Adrian was sleeping soundly on a bed. His eyes fluttered slightly before opening to the light streaming in from the window. He had been asleep for four hours in this hourly hotel.
After leaving Visie's place, Adrian's headache had become too much to bear. He felt as if his head could explode like a watermelon at any moment. Eric refused to return to Earth for the time being; he wanted to show Adrian around and tell him as much as possible before they separated. So they took him to this hotel and had him take a nap.
Obviously, in this place, he was poorer than a beggar, so everything was paid for by Eric using Aura stones—the local currency.
For a moment after opening his eyes, Adrian felt as if he were back home and everything that had happened was just a dream brought on by reading too many superhero comics. But when he noticed the sheets felt different, and the pillows were softer, he realized it was not his house. He recalled everything as he looked out the window. He could hear people walking, chatting, laughing, and screaming in all kinds of ways, stirring different emotions in him.
"This place sure is lively," he thought before getting up from the bed. He stretched his arms. His head now felt very light; all the pain was gone. All the knowledge he had received had already been "comprehended" by his world of consciousness and subconsciousness.
Adrian didn't know what the world of consciousness and subconsciousness was, or what "comprehension" exactly meant. Everything was new to him. He would have to ask Eric.
He quickly picked up his shirt from the chair and put it on, washed his mouth and face, and combed his hair.
After doing all that, he opened the red door of his room and walked through the hallway with its red carpets and rooms with red doors, golden number plates indicating the room numbers.
Adrian took a turn at the stairs and walked down to the cafeteria zone. There he saw Eric and Max sitting and eating lunch. Max was fully focused on the food—he wasn't eating so much as inhaling it at an alarming rate.
Eric was talking to a man in a black bodysuit with black hair. He said something, to which the man nodded, got up, and left before Adrian could even get close.
Eric turned his head to look at Adrian and asked with an indifferent expression, "Did you sleep well?"
Adrian nodded and answered as he sat down on a chair, "Yes, I did. My head feels a lot better now."
Max, still shoving food into his mouth like a vacuum, said while chewing, "Ywah, slrep is vjey gowd to cwlm tke minw!"
Adrian could hardly understand what he was saying. He just nodded to Max and then turned to Eric. "So, Eric, what exactly is this 'comprehension' you've been talking about?"
"Comprehension?" Eric muttered, resting his chin on one hand. After a pause, he asked, "Tell me, Adrian — what separates the mind of an Aura user from everyone else's?"
Adrian's fingers fidgeted while he thought of the answer. "Aura users have a world of consciousness and subconsciousness in their minds. It is a metaphysical place formed from the combination of your Aura and soul. It allows the brain of Aura users to be much more efficient and capable in learning, remembering things, and focusing on different topics while increasing their rate of thinking, too. The more you advance, the stronger it becomes. This is all you were able to tell me before I couldn't even stand." Adrian was quite shocked after answering Eric's question. He was able to answer very fluently. He was not academically superior in any way—just an average student. He always had trouble remembering things for exams. He felt delighted at having a world of consciousness and subconsciousness; he could pass his exams much more easily now. But he didn't show it outwardly.
Eric nodded in satisfaction at his answer. "Let me tell you more, then. The world of consciousness and subconsciousness is also a place where your memories, instincts, and Aura's subconsciousness reside and are stored. It is a very vital part of the body; a direct hit on it is as effective as shooting someone in the head or heart. The pathways that mostly excel in this domain are the Mind, Imagination, and Knowledge pathways. Knowledge pathway Aura users have a much bigger world of consciousness and sub-consciousness and can think at rates no other pathway can match. The Mind pathway Aura user's entire theme is based around this. If you were to fight an Aura user of this pathway without any counter or special defense on your mind, you could consider yourself dead if you didn't kill them first. Every Aura user's world of consciousness and subconsciousness looks different according to the pathway, mindset, thoughts, ideology, and desires of that person.
"Now, let's shift our attention from all that. You can read about it all you want in the books Visie gave you. This is the last thing I'm telling you about the basics, so listen well. What is comprehension? It is a very simple but vital part of an Aura user's life. Your world of consciousness and subconsciousness doesn't store knowledge or information—it comprehends it. Tell me, after you became an Aura user, you felt your mind opening up like a balloon and remembered things you had long forgotten? That was the effect of your world of consciousness and subconsciousness building in your mind. If you try, you can remember everything you have been told or shown ever since awakening, right?"
Adrian nodded and blurted out in a whisper, "Yes!" His eyes were widened and shining. He was listening to everything like a cute child.
Eric nodded again and continued. "When an Aura user takes in knowledge, it is absorbed and comprehended by the world of consciousness and subconsciousness, allowing you to understand the topic as much as you can with the amount of knowledge you were given or took. The more ranks you rise, the deeper you can comprehend knowledge, even to its deepest cores. After comprehension, you never forget that knowledge ever again—yes, maybe some details can fade after years of storage or due to damage to the world of consciousness and subconsciousness. So now, tell me, Adrian: do you understand why Aura users shouldn't learn knowledge that is higher than their rank or very complex?"
