“Master Dyne!” Vahn called out as he noticed Dyne had fallen into some strange trance.

Dyne immediately used his Imaginarium Arts to reflect the memories on the dispersing Zenoir.

Dyne had assumed that Meta was probably too weak to absorb something as strong as a Zenoir and intended to use his cheat ability to make them recall the glorious vision of Alos Vasilous realm that Strafe’s Master created.

At first, there was some resistance, and Meta was losing the dispersing spirit. But when Dyne reflected his ability and tried to reveal hat vision as hard as possible, it was as if the souls were confused and gave Meta more time to combat and absorb the soul.

By some luck, the Zenoir that they encountered was one born before the Mist. Had this been a monster born in the Mist, it would have been impossible to do so. The previous attempts to make Meta absorb Gimard showed how low the probability was to absorb it.

“Looks like we hit the jackpot!” Dyne smiled. But then he turned to Vahn and gave him a peculiar look.

“I guess Strafe followed the Vahn in the game who would occasionally call out their attack. That was just too geeky for me.” Dyne silently thought.

Dyne then turned over to look at Tetsu’s battle.

The Gimard was dying. The number of hits it received weakened it. The fighter before it was fast and, with the constant interruptions, made it unable to fight back.

And even when the interruptions ended, the Gimard was already too wounded to fight.

Tetsu did not immediately attack it but moved around it and tried to wear the Gimard down.

Soon, the Gimard did not even have the strength to stay standing as it laid on the floor. It glanced at the Zenoir and noticed that it had died and dispersed.

“Alright, Meta… Help me out here.” Dyne finally called out as he noticed that the Gimard was dying.

“Master Dyne. That was… dangerous.” Meta’s voice trembled as she recalled the battle that they just had.

“All’s wells, ends well, Meta! We also have a Zenoir now! Wow. Were such a cheat!” Dyne laughed.

The group approached the beaten up Gimard.

“Alright. My turn. Let’s hope this works. Meta, please help me redirect the soul energy to Grim. Since not even Tetsu could easily defeat it, it shows just how strong a Level 2 Gimard is!” Dyne smiled.

He then recalled that Drake Castle had a Level 2 Gimard and could only shake his head and secretly curse at Strafe.

Grim had reverted into a Gimard form.

Grim then moved and delivered the finishing blow to the Level 2 Gimard.

As the soul dispersed, Meta tried to retain the soul while Dyne gathered it and focused on keeping up the Imaginarium Art while sending the soul energy into Grim.

With Meta around, the soul would not easily disperse, and Dyne was using a smaller version of the Imaginarium Art. Instead of creating an area where the visions would appear, he made the visions in his head. He became a conduit where the soul of the Gimard would pass through before being sent towards Grim.

As they did that, the color of Grim slowly began to change. From a pitch-black color, Grim now had a very faint reddish hue. It was barely noticeable, unlike the enemy Gimard, which had a rust red color.

But Dyne’s hopes were not on Grim’s level but on something else.

After the entire process was over, Dyne took a closer look at Grim.

“Grim?” Dyne asked.

It was then that something strange occurred. It was as if everyone around them could feel a strange sensation as if something was calling out to them.

“The Gimard! He called Dyne!” Meta understood what had happened.

“As I thought. The more souls I give it, the more it is capable of awakening its consciousness. It looks like the Gimard now has thoughts of its own!” Dyne smiled.

Dyne observed the Soul of Ginger, and the dark patch of its soul had grown bigger. But Dyne was not worried about the increase of darkness.

“Bad in good. Good in bad. This Gimard no longer is a creature that is a slave to the Mist or a slave to the will of Noaru Valley. It is slowly becoming like Meta. Not driven to the instincts or beckoning of the soul, but something that can move in between light and dark. A neutral being. Meaning, a conscious being.” Dyne smiled.

“Impossible!” Meta could not help but cry out. He did not know how the Gimard had attained consciousness previously. But right now, it appeared before her very eyes. Meta originally assumed that the Gimard was something Tieg bestowed upon Dyne.

“None but the Ra-Serus were granted consciousness by Tieg!”

“Strafe- or you know- Tieg taught me that the more one understands soul cultivation, you will realize that this is but a unique but not impossible occurrence. You’ve already seen how the Bertugo and Brod have souls. Those two could wear Serus if they wanted to! The path of cultivation is something that defies the heavens and the universe itself!” Dyne explained.

