Chronicles of the True Wizard

Flying through the portal, Felix was ready to pop out into empty space with his modified Force Bubble surrounding him and having to fly to get anywhere. What he wasn’t ready for, was the debris of a planet shooting towards him at speeds that would easily rip through his body like it was nothing.

Well… fuck.

Seeing them coming from a massive distance was the only reason Felix managed to dodge through the stream of debris flying towards him. Mark calculating and overlaying the trajectories of the debris in his vision was the only reason he was able to fly through and find relative safety.

Okay fuck this. How do we find this sub-System so I can leave this stupid event.

The Nucleus in his Soul Space took a few moments to respond, “What the fuck are you? I knew you had a Soul Space and like, that’s weird but n-”

Not the time. How do I find it? Also, why is it still here?

The Nucleus took another few moments, Sorry, distracted. It’s here because you are. It has to remain until you leave at which point it will probably close the event early.

Gotcha, a rule it can’t break I take it?

Bingo.

Where is it?

Exactly where you would assume it is.

How big is this event subspace?

That is a good question… I think it’s just big enough to contain the planet and the stars it orbits then everything else is simulated, like distant stars and planets.

So the stars and planet were actually both orbiting the center of the subspace?

Yeah.

Okay, so to be efficient the sub-System is in the exact center which means… it’s stationary and sitting in the middle of space. What’s it look like?

Uh… You won’t see it at all. Actually, you probably can’t detect it on your own.

Oh, wonderful. What do we do once we find it?

Pray?

Seriously?

Well no. Look, if we don’t get rid of it, we maybe both die. You at least might get punished. As soon as we make it obvious we can and are attacking it, it will try to leave.

How strong are these odds?

Well… it knows you put the cores into the machine in the building and it will probably try and retrieve me from the building so it can consume and integrate me. Once it does, it will know for sure so…

Oh, lovely. Won’t it just report back, sync once to make sure the information isn’t lost?

No. I doesn’t sync on its own in events like this ever. It relies on portals you sentients make.

So the last time it synced was when Melody surrendered?

Yup.

Wait… How did she get in? I thought the event was closed?

Yeah… not really, not yet. The one hour thing was me but… I managed to change the text on the screen but the actual timer didn’t change. It was supposed to say one dekad. She probably just didn’t read the message then tried and found it worked.

So there could be more participants that just pop through at any minute, causing it to sync?

Yes but also no. Their marble will just explode if they try now that wherever they started from, is in one of two stars.

Okay, that’s actually oddly comforting… So… We can approach it and that’s it?

Correct.

You know, I could probably just get rid of you now and The System would forgive me.

Yeah yeah whatever, you’ll come around.

Okay so, we need to find it first.

That’s the easy part, you don’t actually have to find it at all.

Felix groaned, Speak please, these dramatic pauses are grating.

You can just force it to come to you.

Felix thought about it for a few seconds but couldn’t come up with anything, How?

Well, it’s only in here because you are and if you were to enter a subspace of this subspace…

It would have to follow.

Yup.

Okay, I think I need a primer on subspaces then. In my head they were just, separate spaces.

Yeah… I have no idea.

What? What do you mean? You’ve mentioned them a bunch of times now?

Look, I don’t have all The System’s knowledge, I just have a bunch of leftover rules and protocols from the scraps that were pieced together to create me. I can read through them and predict what The System will do in some situations but I can’t extract knowledge from them or anything. I sure as shit don’t even understand most of them.

Oh great. So this isn’t even really a solution at all then if none of us even know what a subspace is or where to find one.

Oh… actually… I sort o-

Holy crap I am very close to tossing you into the stars. Just say everything that needs to be said at once please.

Okay okay okay, I get it. I don’t know what a subspace is or how to create one or how to identify one but I know of one. Basically, the only reasons the sub-System in this event would ever move or split is if it had to expand into a subspace. It did so many times throughout the event and I had no way of tracking it but… after you forced everyone else out, there was a time when you were the only one left in the entire event, before the thieves. During that time, the sub-System almost entirely left the event exactly once… When you used that marble you have to open a portal and walked into it.

Okay, that was helpful. By almost entirely, you think whatever it leaves behind we could deal with?

Probably, most likely, very much maybe. Problem is… the majority chunk is the one following you.

Great. Maybe I should just harvest you and feed all of it to Mark. He gives me percentages and confidence intervals you know. Also he just talks more efficiently. Less blabbing and more information.

You know what, if this Mark is so great, why don’t you throw him at the sub-System, huh?

Throw him? He’s actually useful.

Well I guess aaalll that inf-

Sorry, I probed you but I don’t have the time or the patience right now. How do we beat the piece that follows me inside?

We weaken it. Which is equivalent to and more understandable as, we distract it.

How.

Right so, I have no idea. Make it do something hard and taxing. Use a skill or something.

I have a console in there that I can use to move land around and buy furniture and stuff, if I bought something huge, would that work?

The Nucleus actually snorted, Fuck no. That’s easy. All it does is move and reconfigure some matter. Your familiar could do that.

Huh, I guess you’re right. Except… where does it get matter from?

Uh… anywhere? Somewhere someone won’t notice it gone from?

Which in here, where the planet is gone and there are no moons is…

… I gue-

No, don’t. Just check the protocols please. Your sub-System was also an an event sub-System so the protocols should be similar, if a little outdated.

It took the Nucleus a few minutes to respond, which was quite a bit longer than Felix expected, Okay so… I literally looked everywhere and I don’t think there’s a protocol for this…

What is your best guess, given all the other protocols you have access to, as to what it will do?

Well… It is weighted pretty heavily against moving itself in and out of subspaces unless a sentient opens a portal for it. It is also weighted heavily against splitting itself more than necessary but I just don’t think it has a choice. My best guess is that the piece that follows you in there will split itself off leaving 15% behind then sending the rest back to fight one of the two stars for matte- actually it can probably only afford to have 10 maybe even 5% left behind.

Okay, that works. Once it comes back though, how much am I dealing with?

Standards were to leave 15% behind. So, it will leave 15% here and 85% will follow you into your marble thing. Then, 40% will go back into the event and wrestle matter from a star because standard protocol is a larger chunk stay with the sentients. I’m not entirely sure if 55% is enough though so it might come right back to split itself differently.

45% then 40% right after…

Yes and it will feel like barely an instant has gone by.

Can you slow it down?

Yes but not for more than a… tiny fraction of a second. More importantly, can you realistically deal with 70% of the sub-System in this event?

I don’t know, can I?

You tell me nothing about yourself, dodge all my questions and are now asking for my opinion on what you can do? I don’t know.

How much is left in you?

Oh like… 7% ish.

Alright so, hit me with everything you’ve got and I’ll just multiply that by 7.

Uh… you’d have to multiply it by about a thousand… I’m missing convictions, interconnects and a whole lot of other shit. Not to mention, the piece that went into making me isn’t actually functional, I can’t just deploy it against you like a weapon.

