After gaining a new ability, Asan immediately received a new notification.
[A New Section Has Opened in the System!]
Furrowing his brow slightly, the young man instantly switched to the main window and saw a tab named "Abilities." It was no surprise that something like this would exist.
Mentally tapping on the tab, a dark transparent book appeared in front of him, falling into his hands. To his surprise, he could feel its texture, but it seemed weightless as if he were holding air. He sensed his Mana flowing from his body into the book and back, resonating with each other. Turning the book to see its cover, he noticed many gilded patterns that intertwined to form the outline of some kind of snake, or perhaps a winged creature, though he couldn't quite tell. Deciding not to wait any longer, he opened the book and saw familiar runic text on the first page, describing his newly acquired ability.
[gaze in darkness].
[rank: Unique].
[Type - magical].
[Proficiency level – 1/10].
[Mana consumption per second – 5% of total reserve].
Next came the description of the ability itself, which he decided not to read aloud, as it contained only information that was unnecessary for him. After glancing at the text a couple more times, he closed the book, and it vanished from his hands, returning the system panels before his eyes.
"Well... That's taken care of... I need to check how it works" the boy thought to himself as he tried to get up on his feet, overcoming the nagging pain in his joints.
The cold wind swept over his body, like a gentle hand, making him feel slightly better. Lately, he had often been running a fever, but his enhanced body seemed to quickly deal with it. Sometimes he wondered if it was even possible to get sick when you had, for example, hundreds of thousands of endurance points?
In addition to increasing your Health points, it also fully strengthens your body, your organism, your immune system, and so on.
Such a suspicion had already been proven before, for example when he was last on the brink of death, not in battle with a hornet, but also during Janschwalde. When he was bleeding out, five points of endurance gave him the strength not to die prematurely so that he could bandage his wounds in time, which was very convenient. Right now, he had 5 free points that he, as usual, kept stored in his system. Perhaps they would save his life soon too. Many did not do this; Laszlo, for instance, immediately spent his points upon leveling up, wanting to become stronger right away. Alice followed Asan's example but not entirely, usually spending about half of the points received from the system.
But now was not the time to think about that; there was a much more interesting task at hand. Standing up, the boy tried to maintain his coordination for a few seconds.
When he succeeded, he immediately turned his attention to his internal sensations and felt something new inside himself. Focusing on this feeling, his body mechanically directed the circulation of mana upwards, reaching his eyes. He was not controlling this process at all, as if someone else was doing it for him… Perhaps this is the advantage of the system, that it will perform the skill on its own, while you only need to provide the resource in the form of mana. Asan was not sure that he would have been able to direct the flow of mana to his eyes so precisely and well, without making any mistakes somewhere.
Previously, he had a similar experience with dark magic. When he and Laszlo, as the only users of something fiery, well, as...
One and a half users were trying to come up with a way to attack more remotely when Asan made a mistake by not aligning the mana flow to his palm, causing his dark fire to engulf his hand, making him run around like a madman. This was not the most pleasant experience, which is why it was a relief for the guy when someone else did all the dirty work. Mana continued to circulate upwards, finally reaching the eye sockets. In a second, the guy felt intense tension in his eye sockets and, with an unmistakable expression of pain, squinted hard. It felt as if something was pressing on his eyes from all sides at once, causing significant pain. He thought his eyes were drying out quickly, and everything around him was getting darker rapidly. A lump formed in his throat, and panic began to set in, as he thought...
He's going blind.
Well, partially.
Maybe he was losing consciousness, for everything was getting darker and darker. Until finally, he looked into an exceptional darkness with faint glimmers of light everywhere. Panic in his heart and a sudden surge of adrenaline immediately made the boy try to turn off the ability, but for some reason, it didn't happen. At that moment, the boy tried to cover his open eyes with his hands and... Oh...
"Is this what it... is... When darkness is brighter than light, right?"
He could clearly see his palms, which completely blocked out the light from the blood-red sky. He saw every callus, every cut where a brown scab had formed, every scar. He saw perfectly in the complete darkness created by his own hands. To confirm his guess, he closed his eyes and saw his own eyelid blocking his vision. It was so unusual...
