Heading away from the trial dial, Aaron noticed a few more people standing around than usual. The hallway also seemed a little wider than it had before, but maybe he had just spent too long in here.

  Either way, he was more focused on quickly drawing things out of his scabbard like a samurai. It was pretty damn fun, and he reckoned it had to have been the second-best storage option after a pistol holster.

  Damn, I could play with this all day.

  The rotwheat baguette was his favorite, whipping it out was more fun than it had any right being. But he still had the secrets of aether and his spirit side to delve into.

  Returning the baguette to its extradimensional home, he headed to the meditation room.

  Aaron set the room to semi-private. He had discovered that there were additional settings to allow certain individuals the ability to enter a room set to private whenever they pleased. And since he was always on the lookout for Mo’han and Talia anyway, it made sense to give them access to the rooms he was using.

  Sitting down cross-legged in the meditation room, he inhaled incense and closed his eyes. It was time to delve into the sensations he had felt during the fight, and to ponder them.

  Now that his aether soul was awoken, he could feel a natural bond to his spirit side and found himself easily being able to dip in and out of it without dying.

  But it was more than just his control over his spirit that had strengthened. Before, the two sides had felt entirely divorced from one another, but now they felt like different sides of the same coin.

  His spirit had gone from an immaterial concept he had little control over to something that was genuinely part of him.

  Of course, he had already achieved some level of this previously, especially when passing the trial against the aging clock tower. But this was beyond the infantile, disconnected version he had used previously.

  It was quite something walking around as a spirit and watching his meditating form. But that wasn’t why he was excited to delve deeper into this. No, it was because, unlike before, where he had absolutely no powers whilst in this form, he could feel a weak, yet growing sense of control over aether.

  He had already recognized that his bond over the aether felt stronger in his spirit form, but he hadn’t actually been able to do anything much with it. A fact he wanted to change.

  Feeling for the aether, he immediately noticed the difference in levels from what he had previously. But of course, it wasn’t just more aether that had his fingertips. Just like with the other energy sources, his aether soul could be cycled, and by doing so, the energy production could be greatly increased.

  He realized this was an essential step if he wanted to make more use of his spirit. In its base form, his hands passed through things with zero effect. But when he attempted to draw his increased aether stores, whilst cycling the energy through his soul, his hands glowed with azure light.

  “Interesting.”

  For the first time, he felt actual pressure when he pressed down against the ground. If he pushed too hard, his hands still passed through the hard surface, like a ghost would. But the very fact that there had been resistance told him he was getting somewhere.

  He played around with this for a while, getting used to storing larger amounts of aether and holding it within his hands. And soon, he found himself able to manipulate small things. First, he managed to flick his own hair, and after gathering enough aether, he was soon able to grab small chunks of it for short periods of time before it slipped through his hands.

  He also managed to blow aether, and when he summoned enough of it, he could make his hair dance against his breath.

  Okay, well, at least I can blow out a birthday cake after I die now.

  In all seriousness, despite the rather mundane achievements so far, he had a feeling he was onto something. And so he kept working at it, cycling aether and drawing it into his hands, and focusing on keeping it there.

  It took two full hours of concentration and mastering his control over the aether, but eventually, he managed to move his padded robes. The robes were very light armor, but they were much heavier than hair. It was baby steps, but he was certainly progressing.

  The truth was, he was a long way off from having the ability to do substantial things whilst in spirit form, but the fact that he could do anything at all was pretty cool.

  And he hadn’t come here just to cultivate the ability to slightly affect the world around him. No, Aaron also wanted to project his spirit further away from himself. It had been a limitation he had noticed since the clock tower, and he desperately wanted to resolve it. Unfortunately, this proved rather difficult.

  Hours quickly passed, and it was a significant achievement just to be able to move several dozen meters away from his meditating form. But the more effort he put into this, the further he could move.

  He wasn’t going to be able to wander off on an adventure with his spirit anytime soon, but the fact that he was making progress gave him hope of one day being able to employ the ability more effectively.

  This was all well and good, but truth be told, none of these abilities showed any immediate usefulness in combat. And he had a quest to complete.

  Luckily, his next idea might.

  He wanted to be able to control his spirit and his body simultaneously, and the effort that this took pushed the limits of his mental fortitude.

  In his current state, it was hard enough just to control his spirit alone, and so trying to split his attention between the two was supremely difficult.