You have curses though? Nevermind, you said the piece that made you was infected by a curse? What curse was it, how mature was it and how big was this sub-System in comparison to this one?

The sub-System was much bigger, this event is rather small and their size is proportional to the subspace size. Especially now that you’re the only one left and it gave up on the planet, there really isn’t much left. The curse was sorrow and it was as mature as I’ve ever seen it.

How concrete is your memory of that curse?

Very. It was a significant experience for me.

Perfect, compare it to this. Manipulating some things and exercising his will, Felix moved some of The Endless Hunger from its dedicated Soul Space over until it was a short distance from The Nucleus.

WHAT THE HELL IS THA- GET THAT AWAY FROM ME.

Felix made sure The Nucleus got a good look by leaving it there for another second before moving it back.

I REPEAT. WHAT ARE YOU.

Compare, give me a guess. A range. A percentage. A number.

10% of that? But curse maturity is logarithmic so… 70% as strong as that maybe?

Okay… This is seeming less and less insane.

Really? I mean… of course it is.

The voice of reason in the shape of a Grimoire chimed in directly in Felix’s mind and he ignored the Nucleus for a bit to converse with a more trusted ally, You might have a stronger focused will than a small fraction of a fraction of a piece of a chunk of the sub-System, when it’s distracted… but it’s like if you had the sharpest sword to have ever existed that can cut through anything. Now you are faced with a million swords surrounding you, what are you supposed to do against that?

You’re right. This is suicidal if we do it but… I’m leaning on trying it and just throwing the Nucleus out if things look hairy. It’s reasonable for me to say it was the Nucleus… right?

Grim nodded, As long as you avoid doing anything directly yourself.

Look, I know I’m a little insane when it comes to risks, do you think it’s worth it to even try?

No, I don’t but… I think you should try. The odds are awful, there are a ton of unknowns and having to give up the nucleus would suck. You got where you are by taking dumb risks and doing whatever you wanted without thinking about the consequences for others and often times, ignoring the consequences for yourself. This is the way of the multiverse I guess.

Well… If it was really dumb, you would have outright said no so… Works for me.

Addressing everyone that could hear him mentally, Felix looked around into the void in confusion, How do I find the center of this subspace? I can’t just fly from end to end until I hit something, that would take too long or more likely kill me at the necessary speeds.

The Nucleus sparkled with color as the fog swirled and it thought for a few seconds before voicing its confusion, Why do you need to find it?

So that when I come back out of the subspace, I can deal with it instantly. Otherwise it will escape, right?

Oh… yeah. I guess. Center should be directly between where the planet was and the stars ar- no, were when the planet exploded…

Oh, that works. Mark, can you calculate about where that would be and direct me?

A moment later, without a communicated response, Felix saw a literal arrow in his vision along with a distance so large, he physically guffawed. He knew the math though and knew that with his Force spells, he could accelerate infinitely. The issue then was slowing back down but with Mark tracking things, he would know exactly where to start decelerating.

The only worry then was any leftover debris hitting him would definitely kill him so, he just hoped Mark along with his own eyes were fast enough to spot them early.

In reality, it took Felix just under two hours to reach his destination using nearly his entire mana pool. He could have gotten there faster, he knew that but, even in space he wasn’t willing to convert the entirety of his mana into Force all at once. Despite holding back, he was accelerating at speeds that would have destroyed a normal human’s body and even for him, was taxing and uncomfortable. He took a minor amount of damage from the acceleration alone, just a few points here and there as his organs rearranged themselves but, he still could have gone faster.

All the damage was internal because as much as his Endurance made it difficult for knives from earth to cut him, like thick leather, his internal organs benefited less. He had no frame of reference for what a g was but he knew fighter pilots and astronauts trained to handle them and somehow, Mark had calculated that the was experiencing around 200 g.

Nova on the other hand, was having the time of her life and was completely distraught that Felix didn’t let her leave his robes the entire time. At the speeds they were going, she could get knocked way too far away way too quickly for him to risk it and he knew, she just wanted to go faster so it wasn’t like she would be careful at all.

He made sure to save about half his mana pool to slow himself down and arrived at a standstill about where Mark had directed him. With regeneration and being able to adjust his bearings, he didn’t need to be too precise with anything but the mana being so sparse in the empty void, he arrived with just 5% of his mana left, much less than he would have liked.

With the Nucleus’ guidance, they tuned their positions slightly but had no way of detecting the sub-System, no matter how hard Felix tried. His Matter Senses, Anima Senses, Mana Senses even just his sight sensed nothing. Realizing he wasn’t going to be able to detect it at all was more disappointing than Felix had initially thought it would be and he just hoped he’d be able to one day.

They could have exposed the Nucleus to find it but that would have been the equivalent of asking the sub-System to attack the both of them.

This was the best they were going to be able to do for now so, Felix pulled out the leg of some massive construct that he had looted and used it as a surface to open his Pocket Home against. He left Nova outside to nap atop the leg because he didn’t want to have to worry about her and there was a chance she shifted the sub-System splits in their favor a little more. He nor the Nucleus were sure how it would classify her though so they didn’t count on it.

Before starting anything, Felix took some time to empty his Soul Devouring Ring completely, moving all the anima into his Soul Space then slowly clearing that out as well. There wasn’t a ton in there relative to his soul but there was enough to increase the density of his body suffused layer a little. He also emptied out anything that didn’t absolutely have to be in his Soul Space, storing them in the warehouse or the tower he rarely used.

Are we really going to try this? I’m starting to think this might not be worth it… at all. What if the Nucleus is wrong and The System realizes what’s happening?

Grim responded, being the only one who could hear him, had permission to respond directly into his mind, and was equipped to handle his doubts, You just have to decide if the risks outweigh the potential rewards or not. If The System does find out and target you, what are you going to do?

I have no choice but to leave this universe, not that I have any idea how…

So it’s death then.

Yeah… No, no more doubting myself. I don’t have to try, I want to. Let’s do this.

Flying up to the top of his tower then dropping down into the bedroom, Felix found the screen he was looking for and brought up the upgrade screen for his tower specifically. Once the screen was in front of him, Felix tried moving around a little and was happy to find the confirmation screen at least, followed him. It made the whole plan just a little less complicated.

Finding the direct center of his Pocket Home subspace was trivial compared to flying through space. Floating there, he took a breath to prepare himself and made sure he was ready. He only had two simple tasks but they had to be executed in the correct order and nearly instantly. Timing was everything.

First, he pulled the Nucleus out of his Soul Space. Pulling something out of his Soul Space wasn’t instantaneous though, it took a tiny fraction of a second for something to move through his soul as he directed it. With something as big as the Nucleus, it took even longer. Still, the time it took was measured in microseconds.

Then, as he felt the Nucleus moving right to the edge of his soul, right as it was about to appear, he accepted the upgrade for his tower.

As soon as it was released, the Nucleus had already begun suppressing the sub-System as much as it could and suddenly, something appeared right next to Felix.

