Chapter 1686: The cringe is strong with this one
The teleportation between realms was perfect, so if it had happened anywhere else, Jack might not have immediately noticed. Yet the moment he was teleported into the Challenge realm, he knew it and his eyes flashed open.
The reason was simple. The reeking, rancid smell that plagued his karma disappeared. Jack had not been expecting that to happen, but the moment it did, he fell to his knees and tears started welling up in his eyes. So overwhelmed was he that it actually took him a moment to gather himself back up.
Jack didn’t know what to expect from his trial, mainly because, based on his understanding, all trials were personalised and there was no predictable pattern to them.
Jack, for example, had lived a short but eventful life, but he was probably not using his power to its full potential. The way fairies used spiritual energy was so overpowered that it seemed a little broken to Jack, and even after living as a fairy for so long, he often discovered that he had underestimated the scope of his abilities.
In essence, a majority of his power came from his fairy dust, which came from his wings. As long as he had the intention to do something, he could produce fairy dust with the appropriate properties to make it happen. This was such a broad concept that Jack could not cope with it sometimes.
For example, as a human, before Lex could teleport, he needed to become aware of space, and then learn to use it. He needed to gain an affinity for it, and then use various spiritual techniques that allowed him to use space in multiple ways.
As a fairy, there was no such thing as an affinity for space, or anything else. As long as he willed it, his fairy dust could take on the properties of space, and then how he used that fairy dust is what limited the scope of his abilities. The possibilities were endless.
The way he saw it, with such frightening abilities, fairies should be one of the most revered races in the universe, because that versatility of will was eerily similar to a dragon bending the universe to their will.
But the difference was that this was what the fairies were capable of after suffering a severe karmic curse that killed off any chance for fairies to grow stronger, and just generally live either oppressed or enslaved lives. He could not even imagine what the fairies were capable of at the height of their powers.
Jack looked at his surroundings and found himself standing alone on a concrete path, with no real surroundings. It wasn’t as if he was standing in darkness, but instead as if the things that should have surrounded him had been ripped away. In fact, even the path before him seemed to meander around, finding a way through, however narrow, between all that had been ripped away around him.
Jack wore a solemn expression as he took his first steps, for he had a theory about what he was seeing. His theory didn’t come from himself, but seemed to emanate from his surroundings, as if the absence of things was communicating to him. Or maybe it was the inherent instincts of a fairy.