  If he delved too far into his spirit form, trying to control his mortal shell was like controlling another person with a remote and a dodgy signal. There was a latency between his actions, and everything felt off.

  On the other hand, if he attempted too weak a grip on his spirit, it simply didn’t react at all to his commands.

  He had to go back and forth, fine-tuning this balance little by little. A numbing headache came over him, but it was promptly ignored, and he went back to focusing on the task at hand.

  If there was any way to employ his spirit in a fight, Aaron knew he would first need to overcome this hurdle. He couldn’t just leave his body when it was in danger, after all.

  In a way, it kind of felt like he was putting his to-do list on hold. But he felt that there was something important to reveal, and wouldn’t give up just yet. Besides, even an entire day meditating wasn’t that much time lost. The real risk was getting stuck in a loop that lasted several days or weeks. As long as he didn’t get too carried away, he felt he was still on the right path.

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  A couple more hours passed, and he managed to reach a point where he was walking around the room beside his spirit. It mightn’t have seemed like much to most, but Aaron was pretty proud of how far he had come in the time he’d been practicing.

  He kept fooling around, seeing what he could get his spirit to do without losing control over his body, and soon he could handle small interactions with the mortal plane without losing control.

  He even managed to feel his spirit pulling his own hair, which was actually quite impressive, as when he disconnected from his body, pain was one of the first things to go, and likely a major reason he could endure everything he did. Since the more he practiced with his spirit, the more he realized that it was connected to him in a very profound way, he still didn’t truly understand.

  This training was kind of fun, he thought. Toying around with his spirit allowed some nice, quick gains, even if he wasn’t sure how long it would take for them to materialize into something truly useful. Ultimately, it was just nice to see quick progress for a change.

  His combat abilities had grown so good that he had to run up against a wall countless times for the smallest of improvements. Compared to that, this was like high-octane rewards. In hours, he had gone from barely being able to control his spirit at all to being able to move light objects whilst still controlling his body. The difference was night and day.

  Some harmless pranks were definitely in order, but he had to remain focused on getting stronger for now. The last thing he wanted was to fall behind and fail Yendal’s quest.

  But if he didn’t figure out some kind of foundation for his spirit form before he headed back into a trial, he wouldn’t be able to work on using it while fighting.

  The reality was that while fighting was great for profound insights into combat itself, it made focusing on non-combat-related things extremely difficult. This included something like grasping the basics of control over his spirit.

  But just as he was thinking about giving it a rest, he discovered something unexpected, and potentially very useful.

  With a powerful outburst of aether from his spirit, he could pull his body toward it.

  At first, it didn’t do a lot. It was both slow and weak, but as he practiced, it grew stronger.

  Soon, he was able to pull himself several meters across the room in a near instant by expelling large amounts of aether.

  It would take him a while longer to perfect it, both in terms of how powerful it was and how well he could control his spirit without affecting himself while controlling his body. But if he could get good at it, he could only imagine how handy it would be to pull himself to where his spirit was in an instant.

  It could provide an additional layer to his strategic fighting style. He wouldn’t be limited to just predicting and masterfully figuring out where and when he needed to be somewhere, but he would have the additional chess piece of his spirit. If he used it correctly, it could be a very difficult ability to counter.

  “Hey, Aaron.”

  “Huh?” He muttered, shaking his head as he released his grip on his spirit. “Oh, Talia. How’s it been?”

  “Good. Been making a lot of progress in the trials, actually. At this rate, I might actually achieve half of what I wanted to here.”

  “Half? Doing better than me then.”

  “Is something wrong?” Talia’s nose wiggled. “You look a little off.”

  “Far from it,” Aaron wiped sweat from his brow. “I think I might be onto something very useful. But we’ll see. Still got a lot of training to do.”

  “Is that so? As expected from you. By the way, I heard you challenged Mo’han.”

  “Yep. Gotta test myself if I’m gonna rule the multiverse.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Only a little. Besides, I also got a quest from my patron goddess, so it’s not like I really have much of a choice. Also, I’m scared of disappointing her.”

  Talia chuckled.

  “Seriously. That wasn’t a joke. She is one scary woman. She’s killed me, like, a thousand times.”

  “Whatever you say. I don’t think you have anything to be scared of, Aaron Dober. You’re beating powerful high E-grade combatants whilst at low E-grade. If anything, it's the rest of us who should be scared. I’m pretty sure that goddess knows what kind of asset you are.”