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, intricate, complicated, arcane, mysterious and indecipherable. Completely outside his comprehension in so many ways. The instant he was aware of it, his hands wrapped in his Soul Tendrils were shoved into the object and he pulled. His Matter Control, Mana Control, Anima Control and just plain physical strength all pulled as hard as he could manage but it wasn’t enough. The sub System felt like he had reached his hand into mess of wires as thin as spider webs but not nearly as fragile and not physically but spiritually somehow.

Pulling as hard as he could, Felix knew this was death if he didn’t succeed, both now and with the next piece that would return any moment. He activated Reaper’s Body, Reaper’s Movement and Reaper’s Sense along with tapping into his conviction to align his soul as much as possible. He pushed himself as far as he could in every sense and felt his vision starting to collapse from the exertion then, he got a little help.

The Nucleus’ only job was to suppress the sub-System long enough for Felix to tear it apart and simultaneously delay the part that had separated itself from returning. That alone was enough to completely occupy it but Felix felt the decision being made in the anima contained within the orb. It released the sub-System suppression and pulled with Felix. If they failed, if the Nucleus’ help the instant it released the suppression wasn’t enough, there was nothing they could do. It would leave the subspace and The Real System, the whole thing, would hunt them down.

Something snapped and Felix’s arms suddenly started moving again, the sub-System physically split in two and instantly, he surrounded the two with the Soul Tendrils from both of his hands and squeezed. He was so much worse at suppressing the sub-System and he could feel it trying to split itself, escape. It squirmed and flailed like a trapped animal but Felix was barely aware of it happening at all.

The instant it had split, he began pulling on it in every way. He freed the mana mostly to disable it, tossing it aside to float around in his Pocket Home. He pulled on the anima, drawing all of it through his now nearly empty Soul Space and almost instantly, it was full.

He had been prepared for a lot of anima but it was so much more than he thought possible. The anima in his Soul Space he siphoned into everything he could think of to make room. He filled his ring nearly instantly, he tripled the number of Soul Tendrils he had and quadrupled their density, he poured it into every aspect of his own soul he could, increasing the density of every layer expect his core soul. In doing so he was drastically diluting his own soul because he didn’t have time to align and affinize it all but it didn’t matter.

Anima continued to flow into him faster than he could handle and there was no way he could slow down. They needed to cleanse all of it before the other piece made it back because despite the Nucleus insisting it could handle it raw, Felix wasn’t risking anything so there was no way he was giving it any of the unfiltered anima.

He still had more than he could ever use in any amount of time though and nowhere good to put it so he also started pushing a stream of the filtered anima into the Nucleus. Somehow, there didn’t seem to be a limit to how much it could take, at once or at all. It was a bottomless pit and the diameter of that hole was infinite. As much as he tried to use the anima everywhere else, he couldn’t use it fast enough. He created multiple planets as dense as he could orbiting his core soul, moons, added to the defensive lattice layer, his body suffusing layer. All of them were pushed to the limit of his will power, compressed to be as dense as possible without losing any size whatsoever due to the sheer amount of anima at his disposal.

Felix accelerated the stream pouring into the Nucleus a moment later as he grew worried over how much time they had left until the other piece broke back in. Essentially shoving everything else through his Soul Space and into the Nucleus, the small piece of the System they had harvested, was finally gone.

“What the hell am I going to do wi-”

The Nucleus cut him off, Too late, it’s now.

The other piece appeared all of a sudden and Felix reached forwards, and grabbed hold of it, just like he had before. He had more tendrils and his soul was multiple times denser and bigger than before but, he was drained and his will was drastically diluted. The willpower he had had to exert to split the first piece, hold it steady, tear it apart, pull the anima into his Soul Space, organize the streams of anima and compress all the different pieces of his soul drained him as if he had imbued the spark of life multiple times in a row.

The issue was, there was no time to wait. This piece was just as big as the last and he had to do the exact same thing, at least most of it.

Even with the added tendrils, the sub-System resisted so much more than the last had. It pulled back and seeped out and around his fingers like a liquid, the Nucleus equally exhausted and unable to contain it the same way.

Gritting his teeth and hardening his resolve, Felix reluctantly decided he was going to have to enact his backup plan, There’s no other option.

Grim nodded in his mind, If this kills you… thank you for saving me.

What will you do?

I think I’ll bond with Nova. She’s really grown on me.

I don’t know if I just didn’t notice before… you called her she, not it.

Grim didn’t have a chance to respond as time had run out, the sub-System was squirming and had almost gotten free. Physically Felix slammed the piece, while he still had a grip on it, into his chest. Pulling on it, Felix tore a gaping hole into his newly reinforced soul as he forcefully stuffed the entire sub-System into his Soul Space.

Immediately, it exploded.

Being jettisoned out the back of Felix’s Soul Space, Grim caught himself in the air and slowed himself down as Felix’s body fell to the ground.

Traditionally, Grim had a difficult time seeing anima in any way shape or form. Over time though, whether as a side effect of Reaper’s Bond-despite their bond being separate from the skill-or something else, Grim could now see in a similar way to Felix. He hadn’t found any way to activate the other skills but his Mana Control was orders of magnitude better than it had been before their bond and his ability to sense anima, had been non existent before.

He didn’t see everything in color, the way he saw when watching the world through the dome building in Felix’s Mind City that showed him everything Felix saw. It wasn’t as detailed or nearly as beautiful.

He also didn’t feel Felix’s typical set of emotions that mostly rotated between satisfaction with his progress, curiosity, determination, resolve and apathy with hints of frustration that quickly washed themselves away. In his Mind City and in the Soul Garden, Grim spent 80% of his time enjoying the infectious satisfaction Felix felt with his constant training and progress. It was like watching a movie that was constantly exciting with his soul.

Floating on his own, Grim saw with his own senses in a mockery of monochrome sight, he saw Felix’s unconscious form fall to the ground as a volcano of anima and mana exploded out of the hole he had torn in his own chest. Everything that had been a piece of the sub-System, a small chunk of a being that oversaw and controlled a universe, was obliterated and wiped clean.

The only reason any of what they were doing was possible at all, was because he was the only true leveler in the event. The sub-System had only left enough to deal with him and maintain the space until he left. Even that was split multiple times and nearly overwhelmed him but…

Whether or not he survived, he had done it. At least with the first piece, Felix had succeeded in harvesting a piece of the system.

They had briefly talked about using The Endless Hunger as a backup plan but Felix was stubborn and Grim could sense his greed. Nothing like the actual curse Greed used to create the Nucleus but still, greed all the same. Felix didn’t pull the piece into his Soul Space to save Grim, Grim knew that but and was grateful anyways. Felix did it because he wanted the mana and the anima for himself. There were other ways to survive but he was also just arrogant enough to believe he could make it out of this.

Grim, reluctantly, had to agree. It was possible, for him alone. If he succeeded, Grim would almost be convinced that arrogance was actually confidence, if it wasn’t such a stupid thing to even try.

