Chapter 37: Ripples
"Once more," Tom said to Mooglie, who looked at him with a desperate yet weary expression. It had been over an hour since Tom had been making him use his concealment technique in an attempt to learn it.
At the beginning, Mooglie had tried to explain how the technique worked, but Tom couldn't grasp his explanations since Mooglie couldn't speak and only used gestures to demonstrate. So, the only solution Tom found was to have Mooglie use his technique and observe, hoping he'd notice something that would guide him.
However, even after dozens of demonstrations, Tom managed to pick up nothing from how Mooglie was doing it. He didn't get discouraged, though, and kept asking Mooglie to deactivate and activate his technique, which was beginning to exhaust the creature.
But coming from his master, Mooglie complied and used the technique once more. While he did, Tom watched with keen attention, trying to notice something, but just like the other times, he couldn't discern anything. The only thing he noticed was that he could no longer sense Mooglie's presence.
"Damn, I can't seem to pick up anything!" Tom exclaimed, growing frustrated.
"You can stop and take a break," Tom told Mooglie, who was relieved to learn that he'd finally get a moment's respite.
As for Tom, when he felt stuck, he did what he always did - meditate. He sat down, began to meditate, allowing his Etherium to flow through his body while thinking, "Maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way, the problem is that I have no idea how he manages to disappear without me noticing anything. Even though he's right in front of me, it's like my eyes can't..."
Before he could finish his thought, Tom's eyes shot wide open, and he leaped from the bed, urging Mooglie, who had been lying on the floor, to rise.
"Come on, get up quickly, I need to confirm something."
Mooglie, to whom he had granted a brief rest, looked at him with a somewhat wronged expression that seemed to say, 'Didn't you just allow me to rest?'
Seeing Mooglie's gaze, Tom coughed a little, somewhat embarrassed, and said, "Just this once - no, only twice, and I promise you can rest later." Although Mooglie was his subordinate and would surely obey if Tom ordered him, Tom didn't want to force him to do anything he didn't want to do, even though it might be considered as a monster or animal.
Mooglie looked at him, as if trying to determine whether to trust him or not, but eventually decided to accept. However, before he could activate his technique, Tom asked him to wait.
Tom sat in a meditative position, closed his eyes, and then told Mooglie, "Begin when I give you the signal."
Mooglie found it strange that his master asked him to use his technique just for Tom to sit down again, but he complied and prepared to activate his concealment technique once Tom gave the signal.
With his eyes closed, Tom prepared as well, but this time, his approach was different from what he had been doing all along. Previously, he had merely watched Mooglie use the technique and tried to observe the movements or gestures Mooglie made while using it.
However, this method had yielded no results or clues for Tom. So, this time, he decided to change his approach. What he intended to do was to see if there would be any change around Mooglie when he used his technique. But he didn't intend to see this with his eyes; rather, he aimed to try and feel any changes, if they existed, using the Etherium.
Just as Etherium allowed him to introspect within his own body, Tom could also sense changes through the ambient Etherium.
Since he had never attempted such a thing, it would require intense concentration. That's why he sat down, focused all his attention on sensing the ambient Etherium, fortunately the training he did while trying to form a resonance with etherium helped and he managed to recreate a resonance with it after a few minutes.
He then told Mooglie, "You can start," upon which Mooglie activated his technique.
A few seconds later, Tom told Mooglie to deactivate his concealment, hearing the signal, Mooglie stopped using his technique.
Tom slowly opened his eyes. He appeared calm, but if one were to look into his eyes, they would notice a gleam, like two lanterns.
"I found it!" he exclaimed suddenly. His outburst surprised Mooglie, who stared at him as though he had gone mad. Tom, however, didn't care about the look Mooglie was giving him.
'At last, a lead!' he thought, brimming with confidence. 'From what I observed, there seemed to be some kind of ripple in the Etherium flow around Mooglie when he activated and deactivated his technique. If I can figure out what these ripples are and their purpose, I might be on the right path to learning this technique,' he pondered.
He focused once more and signaled to Mooglie to prepare to activate his technique again. Now that he knew what to observe, Tom concentrated on trying to discern the ripples produced by the activation and deactivation of the technique.
"Go ahead," he told Mooglie, who immediately employed his technique.
During the brief moment when Mooglie activated his technique, Tom began observing the ripples through the Etherium. He analyzed the ripple for a short moment before it disappeared. Then, he instructed Mooglie to deactivate the technique and continued observing the ripples generated by its deactivation.
Once the ripple had disappeared, Tom opened his eyes with a thoughtful expression. 'From what I observed, the nature of these ripples is the same, with that nature being the activation and deactivation of the technique. However, I sense that there's a difference between these two ripples,' Tom thought.
Meanwhile, Mooglie went to lie down a few meters away from Tom. He had finished what Tom had asked of him, and now it was time to rest.
'Apparently, I won't be able to confirm my suspicion until he rests,' Tom thought as he watched Mooglie lie down. "But that's okay; while he rests, I'll practice sensing my surroundings better using the Etherium," he decided before resuming his meditation.
After a few hours, Mooglie finally woke up, and Tom decided to resume his testing immediately to understand how Mooglie's concealment technique worked. However, this time, he wasn't going to observe the changes around Mooglie. No, this time, he wanted to verify what Mooglie was doing that caused these ripples in the Etherium flow.
For several minutes, Mooglie activated and deactivated his technique while Tom observed through the ambient Etherium, attempting to discover how Mooglie caused these ripples.
After several hours of observation, Tom finally managed to discern what Mooglie was doing that caused these ripples. However, he was surprised by what he found.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone