Victor walked back and forth in the house, his black eyes looking in different directions. He would close and open his eyes, sometimes starting to walk in another direction, even though he kept looking at the same spot in the space layer. There was no exact user manual for this, which led to these strange behaviors. However, after continuing for a while longer, Victor had an epiphany. He only needed to give simple commands in his mind, like "further ahead," and the real work was being done by the boat in his blood seed. This realization had saved him time.
This situation continued until the time approached one minute, and Victor kept playing like a child who had just received a new toy. He continued to try his luck this way, constantly searching the void with commands in his mind.
However, finding direction in the infinite void was another difficulty. He could only give random commands in his mind and had no choice but to hope to stumble upon something.
While Victor was in this state, he also noticed that the dark energy in the seed area was rapidly decreasing. In this state, the boat in his blood seed could hold him by consuming the dark energy. According to the rate at which the dark energy was being consumed, Victor's dark energy reserve would also hit rock bottom by the end of the minute.
So, he could maintain this state for a minute. With his current dark energy reserve, he could only hold on for a minute. Towards the end of the minute, Victor had almost lost hope.
However, just as the one-minute time limit was about to expire, Victor suddenly felt something different in that infinite void. Before Victor could fully see what it was, he quickly turned towards it with a moment of excitement and completely focused his spiritual sense on it.
Without thinking too much, he instinctively made a decision and took control of the boat's hook with his spiritual sense. Although these events would take a long time to explain, they happened within a second because he didn't have much time left.
He controlled the hook with his spiritual sense to throw it towards that thing and quickly caught it. After the catching process was successful, a smile briefly appeared on his face, but he quickly restrained himself. Victor began to do his best to pull that thing towards him with his spiritual sense. As that thing was constantly being pulled towards Victor with the hook, it felt as if its weight was increasing. However, he knew that this was an illusion caused by the increasing pressure on his spirit.
Seconds later, when that thing completely appeared in Victor's room, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. He was drenched in sweat. His dark energy reserve had completely bottomed out, and he had also used his spiritual sense excessively. Meanwhile, the dark blackness of his eyes slowly began to fade and returned to normal.
The imaginary hook thrown from the boat also disappeared as if it had never existed. It was as if these were all illusions, but the thing that had been brought out of the void and was now additionally present in the room proved that they were not.
Victor sat on the floor and took a few minutes to breathe and rest. During this time, he looked at the thing in the middle of the room and thought.
The thing in the middle of the room was a wooden box. The wooden box was not very large. With 10x5 sides and 5 cm in height, it was a normal small box. Despite the void environment, its surface was not very damaged; only some parts were rough and had marks.
Victor didn't immediately approach the box as it stood in the middle of the room. This time for thought was for that reason. It was clear that this wooden box floating in the void was no ordinary thing. An extraordinary wooden box likely had a protection mechanism. Even if it didn't have one, thinking as if it did wouldn't cost him anything. On the contrary, if it really existed and he acted as if it didn't, he would lose a lot.
Victor had clearly thought about something. After resting a bit, he slowly stood up. First, he closed the windows and curtains. He quickly went outside the house and didn't forget to lock the back door. He quickly headed towards the woodshed behind his house and searched through it until he found two straight, thick branches.
When he found the branches, he would straighten them a bit with the axe and then go back into the house. However, something unexpected would delay that process a bit. He saw Uncle Muhtar coming towards his house from a distance. Victor panicked for a moment. That strange wooden box was still in the middle of his house.
Victor grabbed the branches from the woodshed and immediately rushed into the house, deciding to open the door and quickly push the wooden box under his bed with the branches. However, he hit his head twice and gave up on this idea. Muhtar, who had developed up to the initial body stage, would have already developed enough to release his spiritual sense, and he would notice the wooden box under the bed the moment he entered.
The wooden box didn't give the impression of being anything special from the outside, but Victor didn't know what kind of anomaly would occur when controlled with spiritual sense. This was because his spiritual sense had not yet developed enough to expand outwards; it was only used within his body. Controlling the hook through the boat was entirely the act of using the tiger's skin. The boat was doing all the main work, and Victor's spiritual sense was only used for guidance.
As Victor was thinking about what to do, he realized that he didn't have much time left; Muhtar would arrive at his house within a few minutes. Finally, he took the wooden box between the two branches and quickly went out the door again to go to the woodshed. He stealthily made his way towards the woodshed and placed the wooden box next to the woodpile.
