Upon activating the relic, Eric closed his eyes and waited. He waited for a few seconds, when suddenly he felt that he was falling into darkness.
Eric remained calm and didn't panic. The feeling of falling quickly disappeared as Eric's dark vision slowly faded away, and he saw a whitish-grey fog around him.
The fog was very thick; Eric was even unable to see his own hands.
He felt a lot of emotions at that moment.
Anger, sadness, guilt, anticipation, nostalgia, happiness, joy, ecstasy, fear.
All these emotions jumbled up and gave Eric such an indescribable feeling.
Eric knew that he might not be able to feel something like this ever again.
Soon, the fog started to clear up. With its clearing, the emotions in him also started to subside and calm down.
Eric stopped feeling angry slowly as a red light shone somewhere in the fog.
Eric could see that it was very far away from where he was—a shining bright red ball in the distance toward the north-east side.
By the time he got what was happening, a blue orb formed toward the north-west direction, then a green one, orange, purple, white, black, dark green, and so on kept forming.
The more they formed, the more the fog dissipated, and the more the fog disappeared, the darker the color of these orbs became.
Finally, after what felt like forever, the fog completely dissipated.
What came into Eric's vision was a huge pink land.
There was a shining purple sun in the sky that was white with gray clouds floating around.
The purple sun shone brightly, making this land very luminous. Being in this burning land of the purple sun, Eric felt very calm and peaceful, as if all the problems in his life had faded away.
"Max…" He started to look around.
As far as he could see, pink soil covered the land.
There were small mounds around the entire place, and golden streams polluted by black water flowed around freely.
This was a beautiful scene, but when one looked at it carefully, they could feel a sense of depression and confusion coming from this place.
The place was very silent. If a pin were to be dropped here, it would resound around the entire place.
Eric carefully glanced around; he saw no living beings here. It was something to be expected. Unless one is highly aware of their feelings and is very emotionally strong, living beings will be unable to form in the domain of emotions at the Lysi Nova rank or below it.
These living forms, just like the place, signify the emotions and emotional state of the person in the present, changing according to the emotions the owner is feeling at that moment.
Thus, changes were expected here almost all the time.
After one advances to Hypernova, living forms will finally start to form; the quantity may differ, but they will be here.
In fact, if there were any living creatures, he would have been more on guard.
There are dangers in everything in this world; it also exists while entering the domain of emotions, even if it is yours.
That is because when someone sends their consciousness inside their domain of emotions using any method they have at their disposal, they commonly make a small hole in this inner realm for their consciousness to enter.
Except for Aura users of the Emotion Pathway, it is impossible to observe the state and changes in the domain of emotions without entering the domain of emotions.
After this hole is created, the Aura of emotions releases out and can attract emotion devourers.
They are pathway beasts of the Emotion Pathway, like those divine puppets that Eric had encountered while rescuing the kidnapped kids, which were pathway beasts of the Overseeing Pathway.
Pathway beasts come in all types and forms and feed on different things, having different powers and different methods to be killed, captured, or enslaved.
These emotion devourers also naturally come in all shapes, sizes, and forms. Upon sensing the Aura of emotions in the domain of emotions, they would come and try to enter the domain of emotions and feast on the emotions stored and formed in the domain of emotions.
As long as even one can get into a domain of emotions, they would have an endless amount of food. As long as they remain low and don't go all out, trying their best to hide, without specialized methods, they won't be found.
Their reproductive method was also quite interesting. They have no males or females; they are genderless. They have no stomach or digestive system and directly turn the emotions they eat into nutrition for their body.
After they eat a certain amount, they will be full but can eat more. If they eat more, then these nutrients would accumulate in their body, which, if kept growing by the eating of more food, this extra nutrition will form a baby and come out of their body, making a new emotion devourer.
The baby will naturally look similar to their parent if not completely like them. The baby's personality, likes, and dislikes are all decided by the average amount of emotions they were born with.
This is a vast topic, but Eric had always liked to know at least the basics of everything.
If a baby is formed from pure anger, they would be very aggressive, growling, and attacking everything. They would find it very hard to hide or make plans; they die prematurely due to conflicts with others.
If a baby is born from greed, they would be very crafty and envious, scheming against their own kin to snatch their food.
