Chronicles of the True Wizard

Back in the teleportation hub, Peace headed back to The Reaper’s Cult while Felix, headed back to Eramith.

He only spent a few hours there so he could register himself for his next epoch’s courses and harvest the mana computer factory in his dorm room after which he headed to his next recruitment, with Tekragoraxius.

Walking into the teleportation room on campus, he waited a few minutes for El to show up, apparently just knowing when students entered the room. He showed her his recruitment, which she scrutinized to try and assuage her confusion for a few minutes, before shrugging and opening a portal for him.

Stepping through, he arrived on the outside of what looked to be a massive city built into the side of a cliff. On the stony desert ground where he was, there was a wall which Felix didn’t really understand, along with guards. The wall itself along with all the buildings he saw up the side of the cliff, where made of a light brown stone that perfectly matched the desert and only made the painted and hung decorations seem even more vibrant.

Felix didn’t bother trying to fly over the wall and simply approached the front gate where two Drakene guards stood.

[A - Epic] Holy Drakene Guard (Lvl 3842)

[A - Epic] Holy Drakene Guard (Lvl 3813)

Do you not have names?

The dull silver colored one stepped forwards, “Halt Ezdreken. You approach the holy land of the Drakene, the sacred city of Zilleryth. No human is permitted to enter.”

Ezdreken?

The other one, with metallic, light green scales, nodded along in agreement.

“I see. Could you point me to The Dragon Mother’s recruitment then?”

The two looked at each-other, their eyes squinted, “Ezdreken, you need to be offered a recruitment, to attend one.”

Felix nodded and whipped out his invitation causing the silvery one to step forwards and snatch it out of his hands, “Where did you get this? Who are you?”

“I was sent it. I am Felix Kade.”

The silvery one looked back at the other who shrugged indicating they also didn’t know who he was, then turned back to Felix, “I will ask my captain. This better not be some kind of trick.”

Felix just shrugged to try and display his innocence.

After a few minutes behind or in the wall, the silvery Drakene rushed back out with a new Drakene, this one with white metallic scales.

[S - Legendary] Captain of the Holy Drakene Guard (Lvl 4530)

Rushing up to him, the captain stopped just a meter from Felix, dropped to his knees and touched the ground with his forehead as he offered Felix his recruitment card back, “Felix Kade. Human recognized by The Sacred Dragon Mother herself. The Oblivion Prophet, Protector of the Dragon’s Hoard. It is an honor to welcome you to our most humble city.”

Felix took his recruitment back as the two guards who had been previously confused were completely flustered.

“Can you direct me to The Dragon Mother or wherever this is?” He waved his recruitment card.

“Of course.” The captain kept his head pressed into the ground, “I will personally escort you through the city to the temple where the High Priest will offer you passage.”

Felix nodded and waited a few moments for the captain to finally return to his feet then Felix followed him into the city.

Heading through the massive gates, Felix noted that the wall was really just there to hold a ward inscribed within it that protected the city. Past the wall, the first steps of the city itself appeared.

While the cliff Zilleryth was built into wasn’t quite vertical, it was very steep and impossible to just walk up. Instead, there were stairs carved into the side of it that twisted and winded all the way up the city towards the top of the cliff.

The captain led him up the stairs and through the city filled with Drakene that were oddly low level-E and D grade mostly-in Felix’s eyes. He knew most people in the multiverse were D grade but this city was a holy city with A grade guards that was overseen directly by a god.

“What does Ezdreken mean?”

The captain looked over his shoulder, “Loosely, it means non-Drakene or not-related-to-Dragons. So for you, it is literal. It is also used as a terrible insult towards Drakene.”

Felix nodded, “Thanks. This city, these people seem low level and-” Looking at yet another Drakene who seemed to be living in poverty in a cramped and empty building, “-poor? Am I just biased? Why have such high level guards?”

“It’s a religious city. The Drakene living here have dedicated themselves entirely to the worship of the various Dragon gods. Most of them aim to eliminate distractions and hope to always be ready to serve their Gods, should the need arise.”

Felix nodded and followed along as they ascended. He somewhat expected the city to grow richer and bigger as they climbed but that wasn’t the case at all. It was oddly uniform with little to no distinction between districts or sections which made Felix question how it functioned at all. There was no obvious commerce district or industrial district. Just poor Drakene living in bare homes.

The final set of stairs they climbed led up through the top of the cliff, like a tunnel, that emerged atop the plateau onto a flat, grassy field.

In the middle of the field stood a massive temple completely surrounded by statues of various Dragons, each one as big as a building by themselves. Many of them depicted Tekragoraxius, though they were much smaller than the real Dragon God, but a lot of them depicted other Dragons Felix had never seen before.

Bowing deeply, the captain gestured towards the temple, “This is where I leave you. I am not permitted to enter the temple myself.”

Felix cocked his head in slight shock, “But I am?”

He nodded, “Of course.”

Felix shrugged and the captain left so, Felix headed into the temple.

The inside was about what Felix expected, empty of pews or seats and filled with art depicting Dragons. Some of them moved, some of them were carvings and some of them were just plain paintings.

Walking towards the center of the room, Felix looked around but saw no one so, he yelled, “Hello!”

He immediately heard the rhythmic scraping of claws as a Drakene ran into the room from around one of the corners.

[D - Common] Archbishop of Albiretheosis (Lvl 748)

“Welcome… Human?”

Felix nodded and waved his recruitment, “I’m here for my recruitment?”

