Scene after scene, memories poured into his mind, more and more, filling in the missing parts.
"Haah, haah..."
Thales was panting heavily, his eyes were vague, and he didn't even pay attention to the stranger's gaze.
Oops……
Oops!
There……
Thales recalled the last scene not long ago in panic...
It was not by chance that he lost control, rose to the threshold, and knocked on the door...
There……
Yodel...Dagger's dagger and alchemy ball...
The boy's inner anxiety and tension reached its peak in an instant.
The stranger's words continued: "I will help you get out of control, and then send you to a safe place..."
"no!"
Thales raised his head suddenly!
He twisted his face and blurted out loudly:
"I can't just go back! I can't escape...the so-called 'out of control'!"
The stranger stopped talking and looked at him quietly.
"I remember, I feel it," Thales clenched his fists tighter and tighter, his mood uncontrollable:
"On the other side, is there something, someone, something still waiting for me."
Thinking of this, he took a step forward excitedly:
"Tell me, tell me more!"
Thales gritted his teeth and looked at the other person, and said firmly: "You don't need to teach me what magic energy is..."
"But you can teach me the tricks, teach me the methods, teach me how to 'preserve myself', how to stay rational in...that kind of out-of-control situation."
I must be awake, with the power of a magician...
"them."
"They're waiting for me."
Thales looked anxious and his eyes were nervous.
But the other party just stared from a distance without moving, as if he didn't hear.
Thales' heart sank.
"This is not something that can be done right away by sharpening the gun in battle," a few seconds later, the stranger said quietly: "You need to practice, reckless actions will..."
"But I don't have time to practice anymore."
Under the tension and panic, the second prince's tone became more and more excited: "Please teach me... please!"
"For the sake of Asheida and 'old friend'!"
This time, the other party stared at him for an extra long time.
One second, two seconds, five seconds...
But just in the next moment, before Thales could react, the illusory scene all over the stranger's body was shocked, and the aura became terrifying!
The opponent took a step forward, and the eyes hidden behind the virtual curtain lit up with two bright lights, penetrating the obstacles as if they were real.
It went straight into Thales's eyes, making the young man's eyes dim!
In the space called 'criticality', the surrounding fuzzy virtual curtains are layered and broken, turning into a three-dimensional thick fog.
They pressed in from all sides as if they were alive, compressing this area of the world into a narrow and blocked place, dyeing everything in sight into pitch black, like huge waves in the ink sea, surging!
Thales took a step back in shock, but felt that the stranger in front of him was becoming more and more intimidating.
"Girls are amazing, I can't hide it for too long."
The stranger said bluntly:
"You understand as much as you can understand."
Before Thales had time to express his gratitude, the other party spoke decisively without any hesitation.
"First, the anchor."
In the void shrouded in thick ink, strangers walked slowly around Thales, their mysterious eyes emitting bright light looking at him from different angles.
"You have to find a good anchor for yourself. This is the simplest way to 'keep yourself safe'."
Before he could recover from the shock before his eyes, Thales was slightly confused:
"Anchor point?"
The stranger's footsteps stopped behind Thales.
"I don't like to use metaphors, but even as a junior, you are far behind, so I can only explain it in this unequal and imprecise way."
Thales's heart moved.
Behind him, the mysterious magician in the void said coldly:
"When you are wandering in the sea of magic energy and you feel the threshold rising and falling all the time, your body will be affected far more than just your body."
"You need an anchor to lock you at all times, even in times of danger, to pull you back to the most basic physical state from the road to threshold. This is the anchor point."
The strange and dense fog around him flowed in accordance with the stranger's words, emitting a faint light and blocking everything, making Thales feel like he was in an endless sea.
At a loss what to do.
The stranger wasted no time and continued:
"Accurate and effective anchor points can not only help you restrain terrible impulses and desires, and maintain yourself and rationality when exposed to magic energy, but they can even remain effective after knocking on the door, pulling you back to your true state from the irresistible state.
State, return to yourself.”
Thales pondered slightly: "So I need an anchor point."
"How to do it?"
The stranger slowly raised a finger, and colorless ripples lingered from his fingertips again, creating illusions in front of his blurry face.
"Specifically, the anchor can be anything, a memory, an object, a feature, an event."
Memories, objects, characteristics, events...
Know yourself.
Restrain impulse.
Stay sensible.
Return to yourself.
Thales suddenly remembered that inexplicable "knock on the door" six years ago.
At that time, the person who called him back to Longxiao City from his so-called true state...
"But most importantly..."
The stranger continued:
"The anchor must be pointed directly at your self."
Thales was suddenly stunned, and then he had questions:
"self?"
His thoughts returned to the stranger's previous words.
Be careful with yourself.
but……
"Self," the stranger nodded, and the light flickered around his head, bringing out circles of fuzzy colorless ripples:
"The few things about you that cannot be confused with others."
The stranger's bright eyes flashed behind the blurred face.
"Now, answer me:" His voice became extremely cold and hard, forcing Thales to pay attention to him:
"Who are you?"
Thales was slightly shocked.
"I?"
The young man subconsciously replied:
"Uh, Tai, Tails?"
But the stranger suddenly became aggressive.
"Tiles? Humph!"
"How do you know there is only one Thales?"
He spoke faster and asked coldly:
"What if I told you that a hundred and twenty-three years ago on the South Coast of the Stars, in a crappy bar in a certain port, there was an unlucky sailor named Thales?"
"Is it you or him that the anchor should point directly at?"
Thales was startled when he became compact.
The stranger said coldly:
"As I said, self is something in you that cannot be confused by others."
"Tiles, is this name you have used for more than ten years your true 'self', or is it a label given by others that you think is your 'self'?"
Thales only felt that his breathing was getting faster and faster.
"So again, who are you?" the stranger repeated sharply.
The strange thick fog around me lingered for a long time.
Gloomy and gloomy.
Thales gritted his teeth and took a deep breath:
"Well, then... I was born in the year 665 of the End Calendar, and I was born in the lower city of Yongxing. I was extremely unlucky in the first half of my life, Thales Brightstar?"
He raised his head and looked tentatively at the stranger.
"Humph, the content has been added, the scope of reference of the tag has been narrowed, and the anchor point can be conveniently pointed. It seems to be very effective, but the question is, if this is effective..."
The stranger pondered for a moment at first, seeming to feel something, but in the end he changed the topic and became sarcastic and sarcastic:
"Why don't you just throw in a three-foot-thick biography?"
Thales' eyebrows moved.
The stranger's tone was quite disdainful:
"The longer the string of the kite, the harder it is to control, and you put such a heavy load on the anchor point that maybe it just positioned itself in '665' when the storm broke the string."
Thales frowned with a headache.
The stranger said rather coldly:
"Self! What you need is a precise definition, not redundant descriptions and multiple labels. You are like the protagonist in a bad knight novel, facing the enemy and taking out a lot of seemingly powerful treasures and titles.
, but none of them really belong to him."
The stranger bent down, his blurred face almost touching the tip of Thales' nose.
The glare in his eyes is still there, making it difficult to open your eyes:
"One more time...who are you...?"
The young man looked at him nervously.
The thick fog and huge waves rolling around seemed to indicate the other party's mood at the moment.
It also put a lot of pressure on Thales.
Thales felt worried and gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, I am Prince Thales, the magician?"
"There's no way to confuse it, right?"
Hearing that word, the stranger was silent for a moment and slowly straightened up.
"Very good, this 'self' seems to be very unique, but," the stranger snorted coldly:
"Is it really accurate?"
Thales was startled again.
"The three parts are so inseparable, so is the self guided by your anchor point a 'magic master', a 'Tiles', or a 'prince'?"
The other party shook his head and said:
"Secondly, can your true self be summed up in these three words? Prince Thales, the magician?"
The stranger snorted coldly and continued to ask:
"So, for the last time, who are you?"
What?
Thales, who had been hit hard, felt depressed.
The anxious and nervous mood, the successive pressing interrogations, and the subsequent refutations gave Thales no chance to breathe and think carefully, and he was left confused.
