with his energy being released once again.
'Phew... I almost just killed myself.'
If he really had drawn it back fully the monsters of the dark would have certainly been notified of his presence.
'I should try doing this during the day rather than at night.'
Proud of his findings, but tired Ash couldn't keep himself awake for much longer and quickly fell asleep.
...
Opening his eyes he quickly recharged his energy through his delusions, and got up to head for the town.
While on his way he continued his experiment from last night, and was able to fully draw back his energy, still his control wasn't proficient enough for extended stay at the town.
Right now he felt like he could hold it in for the most part, but once he fell asleep he was certain it would break free once again.
Still this was enough for now.
As he got closer to the dome it became clearer and clearer to Ash that this was the town he was searching for.
After a bit of walking he was now standing before the town, this was when he truly realised, just how massive this town was compared to the likes of Blackheart.
Blackbeart was just a town, but this thing, this was a city.