The sun rose from within the white clouds, bringing warmth to the world again. Birds gathered together and chirped, spreading their wings and flying off to find food.
These birds were free and enjoying their simple life.
Adrian's eyes flickered as the light of the sun fell on his face, waking him up.
Adrian's eyes slowly opened as he looked to his right and saw that Mr. Clown was standing by the window.
He was the one who removed the curtains.
Adrian groaned in annoyance. He was like any youth, not accustomed to waking up early on a Sunday morning.
"Mr. Clown, good morning. Why did you have to wake me up so early?... Wait, did you not sleep?"
Adrian had stayed up late last night reading about the domain of emotions. He had learned a lot due to that, but he was still far from reading the entire thing. Not only that, but due to his being able to read only because of Mr. Clown's Fooling Aura, he was unable to comprehend any knowledge. He needed to revise again and again to learn it all and not forget it. If he had read it himself, he would have been able to learn it all in one read.
But alas, Adrian didn't even know the A of Ancient Lumenian.
He had to put in a lot of time, effort, and practice to learn this new language.
"An Aura user should not slack and fall into sloth. I am protecting you out of duty here. What would you do after I leave? You should not complain and devote yourself to increasing your knowledge. Didn't you tell me last night that you had made a plan to wake up early every day and finish all the books quickly? Looks like my aura made you forget some stuff?"
Mr. Clown sighed and said in a plain tone. His hands were behind his back as he looked at the roads outside the window.
"Oh… yeah, I did," Adrian remembered that he had made a plan in his mind last night to wake up early every day and sleep late to complete these seven books as fast as he could, but to think that he forgot.
Adrian gritted his teeth and got up reluctantly. His head was heavy from lack of sleep.
After getting up from his bed, he stretched his body and went to the bathroom in his room.
As he grabbed the handle, he looked to the right at Mr. Clown and said, "No need to stalk me there, I will be fine."
Mr. Clown just nodded.
Adrian got in, walked up to the sink, and looked at himself in the mirror. After his awakening, he hadn't realized any physical changes to himself.
But now that he looked at himself, he found that his skin was much smoother and his face shone brightly. His physical constitution was much better as his headache disappeared and he felt at his peak.
There was no sensation of lack of energy, and his hearing, vision, smell, etc., had all improved.
Just as he was wondering about this all, Mr. Clown's voice resounded in his head.
"After an Aura user awakens, their body cleanses and changes, making them perfectly healthy. Their mind is developed and forms the world of consciousness and subconsciousness. Their heart forms the domain of emotions, making them much more emotionally stable. Some pathways, like the War Pathway or the Element Pathway, have uniquenesses which increase their body's constitution to a whole other level."
"So you were indeed spying on me!?" Adrian screamed as he looked at the closed door.
Mr. Clown didn't say anything and remained quiet.
Adrian quickly brushed his teeth, took a shower, and excreted all the waste out of his body.
He got out, walked down the stairs, and entered the kitchen. Lily had not woken up yet.
Adrian felt a little worried. He didn't know how to cook. Lily did all the cooking for him while the other housework was shared by both of them.
Mr. Clown, at that time, had also walked down and reached the kitchen. He looked around expressionlessly before letting out a chuckle.
"Adrian is too young and has lived in a stable environment on a peaceful planet. It is no wonder that he lacks so much understanding and skills," Mr. Clown thought.
He stepped forward and started to take out ingredients from the shelves. Adrian blinked at his sudden action.
Before Adrian could say anything, Mr. Clown spoke without looking back.
"Come, I will teach you how to cook. An Aura user should know these basic skills lest they get lost in some dangerous place all alone and have to kill huge pythons for food, or be stuck with limited resources like rotten eggs, saliva of monkeys, or meat of scorpions. You can at least cook without dying from starvation."
Adrian's brows furrowed.
"Just what experiences has Mr. Clown gone through?"
Despite his doubts and curiosity, he didn't ask him anything. He respected the man's wish and condition not to ask about his past when they first met.
Adrian walked to the kitchen slab and started to learn how to cook.
They didn't cook anything too appetizing, delicious, or complicated.
It was nothing more than a simple yellow omelette. Two pieces of them were made, one for each of them.
Adrian sliced the omelette with a knife as he put it in his mouth with a fork. The flavor exploded in his mind.
Mr. Clown had used some special sauce while making it. Now that the sauce had made this omelette have a strong taste of spice and sweet, but it was yin and yang, completely balanced, giving it a rich flavor.
Adrian looked at Mr. Clown, who was sitting opposite him at the dining table. He asked:
"What is this red sauce made up of? It tastes so good."
