Mind Demon's Path of Domination

Many days had passed since Yuri became a Hunter. Nearly a month.

Currently, Mark and Yuri were standing at the top of a tall tower that overlooked a majestic city alight with festering city lights at the dark-time of night. The wind buffeted their clothes, and Yuri's black hair floated back gently.

Both of them swirled a wineglass in their hands. The moonlight illuminated their faces.

"Do you think I would die if I jumped off this tower?" asked Yuri, looking downwards.

Turning, Mark looked at her weirdly, then gauged her strength.

=•=

[Hakase Yuri]

[Tier 2]

[Physique: 233 (Below Low)]

[Mind: 233 (Below Low)]

[Hunter Ability: Shadow Curse]

[Resistance: Shadow Resistance]

=•=

She was already stronger than him, but he didn't think she could survive a jump from all the way up here; not without an injury at the very least.

He shook his head. "I am not really sure but don't try. I mean, if you had Physical Resistance, this would be a simple deal but you as you are, will probably be hurt pretty badly even if you survived the fall."

Yuri shook her head. "Sadly, I don't have the Physical Resistance you demons do. I wish I did, too. I could have jumped from here then."

"Who do you even want to jump?" He smiled. "Don't tell me, are you so afraid of the mission next week that you are becoming mad?"

Yuri shrugged. "Just curious, I am a scientist for a reason. I wonder things randomly. My body is so strong now I accidentally broke a building's wall yesterday, so would I really die id I fell?"

Mark just smiled and looked at the moon, leaning against the railing.

A long silence later, he asked: "What are you thinking of now?"

"Hm, now?" She mused. "I am thinking, 'Even though I have this Shadow Curse ability, I myself don't really understand how it works, and that irritates me a lot.' It's like I have a gun and a trigger within me but I don't know how the mechanics of the gun functions."

"Yeah, that's pretty irritating indeed," Mark said, chuckling. "I'd be mad too if I didn't know what kind of spring was inside the gun's pipes."

"I mean I know the basics of how the 'magic' works already but it still sucks. The bullet for this ability is my Mindpower, as you explained to me once, and I wouldn't be able to use the gun if I lacked that. That much is clear. But how can Mindpower do this? What kind of Energy is it? Why does everyone have it?"

She shook her head and stretched her arms. "I am itching to delve deeper into this magical science but I can't even see the first step of it. Maybe, I am just good in normal science and bad in everything else—I feel like an idiot. This magic thing's so foreign, and so weird. Maybe I am a... monkey in some things, too."

Mark raised his wine glass at the moon.

"Two roads diverged in the yellow woods, and I took the one less traveled by. Nobody has been a Hunter and a Scientist at the same time before you—you are creating a path of your own, milady, it's surely going to be hard."

Hearing the words, Yuri grew speechless for a second but then smiled wryly. "Indeed, I am not even allowed to complain in my situation. For normal science, I have been following a thousand-year legacy; old scientists built the stage for me before I was even born. But now, I am the trailblazer for my own path.

Of course, it's gotta be harder, but that makes it all the more interesting for me to understand."

"You like understanding the unenderstandable, don't you?"

"It's unraveling the mysteries of the universe, and that's just something that makes me happy."

"I see."

"That was a nice poem by the way."

"I stole it from a poet from my world."

"Demons even write poems, unbelievable."

"Well, don't mind that. So what do you think about the whole ability thing and Mindpower?"

"Hm, in actuality, I can't even sense what Mindpower truly is, I just know that it exists within me because you told me it does and because my Hunter Ability doesn't work once it gets exhausted. I know it is used as fuel for my ability. That's it. I can't even sense it, not to mention control and understand its nature.

What is it, why do I have it, and how is Mindpower converted into the effect that the ability provides? I don't know any of that."

Mark frowned. "I've never thought of it that way. Indeed, I, too, have Mindpower, and all my demonic tricks use Mindpower as fuel but I only care about it if I don't have enough of it to perform my Tricks. Otherwise, it's pretty much as if it never existed in the first place."

If it was a part of himself like the [Physique] stat was, why can't he control the [Mind] like he controls his hands and feet?

Was the Mindpower thing so rigid that it only worked if he used it to turn on his existing demonic tricks?

Could he move the Mindpower in unique ways to create his own demonic tricks or something along those lines?

Knowing the only person who could answer him, Mark immediately turned inwards. This was an interesting vein to think on, and might even help him evolve down the line.

"Reol'ran, why can't I directly control my Mindpower? I can't even truly sense it. It's just there and I know it but that sounds too passive, doesn't it?"

"Oh, that's a good question." Reol'ran didn't answer the question for a while but chuckled at him, "Yuri is way more intuitive and clearheaded than you are, you know that? You just noticed it when she said it and she noticed it in just weeks since becoming a Hunter."

"Don't blame me, she is a fucking scientist and I was just a normal average person before I reincarnated, what do you expect?" Mark grumbled.

"You have a long, long way to go Mark. But I believe in my fiance as much as I believe in myself. Just don't be discouraged or killed and we can go far. We won't be like those other people who would be satisfied with what they have; birds with clipped wings. Our ambitions, both mine and yours, go way further than this littleness.

"Me and you, we both are completely unwilling to settle for mediocrity and I like that a lot about you."

He paused.

Honestly, he still didn't know what kind of person Reol'ran truly was. All he knew was that she believed herself to be his fiance and that she had a very exotic history. She was also straightforward and sincere. Now he knew one more thing about her; she was ambitious and unwilling to settle for mediocrity. Very bold, too, since she had the guts to tell her True Name to him.

"So, what is Mindpower, tell me," he said.

Reol'ran smiled. "Come into your Soul Space, I will show you something. It's an interesting phenomenon."

"Yuri, I'll blank out for a bit."

Yuri raised her wine as a show of acknowledgement; she was thinking.

Mark sat down on the railing and let his legs hang out through the bars toward thin air. He closed his eyes; his world fell into darkness. Through the darkness, he traveled into a different space, a different dimension, a dimension of his own.

His Soul Space.

A dark expanse with lights rotating ever-so-slowly, silently, in the distance.