Jinsung Ha.(1)

Noticing how much he damaged Iniesta with his telepathy, Erik reeled in his power and tried releasing his thoughts once again into her mind as slow as possible.

'It's me, Iniesta. Let's just say something...happened to me along the way. It's a little hard to explain.'

Iniesta had a strange expression on her face as she listened to his words reverberating in her mind. She had trusted Erik with her life but this new feeling of...invasion was frightening. If he could infiltrate her mind that easily, then there would be nothing that could be hidden from him.

'I hope he doesn't find out about the L-'

'Find out about what?'

Iniesta's eyes opened wide as she stared at Erik's featureless white face in shock. She wanted to hit herself when she realized that she didn't think about the fact that if he could project his thoughts into her mind, what's stopping him from also reading it? It was the obvious natural progression.

A small smile gradually appeared on her face as she said, "Find out about me looking for souvenirs to send to my family instead of looking for a light-bearer, hehe...I'm sorry."

Since his face was now featureless, Iniesta couldn't tell how Erik was going to respond or how he felt. She knew he hated when his orders were disobeyed but he usually never punished her. This time though, something just felt odd. A bad feeling kept creeping up in her stomach as time slowly ticked by.

'Is that so?'

Erik's response was calm and it felt incredibly cold. Iniesta knew something was wrong but she couldn't figure out how to respond to that. All these developments were just too new to her.

'It's fine, Iniesta. I've found two members who could be of use. So let's go inside.'

Erik walked past her as if nothing happened and proceeded leisurely inside the base with the two bodies in tow. Immediately suppressing her thoughts, Iniesta got up from the ground, took a deep breath, and followed Erik without saying a word. From that day on, something seemed to change within him.

[A week later.]

CLANG! CLANG!

A metal halberd fell to the floor as a long-haired young man flew across the room, hitting the wall with a loud bang. A white-haired, dark-skinned woman stood in front of him with an old worn-out spear standing at her side, looking down at him with a cold gaze.

"Is that the best you can do, Muzan? Since you can't become a light-bearer, you need to try your best to completely embody the spear bearer and scout roles. Pick up your weapon and let's continue!"

Muzan gritted his teeth, struggled to his feet, ran to his halberd, and continued battling against Iniesta, who was becoming increasingly frustrated with Erik day by day. Since he returned in his new form, he had only said one command to her many days ago.

"Train Muzan until he's worthy of standing with us. You have a year. After then, we'll start heading to the 30th floor for the upcoming workshop battle."

After saying that, Erik took Yanra with him and never contacted her or answered her calls for the last week. This wasn't like him. Coupled with the fact that he had seemed to figure something out when he heard her thinking about her secret made her extremely uneasy. She couldn't focus on her task at all and Erik's silence was deafening.

'Dammit!'

Muzan was barely managing to defend himself as Iniesta's strikes were getting more and more brutal. He could barely keep up with her usually but now that she was getting frustrated, her attacks became even stronger.

The worst part about this whole situation for Iniesta was the fact that she couldn't even think about the problem. She had no way of knowing if Erik was still lurking in her thoughts, waiting for her to slip up completely this time. She felt like a prisoner in her own body.[A/N: That last sentence could mean something completely different depending on who you ask.]

While Iniesta was training Muzan, Erik was in a completely different room with two figures standing in front of him. One was a middle-aged man casually sucking a lollipop and the other was an average-looking young woman with long black hair wearing a tight black training suit. In front of her was a floating red cube that she seemed to be struggling to manipulate as beads of sweat ran down her face.

*pop*

Jinsung Ha, the middle-aged man, calmly removed the lollipop from his mouth and said, "Erik, I'll be honest with you. This girl has no talent, her looks are average and her intelligence is the same. Her only chance is for her to become an assassin because of her unassuming looks but she's an embarrassment physically. Her becoming a light-bearer is almost impossible. So what use is she?"

Erik continued inspecting Yanra's aura since he couldn't see normally anymore and saw how weak it was. Even the scientists that worked in the base had stronger auras and they barely did any physical activity. But even so, Erik wasn't about to just give up as time was running out for the workshop battle. He knew that Yanra was incredibly weak but what he was looking for wasn't strength, but loyalty and determination.

Through her loyalty to Muzan, Erik was almost sure that the girl wouldn't break her word in fear of them harming him. In high-stress situations, she might prioritize Muzan's safety, but if that habit became too detrimental to the team, well, telepathy gives access to powers some might consider...unnatural. That problem could be fixed easily.

'Mister Jinsung, everything you said was the truth, but still, I believe I can 'fix her.' With my help, I can turn her into something worth training. I just need to adjust to my new abilities...'

Even though he had heard Erik's voice many times in his mind, the experience was still a bit jarring. Luckily, the only reason Erik could enter his mind so easily was that he let him. It seemed that he couldn't just project his thoughts into the minds of those stronger than him. Of course, that was only speculation on Jinsung Ha's part.

As he processed Erik's words, a warm smile appeared on his face while he walked up to Erik and folded his right fist, laying it on Erik's forehead.

"Well, let me help you re-adjust. We haven't sparred in a while and I'm curious about how much stronger my student has gotten. Hm, let's start off with something basic...floral piercing technique."

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A/N: Sorry for the kinda boring chapter this time around fellas, we'll get back to the action and battles on the next one. By the way, some of you may be wondering where is Muzan's reaction to being in a whole new world after being in a secular kingdom his whole life. Don't worry, I didn't forget, I'll have an arc where I focus on him so we can get to develop his character.