At first, Nero thought that the reason he hadn't been able to spot his mother without the help of his dad was because she was moving too fast. But he quickly came to the conclusion that such a thing was impossible.
Though Mystics were much faster than Neophytes, they should not be at the level where they move so fast that they become invisible. Nero could accept that they might only appear as a blur to his eyes, but it was impossible for them to be invisible solely based on physical ability.
That's when he paid greater attention to the other anomalies that became visible as a result of his fathers assistance. The most obvious difference seemed to be that the sky had turned red entirely, compared to its yellow and blue. The landscape also seemed to be more scarce, with lesser vegetation.
Upon closer scrutiny, Nero also noticed that there were fewer animals and insects all around.
It wasn't like the wilderness was abundant with animals and insects, but it was a fact that many animals had natural aether abilities which helped them survive the tough environments of the wilderness. Heck, there were even birds that were completely invisible to the senses of cursed beasts, from what Nero had heard.
Nero watched closely as his mother threw massive snowflakes, well up to a metre in diameter, at the blades of grass, mowing through them as if they were nothing. But as a cursed plant, the grass was more resilient than normal vegetation.
The blades that were cut down were latched onto other, nearby grass blades, which sucked up all the mass in them, turning them into shrivelled husks. Strengthened from feeding on their own, the remaining blades of grass lashed out towards Marilyn, growing long, black whips made of cursed energy.
Even with hundreds of black whips raining down on her, and spikes made from roots bursting out from the ground beneath her, Marilyn remained untouched as she cut down everything in her path.
But the battle had only been going on for a scant few seconds. The longer it progressed, the more absurd it became. Filthy, black rain started to fall from the cloudless sky, burning and corroding the very ground as it fell down.
Marilyn summoned a protective umbrella above her, made from a massive snowflake that followed her around, which helped her avoid the black rain, but everything save the cursed grass suffered tremendously due to the rain.
But as the putrid black rainwater collected into small puddles on the ground, it seemed to seep into the soil, turning it into small clumps of cursed clay.
"What the hell?" Nero exclaimed, as he tried to process what he was seeing. Did he just see the birth of cursed soil? But the situation became even more bizarre when Edward lifted his hand, and once again the world returned to normal.
The sky was no longer red, there was no longer black rain falling, and his mother seemed nowhere in sight. In fact, even the ground where he had seen roots erupt from was completely plain and normal, as if nothing had happened.
"What in the world is going on?" Nero asked.
"That, kid, was an alternate dimension called Nawia," Edward said nonchalantly. "I thought I'd give you a little sneak peak into the depths of this world. On higher levels, it is common to fight curses there than in the real world. The nature of that dimension makes it easier to harm curses.
At the same time, fighting in Nawia is a lot more dangerous since wounds suffered there are infinitely harder to heal."
Nero absorbed the information his father told him, and in theory understood what he meant. It's easier to fight curses in a special place called Nawia, but it's also more dangerous. In reality, though, he was struggling to understand.
"How did mom get there? How is she fighting the cursed plants there, if the plants are still here right in front of us? What is an alternate dimension?"
Edward smirked, as if he was satisfied by Nero's reaction. Normally Nero would be remiss to give in to his fathers habits of farming attention like this, but this was genuinely a blindspot in Nero's understanding of the world.
Before Edward could answer, though, the tall blades of grass blocking their way suddenly began to wilt rapidly, and turned into what looked like decayed plants right in front of them. Marilyn reappeared in the van, not having broken a single sweat. Heck, there weren't even any extra creases on her clothes.
"All clear," she said, and Edward started to drive.
"I'm sorry to tell you this kid, but I don't think anyone alive has any understanding of what dimensions truly are. But, in practice, you can just treat dimensions as an alternate reality that overlaps the real world. Our knowledge of them is extremely limited.
What I can tell you, though, is that all the dimensions are linked, and what happens in one dimension can often influence things in other dimensions.
"Apparition curses, in fact, are not curses that just appear out of thin air. They're curses that escape from some alternate dimension and enter our reality."
"Alright, that's enough showing off for now," Marilyn said. "Find a spot for us to camp. We can't drive through the night, and need a place to lay low. Nero, you don't need to trouble yourself with dimensions for now. Only after you get a Profession will you have to concern yourself with them. Instead, you should focus on card crafting.
Come on, let's review what you know so far. We'll begin your lessons tonight officially."
"How can you just tell me there are other realities that overlap our own and expect me to just forget about it?" Nero complained, even as he moved out of the front seat and sat next to his mother in the back.
"Don't think of it as other realities. That evokes a lot of unnecessary imagery. Just think of it as other places that exist all around us, but can't normally be entered through traditional means. All dimensions overlap, so the location of this road in reality will always coincide with another specific location in another dimension," explained Edward.
Before he could continue explaining, though, Marilyn threw a snowflake at him that seemed to just disappear when it approached him.
"Stop giving him partial information, it'll only confuse him later. Nero, forget about dimensions. All you need to know is that you should not go to other dimensions - you won't be able to come back on your own. Not that you'll be able to enter other dimensions anyway. This is a complicated subject, but so is card crafting so let's just focus on that for now."
"Can someone accidentally enter another dimension?" Nero asked.
"No. Now focus. Tell me what you know about card crafting."
Nero took a deep breath, suppressing his curiosity about dimensions and the huge ramifications their existence presented, though it was hard. How could he not think about the fact that entering an alternate dimension might be an easy way to sneak through security in military bases - or even through the vault door back in Lumina!
But then again, if it was so easy, then he would have definitely heard of it before.
"Card crafting is basically how a spell model is placed into a card, using a spell recipe, enabling card masters to be able to use those spells. Innate and Profession abilities are examples of spells, but besides those a card master cannot use any spells without cards.
That's because the spell model for those is intrinsically linked to a card master, whereas a card master lacks the ability to form and use different spell models on their own due to the lacking aether manipulation capability of humans."
"Where do spell models come from, and how do you get the associated recipe to contain that spell model?" Marilyn asked.
"Spell models already exist in nature around us," Nero reiterated what he had been taught, though he himself did not understand what that meant completely. "Discovering the spell recipe is a delicate and complex process that requires a deep understanding of the affinities, functions, and reactions between each ingredient in the recipe."
"In an existing card, where is the spell model? Is it in the picture, the text, the name, or somewhere else?"
"The spell model is within the card itself, and the name, image and text are all just parameters to control how the spell model exhibits the spell once aether is provided."
"What constitutes an ingredient when coming up with a recipe?"
Marilyn asked Nero seemingly random questions about crafting to get a thorough understanding of Nero's existing knowledge base regarding card crafting. This was an important step, because some of the knowledge in card crafting that most people were taught was not strictly true, and instead was taught for the sake of convenience.
While it worked for low level crafters, it would not do for Nero since coming up with new recipes was something he would frequently do in the future.