When I entered this place, I had a clear idea in mind; go to the palace of wonder quickly as possible and leave right after, but now my decision has changed, and it is making me feel guilty. My reasoning was to join the war as soon as possible, but after two months and observing many things, I now feel that staying further, at least till I make a breakthrough, would be a wise choice. While the Grimms may have hidden a huge force, the humans wouldn't lose against them; we have been fighting against them for thousands of years, and even if they came in as unending tired, we would still be able to hold them for quite a while. I have great faith in my race and those guarding it; even if the Grimms have brought a couple of Grand Lords, which I am very sure they are hiding, we will be able to deal with them. We have Lord Gatlin in hiding, and if he is able to practice that method, then he will be even more terrifying than he already was, but there is also someone in whom I had more confidence. It had been two months already; I am sure Rai would have broken through all three seals by now. I am very sure he did, which will give him the power of the Grand lord; he will be another trump card, not to mention there is a Lord Sylvian. He was planning on making a breakthrough into the Grand Lord and having the best chances among all the council members, but nothing is certain; it is a level of Grand Lord; if achieving had been so easy, they wouldn't have such a tiny number of them. It took me a while to clear my emotions, and I moved my gaze from the grey door to the blue door. Step! I did not wait further and stepped into the open blue door; there was no darkness; one moment, I was in the palace of wonders, and next, I found myself in the forest, the one covered in the faint mist. 'Forest of Nierafas; Get out before it gets you,' written on the board, and there was a map below it and the time I had to finish off the challenge, which was one day. Hun! I looked at it before taking a step forward and stopping immediately right after, with my expression becoming serious. "The mist," I immediately caught the strangeness of the mist, and a minute later, my eyes went wide when I understood what it was doing. I first thought it was a psychedelic like the one I had experienced in the ruin, but as soon discarded that thought. It is not psychedelic, but something more dangerous as it is only affecting my soul instead both soul and body, like the psychedelic in the ruin did. It is going to be hard dealing with this thing; thankfully, after my adventure into the psychedelic ruin, I have worked hard to upgrade my soul defenses. I have also been able to level up the soul method I was practicing; I hope these measures will be enough for me to deal with what will be coming to this ruin. I have most of my powers sealed, but it has happened so many times already that it did not affect me at all. I moved to the most suitable speed that I had calculated and also, at the same time, began to circulate the sou method at its top speed. The method seemed to be helping a lot, more than I had thought; more than 99% of the mist that came at my soul would be dealt with by it. Still, that did not make me any happy at all because I noticed as I walked further the mist is getting denser. I did not let that affect my mood; I kept walking, following the map; this time, I am not taking any help from my clone. I have handed it the responsibility of the inheritance, and it is working; I will not ask for its attention unless I really need its help. Three hours passed by, and the mist had become much denser; still, everything was quite visible, and I was not having any problem in following the map. Though the mist had started to affect me, and I did not like what it was doing to me. I would have preferred if it had given me hallucinations, I could deal with them, but I do not like having my thoughts slow down; it makes me feel dumber, and I am getting dumber by a second. I circulated the method faster and faster, trying to slow down the assault of the mist, but as the mist got denser, the effect of the mist was greater. Another hour had passed, and now I felt like a common person; my thoughts were slowing down so much that I was having a problem in circulating my method, but I gritted my teeth and continued circulating no matter how strenuous it felt. I have to bear it for two hours more; I have already crossed more than half of the distance, and in two hours, I will reach the end point. Another hour passed, and finally, my speed had slowed down; I had to do it to focus more on circulating the soul method. Concentrating on both of them is quite hard, especially with the complicated pathways of circulation the method has. My speed began to slow down till it reached the walking speed of a normal person. I wanted to move faster and reach the endpoint, which is quite close, but I could not; as stopping the circulation of the method will make the effect of the mist much stronger, I don't think I would be to walk for more than few minutes before the effect of the mist became so strong, that it will stop all my thoughts. 'Maybe I have been too fast,' I thought. It was a mistake on my part; I did not properly calculate the effect of the mist and continued moving at a fast speed. If I had been slower, I would have had greater time to adjust to the power of the mist; it wouldn't have come to me like a hammer. There is no use in crying over spoiled milk; I should be focusing more on circulating the method faster to resist the effect of the mist. I passed over the creek and bushes many times, and I nearly stumbled; it was the first time I realized the things I took for granted require quite a lot of thought power, and now that my thoughts are slowing down, it became a challenge to avoid simple stone or bush that is on the way. It became challenging to follow the map, and it hadn't been floating into my core, showing me the clear way; I wouldn't have been able to do it. Crack Once more, I had stopped myself from stumbling from the rock when suddenly, I heard a cracking sound; even my dumb mind was able to register its implication as my eyes went wide hearing the sound from my soul. Maybe, now thinking wouldn't be so damn difficult.