If a baby is born from sadness and guilt, they would cry a lot and find it hard to mingle with others. They are very good at hiding but horrible at social interactions; however, they can survive more easily than those born from anger due to having empathy and helping others, making them able to get food to eat to survive.
Naturally, these are just extreme examples. There are all sorts of combinations. When an emotion devourer gets ready to make a baby, they give a lot of attention to the emotions they devour and how strong they are and in what quantity, trying to make a baby that is good in all aspects.
Emotion Pathway Aura users can control the amount of Aura of emotions that would leak out of their domain of emotions when they open it, being able to lure and capture many emotion devourers, which they research on, rear them, make new combinations of babies, and even sell these in the market.
There was a huge market for the buying and selling of pathway beasts. After all, they were incredible forging materials.
The domain of emotions of an Aura user was the best place to rear these emotion devourers. The Emotion Pathway Aura user's state of domain of emotions, their knowledge, resources, methods, Aura, and uniquenesses all allow them to do so. Why wouldn't they do this?
These emotion devourers were actually way more intelligent than average types of pathway beasts that had been formed in them due to evolution after millennia of having to infiltrate domains of emotions.
They were all naturally crafty, being able to hide and skillfully infiltrate the domain of emotions.
Unless it had some special type of ability, they can't enter the domain of emotions without there being an opening.
Their intelligence, however, is still lower than that of angel spirits.
It was obvious when one looked at it.
Angel spirits could talk, make plans, and were conscious, while these emotion devourers were only good at what they had been doing for survival for countless years.
Aura users naturally attract emotion devourers, a rank lower than them. For example, if Eric had attracted some emotion devourers, they would at best be Auri Nova or Nova level. Unless it had huge amounts of strong emotions with a stable foundation, it wouldn't attract emotion devourers of the same rank as the user. Being able to attract a higher-rank emotion devourer was very rare; there had not been many cases of it in history.
Eric looked around but didn't see a single soul there. He didn't rest, though; he took out the round earring from his pocket. This relic had naturally come with him to the domain of emotions and could help him in here.
Eric wouldn't have taken this risk otherwise if it weren't for the availability of this relic.
He activated the relic that he had given to his consciousness before coming here. Using this, he was able to activate the relic. A dazzling black light with white stars covered the sky and expanded to every corner of the domain of emotions.
After a few seconds, the black light came back and entered the relic again. If there had been any intruder, the black light would have captured it and brought it to Eric.
Obviously, there can be some emotion devourer that was very great at hiding, or maybe of a higher rank than the relic. After all, the relic was just at Rank 4, aka Auri Nova rank. But Eric thought that it was highly unlikely. He was being protected by this relic; he would have felt something weird if there was an intruder.
He can't be this unlucky, right?
After some more checking, Eric gave up. If there was some intruder whom he was unable to find, he could only blame his bad luck and insufficient methods.
Looking down at this relic, Eric had an appreciative gaze. "If not for this relic, I would have had so much trouble by now. Edward lent it to me in just 300 contribution points. He was showing his sincerity through this."
Eric had also gained a lot of information about the domain of emotions from Edward as a bonus; it was showing its usefulness now.
When Eric felt this, he realized that from a certain part of the soil, a small pink orb with red patches had come out and was now floating in the sky.
Taking a sigh, Eric started to walk forward.
His goal was simple—to find his emotional persona.
Eric didn't need to search for long. This place may be huge, but he could clearly sense where his emotional persona was acutely.
Soon, he arrived at the side of a lake. This lake's water was clear as a mirror's surface, reflecting the hills it was surrounded by.
By the side of the lake, there was a small, tattered hut. The roof of the hut was made up of yellow branches; leaves and grass were full of holes. The walls of the hut had cracks, and it gave off a feeling that…
Looking at this small hut, Eric felt nostalgia and some sadness.
According to this, a colorful orb and a blue orb formed and started to float in the sky.
"This is the hut that Max and I stayed at after killing the person who saved us…"
Eric shook his head and stopped reminiscing.
He walked down the hill and soon reached the hut. There were signs of a person living around this place.
There was a burnt fireplace, dirty plates, and a cooking pot that had just been used.
Just as Eric was about to enter the hut after seeing all this, he heard the footsteps of a person behind him.
He quickly turned his head back and froze when he saw who it was.
