Dimensional Descent
chapter-43

Leonel, who had still been thinking about the best method to get out of here, blinked and looked over toward Aina. He caught the hefty black book in the air, surprised by its weight. Just what could make a seemingly normal leather bound book so heavy?

"I can't understand what's written in it." Aina said. "But I do feel a sense of familiarity from the diagrams. They feel like Force Art."

Leonel's brow raised. "Force Art, are those different from Force techniques?"

"Force Art are a type of Force technique, so not really…" Aina explained lightly.

Seeing that she didn't seem to be in a mood to talk, Leonel didn't ask more questions despite having them. He just made the assumption that what separated these Arts from normal techniques were these diagrams Aina mentioned.

Leonel had seen diagrams in [Dimensional Cleanse], but they were of the human body, nothing like the diagrams Aina was speaking of now.

Aina struggled a bit seeing that Leonel was having trouble getting anything out of what she was saying, so she couldn't help but say a bit more.

"Force techniques are split into internal and external. Your [Call of the Wind] is an internal technique. Force Arts are external techniques. The difference is that one originates from the body before it can be projected out while the latter can be formed outside of the body. Force Arts are rarer and more difficult to learn and control… I don't know why something like them would appear here, it doesn't make sense."

Leonel couldn't help but smile when Aina continued to explain unprompted. He could tell that she wanted to keep her distance from him, so he hadn't pressed her in the last several weeks.

But he had learned that Aina was incredibly soft-hearted, a side of her he was quite fond of. She would often get that very same guilty look on her face whenever she felt she was being too harsh with him. So, he didn't mind shamelessly taking advantage.

"I see…" Leonel mumbled. "I would have thought that [Call of the Wind] was an external technique due to its original nature, but I guess this is a case of instincts being incorrect."

Though Leonel felt he would need some time to wrap his mind around this, he knew that this wasn't the time for this. There were far more pressing questions, even aside from how they would get out of this place. Namely… just who were these people?

Not only did they know that he and Aina were from their future, but they also had access to Arts which even Aina spoke of as a rarity.

The formerly ignorant — well, more ignorant — version of Leonel would think this was incredulous. However, the current him who was now aware that the future could apparently change matters of the past was much more interested in just what was going on here.

Could it be that Earth's metamorphosis had changed history so drastically? Was it maybe instead that history was always this way? After all, even the Mayan Priest had a Force weapon that he had no business having. Or, was there maybe some other unknown reason Leonel didn't have enough information to reach?

All Leonel knew was that this was big. Bigger than maybe his current self had any right to even think about, let alone deal with.

Frowning, Leonel finally opened the front cover of the black book. Every second here counted, and if he was correct, it actually counted for ten times what it should. There was no time to waste, or else they would fail this quest and be stuck here until their deaths.

[Shadow Manifestation]

'So it wasn't an ability but a technique he was using?'

The more Leonel read, the deeper his frown became. This technique, or rather, this Art was gruesome. It required etching the Art into one's skin with deep gashes to the bone. Pierre was most definitely a fanatic for putting himself through this.

However, this also explain something else to Leonel. It was no wonder he had seen multiple shadow figures. Each of them probably had an Art etched onto their bodies, giving them this ability.

Leonel described what he found out to Aina, causing her to frown. At first, Leonel thought she was just grossed out by the methods, but when she spoke again, he realized that this wasn't the case at all.

"Something's wrong…" She said faintly. "… From what you describe, this Pierre should have been much weaker. But, his abilities were far more wide ranging than what that book describes."

Though Aina still defeated him easily, that said more about her abilities than it did about Pierre's. At the very least, she gave him more credit than the book did.

"Could it be that he maybe had more than one Art and he stacked them?"

Aina frowned for a moment before shaking her head.

"I don't think that's possible. All of his abilities seemed to fall under the same umbrella and were all related to the shadows. In addition, external Arts that fall under the Body Art category like this are still limited by the physical fitness of the person in question. With this person's level of constitution, it should be impossible for him to handle more than one etching without imploding."

Leonel raised an eyebrow, what exactly was Aina getting at?

"Where does the book say it's best to do the etching?"

"Well… It says that the best place is directly onto the heart, but that's next to impossible. Its secondary suggestion was to compensate for lack of quality with size and draw as large of an etching as possible. So… The back."

"Can you…" Aina blushed slightly.

Leonel understood her instantly and went over to Pierre's corpse. Holding down his feelings of discomfort, he flipped the latter onto his back and ripped his robes apart. He believed that Aina most definitely had a good reason for asking him to do this.

But, he was stunned to find that there wasn't a single scar on Pierre's back. In fact, it was so pale that one could even see greenish blue veins pumping with the last of his life force.

Leonel tilted his head in confusion. 'Maybe he couldn't handle drawing such a large Art so he drew on a lesser body part?' He thought to himself.

"… It's as I thought…" Aina's voice interrupted his words to himself. "… Someone studied Pierre's awakened ability and converted it into a Force Art, allowing it to be passed down, in part, to others…"

Hearing these words, Leonel was left speechless.