It was so unnatural that the guy was even slightly scared by this, but overall, he now understood exactly what this ability was.
Light became darkness, and darkness became light for his eyes. He literally swapped one for the other, and already assumed that if he activated this ability at night, he would see everything as if it were daytime. This was indeed an unusual and very useful ability, though it would clearly be confusing. For example, he wondered what would happen if he looked at a campfire or the sun with this ability? Would he see endless darkness there, or something else? What would happen if he looked at the night sky?
Wouldn't he see a white space with countless black dots representing stars?
All of this was extremely intriguing and stirred his mind, which desperately wanted to conduct more experiments, but only one thing held him back – Mana.
He already felt much weaker than before, so he tried once again to cancel the ability. Fortunately, this time System apparently decided to execute the command, and mana circulation to his eyes began to stop. But Asan sensed something else… This circulation not only conducted mana to his eyes but also something else, something that was part of his very core. As if it were his essence itself.
This was another complex sensation that Asan could not describe in words. Deciding not to worry about it, he opened his eyes again and saw the familiar bloody color. It was definitely more pleasant to look like this, since no one was pressing on his eye sockets from all sides. Plus, there was no need to spend an absurd amount of mana. How many seconds could he use this ability for? Twenty?
It was damn little, but he had no doubt that it would definitely come in handy to him in the future.
This was how his last day of rest ended, which he then spent with his comrades from the strike team, telling them about his newly acquired ability. To his surprise, no one else had reached the fifth level yet, so he felt somewhat proud of himself.
The next morning began not with coffee but with an early departure. Over the past couple of days of rest, people managed to say goodbye to their fallen comrades, but everyone's mood was still foul. Now Asan would have to get used to new people, since those who were there before now lie in a common grave dug by Crane and Alice. Paul walked around with his head down, as if feeling guilty for everything that had happened, and Asan couldn't quite understand why this affected him so much but didn't dare ask about it.
The bitterness from losing those smiles that Asan saw in the evenings. Constant gossip about all sorts of things, knowledge about each person's past life… These feelings will now remain at the fort.
He will miss the guys who often told jokes in the evenings, Cole, who was a liar, and Old Man, with whom Asan didn't talk as much, but he was the first outside the core group that Asan spoke to. He was the one who constantly smiled at him and gave him food, which brought Asan pleasant feelings that he won't be able to experience with this person anymore. His mental health was in far worse shape than he thought. As they were already leaving the city, Asan looked one last time at the ruined fort and nodded his head, mentally saying goodbye to the people of the old camp. Life doesn't end here, despite the vile and monstrous state of affairs.
He is still not dead, even though he often interacts with death, dancing side by side with her every day. She has become his faithful, dangerous companion who can abandon you to oblivion at any moment, eliminating all worries and concerns. As they say – you will rest after death, but now you need to work.
So the group moved on towards the Alps. The rest of the journey to the multi-kilometer forest consisted entirely of fields. Asan met new people every day and frequently noticed Nelson's gaze on him, which still made him feel sick. Officially, their strike team also decided to hold sparring matches with fists and with the weapons they had picked up at the fort. Kilometer after kilometer passed quickly, and the Ronnie encountered each day no longer caused any problems for Asan or the other members of the strike team.
A couple of times there was a bloody rain that everyone miraculously managed to avoid by hiding ten people in a room of one of the houses. A couple of times they also found bodies of water where they swam, enjoying moments of peaceful life.
Of course, it wasn't without Laszlo inviting Paul, Crane, and Asan to spy, to which the guys naturally agreed and were caught by none other than Alice. Crane was the only one she didn't find, what an ass! He had to keep working on his stealth all the time.
Although it was amusing to watch the assault team from the sidelines, the guys on it walked around with battered faces, except for the big guy.
Soon the long fields were replaced by small villages, where the camp replenished supplies. Lately, these supplies had been getting fewer and fewer.
Most of the canned goods were swollen and unfit for consumption, but at least various grains and other items were still in reasonably decent condition. This continued until the group finally climbed a fairly high hill, at the foot of which lay an incredibly long forest stretching far beyond the horizon.
When Asan looked at the forest, something deep inside him trembled, as if he was looking at something familiar...
As if he was looking at the darkness itself.