Seeing the scene outside the window, little Pat couldn’t help but smile bitterly.
As expected, things aren’t so easy.
The ghost of the farmer dared to put him aside for now, surely having a backup plan, making an easy escape nearly impossible.
Even knowing how difficult it is to escape, little Pat couldn’t just do nothing and wait for his doom.
Little Pat thought for a moment, dipped into his own blood, and drew an "O" on the table beside him, then he limped towards another room.
He had been to this room before, and the setup of the new room was the same as before, even down to the places that had been shattered were completely identical, only presented as a mirror inversion. Little Pat eagerly looked at the tabletop and then saw a bright red "O".
The blood hadn’t dried yet; it was what he had drawn earlier.
He clearly drew it in the room next door, so why is the new room also displaying this symbol?
Is it an illusion conjured by the Soul Blind, an illusion that can sync?
How does one break this?
Little Pat frowned deeply, unable to think of a way to break the illusion.
While pondering, slight sounds came to his ears, as if someone was talking, or perhaps the muffled grunts from a battle. Little Pat wanted to trace the source of the sounds but found it impossible.
Because these sounds appeared directly by his ear, endlessly whispering without any origin.
Listening carefully for a while, little Pat shelved the matter aside, as the ghostly, floating sounds didn’t help his current predicament. The most important thing now is to find a way to leave.
Blocking out external distractions, little Pat continued to scrutinize the two mirror-inverted rooms.
He didn’t climb out the window to other rooms, as he felt sure that the real room was in one of these two. Until evidence showed otherwise, he wanted to search these rooms thoroughly first.
He conducted multiple experiments within the two rooms and came to a conclusion.
Apart from the mirror inversion, any interaction with items resulted in synchronized manifestations in the Material Realm. For instance, the "O" he drew earlier, and when he moved a chair in the left room, the chair in the right room would float and move to the corresponding position. If he moved a lamp in the right room, the lamp in the left room would also move.
This started confusing him about the spatial direction.
Initially, he thought the room on the left was real, and the mirror-inverted room on the right was false. But as he paced back and forth between the rooms, the spatial vectors disoriented his brain, and he couldn’t even differentiate the left room from the right. Especially when any object in both rooms changed with his touch, the sensation of spatial disorientation was even stronger.
When little Pat started doubting his sense of direction and space, he knew he couldn’t continue like this.
He stopped at the intersection of the two rooms, starting to think of a countermeasure.
He ceased considering which room was real or fake, and pondered instead how to break this scenario.
Time ticked by second by second, and after an unknown while, little Pat opened his eyes, thinking of a solution but hesitating to implement it.
After all, it was a do-or-die choice.
While little Pat was wavering, he suddenly heard footsteps nearby.
He didn’t know whose footsteps they were or where they came from, only that they were getting closer, seemingly about to reach him at any moment.
He realized he couldn’t wait any longer.
Little Pat’s gaze hardened as he looked back and forth, unable to discern space or direction anymore, and randomly chose a room to enter.
Reaching the bookshelf, little Pat extended his hand upwards and felt an oil lamp hanging above.
He then uncovered the lamp’s shade.
With a gulp, little Pat took a deep breath and poured the lamp oil onto the bookshelf in front of him. The burning wick touched the saturated paper, and a small flame sprang to life.
The entire wall was a bookshelf filled with paper-bound books, natural kindling. The fire spread rapidly, and within the blink of an eye, the room was ablaze...
This was his do-or-die choice; since any interference in the Material Realm synchronized between the two rooms, what changes would an energy realm shift bring?
After igniting the fire, little Pat stepped back a few paces before looking into the other room, wanting to see if it too was engulfed in flames.
Then, he caught a glimpse of an orange-red glow.
The flames indeed mirrored in the opposite room, only strangely, the fire there seemed a bit brighter?
As little Pat observed the flames in the opposite room, he felt a "whoosh" behind him, turning abruptly to see.
At some unknown time, the farmer’s ghost appeared behind him, looking somewhat furious, its blood-red eyes glaring viciously at little Pat.
As little Pat turned his head, the farmer’s ghost madly lunged at him.
With his injuries still unhealed, little Pat couldn’t evade the farmer’s lunge. He could only watch helplessly as sharp, black claws reached for his throat.
Just as little Pat felt the chilling wind prick at his throat, a force suddenly yanked him away.
In a moment of confusion, little Pat looked up and suddenly saw a figure...no, six figures.
They were wearing wizard robes marked with the emblem of the Silver Heron Royal Wizard Group.
The identity was self-evident; they were from the Silver Heron Royal Wizard Group.
"Finally caught you..."
"Don’t even think about hurting anyone in front of us!"
"Don’t be afraid, with us here, he won’t get another chance to harm you." An elderly wizard, who appeared very kind, turned around and used his eyes to reassure young Sam.
However, before young Sam could respond, another voice emerged.
"Come now, if it weren’t for young Sam, you all would still be stuck in the mirror space, unable to get out, yet now you act so righteously."