Invisible man?

Hugo once again felt a connection, this time with the 'Rank-2 Dark-Hypnosis spell' and the 'Rank-1 Levitation spell' spell inscribed on the fresh page.

"Oh my God! I can activate the other spells too!" Hugo exclaimed; his emotions bubbling with excitement.

He extended his hand and touched the 'Rank-2 Dark-Hypnosis spell', but alas, there was no reaction. The same happened when he replicated the procedure by trying to activate the second spell.

"Why?" Hugo wondered as he scrutinized the contents of the page further.

[I should be able to activate the spell. The trigger must differ from that of the cloak… How about trying to visualize the structure of the spell?] Hugo deliberated before deciding to go on and experiment.

[I'll start with the Rank-1 spell. It should be the simpler to visualize between the two.]

Hugo meticulously recreated every detail, every vertex, every bend, and the whole image of the formless mat, woven with strands of blue energy.

His advanced and fortified soul allowed him to capture all the contents of the image without missing any details. In a matter of seconds, the whole structure of the spell was imprinted in his mind.

"Yeah… Yeah… Yeah…" he cheered.

After calming his emotions, Hugo sat cross-legged in the formless red space and restarted the Fibonacci-Breathing-Sequence while simultaneously visualizing the spell model that was the formless blue mat.

In a flash of blue light, the mat appeared before him in his spiritual world, looking a lot more vivid than before. Hugo started to feel a connection forming between his mind and the spell-model.

"Huh!"

As the link was about to complete, Hugo felt dizzy and the connection broke. He raised his head and saw the actualized spell image of the levitation mat disappearing in a puff of blue smoke.

He went on to try with the 'Rank-2 Dark-Hypnosis spell', but alas, he couldn't even build the spell-image within his spiritual world.

His mind was lethargic, almost to the point of being ejected from the spiritual world.

Hugo calmed down and first practiced the Psykhe-Mental-Exercise for a few minutes, before thinking about the spells.

"Why is this different from the 'Cloak of Thanatos'?" Hugo mumbled as he turned back to the previous page with the hooded skeleton.

Hugo could now confirm that the process of activating the levitation spell involved the constant visualization of its image to form a connection with the spell model. But that was entirely different from the activation of the cloak.

"Where is the difference?" Hugo mused as he examined the spell model of the Cloak of Thanatos imprinted in his mind and compared it to the one on the Grimoire's page.

"Aaah…" Hugo was struck by an idea.

[Maybe, I need to try casting the spell to experience its effects and figure out its traits.]

[Why didn't I do this before! Why am I so dumb?] Hugo inwardly grumbled as he exited his spiritual world through the imaginary door.

Once his mind was out of deeper meditation, he inspected his body and sighed after realizing that it was still immersed in the filthy tub-water. His body was entirely covered in a greasy substance that easily slithered off his skin.

"I should clean up first." He mumbled as he carefully stepped out of the pool; his movements slow and measured on account of Tracy's warning.

"Eehh!

Hugo didn't feel like he lacked control of his body when his feet touched the ground. It felt different from the first time he had jumped out of the tub.

[What was Tracy warning me about?]

[Does my advanced soul facilitate better control over this body and the energy it contains?] Hugo mused as he took a few more steps to confirm his hypothesis.

"The body is the vehicle, the soul is the pilot," Hugo mumbled as he exulted in the cumulative benefits of training his soul.

From Tracy's hints, Hugo suspected that it must usually be quite tough for a mystic to control his body right after advancement. However, he was experiencing the exact opposite.

"The strengthened soul. That's the cause." He mumbled as he wrapped a towel around himself and rushed off towards the bathroom.

In a few minutes, Hugo was done showering and had dressed in his signature black shirt and khaki trousers.

After making sure that the door was properly locked, Hugo sat cross-legged on his bed and sifted through the information about the Cloak of Thanatos.

"Time to try out the spell." He muttered; his tone laced with excitement as he summoned Infinitus to the physical world. The small red Grimoire materialized within his grasp. It was so unremarkable to the point of being mistaken for a small pocket dictionary.

Hugo calmed his mind; and quickly, as if by reflex, conjured the Cloak of Thanatos by visualizing the spell-model taking effect on his body.

At that instant, Hugo felt the Grimoire establish a connection to the astral plane.

"Sash… Sash…"

A swashing sound akin to the slithering of a snake reverberated throughout the attic, as a dark-gray mist materialized from the red Grimoire and coalesced around Hugo's body.

He could feel small strands of mana continually flowing out of the opened aorta and vena-cava mana channels in his esoteric body and descending into his physical body in the material world.

As more mana flowed, the gray mist congealed into a dense fog that engulfed Hugo's silhouette.

In a flash, the fog smothered the light around Hugo's body. It leached out all the visible colors around his form, turning everything invisible, and then vanished.

The fog had turned him invisible.

Hugo's mouth was agape as he waved his arms which could no longer be seen by naked eyes. Hugo was astonished and befuddled. He was carried away by the storm of his emotions, and completely dumbfounded.

"This is truly the invisible cloak of legend!" he exclaimed.

Hugo suppressed his bubbly emotions and settled to further examine the effects of the Cloak.

Hugo could intuit that the Cloak of Thanatos had other functions in addition to its invisibility. For instance, as he walked around his room, he could neither hear nor perceive any bit of sound from his footsteps despite how heavily he stomped.

"This is too prodigious, too divine, and too scary," Hugo muttered.

The Cloak of Thanatos seemed capable of shoving you into a space between realities so that you could not be perceived in any way at all. Yet you could spy on others at leisure like a legendary watcher silently observing the ignorant races of the Universe.

He sensed that the spell's taxation of the mind and the consumption of mana were quite minuscule. Hugo could feel that they were at the threshold of being ignored.

"With this, I will be able to actualize my dreams as soon as possible. What a godly spell" Hugo nearly yelled as he was giddy with over-excitement.

"Hugo! Are you done?" Tracy's voice could be heard beyond the door.

"I'm coming in." She added. And without waiting for his response, Tracy began to mysteriously unlock the door from the other side.

[Time to test the effects of this Cloak.] Hugo mused; his smile taking on a mischievous tilt akin to that of a contented goat chewing on cud.