NOVEL NEXT 222
Chapter 222 : True-Sight
The light of day had all but fallen behind the horizon as Dora moved. For anyone looking on, she might have presented like a streak in the darkness. Some might have seen a flash in the falling night, but she was just a person practicing with a newfound power.
She dashed, darted and leapt -- along forest paths, weaving through trees and jumping from branch to branch. She wanted to grow accustomed to the newfound sensation of using atma, so she adhered to the age-old adage “use it or lose it”. It had been hours now since she’d begun her journey back to civilization, and in half that time it dawned on her -- “I have no idea where I am!”
Still Dora felt certain that if she just traveled in any one direction long enough, she was bound to find ‘something’. Rather than regret the fact that she declined Zero’s offer, she decided to make the best of her travels. In her initial tune-up with Zero, she realized that using too much atma at once would leave her body sore. It made sense after all, it was like a full body workout in which all of your muscle fibers were engaged. Furthermore, the more densely the atma flowed into her body, the more severe the backlash.
In Dora’s mind, the best way to counteract this was to learn to use the smallest amount of atma possible in order to gain the best results. With this in mind she pushed her mental image of flowing atma to the minimum and began to jog.
Eventually the jogging turned into a sprint, and finally the full on parkour she was currently engaged in. In her past life she’d rarely known such freedom of movement. Perhaps she’d lived life in an old body for far too long. Her act of elation at something so simple was far greater than it should have been -- at least she felt this way.
Still, she couldn’t shake the creeping smile which spread like wild-fire occasionally as Dora marveled at her own physical prowess. With the divine power infusing her body Dora had already covered a great distance, it could be considered both training and travel.
And yet, after just short of three hours she felt the fatigue building up. Thus she stopped at the first clearing she came across to take a break. Due to the constant twilight season , Dora had no need for a campfire and quickly set herself down to eat.
Rations from her time training with Zero were all she had, but she didn’t mind them. What that man considered rations were like normal meals to others. While she was on the move she thought of a great deal of things. Mostly her purpose, which according to Zero, was to be his eyes.
It suddenly occurred to Dora that despite this, Zero hadn’t actually taught her anything about being an Oracle. The majority of their time together was spent improving her level to what Zero felt was a “sufficient place”. Along with that, he also drilled into her self defense techniques and allowed her to practice with a glimpse of the power she would one day hold as a Doll Mage. The final weeks of their time together were spent learning the basics of atma use.
“Weeks. I still can’t wrap my mind around it!” Dora said aloud as she munched on a sandwich. The idea of being able to compress time sounded like complete garbage to her. Truthfully she had no way of knowing how much time passed since he pulled her into that alternate realm. All she knew is that there she spent almost three months, while according to Zero only a few days passed in the ‘outer’ world.
After she finished her food Dora decided to give her abilities as an Oracle a try.
“Let’s see. I’m at level 137. I should have a fair amount of points for abilities. Hmmm.” She remarked as she quickly moved through the menu screens of her Systema.
“Huh? This is...lame. Only three class skills?” Dora’s reaction was in reference to the skills and abilities listed before her.
[True Sight - Use your mana to expand your awareness of your surroundings.]
[Third Eye - Consumes mana while activated. Allows you to discern the unseen.]
[Far-Sight - Allows you to see future or past events concurrently. The distance between present and past requires larger amounts of mana to view.]
“Well. I have enough points to learn them all. So..why not?” Dora talked to herself as she distributed the points necessary to learn the new skills.
“I’ll decide what to do with the rest after mastering these abilities.” At least this is what she told herself, then she realized she also had an entirely different skill tree as a Doll Mage. When she considered this she thought it best to test that out later as well.
“Decisions, decisions.” She muttered as she shrugged her shoulders.
“True Sight.” She said aloud. For some reason she felt awkward, she suspected it was because magic didn’t exist in her old life. She felt foolish, but when the spell activated these emotions quickly vanished. The sensation was like a rush of cool air blowing over Dora’s body. She could feel a slight draining sensation as her mana dipped. Apparently the spell required a fair bit of mana points to activate, even for a rank one adventurer.
The next sensation was difficult to describe. Dora felt like her eyes were closed, despite the fact that they were wide open. This was because the world went dark, pitch black in fact. At the same time vivid purple particles swirled about, painting the world in a very particular way. She could “see” trees, the ground and a great deal more all at once within a certain radius.
It was like seeing in 3D.
The sensation was pleasant, it felt as if her body was being gently tickled by soothing light. Dora instinctively realized that time slowed down, but she was also aware that this perception only applied to her.
Once Dora decided to halt the ability, the sensory information disappeared and her view returned to normal.
“Holy shit.” Dora muttered as she looked around. Everything was once again normal, yet she could vividly recall the location, shape, position and even distance of any object she’d previously focused on during activation of True Sight.
“This is actually amazing.”
Having been exposed to something awesome Dora now found herself completely enthused to try her other skills. Activating Third Eye was interesting in a different way.
She could feel a mass of mana forming on her forehead, centered firmly where her Anja Chakra would have been. This energy swirled in a cone-like shape and funneled into her body from a central point. Dora could then feel tiny particles of magic flowing through her body. This time, rather than darkness, Dora was greeted with a gentle white light that caused her eyes to glow like flashlights.
Everywhere she set her gaze upon became transparent, sometimes opaque. She made notice of the masses of mana within each object. Rocks, trees, birds and animals -- she could see into all of them and discern their nature if she focused on them. A bird hidden high in a tree branch revealed it’s beating heart. Each thumping sound created a shockwave of mana which flowed throughout the creature’s body along with it’s blood.
Dora also became aware that the bird noticed her observing it. For the briefest of moments it decided whether to fly away or remain on it’s perch. Ultimately it decided she was no threat and it’s gaze swept elsewhere -- the predominant thought was “food”, “hunger”.
Since there were no other creatures around at the moment Dora had little else to test her Third Eye on, so she deactivated the skill and moved onto the final one.
“Far Sight.”
For a moment Dora wondered if the ability activated. She felt nothing, sensed nothing. But then as she “tried harder” she could feel a slight pull on her being. Not physically, but the mana within her. She also noticed something else which threw her for a loop -- she was staring at herself. This other version of herself seemed startled, her eyes popped open and she took two steps backwards before shouting --
Dora’s eyes popped open instantly and she found herself staggering backwards, the words which came from her mouth were, “Holy shit!”