27 · Psionic Path

He climbed the narrow wooden stairs and pushed open the attic door, forcing himself to stay calm.

Seeing his sister waiting for him, Gallo set down the groceries he'd bought at the market and hugged Lily as she rushed into his arms.

Then he slipped a ten-Copper Nil bill into Lily's hand.

As she looked at him in surprise, Gallo said, "All the cloth dolls sold. That extra Copper Nil is pocket money for you."

"Gallo, you're the best!" Lily looked at the ten-Copper Nil bill in her hand and silently calculated how many household supplies and groceries she could buy with it.

"I also bought some fruit today. There are oranges and East Rus Apples." Gallo let Lily see what he'd brought home, then told her she'd have to make dinner herself tonight. It could be something simple, since he had a job to do for a client.

"You work at a bookstore. What kind of job would a client give you, Gallo?" Lily asked curiously as she peeled an orange for Aisha beside her bed.

Gallo explained with the excuse he'd prepared earlier. "My handwriting is very neat, so the client asked me to copy some documents. The pay is two Copper Nil, and I should be able to finish in about two nights."

"That much!" Lily and Aisha exclaimed in unison.

Gallo sat at his little desk and sighed inwardly. He wondered what their expressions would be if he told them the real pay was fifty Nalang, and that he'd already taken a twenty-Nalang deposit.

"I'm going to start working now. Just call me when dinner's ready." Gallo pulled the plain white curtain across the middle of the room. Once it was closed, he pulled the clothes box out from under his bed and stowed all the money in his pockets inside, including the twenty-Nalang bank draft.

When he was done, he sat back down at his desk and took out the notebook, along with the grimy black Divination Coin.

"Was I followed in secret at first because I read the research records about the Askia Dynasty in the Southern Continent that Professor Vanason gave me?"

The Divination Coin flew into the air and landed. The result was still heads.

At that moment, Gallo had almost completely figured it out. When he first met Professor Vanason, the professor had mentioned that his friend, Professor Jeffrey, would soon return from an expedition to the Southern Continent. Later, Gallo had read the research materials about Professor Jeffrey that Vanason had brought back.

He had concluded that Jeffrey was trapped in a delusion that outsiders would consider ignorant. Then he'd learned about Jeffrey's mental state from Vanason's account.

Gallo had also divined Jeffrey's safety and gotten the answer that he was in danger.

Today, he hadn't even seen Professor Vanason. That was very unusual. Every morning before work, Vanason went to Moonlight for a cup of coffee. He'd kept up that habit for over a decade, even before Gallo came to Lubo Lane.

He thought of Sacia Taylor, who had given him the notebook, then tossed the coin again. "Sacia Taylor was one of Jeffrey's student members on the expedition to the Southern Continent."

The coin landed heads up.

"Phew." Gallo took a deep breath, gripped the Divination Coin, and cast it again.

"Once I finish translating and analyzing this notebook... will that group of people put me in danger?"

"Clack!" The coin slipped off the back of Gallo's hand. This time, he failed to catch it in time. It landed on the desk, tails up. But then, without any physical force acting on it, the coin began to tremble violently, flipping repeatedly between heads and tails. At last, it settled on heads and slowly came to a stop.

"This..." Gallo hadn't expected to see anything like this. The coin clearly wasn't an ordinary object. But what frightened him even more was the possibility that, once he finished the job Sacia Taylor had asked him to do, she might try to get rid of him.

Lily and Aisha might even get caught up in it.

"Damn it!" He was already satisfied with his life as it was. As a transmigrator, he'd managed to earn money in this strange new world and was looking forward to the future. Yet somehow, he'd ended up in danger.

No, it had started when he'd shown off his abilities on Lubo Lane and caught Vanason's attention, then went on to reading Jeffrey's research materials...

It was like little shards of magnet had drawn together and finally collided.

Gallo bit his fingernail, wondering if there was any way to get out of this predicament.

He heard his sister humming happily as she prepared lunch in the kitchen on the balcony. Their mother's cough had also eased considerably, and she was leaning against the bed making cloth dolls.

Gallo clenched his hands and opened his attribute panel.

[Distributable points: 2]

[Available paths to unlock: Psionic, Physical]

[Wisdom unlocked: Learning (Lv. 3), Memory (Lv. 2), Knowledge (Lv. 1)]

Even if he used his two remaining distributable points on Wisdom, it wouldn't do anything to change his situation.

Gallo's only hope lay in the other two paths: Psionic and Physical.

In the end, having already gained some knowledge of Subspace, Gallo set his sights on the Psionic Path.

"Unlock the Psionic Path!"

[Psionic Path sub-options unlocked:]

[Inspiration]

[Spirituality]

[Remaining attribute points to allocate: 2.]

The Psionic Path had only two sub-options, unlike the Wisdom Path, which had many.

Gallo had assumed each path would have three sub-options.

He had assigned one attribute point to Knowledge on the Wisdom Path and passively gained a large amount of knowledge about the existence of Subspace. It was like knowing three thousand words but having them stored in one's memory without constantly reviewing them.

Only when someone saw one of those words in everyday life would their brain retrieve its meaning from memory.

Now, when Gallo saw that the Psionic Path was divided into "Inspiration" and "Spirituality," he immediately recalled what they meant.

"Whether it's Inspiration or Spirituality, unlocking either one will make me a psionic user with a deep connection to Subspace!"

"High Inspiration means a greater sensitivity to the existence of Subspace. Psionic users with high Inspiration can learn to use abilities such as clairvoyance, precognition, and sensing fluctuations."

"Psionic users with high Spirituality, on the other hand, have a greater influence on the real world. They can harness their own spiritual power to influence others, or even use seemingly magical abilities that defy common sense."

After thinking it over, Gallo decided to spend one attribute point on Inspiration in the Psionic Path.

His situation was like being trapped in a dark, dangerous basement. Increasing his Inspiration would be like getting a candle, allowing him to see what dangers lurked in the basement and look for a way out.