Still, seeing a cone of anima equivalent to billions of souls pouring out of his body. Seeing the anima tear a hole a meter in diameter in his soul, travel fast enough that anyone in the stream other than Felix would have their soul shredded and removed from their body. Grim felt emotions all his own for the first time in a while, fear and doubt. Without Felix’s infectious confidence or arrogance-he really wasn’t sure yet-to combat his own emotions, he was left feeling only darkness.

He wasn’t sure if he was just becoming more human but for a moment, a distracting thought fluttered onto his pages. He suddenly understood at least part of why Melody spent so much time around Felix. Feeling all this other stuff without Felix’s constant wave of certainty he would succeed, his constant training which led to an ever present under-layer of satisfaction, sucked.

Living in Felix’s Soul Garden and Mind City, watching the world through his emotions, rarely ever feeling despair or hopelessness, sorrow or doubt, it was like living in a dream. Now, all Grim could do was watch the dream collapse before him.

The Nucleus had also fallen to the ground next to Felix, exhausted and drained and it took nearly 15 seconds for all of the anima to free itself from Felix’s soul at which point, he just lay there.

Pain. All Felix felt was pain and… a cold breeze around his lungs, or as he was slowly waking up, what remained of them. His first instinct was to dull his sense of pain but that both made it better and worse. The cool breeze was gone and the pain from the hole in his chest was mostly suppressed but the pain from the hole in his chest was so much worse.

Wait… How di- The pain in my ch- Get better and worse?

As he slowly regained control of his body, Felix realized dulling his sense of pain worked physically but his soul was completely wrung out and exercising any amount of will was just making it worse. Not only that but the hole in his chest, the physical one where his ribs were mostly missing like someone had launched a cannon from within his chest outwards, mirrored his soul.

Lying there, his anima was leaking out as the outside of his soul began to dissolve. Even the barrier protecting his core soul was mostly destroyed around the area but it didn’t matter, as far as he could tell it wasn’t actually pierced. It had done its job and his core soul, the planets within were all fine. His mind was okay too but only because it was far enough from his chest. The thought of what could have happened though made him incredibly wary of his current body’s layout and he immediately put re-configuring it at the top of his todo list.

Opening his Status Scr-

Nothing appeared. There was no Status Screen. No System. The difference was immediately apparent, not just in his energy and mana cores as they had collapsed, not in the missing screens or inventory. In the ambient anima.

Felix had never realized it before now but as soon as it was gone, he immediately noticed it. There was nothing. The anima was… clean. It was quiet.

There had been a static, a white noise that persisted everywhere Felix had ever been and yet it was so noisy and ever present that he had never noticed it. He had never known what it was to be without it but now… All he could say was that the silence it left behind was beautiful.

He never realized how much he would enjoy the emptiness, never knew what he was missing.

He almost wanted to just lie there and enjoy it.

The lack of a quantified value for his health, the lack of a numerical countdown made it all the more tempting, or rather didn’t make it pressing enough how much he needed to get up.

Just lying there though, not moving, that kept the pain at a manageable level. It kept his body from falling apart further. It also kept his soul from tearing itself apart as it was bound to his body. When his body moved, it moved and neither of them were in any state where they should be moved.

It wasn’t in Felix’s nature to quit and he didn’t really intend to. As much as he was losing every second, he wasn’t too worried. He had survived and all around him, the newfound silence of the ambient anima made way for a whole new cacophony of whispers to surface. The anima was so dense around him, it was like he was swimming inside the soul of a C grade being throughout his entire Pocket Home.

There was plenty of anima for him to use it would just take dekads, possibly terms, to fully repair his soul. Just piecing it back together wasn’t enough. His will was exhausted and his soul so damaged that he had no way of forcing the affinization process for all of the anima needed to repair his soul. No way of imbuing any intent or purpose into the anima. It would simply slough off unless he held onto it manually.

There wasn’t much he could do about that and realistically, all that mattered was that he was alive.

They still had one part left to deal with but so long as they kept the portal closed and his Pocket Home sealed, it wouldn’t even know what had happened.

As for all the matter the sub-System had gone off to collect, turning his head to the side Felix saw a massive chunk of nondescript material that definitely hadn’t been there before.

Closing his eyes, Felix laid there and enjoyed himself for a few more seconds before the pain in his soul spiked and woke his from his reverie.

Alright alright. You’re right.

First, Felix began carefully pulling both his body and soul back together to close his chest chest cavity. His body and soul were too intertwined at this point for him to do much separately, at least for now. Once what remained of both were mostly in place, he began using raw mana, of which there was an abundance around him, to seal the physical wounds. For now, it was taking the place of everything that was physically missing. It didn’t reconnect his vessels or act like any of his organs, it just kept things stationary.

With that somewhat in place, he immediately began slowly stitching his soul back together. From the tattered edges, he grabbed hold of whatever anima he could starting with the contents of his ring, followed by his surroundings. Luckily, there was no shortage of anima in his Pocket Home for the time being.

He started with what essentially amounted to strings to hold the opening together, a net for each layer. From there, he carefully filled in the gaps with a basic anima structure designed solely to hold things together. He couldn’t imbue any intent into the anima at all so he had to settle for one of the most basic structures, a simple braid.

Unfortunately, there was no good way for him to actually fill the gap except time. For the next little while, there would simply be a hole in his chest, at least in his soul. His physical body he could repair, all he needed was food. He physically didn’t have the matter to actually repair his body and didn’t even have close to enough focus to replace functional organs and systems with mana although, he had entertained the idea for a while. Unfortunately, he still relied on many of his organic systems even if he required them less and less.

Carefully, and painfully, lifting himself to his feet, Felix dragged himself towards the warehouse. As soon as he stood, a large grimoire flew over and carefully fit itself in his right armpit to help him move. Neither of them said anything to each-other, which Felix appreciated.

Inside the warehouse, he grabbed everything remotely organic. Plants and animal corpses mostly, and shoved them into his mouth. Though it hurt his soul, he used just a few levels of focus to reconnect just enough of his organs to digest things.

With every plant or corpse he stuffed into his mouth and digested, he got hungrier and so, he kept eating. With some organic matter and the remnants of mana and energy he still had flowing through his body, his cells began regenerating and the cavity in his chest slowly shrank. He pretty quickly ran out of energy now that his cores had exploded and so he had to stop to pull mana from the Aether into his body so his cells could transform it into energy and repair itself. He went back to consuming everything organic and paid attention to make sure he had enough but stopped himself pretty quickly as he noticed something he was surprised he had missed before.

Grim. How long ago did my body stop producing energy?

It never stopped, got close to stopping after your evolution but it’s still used here and there. Mostly when you physically exert your muscles and a few other organs.

I see. I wonder if the only reason I still use energy is because of the random cells I stuffed into my body before my evolution. The System took whatever the best cells available were and those used energy. But… everything uses energy so why does so much of my body just… not need it somehow? Or rather, why can they use mana instead when we had so much trouble finding mana fueled creatures to harvest?

Felix was pretty confident of the answer but didn’t have the time or willpower required to make modifications or test things at the moment. It also didn’t change anything for him so he kept walking along and consuming whatever he could find until his body, at least physically, looked completely restored nearly 4 hours later.