He could no longer care about the turbulent thick fog surrounding the other party, nor did he have time to pay attention to the strange scene in the critical area.
"I do not understand."
"How can the anchor point be determined so that it points to the 'self'?"
Cherishing his last chance, Thales asked the stranger solemnly and seriously:
"And what is 'self'?"
The young man shook his head honestly: "I really don't understand."
The stranger seemed to have anticipated his question and hummed softly.
"Because it's harder than you think."
The mysterious magician raised his hands and raised his voice:
"Most people in this world have difficulty recognizing themselves."
Following his words, the thick fog and ink waves in the critical area obediently gave way to the space, and the colorless waves turned into mini scenes one after another in the void.
Those are countless faceless individuals.
From birth, growth, work, achievement to death.
It is their birth, old age, sickness and death.
"They live in the world relying on a dazzling array of labels: name, career, appearance, achievements, identity, status, blood, relationships, titles, power, wealth, items..."
Thales watched his performance blankly.
The stranger moved his hands, and the vision changed:
"Some labels are given directly by others, and some labels are chosen by oneself later."
“But whether they identify themselves based on others’ references, convince themselves based on established habits, or define themselves based on their location, they often fall into external traps, thinking that the thing represented by the label is themselves, but they never know the true identity.
What is the self?”
Label……
self……
Thales frowned, puzzled.
"Direct your anchor to meaningless labels, think that's your self, and expect these things to take you home..."
The opponent's finger trembled, and the picture in the colorless waves shattered!
It shocked Thales.
The stranger’s words carry a slight sense of alienation:
"Historically, many people have lost their way at this step, disappearing into nothingness and never coming back. We call this a 'wrong anchor'."
"No matter how strong-willed a person is, once he takes the wrong path, he will just go in the opposite direction and make the same mistake again and again."
Wrong anchor...
Lost...
At that moment, Thales felt that he had caught something, but when he looked back and thought about it, he didn't seem to understand anything.
He scratched his hair painfully:
"Self is not a label? The anchor cannot be set on a label?"
"Then where should I settle?"
The stranger snorted softly, seemingly disapproving.
"I don't know," the other party stared at him coldly, a cold light seemed to shine on his blurry face:
"you tell me?"
All right.
Looking at the other party's appearance, Thales shook his head with a headache.
He is obviously not the kind of person who likes to show his answers to his students.
In the mysterious critical moment, the stranger took a deep look at Thales and turned away.
"That's it for 'keeping to yourself'," he said, leaving the young man with a lonely back:
"As for how much you can experience..."
Thales was shocked!
"etc……"
But the other party didn't even look back, and was about to disappear into the thick fog.
At the same time, Thales also felt that everything around him was dissipating.
It seemed like he would leave soon.
Thales was anxious.
Damn it!
Anchor, self...what do these mean!
He stared at the stranger's slowly disappearing figure, thinking desperately that he should at least find a way to keep him...
In order not to forget, in order to stay sane.
Find an anchor point when you lose control or when your threshold is exceeded.
The anchor points directly to myself and can pull me back...
so……
From the anchor point to the self, for example, it is like when I was sailing in the ocean, I dropped...
etc.
An analogy?
Having said this, the young man was suddenly startled.
He raised his head and stared blankly at the dense fog that was gradually dissipating in the critical area.
"Guide!"
Thales blurted out subconsciously.
At that moment, the thick ink-colored fog around him suddenly trembled as if it had consciousness!
The stranger turned around, the thick fog no longer dissipated.
He looked steadily at Thales.
The latter gasped and asked:
"You are Asheida's guide, right?"
very good……
At least...I kept him.
Thales was worried.
Faced with Thales' sudden question, the stranger seemed unprepared.
He moved slightly, and his blurred face trembled slightly.
After a few seconds, the stranger asked quietly:
"Why?"
Thales exhaled slowly, feeling the memory slowly returning.
"Asida said that he hates metaphors," Thales tried word by word:
"You don't seem to like it either."
The stranger said nothing.
But Thales felt that this was the default.
"Why, why is it a metaphor? Why do you hate metaphors?" Thales asked abruptly, and then he realized that something was wrong.