He shouldn't have felt so surprised looking at his own emotional persona, but it looked quite different after all.
This emotional persona looked exactly like Eric (obviously) and wore simple clothes that were a little worn down.
However, the most striking change was that the hair and eyes of this Eric were not pink but white.
Looking at each other, they both were frozen in shock.
The emotional persona Eric had some yellow sticks in his hands, which fell down on the ground with a sharp sound as his hands flew to his mouth, gasping in shock.
"O-oh! Finally, my main body has shown up. I was wondering when you would come here."
Eric's brows furrowed. He plainly asked, "What do you mean?"
This emotional persona didn't answer his question and ran beside him, entering the hut and quickly taking out two bamboo seats.
He sat both of them down, sitting on the one that was closer to the lake while giving signs to Eric to sit on the other seat.
Eric didn't immediately sit. He first activated the Emotion Pathway relic and checked this emotional persona.
There was no problem; this one was the real deal. Eric's suspicion had grown after this emotional persona acted so differently.
But after some time, he felt that it was nothing illogical.
Emotion personas are the manifestation of a person's deepest and most true emotions, which are immediately made after an Aura user awakens and their domain of emotions takes form.
They are, in essence, a special existence that is a mixture of the person's deepest and truest emotions mixed with the universal power.
They live in the domain of emotions all their life and don't do anything. They can control the domain of emotions as the rank of the user increases. They will be even stronger if they were an emotional persona of an Emotion Pathway Aura user.
Eric had expected his emotional persona to be just like his, which he was physically, but in personality, he was very different.
This caused suspicion in his mind. Checking it to make sure that it wasn't a fake one. Obviously, even if it wasn't acting like this, he would have still checked.
This suspicion formed a dark brown orb.
This emotional persona blinked a few times. His eyes widened in shock, exclaiming: "As expected of my main body, you are truly a vigilant person."
He then gave a thumbs-up.
"It seems to be like this in the depths of my heart? A man-child who is expressive. I also seem to have been influenced a lot by Max."
After all this, Eric finally sat down on the bamboo seat opposite his emotional persona; he was closer to the hut with this.
"Would you like to eat something? Sorry, I had just eaten. The food is all gone."
"What do you eat here? There don't seem to be any animals here to eat in this desolate land?"
"I have made a field in a corner on the horizon of our domain of emotions. I was able to find some corn seeds and farm them. It takes most of my time. Luckily, I was also able to find this hut here too, making me able to sleep peacefully. Even though there is no night here due to the purple sun.
"I had been out for some days to find some sticks and grass to repair it, and when I returned, I saw you here. I had been wondering for I don't know how many years to see my main body's consciousness. Do you know how shocked I was!?"
The emotional persona spoke a lot, not hiding anything from Eric. He seemed like a young and innocent child who had no deviousness.
He explained most of the things by himself. Eric didn't even need to ask questions.
An emotional persona in normal situations is able to lie, but it will never lie to its main body about anything.
After gaining a typical understanding of the emotional persona's lifestyle and livelihood, Eric decided to finally start asking the main questions. He didn't have much time.
But right at this moment, Eric noticed something as his gaze shifted to the surface of the lake. He saw that there was a reflection of the bamboo seat, but there was no reflection of the emotional persona.
Seeing his gaze turn down beside him to the surface of the lake, he turned his head and looked toward the surface of the lake, which was calm and shining. Turning his back again, he said:
"If you are curious about it, you can try to see your own reflection; it isn't anything too big."
Eric looked at the emotional persona's innocent face and thought, "It seems that this emotional persona indeed does not know anything about my situation in the outside world. Otherwise, why would it advise me to try to see my reflection when I can't?"
Eric stood up and walked to the lake. He looked down in anticipation… nothing…
His figure only flashed for a second before turning blurry and disappearing.
Eric didn't feel anything during this, so no new orbs were formed.
Eric took a sigh before hearing the emotional persona's words: "I have named this lake 'The Lake of True Self'. It reflects the true self of anyone who looks at it. Unfortunately, it was just a fancy name I gave it. I couldn't know its real contents due to no one to experiment on, and with me unable to have my figure reflected on it. I was helpless. It is a normal lake for all I know."
Eric nodded at this and asked, "Do you know anything about the situation outside of here?"
