Psychic Parasite

Chapter 346: Initiation Into a Healer (1)
”It was a nice exchange nonetheless,” One of the nurses watching everything from the sidelines clapped her hands, ”Anyone beyond Tier 3 would have been fooled by that.”

The nurse Vaika gazed at Jyorta, making him flinch. She unleashed her psychic arm, curling it into a fist before lightly smacking his head. ”You were too late to realise you had fallen into a hallucination. If this were the Wilds, you would have long been buried six feet under.”

”But ma’am,” Jyorta rubbed his head, massaging the place he was smacked upon, ”The hallucination you made looked no different from reality. If not for you deliberately informing me through the aura, I wouldn’t have realised it.”

Vaika stared at him, expressing mild anger, ”You do realise that I am only a Wave Controller right. Frenzy Beasts with my strength are countless in the Wilds. You should train your perception more. Otherwise, even if you boast peerless strength in your Tier, you wouldn’t even know what hit you and would end up in the belly of some beast.”

”I’ll definitely reflect on that,” Jyorta bowed. He then stealthily peeked at her, noticing that her anger had subsided, lifting his head as he spoke, ”But ma’am, how can I sense them?”

The nurse Vaika sighed, pointing at her chest with her thumb, ”Through your heart. Any stimulus disturbs the balance in the body, changing the criteria for the requirement and production of nutrients, hormones, etc. But, the only mode of transportation for everything is the blood flowing in your body. And, the heart is the organ that pumps it.”

She took her seat between the two nurses, ”Therefore, the first organ that reacts to any stimulus is the heart. You can’t really sense the workings of your spine through your current senses, but you can easily feel your heart rate.”

”Any physical and emotional states have a fixed heart rate.” Her eyes narrowed, glaring at Jyorta, ”It varies from person to person, but is consistent for every individual in theory. It does vary with age but since it is a gradual change, we don’t have to worry about that.”

She raised two fingers, ”You missed out the first two clues when you were walking on the corridor.”

Seeing Jyorta stare in confusion, she resisted her urge to smack him, ”The first was your heart rate. Normally walking in a dimly lit corridor in the middle of the night is a scary experience indeed. But, have you asked this question yourself? How scary is it to you?”

”How scary is it to me?” Jyorta nodded, observing some insight through the train of thought.

”Yes,” The nurse Vaika nodded, ”Your increase in heart rate was greater than usual. This means, it is not a regular walk in a dimly lit corridor in the middle of the night but possesses something scary in it. Your senses and intuition picked up on it and could feel, so your heart reacted as such. But, you failed to realise it since the changes were subtle.”

She then shook her second finger, ”The second clue was the increase in your walking speed. You subconsciously increased your pace but were talking shorter strides than usual. So, even though you were walking faster, your speed remained the same.”

The nurse Vaika motioned for Jyorta to take a seat, ”Any hallucination begins with subtle effects conforming to reality before slowly changing. Such hallucinations are the most difficult to break out from as the individual finds himself fully immersed into it without realising and begins to live with the rules of the established hallucination.”

”I’ve once experimented with a Lava Turtle using my hallucination. I slowly warped its senses and pulled it deeper and deeper into my hallucination until it had zero hope of escaping. The rules of the hallucination I made were that the air was polluted and only a high temperature would purify it. So, the Lava Turtle began emitting heat from its body.”

She twirled the ends of her braid, speaking with a hint of embarrassment, ”I then changed the rules that energy didn’t exist.”

”Guess what it did next?” She smiled, ”The Lava Turtle began to breakdance while scrapping its shell on the floor, using the friction to generate heat. It began to adapt to the rules I had laid out. The entire session only lasted 15 minutes. But even after I retracted my hallucination, it took an entire hour before the Lava Turtle broke out of the rules of the hallucination.”