The Archbishop’s eyes widened, “Ah, you’re Felix Kade.”

Felix nodded again, “Yup.”

He nodded then spun around and ran off out of the room quickly for just a few moments before running back in with a tray holding tall glasses of what looked like, iced fire, “I just sent word of your arrival. It shouldn’t be long.”

Felix nodded and reached forwards, taking a glass. He peered inside and looked at it a bit before shrugging and taking a sip. He first let it just brush against his tongue and readied his body to sever the tip if the drink tried to kill him but he actually found it tasted great and didn’t really have any major side effects, other than being almost purely alcohol.

Taking a real sip, Felix let the alcohol destroy a number of his cells, or rather try, then nodded to the Archbishop with a smile, “Tastes great. Thanks.”

He nodded with immense relief then placed the tray on the ground and took one for himself.

“So, who is Albiretheosis?”

The Archbishop smiled wide, “Another Archon Dragon God, The Dragon of Stone.”

Felix nodded in realization, “It’s you carving all the statues outside?”

He nodded, “Yes. That is how I show my dedication to my God and the Dragons as a whole.”

“You know, I once fought a statue that identified as The Dragon Mother, it was humanoid though.”

The Archbishop’s eyes widened in what seemed to be concern, “Where? What did it look like?”

“It was in the first world event of my Integration world.”

“You said you fought it?”

Felix nodded, “It was alive and tried to cook me.”

“Could you… show me?”

Felix nodded and the Archbishop scurried off into another room then ran back in with a crystal.

Handing it to Felix, he immediately recognized it as a memory crystal, like the ones in the library in Telviras except this one, was blank.

It took a few minutes for Felix to get a hang of the process, and adjust his will to not accidentally explode the crystal, before he finally managed to embed the memory. As soon as he did, a portal appeared in the middle of the room from which, Rathelius stepped out, almost like he had been watching and waiting for Felix to be done.

[?] Rathelius (Lvl ?)

Huh, still can’t identify him.

“Felix.” Rathelius nodded in his direction and the Archbishop dropped to his knees to bow.

Felix sighed, bent down and left the memory crystal next to the Drakene’s head then followed Rathelius through the portal.

On the other end, Felix found himself somewhere he recognized, the room where he had first met Tekragoraxius except, she was curiously absent. Instead it was just an empty cave with lit braziers and moving carvings, especially as the portal closed behind them. Turning to Rathelius, he saw him step through another portal and Felix followed. That one led to the field where he had evolved which still contained Tekragoraxius and an impenetrable portal through which a sleeping Endycor lay.

Felix pulled Nova out of his Soul Space and flicked her tiny pebble form over towards the portal then approached The Dragon Mother.

She greeted him with the customary drenching of flames that didn’t hurt at all. He responded with a Flame Thrower spell that he attached some ambient Anima to, imbued with a sense of greeting. As soon as she was hit with them this time though, she leaned in closer, “Your will has gotten vastly stronger in such a short period of time.”

“I just spent a quarter epoch with Amatara.”

She nodded knowingly, “You seem to have benefited greatly from this.”

Felix nodded, “I’m very satisfied with everything I got done there. I managed to complete everything I had planned to work on and more.”

“And what is it you have planned to do here?”

“I guess that depends on what this recruitment is. Melody told me a Divine recruitment means you teach me directly. I’m not exactly sure what you can teach me that I would want to learn.”

“But you came here anyways. You chose this as your recruitment. You have something in mind.”

Felix nodded and took a deep breath, “I know I might not necessarily… deserve a reward for playing along in your charade on Ascension Day but, I was hoping to ask for something anyways.”

She leaned in closer, “You may not deserve a reward fitting one who bears the titles you do, but you deserve a reward for not only playing your part, but maintaining the secrecy I seek. What is the reward you seek?”

“Two things, but only really one.” She looked at him blankly, “Nova, I take it you were planning on taking her anyways?”

She nodded slightly, which was still a massive movement.

“Then there’s really only one thing I want.” Felix pivoted his body and pointed over at the completely black Drakene that had brought him here, “I’d like to learn from Rathelius for the quarter.”

Felix caught the hint of a smile on her massive face, even a twitch being obvious as massive as she was, “This request is much more than you realize.”

She looked over at Rathelius.

He looked at her for a moment, an unspoken conversation passing between them as they locked eyes then he nodded.

She turned back to Felix, “Then it is decided. We have also prepared other gifts for you but Rathelius can lead you to them.”

Felix bowed, “Thank you.”

Her eyes followed Felix as he walked over to Rathelius, “Before you leave.”

He nodded and without moving, two portals appeared. Through each of them, a young dragon raced out.

One of them had entirely white scales with hints of blue while the other, had half red scales and half a smattering of every other possible color.

[D - Legendary] Merroth (Lvl 982)

[C - Legendary] Romys (Lvl 1451)

The two of them jumped out and dove at Rathelius, Felix hopping back a few steps to give them room, and greeted him with their breath. Merroth showered him in flames and Romys, seemed to suffer from similar performance problems as Endycor when it came to his flame breath.

They then looked at Felix warily before deciding against greeting him and instead, rushed over to their mother who they greeted in a similar fashion to Rathelius.

She found more of her children.

After Tekragoraxius, the two of them raced over to the portal to rouse Endycor and as they approached, a tiny pebble on the ground in front of the portal suddenly grew into a massive dragon. Nova paled in comparison to Tekragoraxius but she was still, in comparison to the others, absurdly huge at her largest.

