Aksai felt as if the ground had been yanked from beneath him, leaving him inverted and flung into an abyss with no apparent bottom.
He would have screamed at this point if he could.
Next, he experienced an embrace from an infinite void, a sensation more unsettling than he wished it to be. It was akin to being crushed under a mountain while simultaneously submerged in the deepest reaches of the sea.
And then… the pressure dissipated. It was very anticlimactic.
It was as if the intense ordeal had been nothing more than a fleeting dream.
His physical senses informed him that the sensations had endured for only a brief period, but his mind, disoriented, felt as though it had been trapped within the void for a very long time.
“What… what just happened?”
Aksai rubbed his eyes, checked his face for any signs of harm, and inspected his nose. Cupping his face with both hands, he sought warmth on his skin.
To claim that he wasn’t unnerved by the experience would be a lie.
Yet, Aksai couldn’t afford to dwell on fear at that moment. The realization struck him—he was no longer within his farmhouse. It was still a farmhouse, by all appearances, though not the one he recognized.
“Teleportation?”
Aksai questioned the reality around him as he rose to his feet. Initially, his surroundings seemed obscured, with a shifting fog making it challenging to see beyond a few meters. However, as he explored further, his vision adjusted, confirming his initial suspicion.
“I was indeed teleported? But where?”
Aksai voiced the query, half-hoping for silence as an answer.
The thought of encountering someone in this unfamiliar farmhouse heightened his unease. He had watched too many scary farm movies in his past life to act bravely in such scenarios.
Suffice it to say, Aksai had no inclination to open any creaking doors or investigate the origin of mysterious voices. He definitely didn’t want to see any Scarecrow erected in the middle of the farm.
Aksai understood that the survivors of horror tales were often the timid ones, while the daring souls met gruesome fates within haunted mansions of horror flicks.
In his youth, Aksai was the type of child who preferred enduring thirst rather than venturing downstairs in the middle of the night.
Instead of taking such risks, he would place a jug of water beside his bed, eliminating the need for perilous expeditions after watching a horror movie. Of course, he stayed away from the Goth girls too, thinking they would only bring him trouble.
He was the kind of kid who didn’t go looking for someone under the bed, and he stayed far away from the so-called “cool kids” who played with Ouija boards.
Despite these precautions, Aksai inexplicably enjoyed watching horror films, almost as if he relished a bit of fear.
The apprehension within him failed to deter him from confronting it repeatedly.
Only when a man acknowledges the fear in his heart can he hope to cultivate a seed of courage within it.
***
“This feeling… There’s no doubt about it. I’m on the farm for sure. The question is– whose farm is it?”
Despite not stepping outside, Aksai sensed a familiar atmosphere emanating from beyond the farmhouse walls. The earthy scent, the vitality saturating the air from trees and crops, and the distinct chill on his skin—all indications that he found himself in the heart of a farm.
While this new farmhouse shared similarities with his old one, it differed in size and upkeep. Unlike the simple dwelling he was accustomed to, this farmhouse appeared to belong to the farm owner, free from the looming threat of rental agreements that haunted a Spirit farmer working on someone else’s land.
Aksai went to a study desk placed beside a window and saw what was outside. Though the surroundings were a bit difficult to see due to the cloak of star-less night and ever-moving smoke, it didn’t take him long to figure out that it was the same farmland he had seen in the oil painting.
“Hm?”
Aksai raised his brows in surprise and immediately looked at the oil painting that he was still holding in his hands. He looked at it carefully this time and realized that the scenery depicted inside the oil painting had changed. This time, it showed the image of his own farmhouse seen from a bird’s eye view.
“I… I think I get it now how this works. I’d be a dunce if I didn’t,” a smile tugged at the corners of Aksai’s lips as he realized how he could go back to his home. Some form of courage ran through his veins when he subconsciously felt secure holding the painting with his hands.
Yet, Aksai didn’t want to go back just yet. He had just arrived at this mysterious farm and wanted to see if there was anything that could benefit him.
Just when Aksai was about to step out of the farmhouse using the only door it had, he realized that there was something placed above the study table by the window.
He retraced his steps and went back to the same place he had been and picked up a red book that had no name and no book cover. The book was neither too old nor too new. It was as if its age was frozen in time.
“Interesting,” Aksai thought to himself before opening the book and flipping the first page that had been kept blank.
He found out that there were some words written on it that he didn’t understand. Yet, before he could lodge a complaint in his heart, he saw the lines and mysterious letters rearrange themselves and form words that he could understand and read.
“This,” Aksai was amazed when he saw this. “Is this a 1st Order treasure? It can’t be the 2nd Order one, can it?”
Aksai questioned himself before shaking his head in the next moment.
Although he had technically broken into the late stage of the Spirit refining, he was far away from being qualified to use a 2nd Order treasure, which was usually used by foundation-building experts.
In fact, he would be lucky to get his hands on the high-grade treasures of the 1st Order, something he couldn’t even think to possess with his current economic condition and poor background.
A treasure beyond the 1st Order was not supposed to respond to his Spirit essence. Unless…