  “Maybe… but I don’t think that would stop her from beating the crap out of me,” Aaron grimaced at the thought.

  “By the way,” Talia rubbed her arm. “That cyclops… Voidrin Vox. He’s odd, isn’t he? He was looking for you. Been telling people he wants to talk.”

  “Voidrin?”

  Aaron remembered their little conversation after his duel with Mo’han, but hadn’t expected the alien to come looking for him so soon.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No. Actually, I should go find him.”

  “You two are friends now?”

  “Not exactly. But I get a good feeling from him. I don’t think he’ll be some kind of enemy. At least not a real enemy, anyway. More like a recurring rival. I think we both understand that there are enough enemies in the multiverse to go around.”

  “Okay, if you say so. I was just popping in to say hi, anyway. I don’t think I’ll stick around either. I wanted to check this room out, but I think I’d rather get back to the grind than meditate. It’s not really my thing.”

  “You don’t like meditation?” Aaron said as the two left side by side. “You should really give it a try sometime. I’ve had some great breakthroughs thanks to it.”

  “I’ll think about—” Talia’s sentence was cut short as their attention was drawn by a conversation in the hallway.

  “You’re a creepy guy, y’know?” Voidrin said, looming over Darius.

  The necromancer seemed to be sneering at Sooty. Also, Aaron had to wonder why Sooty was wandering around the hallway alone. Maybe he was bored because Rudolf was busier with all the new trial takers and couldn’t waste as much time with him anymore.

  “Hey, what’s going on here?” Aaron said, barging over.

  “Oh, hey! I was lookin’ for you. This creeper here was giving your little buddy a hard time. Y’know, I’m not too keen on bullies. If you’re strong, go out and test yourself against someone else strong, y’know?”

  “Is that so?” Aaron turned his glare to Darius.

  “Come to babysit your little thing, have you?” Darius snorted at Sooty.

  “What’s your problem, mate? I know you’re a weirdo… and the whole undead thing gives me the creeps. But what do you have against Sooty?”

  “Me? Nothing. The little gremlin seems to have a way of getting in my way. Also, why does that damn thing speak so much? Constantly yapping whenever I see it. It’s enough to drive anybody mad. I don’t care about anything you have to say, you understand that, you little soot goblin? Save your incoherent ramblings for somebody else.”

  Aaron had to admit, Sooty did talk a lot. But he didn’t blame the soot goblin. Being locked away in a void for ten thousand years probably had its side effects.

  “I don’t give a shit. He’s with me, and while I’m around, you'd best pay him a little respect.”

  “Bah! I don’t care about your empty threats. If you don’t want me to give your goblin a hard time, then keep its irritating voice away from my ears, got it?”

  “Hey, Sooty, come over here. We don’t need that asshole’s time.”

  “Aye aye, bossman,” Sooty nodded and headed over, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Thanks for looking out for me.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Aaron replied, and true to his nature, Sooty continued mumbling about something.

  “So, is now a good time to talk?” Voidrin said as Darius scowled and meandered away with his creepy gait.

  “I suppose so. What’s up?”

  “I heard you already beat the first stage of the Trial of Companionship, so I went and did the same. Now, Y’know what I’m thinking?”

  “No, can’t say I do.”

  “Who do you reckon’s the best out of us two? I know you scored a lucky win, but you don’t stand a chance of keeping up with me in a trial. So, whaddya say, you up for a challenge?”

  Aaron felt like groaning. Because, of course, he was up for a challenge. But he kind of had things to do. Unless he could clearly see how this would help him reach one of his current goals, it was probably best left until later. However, it could also be helpful. He still wasn’t sure about how he would beat Mo’han, but unlike before, he wasn’t alone. He had other people he could talk to for answers.

  “Sure, I’m down,” Aaron beamed. “As long as you’re happy to answer some of my questions along the way?”

  Voidrin’s single eye narrowed.

  “Nothing weird. Just got some things I’m trying to work through.”

  The cyclops was a much higher level than Aaron, and he had a feeling he had likely fought his way through his fair share of challenges. It might just be a good idea to try picking his brain in the lead-up to fighting Mo’han again.

  “All I gotta do is talk to you?” Voidrin laughed. “Sure, you got a deal, pal.”

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