85. Escaped

Rain hears the man climbing closer to the tree hole, where he is sitting and hurriedly looks at the memory of how to hypnotize someone. There were many methods, but even the easiest way was not guaranteed to succeed. There was no time for him to learn other methods, so he could only try this one. He spread his soul power around his one-meter range, projecting the message that there was no hole, only tree bark.

He felt the man coming closer. First, he saw the man's hair, then his eyes. The man checked, and finding nothing, he descended. The tree hole was located on the highest branch, and the upper branches were too thin to support a person's weight, so the man did not climb higher.

Rain watched in bated breath as the man disappeared, hearing the three men speaking as they failed to find anyone on their respective trees and decided to check other trees. After some time, their footsteps and voices grew distant, and Rain sighed in relief and started breathing, Rain himself did not notice that he was holding his breath. Rain thought happily that his hypnosis had been successful and the first time.

Rain knew that if another human came to check, he couldn't be sure he would successfully hypnotize them. He reviewed the boy's memory for stronger hypnotizing methods and found that all of them required time and practice to cast.

He then turned his attention to practicing the next realm after the Shadow Crown realm—the Phantom Crown realm. In this realm, alchemists could create phantom illusions that ordinary people could not distinguish from reality unless they touched them. Rain felt that if he could break through to the Phantom Crown realm, his chances of remaining hidden and escaping would increase. He tried to understand how to break through to this realm and discovered he only needed to invest more soul power to stabilize the faltering shadow crown.

Rain thought this would be easy for him, as he now had three souls and could use every ounce of soul power from the other two bodies. He invested the soul power of his current body into the crown. When that soul power diminished to 60 percent, he switched to using soul power from the radiation world soul.

After some time, Rain felt his awareness expand. He could now sense a 10-meter radius around him with his soul power, and the crown stabilized and stopped absorbing his soul power. He gradually stopped investing soul power into the crown, and once he completely ceased, he observed it. The crown felt much more stable, and he could sense the vitality rule he understood emanating from it. 

Rain thought Alchemist's way starts with the practice of the soul. which is a novel experience in both the Radiation world and Star Immortal Word the practice starts with the physical body. 

Rain thought the Alchemist's way may help him with the third realm of the immortal way if he could practice the immortal way but he did not have a spirit body. From the book left to him by Yuxin, the third realm of immortal practice is the base realm, the base is to construct a base inside the soul space similar to the Alchemist's way of forming the crown inside the soul space.

Rain then reviewed the method for performing phantom illusions. There was only one method: understanding the structure of what he wanted to create. The deeper the understanding, the more real the illusion would be. Rain used his soul power to feel the structure of the tree bark, then blocked the hole by creating an illusion that matched the bark.

Now he had to wait and hope they wouldn't recognize the illusion until the slavers left the ravine and stopped searching for him. While waiting, Rain checked the memory for the next realm after the Phantom Crown realm—the Virtual Crown realm.

After observing how to break through to the Virtual Crown realm, he sighed in disappointment. To reach this realm, he needed to write his understanding of the particular rule and then spread it among people to gain their belief and make them understand his theory and when the people start to believe his theory.

He will start obtaining their belief. Once he accumulated enough belief power, he could break through to the Virtual Crown realm.

He couldn't spread his theory in the elven or human kingdoms, 70% of humans are ruled by the God of Light and Fire and are hostile to alchemists and the God of Alchemy. The tree spirit race worshipped the God of Life and Plants, and although they were not hostile, they restricted the spread of alchemists' written papers explaining the rules of the world as the Tree Spirit's Priest considered blasphemy as according to them everything in the world is the gift of God.

His only option was to travel south and cross the Poisonous Swamp to reach the City of Freedom, the territory of The God of Alchemy. The God of Alchemy did not require faith, but Rain didn't know why; in Glenn's memory, his father did not explain the reason.

Rain then found a memory of the boy's father telling him stories about the City of Freedom and how alchemists practiced there. The boy's father had hoped he would go with him to the City of Freedom and become an alchemist. The city was a place where alchemists could spread their truths. 

Every month, the City of Freedom held an assembly where alchemists would present and defend their theory. If an alchemist provided sufficient evidence to support their theory, the city would spread it throughout its territory, and when people read, understood, and believed it, they would start believing his theory and start admiring him, which indirectly led, to the power of belief to the particular alchemist. 

Hearing the boy's father's explanation in the memory, Rain likened it to publishing a scientific paper on Earth and proving its validity. This system allowed many alchemists to coexist in one place, as people could believe in multiple theories, and conflicts only arose when one claimed another's theory was false.

 Rain thought the God of Alchemy was a genius for creating a new practice method suited to this world that harnessed the power of people's beliefs. Despite the lack of energy in this world—no spiritual energy, radiation energy, or any other kind—Rain was certain there was extraordinary energy, as evidenced by the gods' existence and the tree spirit priest's ability and Changer profession to perform magic granted by the God of Life and Plants to heal injuries and manipulate plants.

With nothing else to do, Rain meditated, as his body was in poor shape. The bleeding from his injuries had stopped, but he was suffering from hunger, thirst, and tiredness. He couldn't sleep, as he needed to maintain the illusion, so he meditated and recalled the boy's father explaining how alchemists understood the world's rules.

After listening to the explanation of Glenn's father in Glenn's memory, Before becoming an Alchemist there is only one way to understand the rules of the world is similar to Earth's scientists and researchers who discovered the rules of Earth and after becoming an Alchemist there is another way is to use the power of the soul to perceive the rules of the world. 

His attention was broken by the sounds of wildlife returning to the ravine. When the slavers had been searching, the animals had been silent. Their sounds resumed, and Rain opened his eyes to find darkness outside the tree hole.

He realized the sun had set, so he removed the illusion and grimaced in pain as he climbed out and stood on a branch. The moon's brightness competed with five stars in the night sky, casting light across the forest canopy, though it did not reach the ground.

Rain extended his soul power to scan for any living beings near the tree's base. Finding none, he climbed down. Now at ground level, he continued to monitor for water while cautiously moving through the ravine.

Whenever he encountered wild animals, he circled or hypnotized them if necessary, which was easier now that he had reached the Phantom Crown realm. Eventually, he found a creek, but animals were already drinking from it. Rain hypnotized them and drank his fill, resisting the urge to overindulge.

He then searched for food. Hypnotizing and using illusions made it easier to hunt animals, but starting a fire to cook would create smoke and potentially alert the slavers if they were still nearby. He settled for berries and fruits he recognized as safe.

Rain now had to decide whether to spend the night in his hiding spot or leave the ravine and head toward his village. After some thought, he decides to leave, unsure if the slavers are still around and if they again canvas the ravine and carry out their plan to set fire to the forest inside the ravine.

He looked at the stars for direction and started walking west from Glenn's memory he found the village where Glenn lived with his mother in the west. After some time, he reached the top of the ravine and saw an endless forest stretching out before him, with tall trees touching the clouds.

At the center stood an enormous tree piercing the sky—the Life Tree, said to have been planted by the God of Life and Plants. The entire forest was the territory of the tree spirit race, and his village lay at its edge. Rain started walking toward the forest.