The Cursed Extra: Twin Souls Against the World

Xane looked at Xenor and stopped thinking about all his suspicions.

It wasn't like confirming any of it would change anything. It wasn't like he was planning to change his mentor anyway, so he decided to focus on the hex arts.

He didn't have to think much as he asked, "Sir, so there are different small worlds out there. Can I choose any of them?"

Zayn asked in confusion. [Why ask this when I already told you that?]

Xenor shook his head. "Nope. You're limited to the world with the same element as your hex core. In your case, you have to choose a world with the chaos element," Xenor said, the last part with a shine in his eyes.

So it was the same as Zayn said, but Xane noticed that, for some reason, Xenor was a bit excited about his element.

Perhaps he was after a student who could summon chaos-element creatures.

He looked down at the paper in his hand and asked, "In that case, sir, the intention of this hex art in my hand should allow me to travel to one of those small worlds?"

Xenor shook his head. "No, my student. That is an impossible task."

Xane tilted his head. "Then?"

Xenor got up and walked to the other wall, which had a bunch of shelves filled with stacks of paper.

Xane watched in confusion as Xenor waved his hand to the side of the shelf.

He suddenly heard a metal creaking sound. Before he could understand anything, the heavy-looking metal shelf suddenly flew up to the ceiling.

Xane looked at the entire scene with wide eyes as he saw a small platform rise a few inches above the ground.

Unaffected by all of this, Xenor just walked up onto the platform and waved to him. "Come, stand next to me. Also, keep that hex art with you."

Xane gulped and moved onto the platform.

As he stepped onto it, he looked up at the base of the metal shelf.

Both of them were now standing directly beneath that massive metal frame.

If, for any reason, that shelf fell, it would crush both of them, not just to death, but to pulp.

Not caring about any of that, Xenor just slammed his foot on the platform.

Just then, Xane started to feel it moving down slowly.

Zayn marveled in his mind, [Fck, this is some weird metal maze shit.]

Xane shared the same feeling. But what surprised him was that this platform was more like the elevators he was used to in his past life.

It was just that this elevator had a base platform, and the hole they were going through had metal walls, so it gave the same illusion.

Also, the base below them started shining, making the surroundings a bit brighter.

As they slowly moved down, Xenor pointed at the hex art in Xane's hand. "You see, Viyron, the intention of the hex art in your hand is the key to a much more advanced cursed ritual-type hex art."

Zayn asked, [Wait... we're skipping past simple summoning and jumping straight to some high ritual-level stuff? What's going on here?]

Xane rubbed his head. [Dude, you're the one who read the fcking novel. Didn't that thing mention anything regarding this?]

[Ah, no. But hey, Xenor gave us that paper as our first hex art. That means that whatever this ritual is, it's going to help us link to an element world.]

[I mean, think about it, man. Did you think connecting to some random world was going to be that simple?]

Xane rolled his eyes as he said, <Did you forget this won't be my first time witnessing something like that?>

[Not your first time? When did you—] Zayn froze midway. [Shit, is it the first vision?]

Xane nodded his head. <Yup. I mean, Viyron had also somehow connected to the earth, right? Sure, he bit his flesh for that, but it didn't look that complex.>

Zayn mentally shook his head. [Nah, nay. You're thinking our Earth could be one of those small lands.]

Xane just didn't reply as he stared at the metal wall.

Zayn lightly shouted at him. [No, dude. Even though I don't know everything about this world, I can say with confidence that our situation is much different.]

[Don't compare Viyron's actions with common knowledge. For us, it might become the biggest mystery we have to solve.]

Xane sighed in confusion. He just didn't understand why they needed to use a different core hex art of the cursed ritual.

He was about to ask more when the platform started to slow down, and he saw that they had moved out of the metal corridor into a vast, massive metal hall.

Xane stared at the empty hall with his mouth open as he saw more than a thousand white lines carved all over the metal walls.

Those white runes covered everything from the walls to the ceiling and down to the floor.

As he traced those lines, he noticed they were all connected to a big circle at the center of the hall.

From above, he could see that lines filled the outer area of the hall, but the inside of the circle was completely empty.

That circle was screaming that it was the core of this entire rune mess.

As he stared at the white lines, he rubbed his eyes in confusion. He looked again and noticed he wasn't hallucinating.

These white lines were faintly pulsing, as if they were the veins of some massive creature scattered all around the hall.

The moment he noticed it, a current passed through his spine, and the hair all over his body stood up.

He started breathing heavily as he heard screams inside his head that were urging him to run.

The next moment, he heard a buzzing sound next to his head, like a bunch of mosquitoes moving past his ear.

He even waved his hand, but this only increased the sound.

Within a few seconds, the sound reached the point where he felt his head would just burst open from the noise alone.

He grabbed his head, trying not to scream.

At that moment, he heard a loud clap just near his ear.

Everything went back to normal as he found himself standing next to Xenor, who had just clapped.

He looked around in confusion and realized the platform had already reached the floor.

He looked up and saw Xenor, who just smiled at him and waved. "Come, follow me."

With that, Xenor led him to the central circle. He sat on the floor and waved him down. "Sit down."

Xane looked around once more and sat down before Xenor.

Zayn asked him this time, [What happened?]

Xane asked in confusion, <Did I use hex energy?>

[Nope, you just suddenly grabbed your head.]

Xane took a deep breath as he glanced at the white lines.

Xenor said to him, "Oh, don't worry. It won't happen again unless you try to look at the whole rune."

Xane just looked back at his mentor and nodded his head. He wasn't in the mood to face that madness again.

Xenor smiled and said, "I know you might have a few questions."

Xane just looked at Xenor blankly.

There were a lot of things he wanted to do and ask, but he knew the best thing for him was to observe and absorb everything in his mind.

Xenor stopped wasting time and asked, "You remember the prerequisite of the summoning hex art?"

"It is to find a suitable world to summon the creature, sir."

Xenor shook his head. "Well, instead of finding, let's say we have to establish a connection with that world. Kind of like leaving your mark on that world."

Zayn shouted in his mind, [See, I told you. Book information is not that useless, you know.]

Xane just ignored Zayn and asked, "Sir, you just told me that it is impossible to travel to any of these worlds. Then how are we going to create this mark?"

Xenor raised his eyebrow. "Well, you catch things fast. The answer to your question lies in this very hall."

Xane pointed to the white lines. "You mean these runes?"

Xenor nodded his head. "You see, this is a special ritual circle. It allows a hex master to enter the projection plane through their soul projection."

Xane scratched his head. "Sir, what is a projection plane?"

Xenor shook his head in disappointment. "I don't know. It's something that ancient hex masters only learn to use by decoding different cursed scriptures."

"All I can tell you is that the moment you activate this ritual, you will find yourself in a dark space as a small ball. That ball will be your soul projection."

Xane rubbed his chin. "Okay."

"Viyron. In the projection space, you will see countless other giant balls that will be far away from you. Each of those balls represents a small world, and they will have different sizes and colors."

"As you have the chaos element, you will feel a certain pull from all the balls that share the same element as you."

"Now, to form the mark, you just have to travel to any of those chaos balls. The moment your soul projection touches any ball, a mark will form that will connect you to that world."

Xane looked down and thought for a bit before asking, "So my task there is to reach one chaos ball?"

Xenor nodded his head. "Correct."

Xane looked into his eyes and asked, "What is the catch here? It couldn't be this simple."

Xenor clapped his hands and rolled his eyes. "Geez, you are no fun. There are just a few little problems here and there. Don't you want to experience it first?"

Xane just looked at him and asked again, "So there is more than one problem?"

Xenor rolled his head. "No need to be that serious. Sigh, let me tell you about the problems."

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