The two dragon children backed away in fear and trepidation but Nova only stomped around for a bit before shrinking to a similar size as the Dragon children.

Felix stepped back over to Rathelius as he watched Nova wrestling with the other two Dragon children while basically torturing Endycor who was still stuck on the other side of the portal.

Rathelius watched for a few moments before turning to Felix, “Is there something in specific you were hoping I teach you?”

Felix rocked his head back and forth a few times, “Sort of. First things first, have you ever heard of the Transportation Facilitation Program?”

Rathelius almost constantly wore a blank expression. Even when he did react, it was hard to notice his facial expression because his scales were completely black. As soon as Felix mentioned the Transportation Facilitation Program though, his expression shifted.

Felix couldn’t tell if he hated it or accepted it or liked it and he assumed it was far more complex than any of those individually because his expression was, very mixed.

“Yes.”

“Oh perfect. So, I got banned from it and now I can’t cast portals… at all.”

He sighed through his snout, “You’re wondering if there’s another way?”

He nodded, “Assuming. Hoping.”

“Is that all you want to learn this quarter?”

“That’s the biggest problem I face right now. Portals were incredibly convenient and I used them in constructs for communication and just to save myself a ton of time. If possible though, you’ve cast a couple other spells I’d love to learn but, I understand if they are secrets. Honestly, whatever you can teach me, I’d like to learn.”

“It will be impossible for you to do what I do for a long time.” He locked eyes with Felix, his expression rather serious, “Do you still wish for us to spend time on this knowing that?”

Felix nodded, “Yes.”

Rathelius nodded and walked through a portal that simply appeared before him as Felix hurried in behind him.

The portal led to what Felix would describe as an empty planet. It looked, like what he imagined the surface of the moon to look like. Rock and dust as far as he could see, no perceptible atmosphere.

Though he could hold his breath for a long time, and survive extreme temperatures at least for an instant, Felix found it unnecessary to cast anything as Rathelius already had, without moving a single muscle.

“What I will attempt to teach you, is likely the single most dangerous thing you will ever learn.”

Felix nodded, his excitement growing.

“The Transportation Facilitation Program was created because without it, opening a portal would be impossible. There are a grand total of two beings in the entire multiverse that I am aware of, that are capable of doing so. Edras and I.”

“And The System? What about Kryptos?”

Rathelius nodded reluctantly, “Calling The System a being is… Yes, it as well. Kryptos, does not cast portals ever. They can open them indirectly however though magically inscribed instruments.”

“Why is it so hard, that only you two and The System can do it?”

“The requirements are astronomical. In fact, the way Edras casts portals is completely different from how I cast portals, but also entirely the same. I will teach you the better way.”

Felix nodded, his excitement still growing with every word Rathelius spoke.

“First, you must understand space and the universe itself. What is your current understanding of space?”

Felix described to Rathelius what he knew about space, gravity and time. Most of it came from high school physics because as much as he had encyclopedias and text books in his mind, he hadn’t spent the time to try and understand them.

“That analogy you used to a rubber sheet for gravity, is not at all accurate but helps to visualize some properties. To add to your model, imagine the sheet not as rubber, but as a fabric. Matter, is a ball that depresses and stretched the fabric, rolls along it. Breaking matter down into energy, is like grains of sand. They similarly move across the sheet and depress it. Mana and Anima however, are like water. They simply pass through the sheet.”

Felix cocked his head but Rathelius continued.

“This is where the analogy falls apart because no doubt you know, mana can pass through a portal and has a position in space. It does not however, create gravity. Neither does anima. Additionally, the position of mana within space is completely different from the position of matter. For our purposes, do not apply anything you learn about space and how matter interacts and exists, to Mana or Anima.”

Felix nodded.

“As for the actual nature of space itsel-”

“Actually, if you’re about to go through a long explanation, could we have this conversation in a constructed memory?”

Rathelius cocked his head, “You wish to bring me into a constructed memory of yours?”

Felix nodded, “Perceptual time dilation.”

He nodded, “I must warn you. My spirit is rather… heavy.”

Felix didn’t hesitate as he walked forward, closed the distance, and offered his hand. Rathelius took it with a claw and Felix pulled him into his Soul Garden.

When Rathelius had mentioned he would be heavy, Felix was a little skeptical considering everything else he had pulled in but he was right. Pulling Rathelius in felt like pulling in a billion souls. It was exactly what he imagined pulling a God in would be like, possibly even more.

He honestly wasn’t sure if it would have been possible before his time at Amatara’s recruitment. Possibly, but either way he was confident he could, at least with his current Soul, hold him indefinitely.

Rathelius looked around then looked at Felix, “Can you hold me?”

Felix nodded, “Indefinitely.”

Rathelius hmphed, “You mentioned your last recruitment was with Amatara? What did you do there?”

“Learned to use my class skills, strengthened my soul and climbed The Unwavering Peaks.”

Rathelius nodded like he had been expecting that answer, “How many peaks did you ascend?”

“All of them. I’d flash you my title but… we’re here so. Amatara gave me the title, Spirit Sage.”

He cocked a brow then smiled a little, “Earlier I said it it would be impossible for you to do what I do for a long time. It is possible my judgement was a little hasty. What is the dilation you experience in here?”

“With my Class skill that buffs my Intelligence active, nearly 3,600 times.”

He chuckled, “Very hasty it seems… Before we get started, show me why I feel other souls here.”

Felix sighed and moved them into the city.

