Chapter 422: Need to come clean (1/2)

After some more discussion, they finally came to a consensus. They would explore a bit more at the most until the next couple of hours. After all, if they were to return so fast, people would become suspicious of their swift victory.

They would have until before the sun would begin to set to get back, which, since they started early in the morning, was still several hours away. They each had a filling meal in the morning so spending the next couple of hours and exploring further wouldn't be an issue.

With that thought in mind, they spent a couple more minutes to rest up and restore themselves. As his team sat down and consumed a few of the prepared potions, or the dried-up meat to restore their health and stamina, Aiden finally had a few minutes to himself to check the messages he received during his duel with Drake.

He did feel different, halfway through, he felt as a previously unknown source of knowledge filled his mind. He could actually feel his mind swiftly processing and merging the new skillset.

However, what was the strangest wasn't the suddenly appeared knowledge about swords or fighting, but the strange vision where he could see and analyze Drake's current and projected movements and swiftly come up with responses related to it on the spot.

What was that actually? Would it be related to the gained knowledge, or perhaps, something else? Could it be related to his growing divinity? Or maybe, just maybe did he unlock more of his Primal Heritage? He wasn't entirely sure, nor was he certain if he could actually willingly enter that strange peculiar state once again. At least not willingly.

With that, he eagerly willed his System interface to appear and select the Activities tab. As the messages appeared, he quickly skimmed through each of the new, unread lines.

*Ding!*

[ Status | Lab | Domain |  *Activities* ]

[ *Message Log* | Quests | Assignments ]

[Sword Mastery discovered! Analyzing information… Error: Prerequisite knowledge missing…]

[?!%_]

[Error: Unable to .?!$!%]

[.?!$!%… Host Entering Primal ?!% State… Enhancing Analytics feature according to new parameters…]

[Sword Mastery discovered! Analyzing information… 1%]

[Sword Mastery discovered! Analyzing information… 50%]

[Sword Mastery discovered! Analyzing information… 100%]

[Analysis complete, processing information, creating skill. Remaining time: Error: N/A]

[Analysis complete, Information processed. Skill: Sword Mastery (Lvl 1) created.]

[Note: Requirements met! The related skill: Sword Mastery: Profound Strike (Lvl -) has been processed. Absolving new information…]

The messages just kept flowing, causing an ever-increasing confusion and bewilderment to spread in Aiden's mind. What happened during their duel exactly? Even the messages were unclear, some of them were in a weird, cryptic, unreadable state.

Somehow he entered a strange, heightened mental state, which at the time, he didn't truly realize. Could it have been that when he felt the world slowed down, was the start of it? How did it actually trigger? Was it something they did or was it due to an outside force?