On the way back, Kiriya keeps the Dreamless active. He was not only seeing people's minds, but also what people would consider as 'ghosts' or spirits. They're everywhere and Kiriya could see each of them through his eyes.
And it seems they realized it too.
One being, with the head and arms of a human and body of many snakes twisted together, descends from the roof of a house. The size of its body is bigger than that of a house, but it can crawl freely across the roof as if the thing was made from air.
[YoU cAn sEe ME?]
It asked Kiriya right in front of his face. Kiriya couldn't hear the voice but it's translated into words that could be read. The Dreamless only affects his eyes, not ears.
Kiriya didn't answer the question. He cast an invisibility spell for himself and took the Dream Nail out of his Item Storage.
A blinding blade of pure energy extends from the emblem the moment Kiriya pulls the handle out.
Kiriya swung the Dream Nail and cut the thing diagonally from left to right. With controlled output, Kiriya kill the thing without pulling himself into the dream realm. The remnants of the thing transform into sparks of light that were absorbed by the Dream Nail.
'I have to create a spell to damage spiritual beings so I don't have to pull out the Dream Nail every time.'
In the real world and in the dream realm were different. In the real world, Kiriya's attacks cannot affect spiritual beings directly, because they are on a different layer of reality. While he is inside the dream realm, he is on the same layer as those beings, making him able to touch them just as if they were physical beings.
Therefore, attacks that could pierce through layers of reality can affect these spiritual beings. Right now, the only spell with the potential to do such feat is World Cleave. However, World Cleave needs to be modified further to be able target different layers of reality.
And talking about different spaces, Kiriya still has items that can provide access to a different world inside his Inventory.
Upon reaching his apartment room, Kiriya enters the Training Field.
White space greets him and the cube of Originium on his side.
Originium is a crystalline-like substance that could be found commonly on the planet of Terra. Native of Terra could get infected by a disease called Oripathy when they interact with originium without protection. To earth equivalent, oripathy is a cancer.
"Can humans—homo sapiens—get infected by oripathy?"
That question appeared on Kiriya's head very suddenly when he returned to the Training Field and observed Mei's originium cube. He was curious but he couldn't be careless for something that could cost his own life. So the experiment for oripathy on homo sapiens is non-negotiable for now.
But looking for rock cancer was not his main objective. It was the world within the rock.
Kiriya activates his Dreamless and gazes through the inanimate object.
Dreamless was not only for reading and seeing people's minds, but also to see through the layers of reality. With little adjustment in the spell, Kiriya could peer into the world of information within the Originium.
Assimilated Universe.
That's the name of the space within.
Different from the others, Mei's world is the most complicated and troublesome to take care of. Kiriya couldn't be sure of the win rate, even in the future. So, he needs to make contingency plans.
One of them is connected to the Assimilated Universe and the originium itself.
But that was for the future. For now, his reason for observing originium is to free himself from his problem.
Dream Nail and dream realm.
Originium and Assimilated Universe.
Both of them affect realities.
In essence, both the Assimilated Universe and the dream realm are almost similar in one way or another.
One is connected to the information space, one connected to spiritual space.
"If I want to access the Assimilated Universe, Dream Nail will be the way to go."
However, Kiriya had to modify the way the Dream Nail works, or at least, its spell.
His Gate and Teleportation spells had developed and were able to access the dream realm after conducting experiments with the Dream Nail beforehand.
Because he already had Dreamless, which could see and pierce through the boundaries of reality, he could see what kind of path he had to traverse to reach the Assimilated Universe.
Just like the dream realm, one generally could not enter the Assimilated Universe with a physical body. They had to fuse with the originium and become data that could finally be stored inside the Assimilated Universe. Or get the operator access to the Assimilated Universe itself.
Dreamless sees the truth of the world.
Gate opens the way to the world of data.
Kiriya stepped his foot into the Gate.
His body turned into information.
Kiriya used his magic again and voluntarily transformed himself into a collection of information with his new spell.
[Digitalization]
The Training Field changed. The sky, which had been as white as light itself, was replaced by a black sky with strange golden rhombus constructions above the sky.
The sea of golden data that was supposed to be there was nowhere to be seen. There was only a barren land of darkness.
The Originium given by the system did not include the data and information inside it. That was kind of expected.
A small puddle of gold appeared on the ground. It was a small puddle consisting of a collection of information belonging to Kiriya, everything about him was contained in that tiny puddle. When compared to the vast space of the Assimilated Universe, which seemed limitless, Kiriya was just a small, insignificant speck of dust.
After feeling satisfied enough looking around the barren world, Kiriya opened the Gate once again.
'Time to return.' Kiriya walked out and returned to the real world, or at least the real world inside the Training Field with its iconic white sky.
Now it was time to overcome his problem.
Retrieve his emotions.
There were enough spells to use.
Dreamless could see Kiriya's condition, Digitalization could temporarily transform Kiriya's body into information, and Gate could access the dream realm.
However, this time there was no need to use the Gate, and possibly Digitalization, because he would be accessing his own consciousness.
To access it, he just needs to sleep.
The Dream Nail appeared in hand, but it was not used.
The Training Field sky changed into night sky, and Kiriya lay down on the soft grass as the gentle breeze blew.
Kiriya closed his eyes with the Dream Nail on his chest and let himself enter the dream.
***
From the top of the mountain, the view of a city was clear. Every building had an architectural style that did not align with one another.
The sky showed a view of thousands of stars and galaxies, but the atmosphere was as bright as daytime.
Kiriya successfully entered the dream realm.
A world of his own.
He could see everything that was in his mind. Every single thought formed in his mind appeared in real-time within the dream realm.
The inactive Dream Nail in his grasp began to grow a blade of pure energy from its emblem.
Kiriya could activate the Dream Nail normally, even when the object was used for a ritual.
Dreamless activated and Kiriya's gaze pierced through the world.
He could see the real world, the Training Field which was still exactly the same as he had set it before, and the world of the soul, a place that was more abstract and alien.
From that place, he successfully saw the problem.
"The path connecting the emotional response from the body to the soul is severely damaged."
His soul could process them, but the transmitted information disappeared along the way because the path was too stressed after the mana explosion that turned him into Majin[1].
This was never the ritual's problem. This was his own problem. Usually after one transforms into Majin, they are still capable of having emotions, but severely surpassed to be more efficient in battle, not depleted like Kiriya's.
After he used his emotions as fuel for the magic, his transformation into Majin made his emotional "buffer" unable to recover naturally. And being nonexistent, with the suppressor, it doubled the effect.
To explain it with a simple analogy, in between the server (soul) and the user (body), there's tons of cables that send data back and forth. Because of him using few of the cables beyond their limits, which is the case for the feelings and emotions, they were broken now.
Because they were broken, the data was lost along the way, leaving his body and soul unable to properly process things with very little information left.
If not for his emotional understanding, he wouldn't even be sure who the real robot was, him or Groza.
"So, if I repair it and remove the suppressor…"
Kiriya's Kanvas stitched back the "leaking" point and reinforced the broken "cables".
***
Kiriya wakes up and sits moments later.
"..."
His eyes are calm and collected as ever. But his heart was pounding heavily against his ribs.
"Finally…" He whispered softly.
His lips pulled to the edge and a grin formed in his face. "Finally."
Kiriya's shoulders trembled.
"Finally—!!!" Kiriya shouted inside the infinite space of the Training Field.
Every uncontained surge of emotion rushed through his veins.
And then—
"Hahaha…"
"HAHAHAHAHA—!!!!"
He laughed.
An uncontained laugh of happiness that echoes through the field.
[1] Change the terms for Kiriya's transformation from Devil to Majin.