The emotional persona shook his head: "No, I am unable to figure out the situation outside. I can only deduce the current emotional state of the main body after observing the types and quantity of emotions being formed here."
Be it the emotional persona of an Aura user of the Emotion Pathway or of any other pathway, once formed, they would gain some knowledge from the universal power about the domain of emotions and some basic methods like deduction of emotional state of the user through the production of emotions, how to handle the domain of emotions and survive, and some fragmented memories of their main bodies.
The only difference between the two is that the former gains much more knowledge and is more powerful and can control more territory of the domain of emotions, and much more easily at that, too, compared to the others.
Sitting on his seat again, he stared at the emotional persona's face, his cold gaze meeting the tender gaze of the emotional persona.
Without any fear, the emotional persona asked, "How is Max?"
"Max has been good."
The emotional persona nodded.
"I am going to cut straight to the chase now. I am here to ask you a single question that has been pestering me about increasing the rate of control over my Aura. Do you have an understanding of what it is?"
A light of pity flashed past the emotional persona's eyes as it looked at Eric. He took a long sigh and looked at the white sky. In there, he could see a small green moon that was rapidly corroding.
In the past, that moon had many cracks that were healing, but now? It was still healing, but had gotten corroded. It was very small; one had to pay great attention to even notice it.
But who was the emotional persona? It was the manifestation of this place; it had the highest authority here, and nothing could be hidden from him.
This question was a big one for Eric, which he had finally decided to confront.
He needed to grow faster; thus, he took this risk to come here and ask this emotional persona of his to deduce what he feels for his wife, actually.
If he and Ruby had spent a very short time with each other, he would not have been able to deduce anything, but Eric had stayed with Ruby for years now.
This emotional persona didn't need to deduce to know the answer; it already knew the answer, but it was hesitant to answer.
However, emotional personas can't lie to their main body.
He looked calmly at Eric's face as a gentle smile formed on his face.
He shook his head and said softly, "No."
Eric's eyes flashed with a look of disappointment before disappearing.
The small green moon in the sky immediately corroded, and the cracks that had been healing intensified. Dust came down, and the moon was destroyed.
A little tremor appeared, shaking everything on the ground, but neither Eric nor the emotional persona panicked.
The tremor quickly subsided.
Eric took a deep breath as he noticed that a lot of dark brown orbs had formed.
He didn't care about them.
Since he had gotten his answer, staying here was pointless. He said his goodbyes to the emotional persona as he stood up.
His objective has finally been met. He had gotten the answer to his question; he could walk ahead and make many decisions without hesitation. The future was bright now.
The emotional persona didn't get up from the seat as he waved his goodbyes with a slow wave of his hand.
"Let me send you off."
The emotional persona said as he opened the entrance of the domain of emotions, allowing Eric's consciousness to leave freely.
Eric was staring at the place as he floated up into the sky.
Suddenly, Eric looked at the side of the lake again, and his eyes widened in shock.
He saw a person standing by the lake; his reflection was reflected in the calm lake. He wore a pink bodysuit, and his hair was pink. He was Eric!
Eric turned his head as he looked at Eric leaving. A smile formed on Eric's face, whose eyes were rose pink instead of being heterochromic!
Eric wanted to stay, but before he could even think, he was ejected.
Eric returned to reality. Looking around, he was still on the stool beside the window of his bedroom in the apartment they were living in.
Eric still felt lingering shock and fear, but he quickly calmed down when his gaze met the moon in the sky, mixed with his strong mental fortitude and the supplementary feelings from the sense of familiarity he got from being near Max. He quickly calmed down.
He could feel the control over his Aura slowly get up and stop at 65%. He had finally increased the rate of control of his Aura after so many years!
Eric almost wanted to cry.
This was just one of the many small steps that he will have to take in the future. But it didn't stop him from taking in the satisfaction of this small step.
Behind him, on the bed, Ruby stirred as her eyes opened and she looked at Eric, who was sitting on a stool beside the bed.
She said softly, her tone was very tired, "Eric…"
Eric looked at her and felt nothing. There was no confusion, no hesitation, no doubt, no nothing. There was not even a sense of loss.
He felt that a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
He smiled at her and tucked in beside her in the bed, whispering in her ear. The words made her body tremble and shudder even when she was half-asleep.
"I love you."