Chapter 299: Before The Answer

". . . this time, I brought the curse along with me."

Alan's eye took over a golden hue as he channelled soul magic and gazed deeply at Quinn. The first thing that entered Alan's mind as he looked at Quinn's soulscape and his Soul was that Quinn had indeed made some impressive progress— it wasn't ground-breaking, and Alan had seen this level of achievement by many those he knew dabbled in soul magic— but all of them were closer to his age than they were to Quinn's.

Alan frowned. 'What is this?'

Quinn had no cover that allowed him to hide his soulscape and Soul, allowing Alan to peer right in— not many had them as the number of people practicing soul magic were few in between; as such, time and energy devoted to the dangerous soul magic were much better utilized in other useful things such as strengthening the Soul's connection to magic enabling better natural focus and thus better magical control with a magical focus (wand.)

But, even without a cover over the soulscape, Alan couldn't peer into Quinn's Soul. He could feel it and knew a Soul was present in front of him but couldn't see it.

'Is that because of the Sin curse?'

'That' was the opacity that hindered his sight. The entire soulscape was covered with shades of black— there were blotches of pitch black, while there were others spreads of lighter blacks that were letting out some light.

"Why can't I look into your soulscape?" he asked. "There's a lot black blocking my view."

"The curse is acting as a parasite, and even though I have stopped it from reaching the stage it had done the last time, the curse still has its hooks sunk in me," said Quinn before asking. "And what do you mean by black— isn't it seven-colored?"

"Seven colored? No, all I can see are shades of black . . . hmm, now that I see it . . . yeah, there's seven shades of black."

Quinn tilted his head. He dove into his soulscape, and the pristine was entirely stained with seven colors— it was one of the reasons Quinn had decided to ask for Alan's help— even though he had stopped the mind-whispers, the progression of the curse had continued to take over his soulscape with only his Soul being safe because of his shield.

"Show it to me," said Quinn.

"Come in, then," said Alan, smiling.

Quinn looked into Alan's eyes which went back to their normal blue color and reached out with his Legilimency. He found himself standing within the dense white fog the next second, limiting his visibility down to a few feet. He waited for the haze to clear, but seconds passed, and the fog didn't let up.

"Alright, very fun, haha; Quinn can't see anything," he said, "come on, get this out of my face."

He heard a peal of laughter booming from everywhere as the haze cleared and came into his vision was a ginormous blood-red sphere of liquid with surface rippling every other second, colliding with other ripples and making other sub-ripples.

Quinn sucked in a breath. It had been years since the last time he had seen this sight. Alan's Occlumency defense, built on another system of defense— one more advanced than Quinn could even imagine; Quinn was sure that Alan was so beyond everyone that if he turned back to see where the second stood, he wouldn't be able to see them.

A dual natural Occlumens and Legilimens, who worked hard to perfect his craft, was an absolutely terrifying being. Quinn had no idea how the blood-red sphere worked or how to even avoid the fog— he could spend his life wandering in the mind fog and get nowhere.

He watched as a point in the red liquid bubbled before a letter envelope came out, flying to him. Like Quinn used memory-books to store his memories, Alan used memory envelopes to form his storage; according to Alan, his mother used to send him a letter every week when he was away from home at school and was a big part of Alan's formative years— and when he formally started learning Occlumency, he used those letters as the model.

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Quinn grabbed the envelope and turned it bottom side up. He slipped his finger inside the lip, flicked it open, and that's when Alan's memory of peering at Quinn's soulscape flooded into his mind.

Once again, he was made to realize how brilliant Alan was at mind magic. He had landed in the memory inside Alan's perspective. Quinn looked around and even turned back to see what was behind— usually, it would be a blurry mess of colors, but Alan, who had developed a perfect memory, knew precisely what was behind him as he had seen it when he entered the room and composited that image in the current memory, which lacked that information.

'I can also do it,' thought Quinn, and it was true; it wasn't that difficult when you had ample immersion in the memory — 'but I can't do it in seconds like him.' Compositing memories like that was an easy yet time-consuming process and could anywhere from a few minutes to several hours or even multiple days.

He stood up from Alan's chair and walked to memory-Quinn.

"So this is what you're talking about, huh," muttered Quinn, looking at the black covering his soulscape. "Well, it looks real colorful from the inside."

Instantly, he was yanked out the memory and thrown out Alan's mindscape as the haze again populated the blank black space.

"Alright, now my turn," said Alan. "I'm going enter your soulscape and take a good look at the problem . . . not going to lie, but I'm excited to see what exactly is happening inside of you. I wonder if I would be able to learn something— it has been a while I have made some delicious progress on soul magic."

Quinn couldn't even rebuke; after all, if he was in Alan's shoes, he would have the same reaction.

"How are you going to enter my soulscape?" asked Quinn. "I presume entering on your own would not be ideal."

"Yes, can't be doing that, so you're going to take me inside on your own violation," said Alan.

