"Why?"

    Eryndor didn’t know what to tell her, so he just made up a random excuse.

    As he looked up at the ceiling of the room, Eryndor couldn’t help but scan the unusual parts of his memory.

    There was really nothing else which stood out, except Liliana trying to kill Ken and Hellen, using the abnormality on the planets.

    Maybe he could try to investigate those? There were still more checkpoint planets left on their journey after all.

    But, how would it affect the battle if they kill the two people here?

    It confused Eryndor, so he simply...just sat there.

    He contemplated using Cognitive Scrying, but there were some serious implications about it, which he had realized in the past.

    Cognitive Scrying was essentially invading the privacy of people at the deepest of levels. Respecting others’ privacy was a part of his belief, a part of his identity.

    His awakening had been when he doubted his identity.

    Which meant, the concept of his identity was core to his current existence, and survival.

    If it was somehow changed beyond measure, it might lead to unfavorable outcomes.

    Eryndor had read about this one thing in the past which he couldn’t help but remember.

    [You have these lines you won’t cross. But then one day, you cross them.

    And suddenly you possess the very dangerous information that you can break the rule and the world won’t instantly come to an end.

    You’ve taken a big, black, bold line and you’ve made it a little bit gray.

    And now every time you cross it, it just gets grayer and grayer.

    Until one day, you look around and you think.

    ’There was a line here once, I think.’]

    It was even more true in the case of Eryndor whose identity was so important that it could determine his survival.

    That was not to say that he won’t ever change. People change, he would change too.

    Cognitive dissonance was the psychological discomfort a person felt when they held conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes, or when their behavior contradicted their beliefs.

    No.

    Eryndor was successful in convincing himself.

    It wouldn’t have been an issue if the person had tried to kill him, or harm him.

    Eryndor felt zero burden using Cognitive Scrying on Jeremy, who was indirectly being controlled to harm him, and the Mayor, who was also instructed to harm him.

    But to use it on Liliana? It needed plenty of mental conditioning and roundabout reasoning to justify his actions.

    Taking a deep breath, he activated the Cognitive Scrying, slipping into the familiar third person view.

    Looking into Liliana’s room’s direction, he directed his vision there.

    A second later, he was gazing at Liliana who seemed to be reading a book on her bed.

    Now that he had already decided what to do, Eryndor didn’t hesitate any longer.

    He targeted Liliana and felt his consciousness being pulled into her mind. He didn’t resist the pull.

    Once inside, he gazed at the spherical balls of light floating around. They were the memories of a person.

    But there was one problem.

    There was a massive shield which stood in front of the countless motes of light.

    He lightly made contact with it, then backed away. Eryndor immediately knew what it was.

    A shield to defend against mental attacks? Damn.

    It was the first time Eryndor had come across anything like this.

    The shield was a mental defense treasure at the peak of level two.

    He had a hunch that his Active realm Cognitive Scrying could definitely break through the shield in front of him without his own mind taking any kind of damage.

    But the problem was, it would definitely alert Liliana. Eryndor didn’t want that for obvious reasons.

    He tried various ways to bypass the shield, and access the memories, but no matter what, a slight ripple would spread from the shield which would interfere with his ability.

    Unless he broke the shield, he wouldn’t be able to access any kind of memory.

    Unbeknownst to Eryndor, a change had taken place in his Mind Palace.