In a way, it was restored but it still felt wrong.

His soul was no longer completely attached to his entire body and so even though it was whole again, it felt like a foreign substance. Like he had surgically implanted half of another person’s body into his own. That feeling would pass but it would take a while as it required his soul to be completely repaired.

Checking in with the Nucleus, it was lying on the ground next to the pool of blood where Felix had been and as far as he could tell, unconscious. Felix bent down and carefully placed it into his Soul Space which, was rather easy considering the gaping hole in his chest.

Finally, he let himself fall to his knees then fall to the ground and roll over until he was lying still. He had no way to confirm with the Nucleus but according to their plan, the remaining sub-System outside of his Pocket Home shouldn’t enter. That was relative to the few hours they thought it would take between harvesting these and leaving though so, Felix wasn’t entirely certain.

There was nothing he could do about that though so, he laid back, enjoyed the silence of the anima and incessantly poked his Status Screen, just to be sure it never appeared.

Checking on everything within his soul, Felix was happy to find the residents of his Mind City worried but otherwise unharmed. The lattice barrier he had created around his core-soular-system was damaged, severely, but it hadn’t been breached. They had simply seen the sky go overcast, the grass sharpen and a few small quakes rippling through the ground as his emotions affected the weather.

He also verified that, despite not being conscious, The Endless Hunger remained isolated and contained all on its own. He had debated jettisoning it before pulling the sub-System inside but that would have been worse. The only chance he had, if the worst happened and it was released, was if it was released into his soul which would drastically slow it down.

Luckily that wasn’t an issue. Still though, Felix was no longer comfortable with just having it where it was after what had just happened.

After hours of deliberation, he decided the only logical place for it was in his soular-system. It was a risk placing it near his core soul and the residents of his Mind City but it would be isolated and much more protected. Where it was, if he were ever hit and damaged by a soul attack in the future, it could get out and kill him. This way, it wasn’t ever going to do that unless the soul attack pierced the barrier around his soular-system, at which point he was dead anyways.

So, carefully pulling open the already damaged lattice barrier, Felix created a tunnel of open space and carefully fit a new planet into orbit, far from the other planets. Observing briefly, he now had 5 planets orbiting his core soul. One was The Endless Hunger, a completely black orb with tendrils that reached outwards, like solar flares, trying to escape. One was his Mind City, a golden ball of anima that contained an ocean of sparks within it. Then there were the three new planets he had managed to create from the recent influx of mana. He had no idea what to do with them just yet, but he was confident he would find a use for them.

Carefully stitching the lattice back up, Felix took mana from the ambient around him and sealed up the gap as best he could. It would take time for his will to regenerate and for the anima to affinize but for the time being, it was contained.

It was the same for the rest of his soul too. He pulled things together and sealed leaking areas where necessary but he definitely wasn’t whole and wouldn’t be for a while. With the Nucleus in his Soul Space-not that they couldn’t escape just that he would wake if they did-he felt comfortable enough to close his eyes and drift off.

Grim didn’t need to be told when to wake him, he spent most of his time in Felix’s mind so he was fully aware of his needs.

A few days passed before Grim woke Felix up for the first time at which point Felix pulled in more ambient anima, filled in a little more of his soul, then fell back asleep.

This process repeated a number of times, the time Felix slept decreasing each time, until he could no longer justify sleeping for so long. As he was sleeping to repair his soul, he couldn’t just enter his Soul Garden, which would cause unnecessary strain and possibly make things worse so he was basically stuck doing nothing while he slept.

His brain was fine so it worked together with Mark to calculate permutations of the attunement crystals from the tree so, he wasn’t actually doing nothing but it still felt like it.

Once his soul was actually sealed-with a paper thin barrier-but nonetheless sealed, he refused to just keep sleeping and so, he began working on other things. He couldn’t do too much with the tree crystals without Nova so he first completely restored his Mana Core.

From there, he began testing the extent to which his body needed energy which, as Grim had said, was mostly when he exerted his muscles. Everything else that still used it used a small and constant amount that he was more than capable of generating passively. His muscle’s requirements spiked though when he used them which necessitated a buffer of some kind, previously a core.

As Mark and much of his brain calculated permutations, he began manually experimenting with his body and various structures and organs he could adjust or replace. It would have been faster with a computer at his disposal but what he was doing didn’t have a deadline. What they were doing, he was relying on for one of his exams.

Though it reduced his base strength by about 75,000 points, Felix finally came up with a modification he was satisfied with. If he could have reduced his other stats too for the same effect, he would have. Unfortunately, his other organs and systems were a little more complicated and the switch would have been more involved. It didn’t matter though because with the modifications he made to his muscles, he was able to completely remove his need to have an energy buffer at all. All the organs that used energy, could produce it themselves faster than they could consume it which effectively meant they just consumed mana but used it inefficiently.

One day, he was certain he would be able to run on mana alone but, he was also certain that day wasn’t any time soon.

He spent a brief bit of time regenerating his robes and then started experimenting with mana channels once again but found it hard to focus. It was simply difficult to fully engage when every time he manipulated mana in any complex way, he felt pain sharp pain ripple through his soul.

It was frustrating having-even temporarily-lost something he had once had and heavily relied on. That frustration kept him pushing through the painful distractions and kept him trying.

Various attunements and combinations of attunements flowed through his cells as he moved and pushed them. Without access to a Status Screen, he was forced to manually feel out his limbs and muscles which turned out to be the only reason he made any progress at all.

His Status Screen would have shown his Strength or Agility increasing or decreasing slightly and it was incredibly fast at evaluating his body but it didn’t communicate the whole picture, not even close. Moving his body for himself, pushing against things, moving fast and precisely, he noticed tiny variations with the different attunements of mana he used.

Some attunements offered him an initial burst of speed but consumed a part of the attunement from his muscles and offered nothing after the initial burst. On his Status Screen, Felix didn’t even know if The System would have averaged his Agility out or if it would even increase at all from just a tiny initial burst. Some attunements caused him pain and tore his cells apart, some caused them to swell and become hard to move, others made them pliable and elastic. They wouldn’t offer direct and board increases to his Agility or Endurance as a whole but they were different and useful in their own particular situations.

Honing in on which attunements worked where and how much he needed of each, Felix was able to create a basic mapping of attunements to effects and find some somewhat optimized combinations. It was much more complex than his Persona and the way his body interacted with mana was less like his cells were affected by the mana and more like his cells were using the mana. Like each and every one of his cells were a tiny version of him and given the right mana, could use it to cast various spells all on their own.

The analogy wasn’t one to one though as they required weird and complex attunements, not just raw Force and definitely were not casting spells.

Either way, Felix was ecstatic to have finally figured out this aspect of his body and to have finally made progress towards mana channels. With his basic mapping, even though it still needed a lot of work and refinement, he was also able to come up with some basic designs for the channels. Given the attunements required, he also had to work on designing his core as well. Not just where the attunement crystals would go but what attunements he wanted in an ideal world and how to structure and place them.

