Psychokinetic Eyeball Pulling

Chapter 160: Testing

Chapter 160: Testing

Was it a flickering ember? It looked like it. Almost ethereal, it was located just below her heart. Astrid could feel a sense of connection from her third eye, as if it was the reason why she could see the ‘soul’ now.

Astrid just chalked it up to her eye having some bonus effects that she didn’t know about. Sinking her psychic energy into her soul, she felt a sudden coldness brush up against the back of her shoulders.

Pinching her cheek, she sunk into her own thoughts. If she [Crashed] the soul, what would happen? Would it be a full explosion since she couldn’t exactly ‘see’ it? Astrid shook her head. She couldn’t [Crash] anything she couldn’t directly see. It was exactly the reason she couldn’t aim straight for the heart. But surely there would be a method to at least injure it in some way.

Astrid spent a few hours sitting by the illusionary soul arrows. She recalled the feeling of when they struck her to every single detail. Feeling the challenge, her blood boiled. She wanted to recreate it.

Ignoring the chilling pain that the arrow caused to her soul, she decided to absorb the matter. It was only then could she get a true grasp on how the arrow was able to attack. As the matter seeped into her hand, it had a faint resemblance to that of regular grey matter and dark matter. Like a combination of the two.

Then, with the soul matter fresh in her mind, she connected to a passing arrow and [Crashed] it. However, her brows sank when a regular explosion rocked the area in front of her. But it wasn't all for nought, the explosion had lessened. As if she was dozens of Levels behind, and had somehow regressed.

Attempting it again, she noticed that her [Crash] was vaguely different. Although it didn’t deal a lot of damage–it was more like a strong puff of air–it now resembled the soul within her. Like a glowing white, it illuminated the surrounding area.

She had to test it.

Astrid summoned a void clone in front of her and used the new [Crash] on the fake her to see what it would do. Not surprisingly, the clone survived the direct hit.

Clicking her tongue, she got the clone to connect to the matter in front of her, and [Crashed] her body again. However this time, Astrid smirked. The clone's connection with the matter was severed.

So a soul attack can stop a spell from being cast? No wonder the Flynn family keeps it a secret. Astrid smiled and tested it a few more times. It was difficult to use properly, or more accurately, she needed time to form the soul [Crash] unlike her normal one which was instant.

But in the end she wasn’t fully satisfied with its usage. She heard soul attacks could destroy the very soul directly, but she could only interrupt magic spells. Well, it just meant she would have to experiment with it more. Besides, it was another trick up her sleeve if she could make it instant.

It would be impossible to predict.

Happy with the results, Astrid destroyed the illusion with a [Crash], and moved further into the tunnels. It wasn’t long before the tunnel transformed into a large room. Mirrors lined the wall as she could see her own reflection wherever she looked.

Just as she entered, she could tell an illusion was forming, and in an instant a humanoid sizzled into view. ‘It’ as it was impossible to make out the gender of the being since it had no features, took a step forward.

Astrid prepared her defences as the humanoid pushed its hand forward. Astrid felt the air swirl, then with the power of a psychic, it pushed the matter against her barriers. Of course such a hit dealt no damage, but Astrid was questioning the validity of the test.

TIlting her head, Astrid [Crashed] its body, instantly erasing it from existence, but another formed in its place. Astrid destroyed body after body, but it just recreated itself, then replicated its pushing blast move ceaselessly.

Does it want me to copy it? Astrid mused, then thought of pushing the humanoid with Psychokinesis. She surged her mana, then pushed against it. JHowever, the result wasn’t the same as the humanoid’s forceful push.

Hers was more… basic. It was obviously performing a technique. Astrid just had to figure out how to accomplish it.

She tried a few times, then finally used [Crash] in a controlled manner. Instead of simply exploding the matter, Astrid pushed it at the same time–causing the matter in the air to be forcefully pushed. The push caused the illusion to finally break apart before turning to dust.

Astrid thought it was a victory, but another humanoid replaced it. Although the same, its next move put itself apart from the other.

Instead of a forceful push, it looked the same, but it was more concentrated. It formed a wide line almost as if it was a wind blade, then it blasted it toward Astrid once more. It struck her barrier and it was obvious that the illusions were weak.

Astrid didn’t know if they were always meant to be weak, if they were just for training purposes, or if they had just weakened from the passage of time. Not knowing the reason, all Astrid had to know was learn the new attack–and kill the illusion.

After learning the matter blade, a new humanoid fired what seemed to be more like a bullet. After that, the bullets turned to a rapid-fire attack.