Quinn shrugged. It was dangerous to let an external soul near one's own as it was one of the most significant vulnerabilities of a being. But here, it wasn't even a question for Quinn.

"Alright, let's get started. I want to get this out of me."

But before they did that, Alan and Quinn completed and enjoyed their meal. They knew that it was going to take some time for Alan to observe and take in the situation, then analyze it before he could give a conclusion, and that couldn't be done while a server was coming and going between courses.

After they were done, they asked Abraham if they could use the room. Abraham had no problems with it as he served fifteen parties and had fifteen rooms— a party could stay as long as they wanted, given that they left before the restaurant closed.

Quinn and Alan locked the room and told Abraham that no one was to disturb them and got to work.

"Give me your hand," said Alan setting his hand forward on the table.

Quinn grabbed Alan's hands, and after an intimation, Quinn felt Alan's magic flow, and he too closed his eyes to allow the entry to guide Alan into the soulscape. It was a strange feeling— he could feel fear from the bottom of his heart, screaming at him to throw Alan out, but ignored the basic instinct, which was overwhelming when the very essence of his being was in question.

". . . You look, but please hurry," said Quinn.

Alan nodded; he knew how Quinn must be feeling right now. He immediately got to work and started to work quickly.

"It really is colorful," said Alan, 'looking' around Quinn's soulscape. The colors had entirely covered the white of the soulscape. He then turned his vision to the soul in the center, and he couldn't see it with a thick, bubbling, thumping cacoon which looked like it had veins all over it.

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"That doesn't look good," Alan said.

Quinn remained silent, keeping his instincts down.

Alan continued to watch the soulscape. He observed the blotches on the walls of the soulscape and the cocoon built upon Quinn's shield that was protecting his Soul.

"What does it feel like right now?" asked Alan. "There must be some effect on you with your soulscape like this; I refuse to believe that you aren't feeling anything."

"There are voices in my head," said Quinn quickly. "They are my own voices, each tainted with a certain sin— they pop up when I'm feeling strongly about something, or even when there's a potential that I could be tempted to fall for the curse and other times that I don't know why they pop up."

"Show me those memories later. I hope you have a compilation ready for me to look at."

"Yes."

It wasn't even a question. It was one of the first things Quinn had started upon when he thought of going to Alan.

After a while, Alan was satisfied with his observations and got out of the soulscape. Quinn slumped into his chair and breathed a long sigh with a sheen of sweat on his skin.

"Show me the memories," Alan said, ignoring Quinn's appearance.

Quinn grunted.

Alan took that as an invitation and instantly entered Quinn's mind.

"Oh? What's this?" Alan said, his voice rising in interest. "You have made some exciting additions to your defenses, child. What is this thing I am feeling emitting from defenses? It feels dangerous~."

Every point on the hexagon grid was emitting something Alan couldn't see, but he could clearly feel them with his god-tier Legilimency skills. They were everywhere and were being produced by Quinn's defenses constantly.

"It's an invisible matter, a creation of mine," said Quinn, his tone flat.

"What does it do?"

"It will degrade Leglimency probes and mental attacks as they try to break through," said Alan. "They are being emitted by the layers of defenses, and because there's an elastic-type layer stretched over every hexagon, the probes slow down and keep getting radiated with the matter, continuing to degrade. If a probe somehow gets past the shields and enters the mindscape, they would be greeted by a concentrated version of the same matter woven into the very essence of my mindscape— probes will be snuffed before they get to my mind-structures.

And you aren't supposed to know that they are there— they're supposed to be completely invisible."

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"Now that's sneaky," smiled Alan. "If they don't know it is there, they won't act against it."

"Yes, that was the motive behind it."

The place in front of Alan rippled, and a memory book manifested. It was the compilation for when the voices spoke to him. The book had every single whisper, hundreds of them, all recorded.

Alan grabbed the book, and the memories flowed. He instantly frowned, not because of the voices, but because the first memory wasn't about the voices, but a place he recognized from Quinn's memories that he had shown to his years ago.

"The Sin Vault?"

"Yes," said Quinn. "I was awake this time around . . . see if something in the room helps you."

Alan resumed the memory and watched with intense concentration. He saw how the Vault tried to knock Quinn out, how he resisted, how the runes appeared on the wall, and how they shot beams, which Alan was sure were laden with curses. After he was done with Vault memory, he moved on to the Sin voices.

"You have grown," said Alan with a smirk as he watched the memories. "Oh ho ho ho~."

Quinn furrowed his brows, confused.

"I'm done," said Alan, retreating out of Quinn's mind.

"And?" asked Quinn, hopefully.

Alan shook his head, and Quinn felt his heart drop.

"I can't help you."

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Alan D. Baddeley - Mind Master - Sorry.

Quinn West - MC - "I . . . ."

FictionOnlyReader - Author - I wonder . . . what lies in the future.

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