Rathelius looked around him slowly. Then, he turned to the library and moved himself towards it instantly. Felix followed behind and he stepped in and began walking around, looking at the books, even picking up and reading a few of them.

“Your ability to raw cast is a subset of the strength of your soul, is it not? At least in part?”

Felix shrugged, “Pretty sure, yes.”

He stood in silence for a few minutes then nodded, “As I was saying, the actual nature of space…”

It took Felix just over an hour of real time to fully grasp what Rathelius qualified as ‘the basics’ which consisted not just of the basic theory but also of a lot of foundational math and physics he had to learn. Then, another hour for him to lay out all the required spells. They weren’t spells Felix should cast yet, but Rathelius wanted him to have them for the time being.

Once Rathelius was satisfied with his understanding of the basics, they put that into practice by returning to the physical world on the barren planet.

The first spell they started with was the spell to measure coordinates at a specific location. The way coordinates worked though, weren’t as simple as the TFP made it seem. He couldn’t just slot them into a spell and cast it. Using the measured coordinates, he had to calculate and adjust the spell itself according to them.

Just casting the spell to measure coordinates though, was a huge challenge. The coordinate measuring spell was more akin to a spatial property measuring spell but, not the properties Felix was used to. It also wasn’t accurate to call it a spell either because he had to effectively cast a completely different, unique spell for both his location, and his destination.

If he were measuring the coordinates at a specific point, he had to adjust for the space where he was, where the point was and everywhere in between. Even the slightest pull of gravity could completely throw the result off.

Luckily, the spells weren’t complicated in their actual forms so they didn’t surpass Felix’s limit, although they did approach it at around 50 spell levels. At least, his old limit. With Reaper’s Instinct active all the time, he was able to push that limit a bit higher, though he didn’t have the time to quantify it.

Working with Rathelius, they would both cast the spell then compare the results. As soon as Felix got the correct output, they would move to a new location, just a meter away, and he would be competently off and the spell he had to cast there, completely unrecognizable from the last.

While he could have accelerated the process with his mental computer and Mark, he completely avoided using them for anything more than the basic math so he could try and build an intuition for it himself. While he had the theoretical foundation for space memorized, he hadn’t fully internalized it in a way where he could make assumptions about it. Until he could do that and conduct his own experiments, he forced himself to manually work through the spells.

The entire time they worked, Felix couldn’t help but feel like the coordinates produced were familiar. Not close enough to anything he knew that he could pinpoint them, but familiar nonetheless.

After a couple of days of non stop spell casting, Felix finally asked the question he had been wondering for a while, “Adjusting and creating a different spell every time is great but, shouldn’t it be possible to create a spell that automatically measures and adjusts itself?”

Rathelius met his gaze, “Of course. That spell is around one hundred thousand times more complex than the one you are casting right now. Even if you adjust for mana normalization yourself, it would be ten thousand times more complex. Resulting in a spell that requires some hundreds of trillions of points of mana.”

“Never mind then.”

It wasn’t even like Felix could have a computer perfectly calculate each spell for each location because then he would need to cast a whole array of other measurement spells for it to initially decide on the measurement spells to use. What Rathelius wanted Felix to do, was have an instinct for which spell would be needed based on his physical senses of the world. Felix doubted the plausibility of sensing minute gravitational changes but Rathelius assured him it was possible.

It took them 5 days of non stop spell casting in total for Felix to cast the correct coordinate spell and end up with the correct coordinates every time. They ended up moving all over the place just to be sure, on planets, in space, on moons and even in more extreme situations.

What ended up helping a lot, was something Felix had almost forgotten about, Studious. The General Skill he had picked up was showing him in real time when he did something wrong and how to adjust it. In the past it was helpful but the instruction was less clear and his goal wasn’t concrete. Now, it was.

Afterwards, they returned to the barren planet they had started from and Rathelius began teaching Felix how to use those coordinates to cast portals.

Felix was ecstatic to get back what he felt he had lost but it seemed it just wasn’t meant to be. Casting portals to coordinates was not only just as complicated as he had expected, but also absurdly mana hungry. Not only that, but the portals only connected his exact location to the location his coordinate spells measured, which was a grand total of 2 meters at most.

Mostly because of how much mana it took, even draining his Pocket Home and moving to Aether rich areas, it took 22 days for Rathelius to be satisfied.

Anchors alleviated Felix’s issues somewhat but it wasn’t really possible to cast one the way the TFP allowed. Natural anchors were exactly as they had been because even The System couldn’t completely ignore the effects of black holes, stars or even large planets when casting portals. With Planets and Stars it was possible but difficult.

To actually create a real anchor, required an absurd amount of mana to warp space itself in a location. They only spent a brief bit of time on that, not actually casting them but making sure Felix understood what it felt like and how to avoid accidentally opening a portal into one.

After that they spent a dekad diving back into theory.

“First things first, now that you have all the foundational knowledge and understanding required, those marbles you mentioned earlier, how do you think they work?”

“They must have pre-adjusted, coordinated portal spell forms embedded within them. Anything they can’t adjust for, either The System compensates for or more likely, the spell form is incredibly complex and adjusts itself based on measurements it takes.”

Rathelius nodded, “Yes and no. Remember all that theory I ingrained into you before we started?”

Felix nodded.

“Forget all of it… for the time being. Instead, think of space as an emergent property. It doesn’t actually exist. Instead, space is the way we interpret the universe.”

“I’ve heard those terms before but never dove into them. You’re saying the way we see space and distance is actually just a construct of our minds?”

