"If you focus your mental energy into your eyes, you can activate an ability called [Colorless]’ It will let you see the world stripped of distractions, and down to its most fundamental properties."
He could see the confusion on my face.
"It’s fine if you can’t control your mental energy yet. You’re still a kid. Just follow my instructions. Sit cross-legged."
I sat down on the grass.
I saw Mom frown from the pavilion—she probably didn’t like me sitting directly on the ground—but she didn’t say anything.
Dad sat behind me and gently placed a palm over my head.
"I’m going to send my mental energy into you. Normally, you wouldn’t feel it unless you had some control over your own. But since you awakened your Hollow Eyes quickly, I think you can sense it."
I nodded.
His mental energy flowed from his hand into my head.
It wasn’t painful, but it was strange.
It swirled like mist, making me dizzy.
"Now, follow that string of energy with your own," he said.
I did as he said.
"Huh? You can do it so easily?" he muttered, clearly surprised. "Alright, now push your own energy into your eyes. That will activate [Colorless]. Don’t worry when you see something strange. I’m right here. If anything goes wrong, I’ll protect you."
I focused.
A soft hum built behind my eyes as I directed the energy there.
Then everything changed.
All color vanished.
The world turned monochrome
Even the objects—the garden, the trees, the sky—were gone.
They were replaced by ’lines.’
I wasn’t joking.
All I saw was lines—scribbles, to be precise.
These scribbles were crisscrossing into each other, turning into circles and moving around.
The world had become abstract.
I could still feel the ground beneath me, but visually, it was gone, and replaced by scribbles.
Even my hands were scribbles.
Nausea hit me like a wave.
Though I was already sitting, I collapsed forward and immediately stopped using the ability.
I was gasping.
"What was that?" I asked between breaths.
"That was the Colorless World." Dad’s eyes were gentle again.
Mom was next to me, kneeling and wiping the sweat from my forehead with a soft towel. She must’ve come while I was using the Colorless.
"Are you alright, sweetie? There is no need for you to push yourself hard. You can take a rest if you are tired," she said, concern heavy in her voice.
Dad chuckled. "He’s doing fine. In fact, he’s doing incredibly well. Most people pass out or vomit uncontrollably the first time they see the Colorless World. He just got dizzy."
Mom’s eyes narrowed. Her voice took a sharp edge.
"Dear, this is the first time I’m hearing something like this. You told me the first stage was safe."
He looked at her, confused.
It seems he had lied to her, partially at least from the looks of it, and forgotten he had lied.
He quickly came up with an excuse.
"Haha, I mean, it is safe. Even I didn’t puke when I first used it, so technically—"
She gave him a cold look that told him to shut up.
He closed his mouth.
She turned to me with warmth.
"It’s enough for today, sweetie. You should rest. We can train tomorrow."
She tried to pick me up, but I shook my head.
"I want to train."
Her concern deepened, but Dad was beaming.
"As expected of my son. You don’t back down."
He looked at her, this time more serious.
"It’s better if I teach him while he is here. If we stop now, he might try using Colorless alone out of curiosity. That would be worse."
Mom looked at me worriedly, then back at dad.
She sighed and stood up.
She went back to the pavilion and told a maid to prepare a refreshing drink for both of us.
Dad turned back to me.
"What did you see when you used Colorless?"
"Scribbles."
Neither of them was surprised about how I spoke so clearly despite my age.
They had always known I was smarter than average.
"Those aren’t scribbles. They’re the lines that form the structure of everything. When your control improves, those lines will become clearer.
"Eventually, you’ll see something different," Dad said. "This is the first stage of Hollow Eyes, [Colorless World]. Though mostly call it Colorless."
"What about the other abilities? Aren’t there five stages? How do I unlock the rest?"
"To reach the next stages, you first need to master Colorless. And you need to train your body. Hollow Eyes puts a lot of strain on you."
From everything he said, I understood Hollow Eyes relied on mental energy, not aura.
But even then, the body needed to be strong enough to endure the burden of Hollow Eyes.
Warriors of Daelthorn House had stronger bodies than normal warriors due to their genetics.
They used Aura to make their bodies even stronger.
It was how their bodies could endure the burden of Hollow Eyes.
Dad had a broken energy center, so he couldn’t use aura anymore.
And the destruction of his Energy Centre had caused a backlash.
His physical strength had regressed.
He was only a little stronger than a normal human now.
But since Hollow Eyes didn’t use aura, he could still use it, but only to some extent as his body was now weak.
"That’s enough Hollow Eyes training for today. You’ve done well. Let’s move on to the next lesson."
"What is it?"
"Varren’s Dominion Wall."
I nodded
Internally, I wondered something else.
’Is he even allowed to teach me this?’
I didn’t know where he got the technique from, but it probably came from the Sword King.
And the Sword King didn’t like his techniques being passed around unless he did it himself.
Then again, as long as I didn’t flaunt the technique, no one would know I had it, or that dad had taught it to me.
"This technique has two stages. The first lets you redirect attacks.
"It doesn’t matter where they come from, and you can even reflect them back.
"The second stage lets you absorb the force of the attacks and store it. Then, you can add that stored energy to your own strikes," dad explained
I stared at him, surprised.
That was absurd.
"Follow my movements. I will teach you the basic stance of the first stage."