The Hidden World

While Erica was off delivering ear pieces, Yuki decided that then was the perfect time to unpack and put their things away. He went back to the unoccupied bedroom and took out everything that he had stored in his ring. Akira, who followed him into the room, did the same.

Looking around the room, Yuki saw that there was a simple closet and one drawer. He waved his hand to get Akira’s attention and tilted his head toward the closet. She picked up the clothes that she had just taken out and went over to the wooden closet. As she did that, Yuki went to the drawer and deposited the items that were in his ring into it.

‘I still don’t know what I should do with this,’ he thought, holding a smoldering red jewel in his hand. He shrugged and it disappeared.

He checked his watch and saw that about thirty minutes had past since Erica left to do her delivery. Yuki walked out of the room and went to the living room where Uriel was busy working, her form pulsating and shifting.

“How are things coming along, Uriel?” he asked as he took a seat on the couch. “Do you need any help?”

“Not right now,” she replied. “I am still going over every database that I have access to and every database that I can get access to. Once I’ve finished cataloging them, I will see what I need help with in getting information from.”

“I see. Alert me when you are done then,” Yuki instructed. He started to head toward the backdoor of the house. “I’ll be doing some meditation and maybe some training if I have the time.”

“Understood. Where is Akira?”

“She’s still putting away some things in the bedroom,” Yuki replied.

He opened the door to the backyard and went through it. Then he closed the door and inhaled deeply, taking in the cool, dry air of the sunny day. One thing that Yuki noticed about Ethros was that the air was clean. There was little to no pollution from what Yuki could see. Most things seemed to run off of magic or electricity and how the electricity was produced didn’t seem to be from the burning of fuels.

‘I actually haven’t looked up how electricity is produced in this world,’ Yuki realised. ‘I should do that some other time when I’m free.’

He walked to the center of the small backyard field and took a seat. As he closed his eyes, he controlled his breathing and let his mind relax. Soon little pinpricks of lit began to fill his mental vision. With every breath, these small dots became clearer and clearer until her could almost see everything that was around him.

After a few minutes, Yuki began to hear the calls of the elements once more. Just like when he was in the Sanctuary and in the pool, the elements began to whisper. The earth he already understood its soft song of protection. But the other elements’ voices melded together in an incomprehensible yet beautiful melody. It was like listening to a song in a foreign language, you can appreciate the sound but you couldn’t understand the meaning.

Soon, one voice began to sing louder than the rest. Just like how the trees cried in the Sanctuary and the water crooned in the spring, the air began to crescendo. The wind called to Yuki, singing with passion in words whose meaning were barely outside of Yuki’s reach. Then Yuki decided to stop trying to understand. He let the melody of the wind envelope him as he simply absorbed their beautiful harmony. Then something clicked.

Yuki opened his eyes and found himself high above the ground, the entirety of the city of Fenrir before him as well as the forests beyond it. Then he rushed forward at an exhilarating speed, fierce joy surging through his body, as he twisted and spun around invisible objects. He fly downwards and entered the streets, blowing past the inhabitants of Fenrir and causing mayhem everywhere. Suddenly a building appeared before him but Yuki didn’t care. He blew around, not letting this distraction disturb him from his fun as he blew leaves and tore branches without a care in the world.

‘Wind is freedom.’

With this realisation, Yuki felt as if a door within him had just been blasted wide open and he gave out a loud gasp as he returned back to reality. He held his head, not from pain, but from the shock of that experience he had just went through. He stood up and felt more refreshed than he had in days.

[User Has Awakened {Wind} Attribute. {Wind Magic Lv. 0} Has Been Added To Magic Techniques.]

‘Oh. So that was what that was.’

“Yuki? Are you okay?” Akira asked, her head popped out from the backdoor. Her eyebrows were furrowed. “I just felt your pulse spike and then suddenly fall back down.”

“I’m more than okay,” Yuki replied turning around fully. “If anything, I feel better than I have in a while.”

Yuki reached out with his right hand and opened it slightly. With a trickle of mana, he called out to the air around him and gathered it into his palm. Then with a single thought, he scattered the ball around him, blowing up leaves and disturbing the branches of the bushes that outlined the backyard.

“I feel amazing.”

“Did you just use wind magic?” Akira blinked.

“I did, yes,” Yuki nodded. “I need to practice with it now. It seems quite useful.”

“Three elements. You can use three elements,” Akira said. “And you somehow awakened your wind attribute by yourself. How?”

“I don’t know,” Yuki shrugged. “Is Erica back yet?”

“You’re going to need to explain all this to me later,” she said. “And yes, Erica is back.”

Yuki nodded again and went to the door. Akira opened it wider for him to enter and closed it behind him. He walked into the living room and Erica was sitting on the couch talking to Uriel.

“How old are you?” Erica asked, poking Uriel.

“A few months old,” Uriel replied. “Why are you poking me for?”

“I wanted to see how you felt.”

“That right is reserved for Yuki~,” Uriel said. “He or she said that they got this device just so that they could touch me.”

‘Oh, right. I did say something like that.’

“Erica, welcome back,” Yuki said behind her. She jumped and turned around.

“Oh, hi,” she said hurriedly. “I wasn’t messing with Uriel. I promise.”

“I don’t really mind if you do as long as you don’t do it consistently,” Yuki replied. “Anyway, we’re going eat lunch aren’t we?”

“Right, yes. We were going to do that,” Erica nodded. She stood up. “So do you have any place in mind? Anything you want to eat in particular?”

“I don’t care. Akira?” Yuki asked.

“Umm. What’s around here?”

“There’s a bar across the street, a sandwich shop a few buildings down,” Erica listed. “There is also a barbeque restaurant or something like that a block up. Those are the closest ones.”

“Sandwiches seem nice,” Akira said.

“Then we’ll get that,” Yuki decided. “Uriel, any updates?”

“Well so far I’ve managed to break into most government facilities and create some backdoors for myself that I can share with you,” she replied. “There are some that I haven’t tried yet or gave up on because it was taking too long or was too risky. I will give you a list of them later.”

“How about things not related to government?”

“Private corporations are actually much harder than the government,” Uriel said. “I’ve ignored them for the most part right now and am focusing on government. Once I’ve gone through everything related to governmental stuff, I’ll go to the private things. I’ll be able to try harder on those.”

“You do remember that I can help you right?” Yuki reminded. “I made you. I’m pretty sure I can help you hack into whatever you need help with.”

“Then can you do the government ones that I’ve flagged?” she asked. “It’ll be super helpful for me.”

“Uriel, don’t ask. Just tell,” Yuki said. “If I say that I can help then phrasing it as a request is redundant. You already know that I’m going to help. Just tell me what to help with.”

“That makes sense. Well then, I’ll send you a list of the government servers that I didn’t manage to break into yet. Then I’ll be able to go to the more exciting stuff.”

“Uriel, just make sure that you can break into the surface,” Yuki instructed. “I just need to be able to access things like employee records and things like that. If you can’t get everything, at least get that.”

“Oh, so that’s how you’re going to get your people in,” she said. “I gotcha. Alright, you have fun with your girls and I’ll do my slave labor. The list will be finished before you come back.”

“Our work is about to begin,” Yuki commented as he went to the door Erica was holding open.

“This is going to be fun,” Erica replied with a smile.