He couldn't see the exact expression of the stranger, and could only feel the sudden movement of the other person's eyes behind the virtual screen, causing a few ripples.
But he didn't look offended.
"Because," the stranger said in a strange tone:
"In the most serious and equal discussions, using metaphors is lazy and tricky."
Thales's heart moved, and he felt he touched something.
Just listen to the stranger continue:
"It relies on one-sided common points to connect the ontology and metaphor, but it is easy to obscure the essence and situation of things, indulge the speaker, mislead the listener, exile understanding to the appearance of metaphor, and unknowingly distort the original appearance of things."
"It is the scout of sophistry and empty talk, the vanguard of deviation and misunderstanding."
The stranger said indifferently:
"Even if there are similarities, the metaphor and the ontology may not be the same; even if it is easy to understand, the understanding obtained through the metaphor may not be in line with the original meaning."
At that moment, Thales trembled slightly!
He understood something.
Thales spoke subconsciously, learning each other's sentence patterns word for word, but with a different target:
"Even if there are similarities, labels and the self may not have the same thing; even if it is easy to understand, the self obtained through the label may not be the true self."
Thales said blankly.
The stranger didn't answer, just stared silently.
As he spoke slowly, the boy's thoughts became clearer and smoother.
He looked at the other party with a hint of eagerness and excitement: "So, to anchor yourself, what you really need is to shed all external labels."
“Get rid of what you call ‘things that confuse others’.”
"Because those labels also blur the essence of things and what self is, right?"
The stranger remained silent.
However, Thales's eyes lit up and he asked again and again: "They are like metaphors taken from other similar objects. They contain either too much or too little content. The situation is deviated from left to right, and they cannot represent themselves?"
Thales' thoughts became clearer and clearer, and he punched the palm of his hand:
"So, I can't rely on external things to set an anchor point and find myself. This will be a 'wrong anchor'."
"Just like in the most serious discussions, you don't like to use metaphors to convey your point of view, which will ignore the situation and distort the essence."
The stranger looked at him silently.
Among the thousands of thoughts composed of magic energy, a few special thoughts came to mind.
Maybe you're right, Asheida.
He is indeed different.
It's not his bloodline, it's not his origin, it's not his qualifications.
But...
Thinking of this, the stranger hummed:
"Ironically, it's also a metaphor."
It seems very disdainful.
But at least he didn't deny Thales said silently.
This means...
At that moment, Thales frowned tightly.
"Keep yourself safe."
He repeated it subconsciously.
"'Things that cannot be confused by others'," the prince raised his head thoughtfully:
"So that's what it means."
The stranger crossed his arms and smiled slightly, making Thales feel like he was smiling.
I want to find, in this world...
Original, complete, truly, something that only belongs to me.
"Because the other is hell."
Thales said blankly.
The stranger's voice sounded confused:
"What?"
Thales came to his senses and shook his head: "Nothing, just the crazy words of an old man named Sartre."
The stranger nodded, and the thick fog around him began to dissipate again.
"Then go," the mysterious magician said calmly: "Return to the most violent state of loss of control."
"Test your anchor."
"If you succeed and maintain your sanity and self in the out-of-control state without getting lost, then you will officially stabilize in the 'object' stage and become a 'contacter'. Although I think the magic stage theory is not applicable to you.
What applicability.”
Thales' expression tightened. He thought of his companions who were still in trouble on the other side, and finally said nothing.
But when the matter came to an end, he hesitated slightly.
"What if I fail?"
The stranger sneered:
"If your anchor point fails... then you will make the same mistake again and raise your threshold crazily until you knock on the door and wait for the two girls who are gearing up to find you..."
Thales frowned.
"What's more, because you are starting from the critical point, the next unexpected knock on the door will only be more violent. I think there is a high possibility that you will be completely lost in your current state and become a kite with broken strings."
Thales was stunned for a moment, struggling to understand what the other party said: "A kite with a broken string?"
"So where will I go?"
The stranger shook his head.
"have no idea."
The momentum around him changed, and his words became solemn: