Chapter 230: False Persona: Face Mask

6:00 AM, Jyorta exited the restroom, having emptied his bowels, taken a bath, and had brushed his teeth. He wore a pair of casuals, the fabric cotton, similar to pyjamas. It was grey, sporting discrete lines of white that ran around the body lines.

Arriving in his room, Jyorta sat cross-legged on his bed, taking in the view of his blue soul. His surroundings turned dark but, he could still make out his surroundings. He estimated the radius of his vision, making an approximate guess.

It was around 4 metres, a sizeable distance. If it increased any more, then he would be able to detect the souls of the students present in rooms adjacent to his. Even now, he could feel faint murkiness, like smoke from an incense stick floating around in his vision.

It meant that there was a soul in his proximity, but just situated beyond the range of his vision. A soul was the essence of a person's being, pure, possessing nothing but their will, and ego. The moment from their birth, as they experience the vicissitudes of life, their soul accumulates murkiness.

The source of the murkiness was many: desires, emotions, ambitions, inhibitions, memories, attachments, morals, knowledge, bodily needs, etc. They all form their own murkiness, their effects on the soul unable to be guessed by the current him.

Jyorta never managed to find out about the reason for their existence, nor how they affected the souls. But, after observing the murkiness of numerous souls he came across, he could barely make out the dominant emotion a person felt at that period.

He could also get a sense of the target's mentality, though unclear. After all, humans were complex beings; they couldn't be judged that easily. In most cases, people even think and delude themselves, taking actions that went against their desires or what they wanted to do or achieve. Misunderstanding also originated from within oneself.

A soul could only exist within the confines of the physical body. Without the protection of the physical body, the soul just dissipates within the matter of a second. In the past, Jyorta had sent a soul tendril outside his body, in one of his many experiments.

The moment the soul tendril exited his body, it evaporated in an instant. Even the two temporary Soul Corneas—created after chanting the verse of the creepy-haired man—began to evaporate, though lasting longer than a soul tendril.

Only his permanent Soul Corneas could move freely outside his body without being damaged. He had yet to find the cause for that. Though, it wasn't a priority on his list. Jyorta had a lot on his plate for the time being. His attention span was already stretched thin.

A soul cannot exist outside its body, this was his conclusion. But, there were some cases that he had come to face that were exceptions to this fact. It was as if the conclusion he had reached wasn't the final answer.

The first was the wall of blue he had observed in Laila. It was massive, the ends of which he was unable to see. Though, his soul had only been at Tier 1 back then, the range of its vision limited to a metre in radius. But, even then, the size of the blue wall exceeded Laila's body size.

The next were the cases when he had activated the vision of his blue soul in the presence of Madam Mary and Atika Light. It felt like he had fallen into a sea; the broiling fog he had witnessed in his sister paled in comparison to the above two cases.

They easily exceeded the body's size. But, from what he witnessed, they hadn't faced any damage. Even his sister's soul was bigger than her head. From his vision, he determined that the soul resided in a person's head, situated slightly to the back.

So, even in his sister's case, one whose size he could see in its entirety, the soul had exceeded the body's confines. But, it hadn't faced any damage. This led to Jyorta trying to come up with his own laws, trying to derive the subject and come to an understanding.

He postulated the fact that since a person was unable to control his/her soul, even when its size exceeds the body size, there won't be any damage. After all, a soul was unable to affect or interfere with reality. In relation, the reality was unable to affect the soul. They were like existences in different planes, unable to interfere with one another but shared an intrinsic connection.

This was because of something he had observed once, in Madam Rizenne's class. In one of their sessions, Madam Rizenne went around, teaching the Espers about a basic technique. At that time, Jyorta had looked at everything through the vision of his blue soul.

Madam Rizenne's soul was only inferior in ferocity to Madam Mary. It was like a powerful sea, broiling about with turbulence. It was massive, scaling beyond the range of his vision. When she taught to a student seated before him, Jyorta noticed the situation of the student's soul.

The broiling fog of Madam Rizenne enveloped the student, Jyorta's blue soul, and the souls of the students around him. It was overwhelming; Jyorta felt as if his blue soul would be snuffed out any second. It was like a tiny candle trying to face the raging seas.

Jyorta hurriedly exited the view of his blue soul, tallying the damage suffered. The murkiness had seeped into his blue soul, polluting it, making it sluggish. Even when he tried to create a soul tendril, his blue soul struggled to do it, something that was as easy as breathing to it before.

It chanted the verse imparted by the creepy haired man, sensing the chant taking more than ten minutes just to activate. In the meantime, after Madam Rizenne had travelled well past the range of his blue soul's vision.

The moment he had the leeway, he took in its vision, noticing the states of all the other souls. They were the same as before, suffering zero damage.

It was as if the souls each belonged to planes of their own, making interactions between them impossible. Jyorta's was the only exception, due to his special status.

His blue soul was capable of interacting with and affecting other souls.

It was also able to affect reality. The Soul Corneas and his ability of corrosion was the best proof. Since he was able to interact with others, the reverse was also possible. That was why he suffered damage when gazing at Madam Rizenne's soul.

Also, there was something he could theorise. Madam Rizenne had brushed past him many times in the past. In such situations, not once had his blue soul ever suffered any damage. The only time it faced damage was when he looked at her soul with the vision of his blue soul.

He had experienced a similar phenomenon many times. When he activated the vision, sensing the presence of other souls in range, a wave of murkiness would always wash over him. They were the diluted form, like a smoky version of the murkiness surrounding the souls in range. The closer to the soul, the denser the murkiness would become, present in a liquid state around its borders.

So, within the domain of his soul, he was able to interact with other souls. The reverse was also possible. This was why his blue soul was only affected when he erected the domain. After that incident, he spent three days vaporising all the murkiness that had seeped into his soul.

Once the murkiness disappeared, his blue soul could function like before. Coming back to the present, the radius of his soul domain had grown to four metres. Now that he sensed faint murkiness within it, it meant that the soul of someone was in the vicinity, but just beyond the range.

It seemed a part of the soul's murkiness came within the domain, hence causing the effect.

'As my soul develops more and more, I would become as scary as high Tiered Espers. I wonder what abilities I would wield when my soul hits Tier 5?' He allowed his thoughts to wander wildly for a couple of minutes. Satisfied with indulging in his wild fantasies for a short interval, he returned to reality.

There existed his blue soul, having grown even more. Spiralling within it were numerous memory fragments, a shade of blue, darker, forming clusters. Seated at the centre was a blue figure, possessing a face and a body, lacking any limbs. It shared his previous life's appearance, forming the essence of his soul.

Placed right before it was a face mask, the false persona—one of calm, optimism, and filled with focus. Situated away from it were two other structures, a Hoberman sphere, and an eye mask. Both were false personas Jyorta had created in the past eight months, after taking many things into careful consideration.

At present, numerous soul tendrils were working on the eye mask, adding many hexagon-shaped structures. When in Grapple Force, he had managed to accumulate many subsouls. Thinking of the usage he required and as a means of protection, he decided on two false personas, making use of all the subsouls.

The Hoberman sphere was a contingency measure to save his life in times of need. It was a vicious false persona; its nature went against his morals. But, he still decided to make it, thinking based on his past life's situation.

In that era, to secure peace, the powerful countries had created world-rending weapons, commonly referred to as the nukes. After nuclear missiles had been created, no country dared to wage a full-fledged war.

Conflicts still happened, but they were limited to small scales in most of the cases. With a similar mindset, Jyorta created the Hoberman sphere. Currently, the blue soul focused on the eye mask. Memories from his brain, relating to the battle in the training hall were extracted.

His scheme had begun.