Chapter 233: Invasion

"Huff…puff…" Wheezing his way out, Jyorta barely managed to enter the class, watching the doors close right after his entry. It was a close call. Earlier, when he was climbing the stairs, he noticed the 7th floor crowded by students.

Based on what he had hurriedly heard, they were conducting a mass training activity for Espers from three Batches simultaneously. Hence, they had gathered at the area, planning to head to the designated location later. On seeing that it would take a lot of time to weave through them, Jyorta descended a floor and traversed to the other end.

Finding another flight of stairs, he scaled it, sprinting. Just this small diversion consumed a minute. Now, pressed for time, he could only sprint to his limits, barely managing to arrive on time.

Madam Mila's voice resounded, "Except for two students, the remaining Espers have arrived. We will continue the part from last week."

Jyorta glanced through the class, unable to find the presence of Haesha. He then noticed Madam Mila motioning for him to be seated in a particular seat. He complied and walked to the spot, noticing Laila seated to his right. His seat was situated in the left extreme of the row.

Laila glanced at him once, flashing a smile. The blue soul in him overlaid the false persona, the face mask—one of calm, optimism, and filled with focus. Jyorta smiled in return, waving lightly as a form of greeting.

As everyone fished out their glass jars from their pockets, Jyorta too did the same. It had a diameter of 3 centimetres and a height of 10 centimetres. It was transparent, possessing a cylindrical body that curved at the top, bordered by a hemisphere.

Filled to half the height within the glass jar was yellow dust, the granules coarse. Due to his painstaking efforts, they had all been converted into his Refined Objects by the end of December. After that, he had trained many things using it. The ability to instantaneously erect a psychic energy barrier—outlining his body—was thanks to that.

Madam Mila's voice resounded, giving a short introduction, "The essence of nature lies in change. Everything changes with the passage of time. Nothing is absolute; what is invincible at one point in time might become redundant in the future. To reign supreme is to keep up with the changes. That is why humanity has managed to survive to this day."

"Coming to the topic of today's class; you have been practicing the method to erect a barrier around yourselves. Even for Line Controllers, despite your barrier only shaped as a sphere, you have to learn to minimise the space. This will decrease your psychic energy expenditure. Also, at your current age, your body is still growing. So, you will have to constantly adjust your barriers to suit the increasing requirements."

"That is what we will be focusing on today's classes: increasing the sizes of existing methods while retaining their functionality." A psychic arm materialised before Madam Mila, becoming a sphere, encasing her body.

The sphere had a radius of 60 centimetres, with the focus inside her head. It barely reached her stomach, with most of the space covering air, leaving half of her body undefended. "Due to a lacking range, you can only protect a part of your body. After curling up, you can bring everything within range. But, this constricts your movements, making you a sitting target."

Another psychic arm materialised, pointing at the empty space within the barrier, above her head. "This is a wastage of your psychic energy. So, by shortening it, you will be conserving it."

The spherical barrier began to reduce at every point of its surface, one centimetre per each. It was like the surface was gradually caving in, eventually stopping just above Madam Mila's head. The same happened at the barrier to her front and back, eventually forming a smooth surface that almost touched her body.

"I will be guiding you personally in due time. Before that, show me your current progress." Prompted by her voice, all the students unleashed their psychic arms, seeping them into their respective glass jars.

A voice resounded in Jyorta's ear, "I have isolated you from everyone. Show me your actual progress."

Just to show the effect, a change occurred. Jyorta noticed his surroundings—within an arm's length—flicker like he had been trapped inside a translucent glass sphere. He noticed the figure of Laila smile at him once, the motion of her lips indicated that she was conversing with him. But, Jyorta hadn't replied.

To his wonder, he saw her nod in response after a couple of seconds and retract her gaze, focusing on her glass jar. Madam Mila explained, "A simple isolation would look odd, even to a layman. That is why I took some measures. First is an optical illusion of your figure, seated in the same spot. This will behave the same as what you have done until now."

Without a change in tone, she continued, "Next, is an auditory hallucination, followed by smell, touch, heat, etc. Finally, the sound; just now, Laila had conversed with you, or the illusion of you I had created. Don't worry; I have observed you enough for the past eight months to fully grasp your character, behaviour, speech patterns, etc. Something like this is child's play for even a Ground Controller, not to mention me."

