GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

Chapter 1872: The Three Mirages.



There was finally light in the darkness, but he still couldn't see anything with this light. He couldn't even see his skin. The only thing he could see was the white light where his chest should be.

That didn't change when the light began to grow like a plant. It formed tiny branches that expanded throughout his body. It resembled images of nerves or blood vessels. They grew through his body until they covered his whole body in tiny white threads.

It was a painful experience. Taylor roared in pain for the minutes it took the process to complete. He still couldn't see his skin or any other part of his body after it was done.

He found this to be odd because he could feel that the thread was within him, so he shouldn't be able to see the inside of himself if he couldn't see the surface.

Eventually the pain ended. What followed was that he began to see mirages. An image appeared in front of him. It had no fixed edges in the darkness. It was as if he was looking through a haze. But he could make out what was happening in the image.

The image moved and became a video. There was no sound, but he knew what was going on. It was not in clear terms, unlike the image. It was more like feeling and intuition.

He saw a man cut down with his sword on a tree stump. He saw the man repeat the action, but the move was faster and the damage to the tree stump was higher.

The man in the mirage video repeated the two actions over and over again until Taylor got what it meant. He said in dawning realization, "This is the power strike skill."

His chest lit up again when he understood what he was seeing.

This time it wasn't painful. The center of the network of white threads pulsed. Then a thread extended out of his body towards the mirage he was seeing. This thread sucked in the mirage as soon as it made contact with it.

The mirage entered his chest through the white thread and solidified into a tiny, colorful orb at the core of the light in his chest. This orb was still playing the video of the man's two different moves over and over again.

He was fascinated by what he saw. He spent some time looking at the tiny wonder in his chest. But then his attention was taken by another mirage.

Another mirage had appeared before him. In it, a man that looked like him took a step forward. There was nothing special about this step.

But then he saw the man take another step and jump across a large distance. It was an odd movement because the man didn't look like he was preparing to jump at all.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

His posture was all wrong for a jump. He looked at if he was just taking a normal step forward, just like the previous step. But instead of covering a normal distance, he crossed an unreasonable amount of distance with that single step.

Taylor knew what he was seeing immediately he saw the unreasonable action. He said, "This must be Dash."

The same thing repeated after he had acknowledged the skill. The mirage was absorbed into his core engine. Then another mirage was shown to him.

In this mirage, a man used his fist to strike a rock. In one scene, his fist shattered upon making contact with the rock. It became misshapen as the bones in his hand were broken by the collision.

In the other scene, his fist smashed against the rock again. But this time, his fist was

uninjured. It was the rock that cracked and eventually shattered.

He said, "It is not what I expected, but this must be Harden."

He expected Harden to be used to make the body impenetrable to attacks as a defensive skill, but using it to protect the body while attacking is even better.

His core engine absorbed the new skill. It was painless like the first two times. Then the floor beneath him appeared again. The door also opened for him. It wasn't behind him like it did when it closed. It opened right in front of him.

He found Ragna waiting for him on the other side. The Spirit asked him, "How was it?"

He asked in return, "You knew it was going to be painful, didn't you?"

Ragna nodded. "I did. So, how was it?"

He sighed and said, "It was enlightening."

Ragna smiled. "Good. Focus on the power, not the pain. Power doesn't have to come with pain. But great power usually does."

What the facility said made Taylor's eye to twitch and phantom pain to spike from his left soldier. He asked, "You're talking about my arm, aren't you?"

Ragnar asked innocently, "Which arm are you talking about? The subpar one or the invalid?" Taylor chuckled.

Ragna continued, "From what I see, the only difference between the two of them is that one can move and thus have potential. The two of them can still turn out to be useless flesh and bones that will achieve nothing worthwhile. But if you take full advantage of the potential of the one arm that can move, you won't need two arms."

Taylor nodded. "Thanks. I needed that."

Ragna smiled sweetly, "Just doing my job."

He said, "Of course."

Then he asked, "The pain from acquiring the Core Engine wasn't as bad as that of losing my arm. But was there no other way to acquire the Core Engine?"

Ragna replied, "In fact, there. You can either create or learn an uncommon skill or spell yourself without the assistance of our system here. You can also acquire 100 levels. If you do any of these, your core engine will automatically form, and it will be completely painless. It is only those who require assistance like you that the process will be painful for."