He would need to be able to draw mana through a series of the crystals and weave multiple streams together to end up with the attunements he wanted so it wasn’t as simple as having them circled around his mana core.

The Nucleus awoke after a few days, interrupting Felix’s design work, which he had finally managed to move into his Soul Garden.

Oh man… how long was I out?

Felix responded through his Soul Space, Almost three days.

Woah… Well, looks like it all worked out, huh? You’re alive and I’m even more awesome.

That’s great.

So, we ready to leave this subspace and take out the last piece?

No.

Geez. Okay… Why are you so grumpy?

Felix sighed but didn’t communicate his exasperation to the Nucleus, I haven’t fully recovered yet. Can you handle it on your own now?

Come on, do you even kn- Sorry that was pointless, no. I can’t. I’m pretty sure we dealt with roughly 80% of it so the part that’s left will be easier but… I can’t cleanse it like you can.

Before I insisted on cleansing it. You wanted to absorb it as is. Can you do that? Is that a good idea?

I ca… I don’t know. I think I can control that much, suppress it long enough to… well, kill it, then take all the procedures and memories it has stored… I don’t know though…

How confident are you? Is there some way we can make this easier for you?

30% I can do it. 20%? Let’s split it and say 15%.

Felix sighed again, this time allowing the Nucleus to hear it, You were going to go through with this on pieces twice as big when you were only 15% su-

Yes. It was stupid. I didn’t… I thought it would be weaker than that. I underestimated it, okay?

Felix shook his head in resignation, Its fine.

You know… I still don’t know a ton about you but I think… If we work together, we can do it.

Okay, how is this going to work? What do you need from me?

For the next few days, in between Felix slowly piecing together his soul after the new parts solidified and affinized to him and occasionally taking brief naps, he trained with the Nucleus. What they were trying to do, even if the sub-System chunk was less than half of what they had already dealt with alone, twice, was much harder. Just destroying something without care for anything was relatively easy.

He had even proven so when he threw the Mind Devouring Crown into a star.

Dissecting something and disabling parts of it in order to preserve it was completely different. They had to first understand how it worked, where to disable and destroy and where not to. It wasn’t a huge deal if they overshot things but they had to at least disable every safety function and level of consciousness they could find. Even then, if they missed something, it was possible the Nucleus could deal with it. It was also possible the Nucleus didn’t even know what was happening until after the remaining piece had relayed everything they had done to The Real System.

The issue was, Felix wasn’t strong enough to just obliterate it the way he had with the other chunks. He wasn’t sure if he had the willpower at the moment to wipe it clean and, even if he did, he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t also destroy his soul in the process. Judging from how long it was taking him to recover, he wouldn’t have it all back until after his exams which was far too long to wait. He wasn’t worrying about how his injuries would affect his exams at the moment though and just focused on being as fast and efficient as possible in their test runs.

After four days of training, they both decided it was time because Felix was missing too much class time and they were barely improving with each test run anymore.

Retrieving Grim, placing him in his Soul Space and holding the Nucleus in his hand, Felix prepared himself then opened the portal. He had fit a small enchantment onto the construct leg beforehand so it kept it mostly in the same place and that seemed to have worked as he looked through and immediately spotted the sub-System a few hundred meters on front of him and to the left.

He wasted no time and ignored Nova’s excitement as he threw the Nucleus directly at it then followed it. The Nucleus smacked into the sub-System, Felix’s throw completely accurate without any air resistance or gravity, and the sub-System immediately disappeared. Slapping his hand onto the Nucleus, Felix’s consciousness was drawn into the orb immediately, exactly as they had practiced.

Just like a shared memory, a projection of Felix appeared, floating in what looked to be an infinite, brightly lit sky above an orb of clouds. His projection looked mostly like himself except that his body was scarred and ragged, mostly around the chest area. Like old tattered rags, the edges of the hole in his chest fluttered in the wind but didn’t open up. He had already mostly repaired things so the hole wasn’t open but it also didn’t fit with the entire thickness of his chest so it kept trying to flake off in individual layers.

It was held together with anima braids and it was enough for now but it was still a stark contrast seeing himself projected here compared to outside, where his physical form looked whole.

Lastly, from his back and sides grew three dozen tendrils that just floated around him all over the place.

Felix didn’t pay any mind to his form though as he was already used to it, having been practicing with it for multiple time dilated days. The Nucleus didn’t dilate time as much as his Soul Garden, it wasn’t designed for thinking quickly and didn’t have his soul strength or stability, but there was still some dilation. Felix estimated it around one to twenty or so.

Using the small amount of willpower Felix had regained and could use without hurting himself, he shot forwards into the orb of fluffy rainbow storm clouds with frequent neon and equally rainbow lightning.

Popping through the other side, Felix actually flinched as their simulations of the sub-System didn’t even come close to the real thing. Much like Felix, it looked completely different as a projection from within the Nucleus. Outside it was a gooey ball that Felix could feel and tell was beautiful and intricate from his soul and mana senses but could barely dissect with his eyes.

Projected in the Nucleus, the sub-System was massive and looked exactly as he had felt. It was an inscrutable, multi dimensional machine that he could only grasp tiny pieces of at once. It all worked together to form what appeared to be a massive sphere, almost a planet or a moon but also, a living being. Just looking at it for a brief moment, Felix watched it move and morph in an attempt to escape but failed as the clouds held it steady.

He knew what he saw in here wasn’t actually representative of reality but rather his soul’s interpretation based on his own experiences that mapped most accurately onto what he felt but still, it was a sight to behold.

Flying towards the machine, Felix dropped down to the surface using the gravity that projected out of it, adding to his perception of the sub-System as a planet. Looking around, he found the nearest tunnel and jumped into it, falling amongst the various cables and tubes that used the tunnel to route from one place to another. He didn’t have a map or anything but the Nucleus provided him with an arrow that pointed the way to the first location and he simply had to follow it.

Jumping through the twisting and winding passageways that were never designed to be traversed, Felix passed by sections that made no sense and others that made a little too much sense. There were pipes that collected and transported various mundane objects like wrenches and pencils and rooms of what looked to be orbs attending a class with vaguely familiar math on the board.

There was no time to dissect the sub-System though as the Nucleus couldn’t hold and suppress it forever.

After what had felt like just a few seconds after entering the structure, Felix arrived at the first safety mechanism. It appeared as a circular door suspended in the middle of a room with hundreds of pipes pointing into it from both sides, like cannons ready to fire.

Leaping over the pipes and into the room, Felix stretched out his tendrils and immediately began thrashing them around, destroying everything. If it were real, just disabling the circular suspended object likely would have been enough. It wasn’t though and this entire room was just a projection of particular section of the sub-System he was inside of and its purpose interpreted by Felix’s soul.

As much as he wanted to preserve, there was no way to be certain and neither he nor the Nucleus knew enough about The System and how it worked to do anything like that.

Using his tendrils to move, he finished decimating the room then continued following the arrows out and towards his next location.