It was clear the illusions were teaching her how to better use her abilities. No, Zephyrion was testing her to see if she had the learning capability.

Grinning, Astrid was having a blast learning new techniques. The old man opened her eyes to what was possible, and made her realise that her current understanding of Psychokinesis was at the bare minimum.

She could shape it into whatever she wanted, and the more compresses she made it–the stronger it would become. And if she could do that with regular matter, then… Astrid cackled as she formed a bullet made of dark matter. She fired it and it screamed through the air. It penetrated through the illusion and continued through it as if it didn’t exist. Then it slammed into the wall, the debris sizzled, a purple hue emitted from the earth.

After that, it taught her a few more tricks like; Psyckonietic hand blasts, bouncing spheres of psychic mana, and hidden attacks by channelling her mana through a medium. It was truly what she was looking for.

She blasted through the humanoid, but no more took its place. Instead, a door opened up on the other side of the room. Of course there wasn’t actually a door, it was just made from an illusion–just like everything else in this underground place.

There were no decorations, nor were there any doors. It was a roughly mined out area that was simply covered and substituted by a long lasting illusion. Thanks to her illusion detection, she could see it all.

Moving through the corridors, she walked into another room. This time it was a room filled with nothing but white. As if nothing existed but a never ending white. It reminded her of the first time she entered Psych Domain before she created anything.

However, she could feel a dense psychic mana from all around her. Looking through the illusion, entire slabs of some mysterious magical crystal seemed to be pouring power into the illusion.

She didn’t have to wait long before the next trial, test, or whatever it was, presented itself.

Warriors holding all different forms of weapons, mages wielding countless different spells, and monsters baring their fangs surrounded her.

They attacked. Astrid’s eyes widened as their mage’s spells were the first to make contact. As they pelted her shield, Astrid’s eyes widened in surprise. The previous lackadaisical power from the blank, psychic humanoids was no more. Instead, each hit was a fully powered strike that was capable of dealing damage.

It must be because of the crystals. Astrid thought, but she had no intention of destroying them to cheat the test. She wanted to complete them seriously. After all, with all that she had learned so far, she needed to take in Zephyrion’s teachings.

Astrid flew around the large room as she obliterated the army with all that she had learned. Wide area of attacks with her Psychokinetic blade of matter, rapid fire bullets, or creating spikes from the ground.

The more attacks she used, the harder it was to read what she would do. None of them could react as she smashed through them as if they were nothing but porcelain dolls.

The warriors attempted to block, but the ground would erupt in an explosion. The mage’s and archers tried to keep their distance, but bullets awaited them. There was nothing they could do against Astrid’s new arsenal of psychic attacks.

Soon, there was none left. Then they were replaced with even bigger enemies. Monsters that she had never seen before, but they were obviously from the mind of Zephyrion.

Astrid wasted no time as she fought with them. Her mind [Crashed] into them, while her clone charged up powerful dark matter attacks, and launched them into the crowd. It was chaos, and that meant Astrid was having fun.

As she slaughtered the enemies, she also was discovering something else. It felt like a strange force was guiding her during her matter control. Like a master's hand was placed over her own.

Astrid closed her eyes and focused on the feeling. She shaped the matter then compressed it. Of course, she had always compressed the matter, collecting it all into one point to then [Crash] it. But the hand had another idea.

One matter became two.

Creation! Astrid’s eyes widened, only to notice that the attacking warriors had stopped. Not willing to waste a second longer, Astrid focused on the already compressed matter, then ordered it to split. Thousands, millions, billions of matter grew in the matter of minutes–then she [Crashed] it.

An apocalyptic explosion rocked the earth, the crystals surrounding her brightened, then popped like an over surged lightbulb.

Uh, did I pass? Astrid looked around at the cracked crystals. No doubt they were extremely expensive–or used to be.

She was beginning to feel bad about destroying all the tests, but it wasn’t her fault. They were just weak.

Astrid tried out the newly evolved [Crash] once more, but this time spent less focus on the Skill. She made sure it was combat ready, and that meant she had to use it almost instantly.

After a few hours, by her estimation, she increased the strength of her [Crash] by at least fifty percent, maybe less. But it was something that caused her to jump on the spot.

Why couldn’t all teachers be like Zephyrion? Astrid still remembered the sour memory of her household tutor drilling mathematics into her brain. How boring. Maybe teachers weren’t so bad after all?

Another door opened and Astrid immediately headed on in. What else would she learn?

She stopped on the spot as she gazed at an old man with a long wiry white beard. He wore black matted robes with strange glossy black details covering it like markings.

The man's mouth opened, but only a cryptic message left his throat.