The nurse said with all seriousness, pointing a finger at Jyorta, ”Remember, there are numerous abilities, either generated from aura personifications or from Skills that can confuse your mind. So, you must always have a good grasp of yourself. If you find your body reacting differently than what it ought to do in a particular situation for your mental state at that period, then it means you are under the influence of some ability. Swiftly begin to resolve the issue before you are affected beyond rescue.”

”Can I sense them through my domain?” Jyorta inquired after a minute of thought, digesting everything Vaika had imparted.

”Your domain is just the extension of your senses,” Vaika said, ”If I prick your skin, you would feel the pain. Similarly, the domain can be considered a sphere around you where every inch of it is covered by your skin. So, any disturbance in it will be felt by you.”

”As your Tier increases, your sensitivity increases,” She unleashed her domain, curbing the radius to a metre around herself, ”Even at Tier 3, you would be able to sense a fair spectrum of radiation and vibrations, thereby allowing you to even read everything in a closed book. At Tier 4, you are even able to decipher the data stored in a CD based on its magnetic lines and a USB based on the charge stored in it.”

”But,” She shook her head, ”At the end of the day, it is just an extension of your senses. Meaning, the feedback is similar to your skin getting pricked but would be more subtle. So, you won’t get anything different from your domain that would help distinguish reality from all the influences.”

”So,” She sighed, ”You must be knowledgeable about yourself, your character, your mental states, your physical state, your ability to cope up with a situation, your emotional state, and how all these states vary according to different situations. When you are well-versed with all of them, then you would swiftly be able to sense when something is amiss.”

”Wisdom is built upon experiences,” She clapped her hand, ”Alright, now we’ll begin training your Regen.”

”So,” Jyorta spoke with hesitation, taking a glance at the shelf in the wall before gulping, ”Do I really not have to lacerate myself?”

”We can do that if that is what you wish for,” Vaika laughed, ”But like I said before, it is not necessary.”

”Then,” Jyorta felt confused, ”How will I learn its usage?”

”Didn’t I say that too,” Vaika smiled, her eyes glinting with cunning light. ”It has already begun. Take a look around yourself.”

Jyorta’s eyes widened as he looked around, noticing his surroundings had changed before he realised it. It was a sandy terrain, the sun blazing hot, gales were created, blowing off the topsoil, displacing the dunes.

He had been sitting on a chair in a fairly lit room, with the windows displaying the darkness of the night outside. But now, the sun was blazing hot while the room was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t even realise the transition that had taken place and had been conversing with the nurse.

Now that he took another look, the other two nurses had disappeared. He and Vaika were seated on stones, facing each other. The stone surface was uneven, the bumps and grooves causing him discomfort.

”Now, come with me.” Vaika stood up and beckoned for him to follow, taking the lead as she began to walk. It seemed as if she had picked a random direction to traverse upon. The blue soul overlaid the face mask—the false persona of calm, optimism, and filled with focus—on him, subtly affecting his emotions.

But, what amazed Jyorta but at the same time scared him was that the situation hadn’t changed. There was a flicker for an instant before the scene continued, as if it was now his reality. The false persona had already fully influenced him. But, even this change in the mental state didn’t break him out of the hallucination.

’So, that flicker was the best I could affect using the face mask? It seems the level of this hallucination is higher than what a simple change in emotions could break.’ Jyorta thought, taking a step with hesitation before he felt his feet sink partly into the sand.

The sand was loose and hot, the heat radiating into his legs through the shoes. The moment he stood up and took a step forward, the stone he had been sitting on had disappeared, same for the stone the nurse had been sitting upon. But, it was as if his eyes were on the sky, failing to see or realise their disappearance.

The loose sand made it hard for him to walk, the heat radiating from it further troubling him. Jyorta felt it hard to balance his body on the uneven surface as the winds flew past, continuously changing the terrain.

Vaika shouted from the front, ”Cover your nose with the cloth from the turban, Shishya. Don’t breathe in the dust-filled air.”

”Yes, Guru.” Jyorta did as told, pausing in action for a second as he felt something was odd. A second later, followed by the urging, he did as told, making a flurry of steps before joining the lady in the front.”