[Nightmare]

"Alright. Let's hear it. Tell me everything you did wrong." Tilo requested while tearing off a piece of meat.

There was a roasted bird that looked very similar to a chicken.

He took the meat and put it onto Helix's plate with a fork.

"I blinded myself instantly, so I had no idea how you prepared when I emerged from the illusion." Helix sighed.

"Good. You've got the main fault." Tilo replied with a nod.

"After you did that, I was worried that you forgot about regular illusions.

You could have seen my preparations if you had used [Smoke Screen].

However, now we know that crazy Nightmare of yours is equally realistic for everyone."

Helix nodded.

The two were sitting at a small table in Tilo's trailer.

There were large Circles of Secrecy markings on every wall.

It was miles beyond the Anti-Diffraction Circle he was using in Alzeria.

It was even above the high-level Circle of Privacy which they had been practicing.

As a result, his trailer was the safest place to speak about [Nightmare].

"Yes, I see that now." Helix nodded.

"Do you know what the underlying issue is?" Tilo tested.

Helix looked to the left in thought.

After he figured out what Tilo was getting at, he gave the man a wry smile.

It was the same issue that prevented him from using it.

"I won't know the nuances of my Nightmare… for a long time.

It's extremely flexible, and it's hard to examine how it reacts to different situations." Helix sighed.

Tilo gave Helix a complicated smile.

"Yeah… that Nightmare is a cluster-bomb packed with lethal jack in the boxes." He scoffed before letting out a chuckle.

"However…."

Tilo's eyes met Helix's, and he gave the young man a strange smile.

"That's one hell of a Nightmare." He laughed in bewilderment.

"What the hell did you do to make all of that happen?"

Helix gave Tilo a wry smile.

"You're impressed about everything we're reflecting on." He sighed.

"But I used [Minor Summoning] to create the battle discs in my hand."

—[Minor Summoning]: > 10 SP: Call upon simple object illusions—

"I then summoned an illusion that my clone was born out of a smoke cloud." He continued.

"Wait…. Now, that explains why your body exploded with smoke instead of pretending to throw a circle.

I was about to criticize that move as unnatural. Why did you do that?" Tilo asked.

Helix gave him a slight smile.

"I currently have 1000 SP. While that's enormous for most people at level 17, my Nightmare is extremely greedy." He chuckled.

Tilo nodded in confirmation.

"Yeah. Those SP requirements are sketchy." He affirmed.

"That's why I consolidated as much of my illusion as possible with conditional summoning." Helix sighed.

—[Conditional Summoning]: > 150 SP: Design illusions triggered through conditional parameters. Requires full mental design blueprint—

"By doing that, I could create one illusion with multiple parts.

However, it's limited to three different operations if they aren't related." He explained.

Tilo looked at Helix quizzically.

"How are creating an illusion from your body exploding from smoke and creating an illusion from a fake circle different?" He asked.

Helix gave him a slight smile.

"One's creating a clone through a process.

The second is creating a fake magic circle and then using it to summon a clone." He replied with a slight smile.

Tilo stroked his chin.

"I suppose that makes sense.

I have questions about your experiment methods, but I'll leave that for after training." He commented.

Helix nodded his head in understanding.

"The subject of the illusion is my body tied to clone illusions." He continued.

Tilo raised his eyebrow.

"Your body?" He asked in confusion.

"Yes. The clone was to attack you from a different location, so I tied it to my body's location. That was the condition." Helix replied with a sly smile.

"Then my body was set to turn into a white doll after being hit, and an invisible wall and clone sounds would trigger."

Tilo looked at Helix with shock.

"In short, there were three conditional triggers centered around my real body's interactions.

There were no conditional requirements for the clones." Helix concluded.

Tilo was stunned into silence.

After contemplating what he had just heard multiple times, he locked eyes with Helix.

Tilo almost shivered while looking into his pitch-black eyes peering out from his black hair.

"That… is extremely difficult to grasp.

It's not hard to understand what you've done.

However, it's difficult to process how you came up with that." He chuckled with a conflicted gaze.

"Your use of illusions isn't unique by any stretch.

But finding a related concept shared between three different illusions is remarkable."

Helix gave him a complicated smile.

He wasn't to accept the praise, but he found it difficult to accept, given how bad the strategy was.

"Thank you, master." He replied with a forced smile.

"That explains why your strategy was so instantaneous and inflexible to the situation." He muttered to himself.

"I give you an A for the match and an F for your strategy." Tilo declared after a moment of contemplation.

Helix gave Tilo a puzzled glance.

The expression filled the man's heart with a devious sense of satisfaction.

He was rewarding Helix and calling him stupid at two extremes.

It seemed to solve his inner conflict.

"The purpose of the match was to test your Nightmare's capability and your ability to use illusions strategically." Tilo explained.

"Your strategy led to an extremely petty death, and your benign recklessness was shameful."

Helix gave Tilo a wry smile when he heard the reasoning.

He didn't want to be reminded that he died in such a pathetic way.

"Do you understand why I attacked you with the mine strategy?" Tilo asked.

Helix shook his head.

"I can't claim to understand that with certainty.

If I had to guess, your purpose was to teach me that fancy illusions aren't necessary to obtain an overwhelming victory." He reasoned.

"However, it's equally likely that you wanted to prove that it's easy to kill someone who isn't cautious, just as easy as you can a Marskaratt."

Tilo stared at Helix with a bewildered expression before erupting into laughter.

"Haaaaaaah. It was mostly in the first category, but I purposely did the latter.

It was intentional, but I didn't have a profound lesson tied to it." He laughed.

Helix gave him a wry smile.

"So… you're telling me that you just did that to be mean?" He asked bitterly.

"Yup! If I'm already doing something, I might as well make it as shameful as possible." Tilo confirmed merrily.

"Thanks for giving me a wise excuse for my actions in the future."

Helix's eyes glazed over, and he got lost in the beyond.