“Not exactly. Neither this nor the last analogy are correct. The truth is incredibly complex. For coordinates and portals the way we just talked about, imagine space as real. For what I’m about to teach you, space doesn’t exist.”

“How does that work?”

“You know how particles have properties like charge and spin. Imagine they also had another property we’ll call position. Now, with no space, the distance between particles isn’t a defined property but, we perceive distance as the difference between the position properties of the two respective particles.”

“I sort of get it. I think?”

Rathelius remained silent for a few moments before nodding once, “Imagine a cylinder. Running from end to end of the cylinder all around it, are lines. These lines aren’t just straight though, they’re waves. These waves race around the outside of the cylinder at the speed of light, this is time. Each wave has its own frequency. If I have two waves at different frequencies, how much overlap would there be if I overlaid them on top of each-other?”

“Essentially none, if you don’t count individual points.”

“Exactly. This frequency is position. Even with two waves at the same point in time, their frequencies need to be identical or they won’t interact with each-other at all. Each wave is then a fundamental particle of the universe. Two adjacent particles or atoms connected together, simply have their position properties entangled with each-other. Not literally entangled, but attached so to speak.”

“This is just an analogy right?”

“Yes. It makes very little sense for anything other than exactly what we’re about to talk about.”

“Which is?”

“We’re getting there. Other properties can also be entangled but most importantly, position is just a property of a particle. Now, remember this: ‘Anima transcends space and time.’ Mana too but not in the same way. Back to our cylinder example, imagine Anima sits inside the cylinder, like it’s a tank and Mana sits outside the cylinder. Both of them, can directly affect the properties of particles and also, entangle the properties of particles together.”

Felix’s eyes widened as he realized what they were about to dive into, “Portaless teleporting. Infinite, perfect communication.”

Rathelius nodded, “One more too. Imagine I take a wave and add to it, another wave. The second wave has a higher frequency and smaller amplitude both by a factor of say… a hundred.”

Felix nodded, finally having the visual in his mind, “That’s a subspace. You have a set of frequencies overlaid within an exact position in space.”

“Exactly. Back to the marbles, you can also use this to do portaled teleportation by essentially detaching the wave from the cylinder and moving it through the Ambient Anima or Aether to reappear with a different position property.”

“Which is ultimately, cheaper.”

“Exactly. Just vastly more fragile. It requires stability so high, it needs to be embedded within a crystal. Your Pocket Home will simply add a sub position to your position, which lets you interact with the sub space, that you carry around with you. The event marble does the same but moves you to the location of the event sub space as well.”

“Is it possible to create a subspace?”

Rathelius smiled just a little, “Yes, that’s what we’re going to do today. Or rather, I’m going to make one and give it to you.”

Felix’s eyes widened, “To replace my Soul Space?”

“Exactly. Firstly, this will be a True Sub Space, not a Pocket Dimension, Realm, Universe or Fake Subspace. Pocket Dimensions, Realms and Universes are much more complicated to create but you can heavily bend their laws and some have their laws completely distorted and unrecognizable. Nothing like infinite mana in a Pocket Dimension, but that is theoretically possible in a Universe. At least, the math allows it. In a Pocket Dimension or Realm though, the rules aren’t broken, but bent”

“Like making time move slower within them?”

“Among other things, yes. A Fake Sub Space is just a fold in space and you can move in and out of at will. Any Sub Space, borrows all the laws of the parent space so, physics will remain identical. A True Sub Space, is bound to a single point in the universe and even The System cannot get in without having direct access to that point or, if you open a portal into it. If you lose the entrance, you can never get back in. You’ll never be able to cast or inscribe the coordinates accurately enough to get back there. It’s pinpointing an EXACT location in space. Most people, bind that point to a marble or crystal for stability. Gods, bind them to their souls.”

Pinching his claws together, Felix felt a slight jerk across his whole body, like a lurch of gravity then, it was gone. Rathelius reached forwards and handed Felix what looked to be nothing.

If Rathelius weren’t so generally serious, Felix would have been certain he was messing with him. His claws were pinched against each-other and there was simply nothing there. Like he was pinching an invisible sheet of paper. He reached his hand out anyways and used a Soul Tendril to try and reach for whatever was there. As he did, he felt something heavy between Rathelius’ fingers.

Wrapping the tendril around it, then pulling in a few more to assist, Felix carefully took the Sub Space and nodded to Rathelius to confirm he had it. Rathelius carefully pulled his claws back and as soon as he did, Felix had to wrench down on the point to keep it contained as he nearly dropped it to the ground. Due to the weight, Felix moved his chest towards it, instead of the other way around.

Pushing it inside, he pulled the point all the way into his Core Soul where he embedded it.

Collecting himself and standing back up, now that the weight seemed to be mostly gone, Felix nodded, “Thank you.”

“You’ll have to get used to moving things in and out of it as well as fill it with Anima but that comes later. For now, what did I say about anima?”

“Anima transcends space and time.”

“Yes. Think of anima as not having a position at all, but rather being entangled separately with reality which is how we interact with it. This is the nature of Anima which is why you can bind a soul to a body or object. Mana, has no such nature and is indifferent to our world.”

“But you can entangle it with anima?”

“Yes. It is indifferent to our reality though. You have pulled mana into our reality before, this is effectively gifting it an entanglement, solidification is similar but that degrades very quickly, as you know. Back to Anima, not only is it entangled with reality, but it can affect entanglements in general, directly. This is something it is very good at and is more or less how Nova can move matter around, you can move Mana around and how your Reaper’s Skills work.”

“Is there a limit to that?”

“Theoretically? No limit other than the physical constraints of the universe itself, or the speed of light. In reality, it is extraordinarily difficult to accelerate anything directly. Adding or augmenting already existent velocity or acceleration is more plausible. Think of it as a multiplier for velocity or acceleration. Now, what we’re going to spend the rest of your time here on, using Mana to change the properties of particles.”

Felix almost salivated, “Portaless teleporting.”

“A word of warning. Moving the position property of your particles imperfectly, risks disentanglement which effectively equates to dismemberment in this case and with your soul attached to your body, splitting it.”

“Oh… lovely.”

For the rest of his recruitment quarter, Felix worked with Rathelius to teleport objects without opening portals at all. It felt impossible, required an absurd amount of spatially attuned mana, precision and force all at the same time.

Spatially attuned mana alone, completely shifted Felix’s perspective as it wasn’t one of the attunements he was used to. Instead, it was like Rathelius had turned Felix’s head and shown his that his two dimensional world, was actually seven dimensional, and that was just for spatially attuned mana. Spatial attunements were separate from normal attunements and could be combined freely with them. The entire concept wasn’t difficult to grasp but really made Felix wonder what other perspectives he could look at mana from and whether or not there was a limit to the degrees of attunement.

He had already seen something similar with the door under the teleportation hub in Telviras but, he hadn’t actually explored or examined it. He definitely didn’t understand it.

He moved a couple of rocks over his time, after turning a number of them to dust and losing even more of them along the way. Once again, Studious proving itself an extraordinarily useful skill, in this particular instance. He also had Rathelius manually correcting him after the fact but knowing what he was doing wrong and where made it much clearer and easier to adjust either in the moment, or in the future.

He briefly wondered about purposefully moving someone against their will imperfectly as an attack but even if he could do it instantly, having too much willful Anima attached to the matter made it nearly impossible. He could move himself, but that was only because his soul would work together with the spell instead of fighting it.

It was also nearly impossible if he tried to move just a piece of a whole.

It wasn’t possible to just teleport half the rock, he had to move the whole thing. However, if he did so imperfectly, the chemical bonds of the rock could be separated once it was disentangled from space. All that added up to it not being realistic for him to vanish a hole into a wall, using direct particle manipulation anyways. He would effectively have to disentangle the entire wall then remove the hole, at which point he might as well just move the wall itself.

The entire time he practiced, especially when he was waiting to refill his mana, Felix also practiced with his new Soul Space. It ended up being much easier to use than he expected and he very quickly got the hang of it. In fact, he managed to move the Nucleus and Grim’s body out of his old Soul Space and completely collapse all of them except for the Soul Space housing Reaper’s Mantle, which he kept around.

Doing so felt freeing in a sense and he was really happy with that. His old Soul Spaces were more like hiding things under the rug or stuffing his pockets than actual spaces. He was limited by the size of the rug and it was annoying if he wanted to walk around on it. The real sub space, was imperceptible to his soul in terms of weight and was an actual space.

Given how awesome it was to have so much more room at his disposal, Felix seriously considered moving even more things in there. Eventually, considering even his Core Soul, “Hey Rathelius, what if I moved my Core Soul into this Sub Space?”

Standing on the barren planet a short distance from him, waiting for his mana to refill, Rathelius winced a little which immediately told Felix everything he needed to know, “Theoretically… I will assume you execute the bindings and connection perfectly because you’re a Spirit Sage so, nothing.”

Felix was taken aback by the answer. He was really expec-

“Right now, if you were to die, you would become a remnant. As a remnant, you could either live on or find a new body to bind to, maybe becoming an elemental or spirit. If you die with your Core Soul in a True Sub Space, it will burst open and spit you out. However, certain attacks starting in the high B grade carry the possibility of severing space which, is much easier and less dramatic than it sounds.”

Felix’s excitement washed away and was replaced with disgust and horror.

“A severed sub space is not a happy place. Think of a little bubble on the surface if a big bubble, the attack wouldn’t just separate the little bubble, it would launch it. Then, you would have no way to return to the big bubble. Without the big bubble, the little bubble degrades and even if you, inside of the little bubble, held it steady through force of will, you’d be stranded. Possibly even separated from all anima and mana.”

Felix looked at the ground and sighed, “Never mind then.”

It took the entire rest of his recruitment for Felix to get even a small piece of a rock to move where he wanted it but, he lost the rest of the rock as it vanished and never reappeared.

He had enough direction to keep practicing on his own though and more importantly, enough knowledge imparted to him by Rathelius that he could start experimenting by himself.

As his last day arrived though, Rathelius surprised him by opening a portal and leading him through. On the other side, in stark contrast to the barren planet they had been on, was a massive library with shelves on each floor that were a dozen meters tall. It was impossible to tell how big the place was because there were no unobstructed sight lines as far as Felix could see.

Looking over at one of the shelves, Felix saw a number of books on the mineral makeup of a particular mountain range.

He didn’t look for long though before hurrying forward to follow Rathelius.

“This is the gift The Dragon Mother had prepared for you. Unlimited access to her personal library. This contains all the information and books that have ever been gifted to her or the Drakene along with copies of nearly everything the species has ever read.”

Felix’s eyes widened, “How big is this… place?”

“This is a True Sub Space. It has been stretched and expanded many times.” Rathelius reached out and offered Felix a marble.

Felix gingerly took and cradled it before pulling it into his new Soul Space.

