Ravian continued gazing through the window for several seconds after Larette departed, until his eyes caught a faint reflection upon the glass.
The gray crown was still hovering above his head.
Its two crimson gemstones shone clearly for a moment, then dimmed until they nearly disappeared before emerging once again, as though the crown were trapped between the material world and its spiritual form, unable to stabilize in either.
Ravian turned toward the tall mirror mounted beside the wardrobe.
The crown was visible there as well.
’Disappear.’
Ravian fixed his gaze upon it and attempted to draw his aura completely back into himself.
The invisible pressure that had surrounded his body since his advancement receded, and the mana settled within the newly formed circuits that spread throughout his body like veins. Then, guided by Absolute Focus, Void Shadow extended over his presence and concealed it until his existence within the room became so faint that it was difficult to notice.
Yet the crown remained where it was.
It dimmed for a single moment, then reappeared with perfect clarity.
’Damn it.’
Larette was not a high-ranking fighter, yet she had seen it without even trying. That meant any ordinary servant or Awakened individual who passed him in the corridor would notice the crown, while any noble with even a basic understanding of the spiritual ranks would immediately realize from the gemstones set within it that Ravian had become a Ninth-Rank Walker.
He would not be able to cross the manor in this state without announcing his advancement to everyone who saw him.
’System, tell me there’s a way to hide this thing above my head.’
A white window appeared before his eyes.
[The Host’s current attempts will not succeed.]
’Wow, really? Thanks for the encouragement.’
[The Soul Crown is not a construct of aura or magic that the Host can conceal by controlling either one.]
[It is a direct reflection and manifestation of the Host’s current spiritual rank.]
[Under normal circumstances, the crown remains within the deepest layers of the soul and does not manifest in the external world except by its owner’s will, upon the release of a tremendous amount of spiritual power, or during combat when the soul energy flowing through the body is pushed to its absolute limit.]
[However, the Host’s soul is currently unstable.]
The sarcasm vanished from Ravian’s eyes.
’Unstable? Didn’t the advancement process succeed?’
[Yes.]
[The instability is unrelated to the Host’s advancement to the Ninth Rank.]
[The curse from the Nightmare World left a persistent trace within the Host’s soul.]
[This trace can be compared to a spiritual injury that prevents the soul’s layers from fully returning to their natural positions, causing portions of the Host’s spiritual form to leak into the material world against his will.]
Ravian raised a hand and touched the space where the crown should have been, but his fingers passed through it without feeling anything.
’How long will it take for the trace to disappear on its own?’
[The duration cannot be calculated.]
[The curse originates from the power of a Third-Rank soul polisher—a Calamity.]
[Its owner’s connection to it has been severed, so it is gradually weakening. However, it may require days, months, or even years to disappear completely.]
[The possibility of it causing further spiritual disturbances during that period also cannot be ruled out.]
Ravian fell silent for a moment.
He was not prepared to spend years walking around with a crown above his head announcing his rank, nor did he intend to keep a trace left by that Nightmare inside his soul merely because it was slowly weakening.
’How do I get rid of it?’
[The Host must reach the curse’s location within his soul and remove it directly.]
’And how exactly am I supposed to enter my own soul?’
The System paused for a second before displaying its answer.
[That strange technique of yours—the one you call Soul Ascension.]
Ravian’s eyes narrowed.
He knew better than anyone what that technique was, but he was surprised that the System had managed to analyze it. Based on the way it described the technique, the System also appeared to regard it as something anomalous and fundamentally unnatural.
’Do you mean the method I used when that thing descended into Robert’s corpse?’
[Yes.]
[The Host possesses a technique unlike anything ever recorded in this world.]
[There is no method within this world’s Records that allows a living human to separate his soul from his body by choice, move independently in that state, and then return to his vessel without the body dying or the soul suffering permanent damage.]
’But I’ve already done it,’ Ravian thought.
[That is why I said the technique belongs to the Host alone.]
[However, its execution is theoretically impossible for an ordinary human mind.]
Another window appeared before Ravian could ask why.
[Based on my previous observations, Soul Ascension requires you, its practitioner, to perceive your body, consciousness, and soul as three interconnected yet separate entities, then visualize each of them in its entirety at the same time without losing awareness of any one of them.]
[This requires a degree of concentration and visualization that exceeds the limits of the ordinary human mind.]
[Failure during the separation may result in the collapse of consciousness, the severing of the connection between the soul and the body, or the death of the vessel.]
[However, the technique becomes possible when combined with the Host’s innate ability: Absolute Focus.]
Ravian’s gaze remained fixed upon those final words.
’Absolute Focus...’
He had not been born a scientist, a genius, or even a child whose appearance distinguished him from anyone else.
All he had possessed in the beginning was a helpless wish.
Before he became Ravian Veyr, Ryan had been a child living alone with his mother in a small house whose only warmth came from her presence.
His father had not been there.
He had not been there when Ryan’s mother woke before sunrise to leave for work, nor when she returned at night concealing the pain in her feet behind a smile, nor when she sat before the bills and tried to decide which ones she could postpone without their electricity being cut off or their landlord throwing them out.
That was why Ryan had created another world inside his mind as a child—a world in which his father had returned home.
He imagined him sitting at the dining table beside his mother, talking to her and making her laugh instead of leaving her to sit in silence as she calculated how much remained of her salary.
He imagined a larger house, clothes his mother did not have to mend with her own hands, and days when she no longer had to balance working with raising him alone.
His daydreams were not merely fleeting images; he constructed the entire world, imagining the light filtering through the windows, the scent of the food, the voice of the father he could barely remember, and even the tiny wrinkles that appeared beside his mother’s eyes whenever she smiled sincerely.
Whenever he discovered a missing detail, he completed it.
Whenever a contradiction appeared, he rebuilt the scene from the beginning until the world inside his mind became coherent enough for him to believe in it, even if only for a few minutes.
He did not know that he was training his mind.
He was training it relentlessly and with brutal intensity, forcing it to preserve precise details that no human could maintain continuously for so long. The resulting mental exhaustion was so severe that Ryan slept for sixteen hours every day.
Yet that brutal training laid the groundwork and formed the shell for something far greater.
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