At last, after who knew how long, Nameless could bear it no longer and wrenched himself free of the sensation of falling.
He forced his eyes open. It felt as though his eyelids were flipping back toward his scalp, turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees in an instant and wrapping around his entire body.
His mind went blank for a moment. When he came to, he saw Maria gazing at him with an entranced expression.
It felt impossibly unreal, yet intensely real. He had the sense that space was trembling and everything around him was twisting.
It took about ten minutes for him to recover. Gradually, everything around him returned to normal.
"Lord Nameless, did you learn it?" Maria asked, her cheeks flushed.
Nameless rubbed his temples and shook his head miserably. "No. This thing really is hard to understand, and the aftereffects seem to be getting stronger."
He had thought he might be the special one.
But now it seemed he was no different from Maria or Big Yellow. Rule Secret Arts really were hard to learn. The worst part was that they left you utterly baffled.
It was not that getting through the door was difficult. He could not even find the door, so how was he supposed to get in?
Then there were the aftereffects. The longer he remained in that state, the worse they seemed to get. At their worst, they could even leave someone unable to tell reality from illusion.
He could imagine what would happen to someone who lacked the talent but insisted on learning Rule Secret Arts anyway.
"You can try a few more times. Sometimes all it takes is a little patience and a little luck." Lucifer returned the Dragon-Serpent Heaven-Reversing Cup to Nameless.
Nameless gave the Dragon-Serpent Heaven-Reversing Cup