Phase

The cartoonish dream began.

My name is Pia.

As far as I know, I live in an orphanage in the slum area.

We are very poor and everyday my brothers and sisters are going to sleep with a rumbling stomach.

I cannot stand it anymore.

So I take action, together with my brothers and sisters we practice stealing.

We practiced, practiced and practiced until we perfected it.

That is the start of the day that our life has changed.

I will walk towards a person and my hand will slip into his pocket and I will slowly pull out the wallet.

I did it every day, until my hand became as light as a feather.

For me, that is not enough. The money that I get from stealing is not enough.

So I upped my game.

We wanted more. We wanted to buy new clothes and we wanted to wear our own jewelry.

We wanted to steal from merchants that treat us as pests, but this kind of people are very meticulous and very careful. They always lock their houses and lock their vaults.

I want to break those down.

So I trained once again.

Lock Picking.

I carefully tug those picks to open the locks.

Slowly and surely I am improving.

I trained and I trained, day after day, night after night, until…

Until I gain new skills.

And once I perfected it, we began our operations.

Soon we are drowning with money.

We always have a 100% success rate and the people around me recognize me as a genius.

They said that I have sensitive and light hands as if I’m just opening the door from the other side.

I look at my hands.

They are surely gifts from god.

I smiled and it seemed like I found the place that god wanted me to be.

Now I wonder…

What skill should I gain next?

I hope I can gain more money in perfecting those skills.

****************************************

“Aggghhh”

My eyes squinted.

An information came to me.

An Essence with the ability for your body to pass through a solid object.

Phase

…

…

…

“Just like before, what I receive is just a manual. Maybe next time, the Essence should provide a ‘How to do’ Video.”

I look at my body, surprisingly enough the ‘phase’ did not trigger automatically then I gaze at my right hand and I use phase.

My hand color became light, not just in weight but also in color.

If you look at it from afar you will not see the difference in hues but if you stare at it, you can clear distinguish what part of my body is ‘phasing’.

The ability is simple.

Depending on your ability to control, you can ‘phase’ a part of your body anytime.

I then tried to tap the table.

…

My eyes widened.

“It just passed through, it didn’t even make a sound and I didn’t even feel the air.”

Then I try to grab my bag.

My hand just passes through the bag. It seems like the ghost hand you see in movies where they want to touch someone but it will just pass through.

My eyes widened once again.

“Wow.”

Then I suddenly realized.

“Wait! If I cannot touch those things… how did she open the vault?”

I canceled the ‘phase’ and looked at the knob of the door.

I look both knobs back and forth.

I touch my lips.

“Hmmmm… how did she do it?”

The truth is I know the idea behind it… but I’m still wondering how she did it?

This begins my training in using ‘Phase’.

I begin by testing my maximum capability of my skill.

First I phase my right hand and then phase my lower right arm.

I sat down on the floor and slowly slid down my arm under the table.

I laugh because it seems like my hand was cut down and displayed on the table.

I pull out my arm and change the area I can phase.

I ‘phase’ my lower arm and upper arm, it seems like my hand can touch any object in this state.

Then I phase my head.

I didn’t do anything weird like stabbing my head using a sword, that would be pretty dangerous, instead I use my finger to test if it will pass thru my cheeks.

After it succeeded, I ‘phase’ both my chest and stomach. The weird thing happens as soon as I phase, my shirt falls down and I immediately try to remove it by pulling it out.

After that I tested the hips part and upper legs part and the same thing happened. But this time my pants just dropped all the way to the floor.

Then for the last part, I test my right feet.

As soon as it ‘phase’ I lose my balance and my feet fall down the floor.

I immediately use my arms to support my body, raise my leg and return my feet.

This test concludes that I can ‘phase’ a maximum of 2 body parts at the same time.

However, there is an additional condition for it.

I tried to phase my right hand and left hand.

However, it didn’t work.

The right hand successfully phases but the left hand did not activate.

I tried doing several combinations.

Head and lower left leg.

Chest and right lower hand.

Lower body and left hand.

In the end, I concluded that I cannot activate 2 separate body parts at the same time.

Still, even with those limitations this is a very useful skill.

Jon is an Earthling. He is a nerd who loves novels. As a novel reader you might also know some manga’s or manhua’s. And of course you would be familiar with the superhero who uses the skill ‘phasing’. A known superhero as ‘the fastest man alive’.

I have knowledge on how useful this skill is, even if it is not the same ability as ‘the fastest man alive’. I believe it is still very useful.

However, it will only be very useful when I can unlock its full potential.

I look at my hand.

“I know what I have to do… first… I phase my right hand and lower arm.”