“That holds a portal to enter. Use it wisely. There-” Rathelius pointed, “-is an index. Of particular interest to you, there are copies of nearly every spell ever known to Dragons or the Drakene.”

“I… thank you.”

“Will you be taking Nova with you to your next recruitment?”

Felix shook his head, “Not this one.”

Waving his hand, Rathelius opened a portal that opened up just outside of Eramith.

Before stepping through, Felix faced Rathelius, “Thank you. For teaching me and dedicating so much of your time to do so.”

Rathelius nodded.

Felix took a step then stopped, “You know, I was surprised multiple times this quarter by how much you knew about me.”

He cocked a brow like he was surprised Felix didn’t already know why, “Of course. The Dragon Mother has spent much of her time and resources keeping your arrangement a secret and running interference on rumors. My abilities tend to be useful when it comes to long distance communication.”

Felix winced at hearing Rathelius was forced to follow him around and clean up his messes, “Sorry about that.”

He shook his head, “You have done admirably considering how new you are to the multiverse as a whole. Your nature of being a loner helps quite a bit. What you have displayed as Felix and the rumors about you and your Persona that do surface are so unbelievable, it makes our jobs easier and provides an effective distraction. Your professors are some of the only ones who know what you can do and they refuse to tell anyone because then they can’t use you for their research and learn from your abilities. If they did, some god would pick you up and they would never hear nor see anything you did, ever. This allows us to obfuscate your abilities and direct all the questions towards you and why we are interested in you, and away from your persona.”

Felix nodded, “I assumed it was something like that… at least with most of them. Wanting to further their research isn’t exactly a malicious desire though. What about you, what do you want?”

Rathelius stiffened a little, “I humbly serve The Dragon Mother however I might be of use.”

“I see. Well, I appreciate that.”

Felix waved as he walked through the portal then headed over to his dorm room. There, he harvested the Mana Computer farm and performed some basic maintenance and upgrades with his new will power then, stuck it in his Soul Space, now that he had the room to spare.

What is that? The Nucleus immediately recoiled in his Soul Space.

Mana Computer farm, still working out the kinks but one day, it might allow me to replace you.

Ha ha. Seriously though, you can do much better than this, can’t you?

Yes. I haven’t exactly had the time to rework it yet. Luckily, I should have time to do so where I’m heading.

He then quickly retrieved Art from Ked’s lab, flying as fast as he could, and placed him in his Soul Space. Finally Felix flew over to the portal room and handed El his next recruitment. She glanced at it briefly then opened a portal to Edras’ Arcanum Pansophical.

It was, exactly what Felix expected in some ways and completely different in others. He landed in a large circular room with a single point of entry that was completely filled with portals appearing and disappearing around him. Unlike the teleportation hub in Telviras, the room seemed completely random with portals of different sizes shapes and colors appearing all over the place.

Felix also saw a single person walk into the room and open a portal to leave, but the multiple hundred others were all arriving.

Following the crowd that was spread out far enough that it wasn’t cramped at all, they all headed down the massive walkway into a huge lobby.

The ceiling looked to be missing and through it, appeared to be some kind of spatial anomaly above. It was like a star that was exploding or had exploded, with twisting rings around it and bursts of color shooting out of either end. Reaching upwards with his Matter Senses, Felix realized two things. First, the missing ceiling was an illusion and what he was seeing was an indistinguishable projection of reality, behind it there was a ceiling which is what he expected to find. Secondly, his Matter Senses had much more range than he realized.

Around the room, there were at least a hundred hallways that weren’t identical, but all looked quite similar. Luckily, Felix knew exactly where to go by either following the signs that reminded him of a school and the crowd around him heading in the same direction he was.

The crowd itself mostly consisted of sapients in the D or C grade, like him, the vast majority of which seemed to be casters, or at least wore robes. Many of them, walked or flew alongside their familiars.

There were Frostmyre, Rhunar, Humans, Elves, Drakene and every other race Felix expected to see along with Singular Minds, Undead and other odder races. Amongst them, were elementals, some of which were casters and others that were familiars. The familiars also included undead, magma turtles, deer made of wood, flying bat cats, trolls and everything else Felix could have imagined.

It was easily the highest concentration in density and ratio of casters and familiars he had ever seen.

Following the massive, labeled arrows, Felix made his way down a few halls, through a few forks and into a large room with a number of chairs and a stage at the front. It was a little more theater than school assembly in style and structure, but it still reminded him more of the latter.

Felix took a seat in one of the back rows and waited as everyone else streamed in and found their seats.

Once the room was about 90% full, the doors behind them closed and the lights everywhere except on the stage dimmed, like it was actually a show. The lights on stage shifted in hue and tone as a man with light blue skin and white hair stepped out onto the stage.

He wore impressive, elegant but simple robes and stood just slightly shorter than the average man. Felix wouldn’t even have really noticed his height if he weren’t certain, the man had evolved and grown from a Frostmyre, which were typically around 4 feet tall.

[SSS - Mythic] Edras (Lvl 6894)

Edras stepped over into the middle of the stage with grace and a wide, warm smile as he visually scanned the crowd. He stopped in the middle and looked around for another few seconds before finally speaking, easily projecting his voice throughout the room.

“Welcome, everyone to The Arcanum Pansophical. I know we have all come to refer to this period as a recruitment and, based on what you do with your time here, we very well may offer to sponsor you but this is also the first time many of you are here and the first time many of you are seeing me.”

