It has been after a few loops, around 11 loops, to be precise, that I came up with the idea of using [Multi-Layered Barrier] to try to stop the mental influence the mind mage has whenever I try to go outside. The only place I could really go is the mage's guild, and the reason why is that I memorized the path over countless loops so I could go there with my eyes closed, and it sucks to have so little in terms of places I could go.

I was trying to see what skills I could use, but the majority of them I was locked out by my soul burn still, and the ones I could use was a severely weakened version, but I did a test last loop and saw that the barrier the skill creates, although weak, can stop weak pulses of magicules, and that's what I was trying test in this loop.

But firstly, I had to pass through the daily torture, aka using [Genetic Dysphoria]. I was afraid I was starting to become desensitized to pain at that point, but there wasn't much to do about it at the time.

After it, I took an hour-long shower, mostly to not lose myself after the pain. Each loop I was taking longer and longer to leave the room, I noticed. I didn't know if I was starting to don't actually care about what happened, because if you looked at it from the perspective of the loops, each individual loop and what happened inside of them didn't matter, or if my mind was starting to break after the pressure.

It probably hasn't completed a singular month since I was reincarnated, but from my perspective, it already has been months since I last saw anything from Earth. The pain from missing everything is still there, and I find myself every couple of loops thinking back to my parents and friends. It's like a wound that is slowly turning into a scar.

After I finished showering and drying myself, I activated the skill and felt how a single layer of magicules formed a shield around me. It was so weak that there was barely a distortion around me indicating the active use of the skill, but it was there, and that was what mattered.

I left the inn and started walking following the main road, not bothering to go anywhere in particular, with the sole exception of the mage's guild. I made a conscious effort not to go there.

I was actually a little anxious if the experiment would work, as I didn't want to spend more days on wherever I was the last time, but then I felt something hitting against the shield. It was not anything physical, but a wave of magicules. The test had worked.

I smiled and looked to the cloud-filled sky in a silent celebration. I was finally free of the mind mage. I could finally go wherever I wanted. I felt as more and more waves of magicules hit the shield and or bounced off or were outright blocked by the shield.

I pushed the skill a little more, causing a mild discomfort, and creating a second layer on top of the first one, but this one I tried to change to block the specific waves I was being hit with.

After a few seconds observing the shield blocking the mind mage, I confirmed I was completely safe from him. It felt like a weight was dropped from my shoulders, and I almost lost my balance as I relaxed a little too much after that.

The first thing I did was go to the water fountain near the portal plaza, like the God of Light had asked me to do when we had lunch together–

I paused, it finally registered in my mind that the God of Light literally had asked me to have lunch with him. The entire situation was so absurd I couldn't help but laugh out loud, something I couldn't remember doing for a very long time.

…And just like that, my joy was ruined. Now I couldn't help but think about how I haven't actually laughed like this for so long that it shouldn't be normal. I really didn't know what to think or feel about it. Now that I was aware of it, I felt like having chains dragging me to the bottom of a pit.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"You are fine," I said out loud. I didn't know if it would help, but I needed something, anything, at the moment.

"You are fine, you will pull through this." I kept saying as I felt the negative emotions that were building start to melt away.

I breathed out and opened my eyes, only to find a guy staring right at me.

It was so sudden that I yelped and fell backwards into the fountain, sending water everywhere. The guy grabbed me by my shirt and pulled, but the fabric wasn't strong enough, and it ripped, making me fall back into the water before I could do anything.

This time he grabbed me by my fur and pulled, it hurt, but not as much as triggering my skill every loop.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Are you going to pretend to be stupid?" He said to me. I didn't even have the time to answer before he kept talking. "You think just because you managed to avoid us, and being in a public space, will stop us?"

Ah. He's one of them, then. I was about to trigger the reset when he slapped something hard on my chest, and the next moment, everything became a world of pain. Every sound around me was akin to a nuclear bomb right in my ears, the coldness of the water was freezing my body, while the flashes of light from the lightning bolts hitting the shield blinded me completely.

I didn't know how long I was out, but my consciousness returned slowly. Whatever they used charged my senses so much that my mind couldn't deal with it, and I simply passed out.