There, he found what looked to be the hall of a spaceship in a sci-fi movie with an escape pod ready to launch. He once again destroyed everything, the shuttle and the hall itself, not worried about potentially being sucked off into a projection of space in the slightest.

He continued racing from room to room, following the Nucleus’ guidance and destroying whatever he found in whatever weird and wacky representation they appeared as.

After two dozen rooms, the sub-System finally started to fight back and Felix encountered various creatures and humanoids racing towards him. They all attacked in different ways with claws, bows, fire breath, swords, fists, shadows, fins and everything else in the multiverse. Felix responded in exactly the same way every time with his three dozen tendrils slapping their attacks aside then either tossing the assailant, knocking them out or crushing them depending on how insistent they were.

As much as he was tired, injured and fighting a small piece of The System, he was still Felix and his soul was still the densest anima he had ever encountered. When facing against anything of a similar size, he won.

Still, in his current state, it was draining. Very tiny amounts of his overall willpower were being drained from him with every creature he had to fight. He persevered though and ignored the aching pains that began to flare up throughout his projection. It was earlier than it had been in the simulations but it was manageable.

Just over a hundred locations destroyed and suddenly the walls started to move and reconfigure themselves to stop him. He largely ignored them though, even though the Nucleus was rerouting the arrow directing him, and just punched through the wall with his tendrils. The Nucleus immediately caught on and began leading him on the most direct path instead of the open one.

They had both known he could do it but the drain was worse, much worse. Just a few dozen rooms later and the aching pain became a searing burn across his entire form but there were still hundreds of rooms left and the fire of frustration Felix felt knowing how much easier it would be if he weren’t injured, raged within him.

That fire pushed him through the pain he couldn’t really dull and through the next hundred rooms until the burning sensation was joined by shooting pains all over. They were sparse and random and unfathomably painful. Considering he had been unconscious when his chest was ripped open, those pains were the worst pain he could ever remember feeling. Still, they were brief and sporadic and his job wasn’t done yet.

Every wall he burst through, every assailant he crushed and every room he pulverized made the shooting pains slightly more frequent until they became so frequent, constant and severe that he fell to his knees and dug his nails into his scalp.

He only stayed like that for a moment before he pushed himself to his feet with the tendrils and moved on to the next room.

419 rooms in total until the Nucleus was confident they had gotten everything which just left one final task. Felix was now perpetually writhing but he didn’t let it stop him. His tendrils carried the curled up, writhing form of his body as he was unable to do anything but react to the pain and moved him where he needed to go.

They had planned his route so it was as close as possible from the previous destination before it but it was still the most painful few seconds of his life. Each second that passed, slightly more painful than the last as his soul screamed out and desperately begged him to rest and recover.

Arriving in a room that looked eerily familiar, a large sphere with a bridge leading towards the center, Felix’s tendrils carried him across and towards the white humanoid figure standing at the end with a blank face.

As he was pushed across, the figure spoke to him. He heard whispers and words here and there, “… friends… secrets… power… please… Felix…” Its body morphed from form to form, all of which he recognized. Peace and Melody, Erolan and the Griffin, his Mother, David, even Rhonan in a desperate attempt to instill fear.

Felix didn’t get a chance to appreciate any of it though as the pain made it impossible for him to perceive much of his surroundings. He didn’t hear it begging him, offering him a deal or trying to scare him off, not that any of it would have worked. His projected senses were all going haywire, his hearing ringing, his sight blurred and darkening as the pain threatened to consume his consciousness.

The figure tried to run away but Felix and his tendrils were too fast and pitted against anima the same size as him, Felix’s will still reigned supreme. He wrapped the tendrils around the figure and squeezed just as he dropped onto the bridge and fell unconscious.

Felix had no idea how long he had been out when he awoke, all he knew was his pain had dulled to a, comparatively, very manageable ache and the hole in his chest had opened back up, many of the braids holding him in one piece having snapped.

Using a few of the tendrils, he wrapped his body up with them and held it tight as the rest lifted him up and moved him out of the room. As he navigated back out with the help of the Nucleus, he couldn’t help but feel like the entire structure that looked like a small planet had died. In a way, it had died as soon as he killed the representation of the overall consciousness but technically it wasn’t ever really alive, depending heavily on how living was defined.

Now though, it no longer moved, none of it. It was like a broken down and forgotten machine in desperate need of maintenance. Given where it had began, even Felix recognized that what they had done was a tragedy.

The benefits to him and the Nucleus would be massive though so he didn’t worry about it. He just hoped he could be even more precise in the future, possibly even trapping and containing it rather than being forced to kill it.

How long was I out this time?

The Nucleus answered with a complete lack of its usual flamboyance, Two and a half days of real world time.

You managed to contain everything?

Yes. It tried to get out a few more times, a few dozen actually, but I handled it. You got the important ones and everything else was hidden and therefore, weak.

Felix grinned slightly, This finally going to make you useful?

I hope so.

Felix nodded, Use it wisely.

He pulled himself onto the surface of the planet then ejected himself from the projected memory. If he had done so from within, it could have ripped a hole in the sub-System which was not something they wanted.

Back in his real body, Felix pushed the Nucleus back into the cavity in his chest then carefully tied things back up with whatever spare anima he had left.

Finally giving Nova attention, he pet her as she gingerly touched him, recognizing he was injured, and they headed back into his Pocket Home together.

Reunited with Nova, the first thing he did was have her transform some valuable rock into real, organic, meat. He didn’t really care what it was but all the healing he had done made him hungry and so he cooked and ate by the fire before having her carry him up his tower and into bed.

Only allowing himself to sleep for a couple of days, Felix saw a noticeable improvement to his soul and after a bit of manual maintenance, finally decided it was time to face the world. First things first, he warded the entrance to contain the dense anima and mana, having learned the nodes at Inscripticae working on the containment cell. He test it and sure enough, it seemed perfectly capable of containing the anima as needed.

With Nova on his shoulder, he flew out of his Soul Space then swapped the construct leg for a pebble and used his event marble on it. He wasn’t entirely sure but now that there was no System in the event space, and considering he was the last one, he was pretty sure he should be allowed to leave.

The portal opened just as he had expected and he stepped through back into his dorm room.

Felix waited a moment, then a second, then finally a minute but nothing happened. No unstoppable heavenly Lightning or Fire came down to judge him. No executioner to destroy him. Just, nothing.

Tentatively, he opened his Status Screen.

Name: Felix Kade (The True Wizard) FREE 0

Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 736,096

Class: [C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,129) DEX 1,087,245

Race: [C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,219) AGI 837,280

Profession: [C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,309) PER 958,599

Health: 8,298,990 / 8,298,990 VIT 829,899

Mana: 100,000,000 / 100,000,000 INT 1,007,801

Energy: 0 / 0 END 757,260

Everything was as he expected.

Soul damage does not appear… interesting. Also, I just realized it was still counting my charm for my mana even though it didn’t work before. Now it’s destroyed so that makes sense but… does it show what I consider my mana pool to be not what it actually is? I guess I could test that with another battery… Not that it really matters.