He quickly began to pile thick logs on top of it from the woodpile. It didn't even take him a minute to quickly throw wood up to half a meter high on top of the box. He also came to the front of the woodshed, took the axe, and began to swing it a few times as if he were chopping wood from the logs. While the sound of the axe continued, Muhtar had reached Victor's door at that moment. He knocked on the door several times and waited in front of the door for Victor to come out.
Victor filled his arms with the wood he had cut and came out of the woodshed to greet Uncle Muhtar. Uncle Muhtar, seeing Victor coming out from the back of the house with firewood in his arms, immediately greeted Victor.
"What kind of firewood is this in the middle of the day, you brat? Can't you find any work, wasting time with firewood?" Victor just smiled and replied, "The solstice is near, Uncle Muhtar. I will cut all the wood in the woodshed and carry it home. I will cut extra wood and refill the woodshed."
This was a reasonable answer. Usually, villagers would bring the old and dry wood remaining in the woodshed closer to the house near the solstice and burn that wood first. While they continued to use this wood, the new and undried wood would continue to dry in the woodshed, and when the dry wood in the house ran out, the wood in the woodshed would also have started to dry. So, there was no problem in the logic.
Uncle Muhtar accepted without insisting further. Apparently, he hadn't suspected anything. Victor told Uncle Muhtar that the door was open and asked him to open the door and go inside. Uncle Muhtar didn't make Victor wait any longer and opened the door and went inside. Victor followed Uncle Muhtar inside with the firewood and placed it in the empty space near the stove. Uncle Muhtar had already sat down on the old armchair in the house.
Victor was a little embarrassed because he had nothing in the house to offer Uncle Muhtar as a guest. He could only shyly ask if he wanted water. Uncle Muhtar must have understood that the young man was embarrassed because he pretended to be angry and said, "What is it, brat? Are you embarrassed by me? Am I not a local of this village? Don't I know the conditions of the village?" Victor didn't know what to say and couldn't answer. Uncle Muhtar didn't embarrass the young man any further.
He said he had come to find out what he was doing. It wasn't exactly a special visit. During Uncle Muhtar's time, he had taken some interest in everyone who had received the basic breathing technique from him. After all, they were from the same village, and a little help wouldn't hurt. Human relations appear everywhere, and Uncle Muhtar was aware of this. However, this naturally varies from person to person, and Uncle Muhtar hadn't lived all these years for nothing. He also had his own criteria for evaluating people.
Victor had approached him respectfully and had a desire to learn. He knew how to talk to people and knew when to show respect. This attitude had also impressed Uncle Muhtar, and he had said an extra word or two to him compared to other people. Now, he had come to see him and check on his situation. In fact, he had already checked on Victor with his spiritual sense and realized that he had already formed his blood seed.
However, he didn't know how large the inner space was. After all, the inner space of the seed was considered a different realm, and spiritual sense was not all-powerful.
When Victor heard this, he was grateful and told Uncle Muhtar about his experiences, although what he told was a rather trimmed-down version. He was not someone who didn't know the importance of protecting himself. It was foolish to tell everyone his trump cards. Victor knew this. He described his seed area as being the size of a walnut, the second boundary. This size was exactly right—neither too bad nor too good, exactly the profile of an ordinary person.
Muhtar seemed genuinely happy about this and said a few things to Victor as if he saw a bright future for him, but it wasn't difficult to understand from the change in his face and speech that he had already given up hope for him.
This was also normal; human relations should benefit both parties, and relationships with ordinary people were bound to turn into one-sided feeding. What intelligent person would want such a thing? Muhtar had developed himself up to the initial blood realm, and it was even more unnecessary for him to have a relationship with an ordinary person. For him, only men who could reach his level could earn the right to have a real relationship with him. Ordinary people like Victor would eventually be eliminated.
After this dialogue, Muhtar urged Victor to work hard. He mentioned a few problems and what he needed to do, but he didn't give too many details. A few small hints wouldn't hurt, even if he was ordinary.
After a few more casual conversations, he didn't stay any longer and got up to leave Victor's house. Meanwhile, Victor acted as if he had benefited greatly and was waiting for him to say a few more words, constantly agreeing and never interrupting Uncle Muhtar while he was speaking. He would answer if asked something and maintained his respectful demeanor. Life was a role-playing game, and even though Victor was not as physically strong as Uncle Muhtar, as someone living his second life in these small games, he was not one to be underestimated.
Uncle Muhtar left the house without lingering any longer and slowly began to walk away. Victor finally breathed a sigh of relief. Contact with Uncle Muhtar might keep him away from many wrong paths, but having someone like him, who had opened his spiritual sense, around him constantly was not a good thing for Victor. After all, he had a secret, and he was not strong enough to judge people's hearts.