Transmigration: I Made A Deal With A Man in Yellow

Chapter 22: Blades under the moonlight [1]

As we enjoyed our meal, Ezio bombarded me with a lot of questions.

"Ever since we arrived here, you’ve been wandering around the forest like you knew exactly where to go, and from what I remember in all the years I’ve been watching you, you’ve never been here before. So how?"

I knew this question was coming sooner or later.

"I read about the forest in books. There are records of it." I said.

Luckily, almost everything about the first section of the forest was documented, so I wasn’t really lying here.

"Is that so? You can navigate the forest this well, never taking a wrong turn, just from following a book’s instructions without even glancing at it once?" Ezio narrowed his eyes.

I scoffed.

"I have it all memorized right here." I tapped the side of my head. "Don’t blame me for being built different."

"Tsk, you’re just too full of yourself." Ezio’s eye twitched slightly. I felt his suspicion ease.

Ezio crossed his arms.

"How did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"How did you trigger Story Manifestation?"

"Oh, that?" I smiled and poked the bare end of my stick, the one with no meat left on it, into the fire.

"Honestly, I don’t know." I said honestly.

"You don’t know?" fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

"Yeah."

"Seriously, this brat." Ezio pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Do you even know what you just did? How abnormal it is?"

"Not really. Isn’t Story Manifestation just the ability to use the full power of your story? That’s what I’ve heard and read."

I didn’t want to reveal what I actually knew, so I played along.

"Yes, you’re partially correct. Story Manifestation happens when you understand your Main Story completely. Which means understanding yourself." Ezio tapped his chest. "And let me tell you, no kid still wet behind the ears can understand himself at your age. That’s impossible."

I listened quietly.

"That’s not even the craziest part. You...you can already use your Will." Ezio ran his left hand through his hair. "That’s something a Sovereign can do. Being able to project your Will onto the world is a trait exclusive to Sovereigns. Shit, kid, you’re probably the biggest genius of all time."

He wasn’t overreacting.

What I had — somehow — done was impossible at my current rank. I wasn’t supposed to be able to manifest a Will this early. That should only happen at the peak of Exalted rank, right before Sovereign.

I was just as shocked as Ezio, because not in a million years would I have expected myself to pull that off.

Not even the main character of the book had manifested a Will this early.

So it wasn’t ridiculous to call me the greatest genius of all time.

It really wasn’t ridiculous to say it.

Which made me wonder...did I actually understand myself completely?

Heck no.

Nor did I fully understand the previous owner of this body. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

I had only lived 19 years and still didn’t know everything about the world.

And just having Yves’s memories didn’t mean I understood everything about him either.

Was it perhaps because I was the author?

That was a possibility, but I already had a suspicion.

The Man in Yellow.

Yes, it had to be him. Maybe this was some kind of gift for transmigrating me into my own book.

It could be, just like in some fantasy stories where the author transmigrates with a built-in cheat.

So the only real clue I had right now was that man.

Was he even a man?

Whoever, or whatever, had the power to transmigrate me into my own book had to be some sort of Eldritch entity or something along those lines.

Sighing, I looked at Ezio. "All I remember is pushing myself to the limit in the fight, and then suddenly I got a notification from the system that my story was stirring out of its slumber."

"I see." Ezio crossed his arms again and closed his eyes as if deep in thought.

After a few moments, he opened them.

"Let’s spar." Ezio said.

"Right now?"

"Yeah. I want to see if you can trigger Story Manifestation again." Ezio stood up.

"Fine by me. I wanted to test how powerful an Ascendant really is anyway." I stood up as well, grabbed my katana, and followed him away from the campfire, deeper into the woods.

We stopped where the moonlight was brightest, standing 10 meters apart.

"Make sure to focus completely on your story and try to call upon your Will."

"Aye." I said, stretching and doing a few jumps.

"I’m ready." I lowered my left hand toward the katana at my waist, thumb resting lightly on the tsuba, the guard.

"Then do your best." Ezio said, arms clasped behind his back.

I stood still for a moment, took a deep breath, and extended my senses, now reaching past 30 meters.

I could hear the ooh-ohh of owls perfectly, the calm heartbeat of a mole several meters below ground.

My senses had improved a lot.

A cold breeze drifted past, lifting my untied hair.

I watched a small leaf, carried by the wind, fall slowly toward the ground.

The moment it touched down, I pressed my right foot into the ground, built pressure through my leg muscles, and launched myself toward Ezio, leaving dust behind me.

Swoosh!

In the blink of an eye, I closed the distance between us.

My left thumb pushed the guard while my right hand gripped the hilt and drew the katana at blinding speed, the metal rasping against the sheath.

I performed a quick draw, the blade cutting through the cold air with sickening speed and precision, drawing a white arc as it headed for Ezio’s neck.

The blade was already at his throat, threatening to send his head flying.

And guess what the bastard was doing?

He had his eyes closed, hands still behind his back!

I just knew he was trying to aura farm.

Just before my blade could touch his neck, something hard and metallic that hadn’t been there a second ago blocked my attack.

Clang!

Sparks flew through the air.

It was Ezio’s katana. He had drawn so fast I hadn’t even seen him move.

"Tsk, why are you trying to look cool?"

"No, I’m not." Ezio said as he opened his eyes.

I twisted my katana, spun on my feet, ducked low, and slashed toward his legs.

Ezio, with that absurd assassin flexibility of his, leapt back into the air, dodging my slash. He flipped mid-air, and before he could even land, my blade was already thrusting toward his face.

Ezio somehow managed to pull his head away and twist his body, my blade missing and cutting nothing but air. Still mid-air, he countered, his katana carving a diagonal arc toward my right arm at high speed.

Eyes never leaving his blade, I twisted my wrist and flipped my katana, guiding its edge into his attack.

Sparks scattered as the blades met.

Ezio’s feet finally touched the ground.

"Oh? You blocked that?" Ezio whistled.

"You told me to do my best." I smiled.

We both pushed off and put distance between us before leaning forward and dashing back at each other.

We met in the middle, our blades singing as they clashed.