Sid POV

  “Fine, you win,” Sid said, rubbing his temple as the words left his mouth. “Tell me what you see.”

  “I don’t see my jacket, but what’s underneath it. My shirt.” Varun leaned in, pinching the center of his jacket at the zipper as if he were presenting evidence. “I was right. You really are a pervert.”

  After four years of Varun’s antics, Sid knew the drill. The golden rule? Never engage. If you denied or defended, Varun would simply double down with shoddy logic, dragging the conversation down to his level.

  Sid pressed a hand to his chest, targeting his jacket. He had one recipient mark remaining.

  “You vanished your jacket too!” Varun cut in, pointing a finger at Sid’s chest. His shock quickly melted into a slow, deliberate nod. He rubbed his chin, a devious grin spreading across his face. “I see. A man of culture. I know exactly why you learned that trick.”

  Sid ignored Varun’s antics. His thoughts were already elsewhere, chasing the implications. Does it only hide the jacket and show what’s underneath? He knows I’m wearing a blue shirt. What if it’s something he doesn’t know?

  Sid suspected his skill forced the observer’s mind to overwrite reality, filling in the gaps where the object used to be. This was his first chance to test a subject who could actually speak. He pushed aside his bias, determined to approach the problem with fresh eyes.

  Sid put both hands inside his jacket pockets, careful that no skin was visible outside. “Can you see my hands?”

  “Yeah, although I don’t know why you’re holding such a weird pose.”

  Sid balled his palms into fists and met Varun’s gaze. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  Varun tilted his head to the right, confusion clear on his face. “None. You aren’t holding up any fingers.”

  Sid took a deep breath to douse the rising panic in his chest. That was a fluke. He needed to try again. Otherwise, his plan of having Varun scout the goblin squatters would need to be scrapped.

  He raised his thumbs on both hands and asked again. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “In both hands?” Varun paused, waiting for Sid’s nod. “A German three in either hand. That’s six.”

  The wording threw Sid for a moment, but then a smile broke through. Varun was shooting in the dark. He didn’t see the reality beneath the jacket. He was seeing what his mind expected to be there.

  Sid extended all his fingers except the ring finger. “How many now? Describe the gesture.”

  “Well, up yours too. Asshole.” Varun flipped him off, confirming Sid’s hypothesis.

  “The jacket’s still right here, Varun. I can see it even if you can’t,” Sid gestured to himself. “My hands were inside, and every number you guessed was off.” He dropped the mystery; he needed Varun as a partner for the experiment, not just a mark.

  Varun’s face flashed from confusion to shock before settling into the ravenous gaze he usually reserved for a plate of chicken biryani.

  Sid checked his watch. Thirty seconds had passed since he applied the mark on Varun’s jacket. It would take ten seconds to pull it back and another ten to apply it somewhere else. Waiting out the one-minute cooldown was better.

  Sid took off his jacket and threw it to his right. Or rather, he mimed the throw, letting the jacket drop straight down at his feet instead. “Can you see my jacket?”

  “I can’t.” Varun scanned the ground, eyes sweeping the area to Sid’s right. “I don’t see it.”

  Sid took a deliberate step back. “It’s where I was standing. Could you pick it up?”

  Varun’s mouth tightened, the faint crease between his brows deepening. “Pick it up yourself.”

  “I’m serious,” Sid said, leaning in. “I need to know if your hands can find it even if your eyes can’t.”

  Varun shimmied his shoulders and rubbed his forearms, glancing down at his own body before looking back at Sid. His expression sobered as he crossed the short distance to where Sid had been standing.

  Sid’s eyes flicked to his watch and back, and he nodded to himself. Varun’s jacket must have come out of the veil.

  Varun bent down, settling onto his calves. He felt around the ground, hands moving carefully, trying to locate a jacket he couldn’t see.

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  Sid watched him sit directly on the sleeves and then pat the fabric with his hands, failing to recognize it through touch alone. Varun swept the area again, fingers tracing empty air, until the timer finally ran out.

  Varun froze. He was holding the jacket, his hands twitching as the sensation of fabric returned. “Sid, this is scary. It’s messing with my mind.” Panic crept into his voice.

  Sid straightened. He couldn’t let Varun spiral. “It targets the senses, like that shaman’s skill which made you crawl up. High enough Perception or Willpower might break the hold.” He nearly used the skill’s name—Intimidate—but bit the word back just in time.

  There was an old maxim in Kaliga: all that takes form, takes a flaw. It spoke to the pervasive nature of vulnerability, the proverbial chink in the armor. Nothing in the world was absolute. Even gods could bleed.

  Legacy status didn’t make the Veil of the Mind’s Eye invincible, when even gods had flaws. Sid had yet to truly test it against high Perception or Willpower. He’d come close twice—with the Goblin General and the Silkenfang Matriarch—but had retreated both times before they could spot him. He wasn’t about to gamble his life until he had more than one trick in his arsenal.