When I came to my normal senses, I was drooling on the floor of the prison cell they had put me before. The first thing I noticed was that my shield skill was still holding, although it was on its last legs.

Before anything else, I focused on it and pushed more magicules to it as the barrier around me reformed, blocking the anti-magic field from actually touching me. It was a constant grind against the barrier, but it was holding.

[ Experience points have reached the threshold. Skill [Multi-Layered Barrier] has achieved Lv. 2 ]

The pain was great, but not debilitating, not like the last time one of my skills leveled. It was a clear sign that I was healing from the soul burn, although slowly.

The skill became easier to maintain after the level up, and was holding off the anti-magic field better than before. It was still a weak shield, the fact that guy managed to put his hand right through it was proof enough, but against weak magical effects like this anti-magic field they have on their cells, it was good enough.

I wasn't going to show them that I still had control of my magicules, I wasn't stupid. If this followed the same pattern as before, then I just needed to wait for the big boss to show up and then do something about the cell door and escape.

I could trigger the reset, but I was curious as to where I was. Besides, I could trigger it anytime I wanted. I wouldn't keep triggering it just because something didn't go like I wanted it to go, that would be insane.

I knew it would be a few hours before he showed up, so I could use them for something.

The first few minutes of me doing nothing but looking at how the runes around the cell were similar to those of the cage in Henry's encampment, but just in lesser quantity, and, instead of them being obscured like the cages, here they were in full view.

I studied some of them, recognizing the runes for magicules, flow, power, and some others, but how they were connected to create an effect was still alien to me.

I got fed up with that very easily, so I sat on the stone bench the cell had and closed my eyes, focusing on my own magicules flowing through my body.

Firstly I just let my mind circle with my natural flow, it moved together with my heartbeat, but it wasn't actually linked with my heartbeat. I could grab the flow and speed it up or slow it down as I wanted.

I found the same aglomeration of magicules near my heart that are present in my wolf and weasel form, which is slightly similar to my true form. I wondered if it meant that other people also had this, or was it just me because of my true nature, but that was not the time to be thinking about stuff like this.

I held a portion of my magicules with my mind, trying to compress it. The plan was to see if it was possible and, if it was, how long it would take the anti-magic field to destroy it.

Surprisingly, the magicules I held compressed like a deflating balloon. One thing I noticed was that [Liquid Quantum Flux Matrix] activated during this, meaning that compressing magicules was somehow part of the skill.

I also felt, through the skill, that I could compress further, and so I did, carefully. The pale blue magicules were flowing through me turned dark blue as I compressed it. This compression was what I was trying to do before, but I knew I could go further, and so I did.

The dark blue magicules turned purple and felt solid in my grasp, but I knew I could go further. I did yet again, putting more force and using both [Magicule Manipulation] and [Liquid Quantum Flux Matrix] at the same time, forcing the magicules even closer.

The moment they start turning black, I felt the pressure that kept stopping me from compressing them even more turn around and actively try to compress themselves naturally. It was only luck that I managed to hold them in that black state.

I could feel how the black piece of magicule, that I might add was inside of me, yeah, an awful idea, was pulling other magicules around it into it, gaining more mass and trying to collapse into itself. If I didn't know any better, I would say that I was forming a black hole inside me.

There was no way that just a few units of magicules being compressed into the size of a rice grain would be enough to create a black hole. Even the Earth itself would only turn into a black hole if one squeezed it enough to something less than grains of sand, there was absolutely no way I could do it with how weak I currently was.

Whatever the magicules were trying to do was something else entirely, I just didn't know what.

I watched it curiously when suddenly I heard the lion person speaking with me.

"Look at who's awake," his deep voice cause me to lose focus as I opened my eyes to look at him.

It was for just a second, but it was enough.

The black magicule shot to the place near my heart where my magicules accumulated on my body, absorbing everything and collapsing into a rainbow-like liquid. I had barely a moment to see it before it exploded outwards with so much force that my entire body exploded into gore.

I barely registered what happened before I was back in the inn's room, staring at the ceiling.

"What the fuck?" I shouted.

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