"Your illusion will behave in regards to your official strength. Now, you no longer need to hide your actual accumulation. Show me what you have managed to achieve until now." In response to her voice, Jyorta nodded, in awe of her abilities.

Jyorta unleashed his stronger psychic arm at full power, seeping it into the glass jar. Immediately, the dust settled within moved, like bars stacking upon one another. Within a couple of seconds, a figure of him had formed.

The level of detail was fairly decent, like a pixelated figure. Just when he expected a response from Madam Mila, the blue soul in him shuddered, despite having overlaid the false persona.

Madam Mila hovered in the air, still like a statue, not speaking any word. If not for the expansion and contraction of her chest, it would have been difficult to differentiate her from a sculpture. The students concentrated on their tasks, trying to showcase their growth.

Unnoticed to everyone or unnoticeable to everyone, a flash of blue flickered across her eyes.

When he was on the verge of giving a finishing touch to the figure in the glass jar, the blue soul trembled in fear.

'Is she making a move?' It was a crisis, the outcome already decided, with no way out. The blue soul in him extended its Soul Cornea, seeping it into the subsoul belonging to his Wisdom Parasite.

Situated within the body of the subsoul, one that had grown in size a lot as compared to eight months ago, were two spheres, the husks being the remains of subsouls after their soul cores had been consumed by the blue face.

The husks were being used as bags, concealing something within. One was tiny while the other was twice bigger. The Soul Cornea turned black, quickly attacking the ego birthed from Ehara Gobi's memory fragments, the energy expenditure originating from the blue soul.

Both the Soul Corneas worked in tandem, expending the energy in the blue soul to quickly damage it, successfully shattering the formed avatar. Based on his estimate, it would take at least a day before the ego could reform.

Having expended the energy in the soul, the blue soul now spanned only a quarter of its original size. Its current size conformed to the size of the souls in his peers.

A Soul Cornea wrapped around the bigger soul husk bag, bringing it within the blue soul.

The other Soul Cornea wrapped around the smaller bag, poking a tiny hole using its corrosion. Immediately, a murky substance seeped out like a torrent. The Soul Cornea guided the murkiness, overlaying it on the subsoul, soon increasing the layers until everything was used up. Now, the subsoul looked no different from the soul of a normal Wisdom Parasite its age.

Similarly, the former Soul Cornea first sent the Hoberman Sphere and the eye mask into the subsoul, a moment before the murkiness overlaid it.

Once that was done, it began to make arrangements in the blue soul. It arranged the memory fragments of Jyorta everywhere, even overlaying it atop the memories of his past life and the memory fragments extracted from the Floating Spiders.

Having overlaid everything, making the memory fragments look the same, only belonging to Jyorta, the Soul Cornea poked a hole through the bigger bag. The murkiness gushed out in torrents. The Soul Cornea guided them, first making layers over the disguised memory fragments.

Once all the memory fragments were arranged, the murkiness spread over the blue face, covering it, forming a cluster around it. It was his core, his essence, the source of his apprehension and secrets. Therefore, he had to guard it with the utmost priority.

Finally, the remaining murkiness spread throughout, even spilling out of the soul, forming a dense fluid of murkiness that covered his soul. The murkiness also became mist that spread out further, even enveloping the subsoul along its wake.

Once the murkiness spread to every bit of the blue soul, its abilities plummeted to rock bottom. Now, even creating a soul tendril would take it a day, not to mention using its Soul Corneas. It now looked no different from a regular person's soul, aligned to the age factor.

It was what Jyorta had been planning from the moment he detected her existence. The murkiness would be generated in his blue soul every day. Unless he chanted the verse imparted by the creepy-haired man or exerted the Soul Cornea's influence, the murkiness couldn't be vaporised.

But, instead of vaporising it, Jyorta used the Soul Corneas to collect them into a bag made from a soul husk, to be used in times of need. It was the only method he could think and prepare. As for using the Hoberman sphere? He had no hope of it succeeding against his current opponent; the chance of victory was a precise zero.

A thin soul tendril—pale blue in colour—entered his soul, calmly slithering its way in.