System, what day is it?

The third of the dekad, 37 days until exams.

Sweet, third means Constructs and Elementals which means I can sleep.

Walking across his dorm to the end with the bed he rarely used, Felix was just about to lie down when he heard a knock at the door.

He groaned as he really didn’t feel like walking back to open the door so he just commanded Nova to do it for him. She happily strolled over across the air then opened the door to reveal exactly who Felix expected to see.

“There you are, you know I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Felix nodded then sat on the edge of the bed as nonchalantly as he could, “Yup. Here I am.”

Melody crossed her arms, “Where have you been?”

“In the event.”

“Wait… what? Arthur told me you surrendered to him?”

Felix shook his head then tossed her the clothes she had surrendered to Arthur, “No, long story. Can I tell you another time?”

She caught the ball and looked down at them curiously before realizing how drained he was and deciding not to tease him, “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. I just need,” Spinning around, he lowered himself onto the bed, “to sleep.”

He fell asleep much faster than he would have liked, almost as soon as he finished his sentence. He hadn’t even planned on falling asleep immediately and fully intended on speaking with Melody, just lying down. It seemed as though he needed sleep more than he knew.

Waking up, Felix did some manual repairs to his soul without moving then carefully spun around and sat up. Looking out into the room, he saw a pair of feet dangling off the edge of his couch and sighed.

Hearing the sigh, Melody peered over the back of the couch, “You’re awake.”

“Yup. How long did I sleep?”

“A day and a bit.”

“You stay here the whole time?”

“Of course. I can’t let you squirm away from me again. You owe me an answer, remember?”

Felix sighed, “That’s what this about?”

She nodded very seriously, “Yup.”

Walking across the room, Felix slumped into one of the arm chairs, “Alright. What’s your question?”

Melody rearranged herself to be sitting then looked right into Felix’s eyes and stared very seriously for a few seconds, “Do you like me?”

Felix squinted a little and cocked his head, “Like… romantically or… in general?”

She shrugged, “Romantically, platonically, whatever. Do you… enjoy having me around, when I am, more than I annoy you? Is my presence an overall positive or negative?”

Felix leaned forwards a little out of his slouch and rubbed his eyes, “I… I don’t know? Eh- Sorry, this is your question that I have to answer. Let me think about it.”

He deliberated for almost a minute, mostly to tease her because instinctively he already knew the answer, “Yes. I think your presence is an overall positive.”

Melody jumped to her feet and leaned over the table between them, looking right at him, “What’s wrong with you? I can… tell.”

He looked at her with confusion, “What?”

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

“Uh…”

Her face lit up with about as much excitement as Felix had ever seen, “Ooh… do I arouse you? Ever? Have I ever?”

Felix scrunched his nose, “Wha- I will kick you out. Or leave, not sure what’s easier.”

She hopped a little into the air, seemingly involuntarily, out of sheer excitement, “I KNOW! Most of the time I can read your facial expressions and mannerisms and I can be pretty sure I know what you’re thinking- you aren’t very good at hiding that. BUT, I don’t know because I can’t feel your soul the same way. RIGHT NOW I CAN.”

“Oh. That’s…”

“IT’S FANTASTIC. Oh man, all the things I want to as-”

Felix lowered his forehead into his palm, “Melody, can we not. Not right now.”

“I guess…” Her excitement melted away as her expression grew dour, “If you’re like this then you lost something awesome or… you hurt your soul… Oh, yikes. I can’t heal your soul but I can calm it if you’d like?”

Felix waved her off and relaxed a little into the armchair, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine in a few dekads.”

“You have exams though. You can’t be like this then.” Pulling out the circular instrument Felix had seen her use before, Melody carefully placed her fingers and began playing a very subtle tune.

Grim, Nucleus, you should be immune in my Soul Space, make sure she doesn’t do anything weird to me.

They both confirmed they would pay attention then Felix nodded off in the arm chair.

For the next two dekads, Felix slept almost nonstop and Melody played almost constantly. Not once, according to Grim and the Nucleus, did she try to influence him in any way as far as they could tell. The effect of her song was obvious though. He was, as far as he could tell, 90% of the way to being whole again. Her song quartered their expectations of where he would be by now and honestly, he couldn’t thank her enough. He attended the sit down classes that he could but skipped the combat classes and rested in the ones he wasn’t required to attend and it sucked.

He actually missed combat classes, both of them, and even Mana Control and Constructs & Elementals not because he missed the classes or the people but because he couldn’t attend them. His abilities caused strain and he wasn’t whole so he just didn’t risk it. In two dekads though, with Melody’s help, his will felt completely in tact.

His soul was mostly there in structure and looked in tact but Felix could feel it was still loose and fragile. It was enough that he could fight but not enough that he could or should sustain any Soul attacks. Peace was curiously absent in all the classes they shared but Felix only noticed it because he wanted to see if somehow, The Reaper knew what he had done with The sub-System.

He was extremely grateful to Melody though not just because she saved him time but because every day she played, she looked increasingly worn and drained herself. By the end of the two dekads, she looked like she hadn’t slept for days but she insisted, ‘it was good practice’ and she never once slowed down.

Once he was ready to attend combat classes again, he only had two dekads until exams and Mark still didn’t have an efficient set of crystals he could create. The best efficiency he had come up with was 9% which, was not even close to enough.

Felix was starting to think he was going to have to just manually attune the mana in the exam and just take 15 minutes to cast the spell.

On the other hand, he had other exams to prepare for.

He continued to skip Solo Combat but spent every second he could spare in the combat simulation room. The Ashound was actually the strongest creature the room could simulate but that was fine. Honestly, Felix didn’t want to fight anything above it at the moment. What he did, was run through every creature on the list starting from the creature under the Ashound until he ran out of time.

Each one he experimented with, let them attack him and show their abilities then prepared countermeasures for them, even if they were too weak to affect him. Only once he was certain he could account for everything and beat them every time, did he move on to the next on the list. He wanted to completely fill any gaps he had in his toolbox at the moment then he would work on combat experience-which took much longer-later.

Not every second outside of class could he spend fighting though as he also had other exams to prepare for. His Animancy and Constructs & Elementals course was going to effectively be a combined exam and he didn’t really want to hand in a Seeing Eye construct because he didn’t feel like it was enough. Luckily, he had a quarter of a warehouse full of construct parts and pieces and so, he began fitting a number of them together and constructing a soul and a brain to go along with it that he could present to his professors.

Mana Structures and Spell Formation took much less time to prepare for given his overall comfort level with mana structures as a whole and his and Mark’s ability to simulate spells. He, reluctantly, moved both of them off of calculating permutations and just resigned himself to taking 15 minutes for the exam and hoping that he wasn’t docked too many marks for time.

Mana Control wasn’t really something he could prepare for other than to make sure his Mana Control didn’t aggravate his soul in any way.

Lastly, he had no idea what to do about Soul Manipulation so, he just didn’t worry about preparing for it at all.