ALL NOVEL Chapter 187: Occlumency of Faceless Men! (I)
Kai turned over one page after the other, ignoring the Chief Bishop's words, his mind already playing scenarios based on the incredible data written about the middle-aged Viscount.
He could not believe how the Temple of Byagoona had figured out this much about a Contestant, given the System would have never told them. He closed his eyes, his mind running like a killing machine about to sign the death sentence of an unknown person.
One stroke of thought and Viscount Lucas' fate was set.
Kai snapped open his eyes and nodded. "It can be done," he said, smiling a hollow smile. "I want to learn the principles of both Occlumency and Legilimency and along with it, I want a saber and armor. Items, of course."
Kai already knew that the Temple of Byagoona knew he had two Abilities. One based on movement and the other on a weapon. That's why he only asked for one saber, to throw them off on a false trail.
The Chief Bishop's face gave away nothing. "Life of Viscount Lucas for Occlumency and access to the Temple's library over these Concepts," he told Kai.
Kai almost smiled. "Deal."
"A man can feel that you have somehow locked your emotions," the Chief Bishop said, as Kai put the folder into his MRB. "But that is not true hiding of emotions. This artificial lock doesn't represent Control. Let it go."
Kai stared back into those pale green eyes, contemplating what to do now. If this man were to use Legilimency on him, then he wouldn't even know.
"Don't worry," the Chief Bishop told him. "Even the simplest use of Mana to cast such spells will cause dire consequences for Contestants of my caliber who have descended this low in the Primordial Tower.."
This was the only reason Kai was here, to begin with. If it wasn't for Meg's experience, and knowing how abnormal these restrictions were, then he would have never come here. He took a deep breath and lifted the lock over his emotions, his face immediately welcoming them with open arms.
"Is your Correspondence over 20?" the Chief Bishop asked.
"No." There was no point in withholding such information when it could easily be guessed. Not to mention, it was he who wanted to learn, and if his instructor had demanded this data beforehand, then it must be relevant.
The Chief Bishop nodded. "Contestants can perceive the surrounding Mana even when their Correspondence is lower than 10," he instructed. "But only after it rises to 20 that one can perceive Mana inside them. Consider it as a… threshold. All Active Attributes have the value 20 as their threshold. So, if you have any spare Attribute Points, then raise your Correspondence as much as you can before we begin."
This wasn't according to Kai's plans. Still, he had been keeping the Unassigned Points to use them for unforeseen scenarios; Scenarios like this. He assigned the Attribute Points to his Correspondence, bringing it to 17.
"What do you know about Occlumency?" the Chief Bishop asked.
Kai recalled his sessions with Meg and said, "It's an art to defend one's thoughts, emotions, and memories against Legilimency by creating a barrier. My slave had told me…"
The Chief Bishop cut him off. "If all that you know about Occlumency is learned from your slave," he said, sharply, "then forget about it. Clean your mind of all the knowledge that has come from the Temple of the Yellow King. When did they become a master of this art for them to teach it to a Candidate of Many-faced God?!"
Kai was gobsmacked. It had taken a week for him to learn from Meg the tiny details of Occlumency and Legilimency. And now this green-eyed man was telling him to forget about it.
The Chief Bishop must have guessed Kai's thoughts, or he must have read his expression, for his next words cleared Kai's hesitation. "Outside the Temple of Many-faced God," he said, explaining himself, "almost all Contestants follow the theories on this magic taken out from the Random World of Harry Potter.
"It's simple, easy to learn, and has a standard form for average wizards to cast the spell. But these Contestants can never become as good as the main storyline Wizards. The ancient priests of Many-faced God had surpassed even them, using their unique ideas, formulas, and…"
Kai knew what was the last thing. "Multiverse Interdependency?"
For the first time, the Chief Bishop smiled, but Kai couldn't tell if it was genuine or fake.
The Chief Bishop nodded. "As a man can't access his full Mana here," he told Kai, "you will be taught the basic principles and the underlying theory of the Occlumency in the coming week. You will also have access to the section of the Temple's library relevant to this art, as per our deal. Shall we proceed?"
Kai sighed, reluctantly putting away all the details Meg had so fervently told him about this magical art.
"Our way of Occlumency is based on three core fields," the Chief Bishop said, nodding to Kai's changed state of mind. "Neurophysiology, Cognitive Psychology, and Metaphysics. The human brain is one of the largest and most complex organs of the human body. It comprises over 100 billion nerves, also called neurons, that communicate in trillions of connections called synapses. You seem to be familiar with these things."
Kai smiled. "You can say that."
"That would make it all easier, then," the Chief Bishop continued. "These 100 billion neurons communicate with each other by transmitting electrochemical signals in between them, creating a web of one of the most complex pathways known in the universe.
"Memories are nothing but a set of selective pathways among this web, and what seems to be a single memory is actually a complex composite of different areas of the brain being activated. Think of all this as messages being fired back and forth between neurons as signals. Let a man explain all this using an example."
The Chief Bishop's right hand went inside his loose, left sleeve, and took out a wand.
Kai's eyes burned with passion for the tiniest of instances, but even that got noticed by the man sitting in front of him.
The Chief Bishop looked from Kai to his wand, and after a brief pause, flicked it. Letters of the English Alphabet from A to Z came flowing out of the wand in gold color and hovered between him and Kai.
"Suppose these 26 letters represent the neurons in a brain," the Chief Bishop said, as the letters gathered together to form a group. "Then, a combination of these letters forming many pathways can represent a memory."
The wand swayed, and the letters A, C, E, and Y came flying out of the group of letters. A green line then appeared, connecting A to E, E to C, and then C to Y. "This particular combination of neurons forms three pathways," the Chief Bishop said, pointing at the green line running between the four letters. "This is a memory. In the same way, all memories can be represented by a combination of a different number of neurons and the pathways running in between them. Here comes the concept of Magic."
Kai's entire mind was now focused on the lesson. Once again, he was a student, but instead of his mother, it was a killer who was teaching him.
The zeal, tension, and interest in the topic being discussed, though, were the same.
"When one can perceive Mana inside them and becomes proficient enough to control it with practice using Elementary Magical Aptitude," the Chief Bishop said, swirling the wand, "then one can give shapes to these pathways, turning what is one dimensional into multidimensional, and letting the real overlap with imaginary. One can trigger a particular set of pathways, i.e. a memory, and use Mana to assign an object to it."
As he finished these sentences, the wand paused, and the 4 letters and the green line running between them, representing three pathways, disappeared. In their place now hovered a book. Simultaneously, the rest of the 22 English letters, hovering between Kai and the Chief Bishop, disappeared too, and in its place appeared a Bookshelf with many books already lined neatly on the many shelves within it.
With another flick of the wand, the single book formed from the memory of the three pathways flew toward the Bookshelf and rested on one of its shelves.
Kai watched the entire process with terrifying fascination.