"Okay, let me get this straight." Chen Ze spoke after listening to Levin's story for about fifteen minutes, shifting his body a little to make himself comfortable. "So, you suddenly fell into a lucid dream where you are conscious, knowing full well that it was a dream, and you were in the middle of a sea full of clouds with nothing else there, and when you were desperate, you found three young saplings that you guessed represented the players who you killed, and after that, after you picked up one of them, you finally woke up, just to find that now you can use an illusion ability from the illusionist that you killed a few days ago and his voice is now constantly bothering you inside his head?"
Hearing that, Levin felt his face flushed in embarrassment. "Well, when you said it like that, even I myself would never believe such a ridiculous story.
"Oh, no, no, no. You got me wrong here. I believe in your story, 100 percent." Chen Ze shook his head immediately. "This also confirms one of our hypotheses, right? Unfortunately, we forgot to count the drawback behind this awakening."
Yeah, the part where the voice of a dead person pestering his head was definitely not pleasant, and Levin himself doubted that Chen Ze would be willing to do so for a mere power that he couldn't control. After all, for a scientist, his head was definitely his biggest asset, and there was no way Chen Ze would let any stranger invade it.
"You don't seem to be surprised, though?" Levin crooked one of his eyebrows slightly.
"Oh, I am surprised, but not that much." Chen Ze shrugged. "After all, this loophole that allows me and the other players who are not a combatant to advance through the next round without having to fight is a bit too obvious. There is no way the crow man would let us take advantage of that. There should be compensation for those who did what was required to advance to the next round properly."
Levin nodded a little, seeing that the scientist had a point. There was a moment of silence for quite a few seconds as they pondered over everything here. In the end, Chen Ze decided to ask, "So, your new power is an illusion, huh? Can you show it to me?"
"Sure, let me try it again." Levin took a deep breath before closing his eyes tightly. Even though he didn't know how he let his illusion lose control in the first place, he could still remember what the illusionist said in his head before. "The first key to learning the illusion is to know how to breathe, huh?" After his breath was steady enough, Levin started to play with its rhythm, and suddenly, a loud crack could be heard on the wall. Not only that, the floor also started moving, shaking off Chen Ze's balance in front of him.
"Okay, stop it!" Chen Ze yelled, and as Levin opened his eyes, everything went back to its normal state. "Even though I know it is just an illusion, that thing is scary as hell." The scientist sighed.
"Well, just imagine how Mira felt when she was subjected to the same illusion twice and had to fight against her nightmare."
"Well… That… Sucks…." Chen Ze had no words to describe Mira's experience. "She is far stronger than me, huh?"
"Exactly." Levin nodded, somehow feeling proud and distressed when he remembered how Mira had to fight against the illusion yet still coming out alive and intact after those confrontations. "At least, psychologically, she is probably far better than us."
Another round of silence fell as they let themselves basked under the early sunrise. In the end, Chen Ze finally went to the original topic and asked again, "So, how would you train your new ability?"
"Hmm… Let me think about it…" Levin frowned before thinking inwardly, 'Oi, psycho illusionist, are you still there?!'
After waiting for a few seconds, the voice that Levin waited for finally rang inside his head. "Oh, you finally remember me again?" The sarcastic tone was still there, yet somehow, Levin was glad that he could hear it again. After all, besides making sure that everything was real and not his hallucination, this voice inside his head was the only one who could guide him to control this power.
"Okay, tell me how to train this power." He commanded shortly.
To his surprise – even though it shouldn't be a surprise – the voice inside his head just snorted amusedly before saying, "Do you think you can demand something from me? Even though you killed me, I am not your slave or your subordinate, so I don't have to do anything that I don't like." Right after that, the voice went quiet immediately, and no matter how much Levin called it again, it didn't come back, making him frown a little.
"Is there anything wrong?" Chen Ze couldn't help but ask when he saw his new friend had a deep frown on his face.
"Oh, it is nothing. Just the illusionist throwing a tantrum at me and didn't want to talk about his ability." Levin sighed helplessly. "Well, now I have to figure out how to train this illusion on my own. This is going to be troublesome."
Indeed, without any instruction, it was quite hard for Levin to figure out what he could and what he couldn't do. However, he still decided to train the new power today since tomorrow would be the day when the next stage of this battle royale game began. He didn't want to step into a new territory with an ability that he couldn't control at all.
After about four hours of training, while using Chen Ze who volunteered happily as the guinea pig, they finally figured out something. The illusion seemed to be triggered by his breathing. The more chaotic his rhythm of breathing was, the more volatile and uncontrollable the illusion was.
Still, this discovery didn't reassure Levin at all. If anything, this only made him worry. After all, he was a medium-range fighter who relied on his mobility, not just waiting from afar to shoot his laser gun. This fighting style required him to move fast, and there was no way he could his breathing steady. That meant he had to be ready for the illusion to pop up out of nowhere and react accordingly, which was far easier said than done.
Also, he couldn't control the content of the illusion yet. Up until now, it would always be something flashy that would attract the enemy's attention immediately. Not a bad thing as a distraction, of course. However, that wouldn't always work in any situation. If anything, Levin wanted to make the illusion so subtle yet deceiving the enemy's perception, like making the enemy think that the laser gun was still a bit far when in reality, it was already one foot away from hitting them. Honestly, if Levin could do that, he would be lethal on any battlefield in the future.
However, his experiment time had to be cut off prematurely when suddenly, the screen that greeted him and any other players before the game started suddenly popped in front of Levin's face, and this time, Levin could see a countdown ticking on the screen.
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