  “Still, it’s crazy, man.” Varun breathed fast, disbelief heavy in his voice.

  “Why are you surprised?” Sid asked. “This entire world is insane. We’re just killing monsters and getting stronger, like it’s some twisted game.”

  Varun shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. If mind magic exists, then soul or even eldritch powers are on the table. I thought we were the pioneers, the ones ahead of the pack. But I’m stuck with movement skills while people like you and Aditi’s orc boyfriend hit on a completely different level.”

  Sid shook his head, surprised by his own mistake. He’d expected fear, forgetting exactly who Varun was. This was a man who devoured fantasy tropes with religious fervor. The guy learned Korean just to read manhwa a few days early. Varun didn’t fear mind-bending powers; he coveted them.

  Varun’s hunch about soul and eldritch powers hit the mark, even if the chances of seeing them were non-existent. Eldritch magic belonged to the Abyssals, Kaliga’s age-old enemies. While their cults had permeated Kaliga, they wouldn’t waste resources on a world this fresh and weak. There was nothing here worth taking.

  Necromancy was the heart of soul magic, yet the Empire’s total ban remained a puzzle to Sid when their nobility openly exploited soul-binding and slave brands. To him, control was always better than prohibition. For a vassal state, mercy toward a necromancer meant complete destruction. Sid, however, wasn’t worried; the chances of finding one here were near zero.

  “You’ve been here for what, ten days?” Sid said. “You’re already a powerhouse. Who cares if someone else got lucky? We’re making steady progress. We’ll catch up to them.”

  “But I took shortcuts,” Varun said, his tone thoughtful rather than aggrieved. “I absorbed uncommon skills instead of evolving them. Won’t I always be weaker than someone who did it the hard way?”

  “The rules aren’t written in stone,” Sid said. “Evolving might not be the only way to find hidden bonuses. I pulled an extra ability from that pool, didn’t I?” Sid paused to let that sink in. “Next time we find something special, it’s yours.”

  The dungeon hid another natural treasure, one of only five on Earth. Sid suspected the Bloody Butcher had claimed it, explaining why the man was nearly impossible to kill, even for the army. But without the time or place of the acquisition, Sid didn’t have a heading. He had to find the butcher and steal the treasure before he absorbed it.

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” Varun smiled and nodded. “Is your cooldown over?”

  “Yeah,” Sid said, pointing at the tree to his immediate left. “Go behind that tree and count to thirty after covering your face.”

  Sid couldn’t apply two recipient marks in parallel. Everything had to be sequential. Even the target mark followed the same rule, but it took so little time to apply that it barely mattered.

  “What?” Varun tilted his head back in surprise. “Why are we playing hide and seek?”

  “I want to verify whether my idea will work,” Sid said. “I won’t go beyond twenty feet from this tree. Come out and try to find me.”

  Varun walked around to the other side of the tree, pressed his face close to the trunk, and covered the sides of his face with both hands.

  He began counting seconds, loud enough for Sid to hear, but not so loud that it carried.

  Sid did a quick scan of the goblin scouts in the distance to make sure nothing had changed.

  Then he moved a few steps away from Varun and covered his shoes with leaf litter. He placed his palm against his knee and applied a recipient mark to his pants. He repeated the process for his jacket, then pulled up the hood to cover his head.

  Sid slipped his hands into his pockets and faced the direction of Varun’s tree, his head tilted down.

  Varun emerged, sweeping the area with his gaze. He circled the tree behind Sid, then checked another nearby. He froze, realizing the futility of it. The goal wasn’t to use cover; it was to hide in plain sight.

  Once Sid confirmed Varun was ignoring him entirely, he lifted his head slightly. Varun was running around in widening circles, confusion written all over his face. Varun brushed past Sid once, their shoulders grazing, but showed no reaction.

  Varun moved behind him, into Sid’s blind spot. Sid only sensed him through Echo Sense. He felt Varun bend down, then a rock struck his back.

  “Found you!” Varun announced, landing a light punch on Sid’s shoulder.

  Sid turned as the veil flickered and died. “It works.” He smiled; the hypothesis held true.

  Varun crossed his arms, smug. “Aren’t you going to ask how I found you?”

  Sid didn’t miss a beat. “You spotted the pile of leaves, threw a stone, and it bounced off nothing.”

  Sid had done something similar when he killed the creature that gave him the skill. But one thing still bothered him. How had he noticed that creature in the first place? According to his future memories, he wouldn’t have killed it. What impact had that change already caused?

  He had no answer. Not even a theory.

  Sid pushed the thought aside. There were more ideas to test before they moved forward with the scouting mission.

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