Adrian was silent for a few seconds before his back jolted upright. "Yes! It is because the world of consciousness and subconsciousness is only as strong as the rank of an Aura user. So if they take in knowledge that is more complex than their world of consciousness and subconsciousness can comprehend, it stretches the walls of their world of consciousness and subconsciousness and ruptures it, causing damage. It is, in essence, the same as filling the mind up with useless knowledge!"
Max, who had finished his meal, clapped for Adrian and praised him for his answer. Adrian was also very happy after answering Eric's question. He felt like he was finally settling into this magical world! He couldn't be happier in that moment. People even started to stare at them due to Max's loud voice.
Eric also lightly clapped for Adrian. They then stood up, paid the bill to the waiter, and left with two Aura stones. Max had surely eaten a huge amount of food, but this was quite normal. Adrian's heart skipped a beat when he remembered how much one Aura stone was valued in dollars. He stared cartoonishly up at Max, who was rubbing his stomach and burping.
Adrian picked up his books, and they all left the hotel and started walking among the crowd again. Adrian didn't let Max take the books from him. He was motivated to become stronger and smarter after getting the confidence from answering Eric's simple question. For some reason, he thought he would become stronger by walking around with heavy books.
They stayed silent during the walk. Adrian was fully focused on thinking about all the things he had been told—like the law of symbiosis, pathway
s, ranks, and so on—to comprehend even the little bits of the topics that had been left.
Soon, they stopped in front of a huge building. It was so tall that it almost touched the ceiling of this layer of the Meditation Realm. Eric and Max walked toward the front door, opened it, and walked in as Adrian followed them inside.
Inside, there were many Aura users wearing bodysuits of different colors with capes or pieces of armor on top. Most of these Aura users were newly advanced Nova-rank Aura users who had come to register, and the rest were Auri Novas looking for missions, dungeons, raids, or hunts to get resources or claim their rewards. Why is there no Lysi Nova, you all ask me? That is simple. Lysi Novas have advanced by buying resources for their advancements on loans or working for them day and night, while risking their lives multiple times, which costs a lot of money. After advancing, they leave this layer and go to Lumenia or some other planets with missions according to their level and with greater rewards, lead teams, or get recruited by families and just go on with life. About ranks higher than Lysi Nova? You can think for yourself; I know I don't need to tell you everything.
After they entered, almost every Aura user's attention turned to them. Everybody there could tell just by how they walked that the tall, strong-looking men were definitely Lysi Novas. If they could talk to them or get them to buy a mystical relic for them, they would be able to collect resources much faster and advance quickly!
However, it was all in their minds. None of them dared to actually go and talk to one Lysi Nova—especially two in a group! The smiles that had formed in their minds faded away due to the harshness of reality and their cowardice. The gaze from the pink-haired man also wasn't very "welcoming." Adrian was getting completely ignored. He was invisible to the other Aura users. He didn't mind it, though; he didn't like being stared at by so many people at once anyway.
Eric walked up to the average-looking guy at registration and said coldly, "Hello, Jacob. It has been a while. I have brought someone to register."
The average-looking man looked up, and a smile crept onto his face as he realized it was Eric. "Oh, Eric, it's you. How have you been...?"
Eric and Jacob quickly got into their own conversation, and Eric started giving Adrian's info to write on the registration form. Adrian pounced on the chance and looked up at Max. "So what is this place?"
Max looked down at Adrian with his usual smile on his face as he explained happily, "This is the headquarters of the Adventure Association of Lumenia in this layer of the Meditation Realm. There are different areas in this layer, and every area has a building like this one. The main one is in this region for reasons I don't know or care about." Max said the last line while shrugging his shoulders. He continued, "There are different associations that exist to handle matters of all kinds in Lumenia. Every major association has multiple branch associations, which make multiple buildings and handle matters. In the Adventure Association, you can register yourself as an Aura user and become an Aura user who can accept or hand out missions and claim rewards after completing them. You can even build a team of your own or join others to go into dungeons, raids, hunts, etc. In this building, there are libraries, shops, cafeterias, bars, and whatnot."
"Is it mandatory to register?" Adrian asked. Max raised his arms in surrender and replied while looking away, "I don't know."
"HUH!?" Adrian screamed in disbelief and shock, but Max wasn't Eric. He needed to understand this. Before he could blurt out anything else, Eric quickly walked up to him and handed him a registration form. "Check if all the information here is correct and sign here."
Adrian checked all the information on the registration form—such as the planet he lives on, his address, his pathway, his rank, his age, name, father's name, mother's name, and everything else you can think of. It was really long, just know that.
Adrian checked everything several times before taking a pen from Eric and signing on the bottom right. He walked up to Jacob and handed him the registration form. Jacob took another look at the registration form and asked, "Do you want to check again?" Adrian shook his head.
Getting the answer from Adrian, Jacob took out a stamp and stamped Adrian's registration form. He then stood up and offered his hand to Adrian to shake. Adrian shook his hand, and Jacob congratulated him: "Congratulations! Adrian Blackbell, you are now an official Aura user under the Adventure Association. You can come here anytime to take on missions, join teams, go to raids and dungeons, or just hang out with your friends or buy some charms or relics."
Adrian scratched the back of his head with his right hand as he laughed awkwardly. This Jacob guy's grip was too strong.