I phase those parts of my body.

“Then slowly pass through the wall.”

Instead of passing through the wall, my hand passes from under the table.

“Then turn back the right hand and keep the lower arm in ‘phase’ state.”

That is the hard part is hard.

“Foooo.”

I can turn the end of my finger tip back and I can touch the incubator but it is not enough to hold it.

“Fooooo…”

I concentrate and work on it until the night falls.

I only stayed for a day in the small village just past Slexor Kingdom and moved as soon as I could.

Now that I have enough money, I can buy new things for myself, however, the villages don’t have what I need. Aside from a couple of hunting tools there are no rare items that I want. That is why I am traveling to Sydhro City, one of the biggest cities in Kilswin.

Though I’m traveling to this city I will also not spend my life here.

Well from the very beginning I didn't want to stay in a certain city.

Cole is a simple man that is living a day to day life and he also has simple dreams.

However, Jon is different.

Jon experiences earth’s culture and he just doesn't want to work his ass off every day for the rest of his life. He wanted to travel the world, he wanted to experience everything and he wanted the life of luxury.

Back on earth he just visited local areas and enjoyed reading in those places and his dream is to visit international attractions such Eiffel Tower, Bali beaches, The Maldives and many more.

Unfortunately for him he cannot do that anymore but this doesn’t mean that he cannot travel anymore.

The scenery will just be different in fact this place might be dangerous but it is also more magical compared to earth.

I just experienced it a few nights ago when the elementals danced around me.

An experience that no amount of money will ever compensate for.

That night, that experience changed everything I planned to do.

Initially, Jon will hoard the treasures and power that the ‘main’ characters will not use and hide away in the Nex-Gal continent when the ‘Great Calamity’ begins.

That would be 10-years from now, if the story will follow its course. He planned to arrive at Nex-Gal in the next 5 years, that is the year where the world will start to fall into chaos and he wanted to establish himself on that continent in that year.

But according to his notes, it is still safe to travel the world for 8 years. Only the last 2 years where the Great Calamity is brewing to fall when he truly needed to secure himself in the walls of Nex-Gal.

That’s when I decided that instead of settling down 5 years from now. I will enjoy my life for the next 8 years and I will travel the world in search of the best place, unique experience and I want to explore the unknown and most of all…

I should start collecting books again, but of course I will do it all in moderation.

My path, the new path that I will take is the path of a real adventurer.

Just thinking about it makes my blood boil in excitement. All the fantasy adventures that I’m reading, I want to experience in real life.

It would take me at least a day more worth of travel to arrive at Sydhro City.

I am currently inside a small cave resting for the night.

A magic tool ‘stove’, a stove with similar design to an ethanol stove back on earth but instead of the ethanol can on the side the magic crystal holder is installed in it. This stove in front of me is being used as a heater.

I just finish eating my dinner and then I realize that I need to change the magic crystal of the incubators.

“Subspace.”

A small black 2D box appeared in front of me.

I reached my hand out while thinking about the incubator and after I pulled it out I was surprised.

“Huh!”

My eyes open wide.

A small white snake is already slithering inside.

I immediately put it down and pull out the other one from the subspace and close the subspace after setting down both the incubators.

The two white monsters look at me and their heads are slowly moving side by side while their tongue is flickering.

I open both of the lids.

I grabbed them both and they easily rested on my palm. I gently put them down on the floor and patted their tiny heads.

Both of them are still small, a foot-long monster, their appearance is similar to a regular snake on earth and their scale doesn’t have the brilliance of a jewel instead it still matte white.

“They really look like a normal snake.”

I immediately pull out the black collars with a number 1 and number 2 written on it.

“Here, for now I will call you Jewel.”

I put the collar with the number ‘1’ on it, to one of the vipers.

“Then you will be called Viper.”

Then I put the remaining collar on the other one.

“Did you like your names?”

Both of them obviously didn’t reply.

“Well for now I know you are hungry so…”

I pull out the jerky made from the Mauler that killed their parents.

“Here it goes well.”

I put the jerky in front of Jewel and immediately take it and swallow it. Then I put the same jerky in front of Viper but this time it looks at the jerky, like a cobra sizing its prey, before eating and swallowing it.

I feed both of them until half of my reserves are gone. I stand up and look at them and both of them are slithering near the stove.

I went to the entrance and set up bear traps in front of the cave. The entrance is full of bear traps that they cannot even tiptoe their way in, these bear traps are the ones I bought in the last village.

When I got back after setting up the traps both Jewel and Viper were curled up and resting.

I smiled.

(Grow up my pets… grow up fast and protect me…)