“Lord Biron attained his power because of that. How else could a human become a Ra-Seru?” Dyne questioned as he noticed the doubtful ‘expressions’ that Meta had released in her soul.

Tetsu and Vahn were listening closely.

“It is as Lord Dyne said…” Meta could only agree.

Vahn and Tetsu were silent. They somehow felt they were small insignificant beings in this world.

The truth was, Dyne had already thought of a lot of things back when Strafe explained the Elemental wheel.

He recalled the elemental wheel that Strafe explained, and since the elements were divided on Dark and Light, Dyne began to understand that the creatures of this world also had their alignments. What was interesting was Brimstone, and its opposing element, Dimension, which is time and space, were considered powerful elements. These two were the turning point from the neutrals, Earth and Wind. Wind turned dark creates the Dimension while Earth turned holy produces Brimstone. With this strange hint, Dyne assumed that the mystery of consciousness was found in the turning point from either light and dark.

Strafe had already hinted it to him, but now, Dyne didn’t thoroughly convert the Gimard Level 2 into an “all-white” soul but purposely left specks of darkness.

“Sadly, I still need to feed Grim with the constant reminder of the memory of their world, Elpida, and the vision of Alos Vasilous that their goddess wanted…” Dyne could only sigh. Carrying Grim was such a weighty thing that he would have to expend MP here and there constantly.

Calamity had returned. During the time they were converting the Gimard, Calamity had rushed and ate the Lippians.

“No change in color. It seems we should try to feed Calamity to Gimards or Zenoirs.” Vahn observed.

“Too dangerous! That battle already emptied us of MP. And because I was drained in the spirit, I can sense the Mist affecting me. I won’t be able to do a third of my true powers unless we recuperate!” Tetsu informed.

“Yeah. The gains were great… But it looks like we’re too spent.” Dyne sighed.

“Let’s continue to go! We need to rush to Biron Monastery! It’s still a long, long way out. We’ll avoid monsters along the way.” Dyne began to command the group. Dyne started to bring out some Incense to ensure that they would not be attacked or ambushed.

But since they only had a limited amount, Dyne didn’t want to use it until they were on the Voz forest region.

The team continued to move forward.

As they were moving north, they found something that Dyne had no memory of.

It was a village! It had walls that were around three meters tall. But since it wasn’t high enough, the Mist prevailed inside. But the town itself looked so uninhabited. There were no signs of any humans living in the village.

“Where is this?” Dyne was confused.

“You were not aware of this, Master Dyne? I’ve been here before. I used to be one of the Monks assigned here to spread the teaching of Biron. This is River Reach village. I thought that this would be destroyed when the Mist came. River Reach used to be a place where fishing trades are made. This is a town of Fishermans.”

Dyne observed the village. It had small walls and a small port by the river.

“A town of Fishermans, eh? That makes sense. Rim Elm was a town of hunters, after all. But since these are fishermen, they wouldn’t be able to survive in the Mist. They must have gone up to Biron Monastery when the Mist arrived.” Dyne gave his conclusion.

Several monsters could be seen inside the village. But not a trace of humans could be found inside.

“It must have been King Drake. Wise and amazing King Drake. Anyway, let’s kill whatever monster is left here and find a good place to rest. Hopefully, one of the houses can still provide a good night’s rest for us.”

And so the group began to secure a dwelling for themselves. The few Frogs and Lippians that had wandered around the village were all killed. As the night approached, the group was able to secure a stone house that did not let the Mist come inside. It had the same structure that was used in Rim Elm, which prevented the Mist from seeping inside. Dyne and the group inside one of the stone houses where they were cooking dinner.

The meal was delicious as Dyne tried another way to cook the steak and decided to give the group a taste of the three different flavors of the steak. Rare, Medium, and Well done. The pair marveled at Dyne’s cooking skills once more and ate to their heart’s content. Even the small seeping amount of Mist could not dampen the mood with Dyne’s cooking.

Calamity watched outside the door to watch them while the group ate. And finally, when the group had finished, Dyne revealed his next plans.

“Alright. Tomorrow, we might have to stay here for a bit. I’ll be going out and plan to deal with another problem… That Basilisk.” Dyne smiled a cruel smile.