Mr. Clown finished eating the piece of omelette in his mouth as he looked up and said with a cheeky smile. His black eyes had a mischievous glint at this moment.
"Hmm… I don't quite remember it, but the main ingredient is the saliva of a hairy monkey and the poop of a muddy centipede."
Adrian's entire body froze. The fork that he was raising to eat another piece fell on the table. Adrian still had another piece in his mouth.
Adrian immediately spat out the piece he had in his mouth and started to cough.
Adrian was about to run off to the bathroom to wash his mouth when he saw that Mr. Clown had started to laugh loudly as he punched the table.
"Hahahahah! You really fell for it! You should have seen your face."
Adrian blinked in confusion before realizing that he had been lied to. What he had said before about getting lost in the jungle was also him leading his mind to imagine nasty stuff like that. This made his reaction even more entertaining, as Adrian had imagined it before and was already feeling disgusted.
Adrian gritted his teeth but didn't say anything. He scolded himself for falling for such a petty trick.
Mr. Clown slowly stopped laughing as he ate another piece and said, "This sauce is made from special spices from my village in Lumenia."
Adrian sat back down in his seat and started to eat again, but his expression was a little reluctant. What if Mr. Clown had said the truth the first time?
Oh my…
Despite that, he still finished the omelette with the red sauce.
After eating and filling his stomach, Adrian asked Mr. Clown, "You seem way too relaxed to be a bodyguard. What gives you such confidence?"
Mr. Clown looked at Adrian's face with a calm gaze as he said, "That is because I have set up a small domain around this house."
"Domain?"
"A domain is when an Aura user makes a small area covered with their aura through the continuous instillation of their aura in the surroundings. It takes a lot of time and effort. The higher the range, the higher the cost and time. If someone were to enter the house, I would feel it due to the law of aura symbiosis."
"What if the aura user is from a pathway that is synonymous with the Deceiver Pathway?"
"I would feel the resonance."
"What if it's a neutral one?"
"I would still feel the intruding waves in the domain. Anything that happens in this house can be felt by me. How did you think that I was able to sense what you were doing in the bathroom?"
After this, Adrian took the plates and put them in the sink before he and Mr. Clown walked back to his room on the first floor.
Adrian sat at the table and opened one of the seven books. This time, he decided to read the one titled: "Introduction to the Thirty Primary Pathways."
"I want to find out what the names of all the pathways are and their sub-pathways and what they are actually about, their weaknesses and strengths, especially my Apocalypse Pathway."
Adrian said this to Mr. Clown, who was sitting on his bed. He had a novel open in front of him. Mr. Clown got what he meant and took out a little of his aura, which he threw at Adrian. Soon, Adrian's body was drenched by the red liquid, which was naturally the Fooling Aura.
The Fooling Aura let itself into his mind, allowing Adrian to read Ancient Lumenian as, to him, every word was translated into a word of English.
Adrian opened up the book and started to read.
"Aura. What is it? It is the natural energy of the universe…"
Adrian read the first page and started to flip the pages. He did it until he reached the section where the names of the pathways and the sub-pathways were mentioned. The whole book was thicker than an adult's head. He just wanted to curb his curiosity right now.
"Sub-pathways of a pathway are the categorizing of a pathway's authorities and powers…"
Adrian's eyes lit up immediately when he reached the section that he wanted. He skipped the definition for sub-pathways and went straight to reading the sub-pathways of:
The Overseeing Pathway:
• Fate Pathway
• Destiny Pathway
• Entertainment Pathway
The Boundless Pathway:
• Space Pathway
• Void Pathway
• Journey Pathway
…
The Dimension Pathway:
• Layer Pathway
• Parallel Pathway
• Dwelling Pathway
…
The Quantum Pathway:
• Property Pathway
• Ability Pathway
• Atom Pathway
The Energy Pathway:
• Force Pathway
• Transfer Pathway
• Disruption Pathway
…
The Birth Pathway:
• Reproduction Pathway
• Pregnancy Pathway
• Fluid Pathway
…
The Mind Pathway:
• Consciousness Pathway
• Will Pathway
• Therapist Pathway
…
The Deceiver Pathway:
• Illusion Pathway
• Manipulation Pathway
• Masquerade Pathway
After reading all the other pathways' names and sub-pathways, Adrian finally reached his pathway.
The Apocalypse Pathway:
• Luck Pathway
• Chance Pathway
• Disaster Pathway
This was already known to Adrian, but he still felt a little relaxed and excited. There was knowledge about all the pathways and examples of them, but he ignored them for the moment.
"Now, I should read it all thoroughly."
With that, Adrian went back to the first page and started to read with full focus.