Edras continued to scan the crowd as he talked, appearing welcoming as he did so, “I was once right where you are and I’d like to share a little bit about myself with you, it is relevant, I promise. I was born into the multiverse, raised within it and from a young age I was completely taken by the notion of progressing and becoming stronger and fighting legendary beasts, as many young boys are.”

A few of the audience members chuckled.

“I was drawn to magic and so, I accepted the Arcanist class and dove in head first. I cannot with certainty claim that my strength was largely the result of luck, effort or talent. My father would claim talent, my mother effort and my opponents luck. The truth, likely lies somewhere in between.”

“Finding knowledge at this point in my life was a challenge but not an insurmountable one. I dove into dungeons and System events for the rewards, supplementing the reasonable income I made as an enchanter which I spent on a veritable trove of spells. My Profession evolved as I grew and my addiction to spells and desire to understand the universe was rewarded with a high tier Profession and Class in the D grade.”

“It was around that point that I was destroying everything around my own level and I pushed to challenge the hardest dungeons and events I could find. I wasn’t even trying to prove myself at that point, I just wanted to fight and to learn. Eventually though, I realized there was simply a wall. No matter how many events I could win, how many jobs I could complete, there would simply be others with better resources and more knowledge available to them.”

“This became increasingly obvious as I was forced out of System events and dungeons after refusing to take exorbitant amounts of wealth to abstain. Later on, I seriously regretted not taking their offer, but that’s hindsight. Even the events I wasn’t pushed out of, I was up against kids my own age who had been training since birth to carry on the legacy of their faction or clan. They had been handed down and taught the ways of Legendary Classes, started with Divine Races and had equipment that was purchased with planets, not credits.”

“I didn’t resent them though, not once ever. They had all trained to get where they were. I knew it wasn’t possible for them to just be handed their classes and races. These kids worked and trained their whole lives to get where they were. What I resented, was the fact that I didn’t have that chance. I had also trained nearly my entire life, poured every ounce of myself into getting stronger. It just didn’t matter though, even if I had a Mythic Class or a Unique Race, I was limited by the nature of spells and their prerequisite knowledge. The upside of course being that my equipment was much cheaper, less impactful and easier to maintain compared to a fighter with full armor.”

“Nevertheless, I was still winning many of the events I managed to attend, most of them even. I was the Champion of Mayhem, Bringer of Chaos, Conqueror of Nirvana, Kriskas Victorus for my cycle.”

Felix had never heard of a single one of those things but the crowd in the room definitely had. All of them reacted in some way, some of them even gasping.

“So, I applied to Eramith. It was the best school with the most knowledge I could use. It would completely eliminate the barrier I was facing and the things I would learn there… well, the excitement kept me up over many nights. I was convinced I would get in too, given everything I had accomplished but alas, I did not. Not all was lost though because there was the entry tournament and so I signed myself up and spent every credit I had on new equipment.”

“I was certain I could win, given how much better I was than everyone else. Sure there were some who had gotten in already with Divine Classes but the tournament, the people signing up to that would be easy opponents to overcome, surely. They weren’t allowed to use items outside of their grades so there was no way someone could buy out a win.”

He closed his eyes and sighed, “As it turned out, I was wrong. I made it to the finals of the tournament but I lost to one of Radleus’ sons. Someone who had already been accepted without the tournament. I wasn’t overly worried at first, child of the Merchant God surely wouldn’t be too hard to beat with the influence of his wealth restricted. I learned that day though, that the wall that had been erected between us was so much worse than I had ever thought possible. Leading up to the finals, I watched him dominate his opponents with his prowess and by the time I fought him, I felt the dread of the match settle deep into my bones.”

“Nevertheless, I came up with a plan and, executed it perfectly. It just. Didn’t. Matter. He didn’t have items at his disposal, but he had a class and profession he had bought access to along with skills from trainers his family had hired and so, he deployed an impenetrable barrier and there was nothing I could do to win. I lost the tournament and with it, my chance to ever attend Eramith.”

He paused for a moment for dramatic effect and Felix fought the urge to leave.

“There are other schools though and not attending Eramith was not the end of my story, I attended multiple other schools and excelled. They helped greatly with alleviating my issues and over time, I amassed power, wealth and knowledge until finally, I ascended. As a God I aimed for stability in the early years because what I’m doing now, needed stability to ever become a reality. After multiple integrations of boring God politics, I finally managed to open-”

He gestured around himself with a proud smile, “-The Arcanum Pansophical. With this, my dream has become a reality. A place where I can distribute all of the knowledge I gain freely, to anyone. A place where everyone has equal access and what you gain from it, is entirely up to you and how much you want it.”

Felix could feel the crowd getting pumped up. The excitement was palpable, literally with his strengthened soul as the Ambient Anima was rife with anticipation.

“The reason I bored you all with my life story just now, is to serve as a basis for the one requirement of The Arcanum Pansophical. Anything you make, is yours. Anything you brought with you, is yours. We provide resources and tools you can use to enchant items, create constructs, experiment, research and discover. However, everything you do here, will be watched and any items you make, scanned. The entire point of this is to distribute knowledge and so, that knowledge will be provided here, for anyone to peruse. There are no secrets or hidden knowledge here.”

“I know some of you may not agree with that and if not, feel free to experiment and discover on your own time but, it also means everything anyone else has ever done here, is here for you to discover. Which, requires an extensive facility and a stringent system of organization. This is currently handled by a computer, one of the biggest in the multiverse, which you will also have access to. My hope is that by eliminating many of these artificial barriers that have been erected over time, we can better allow The System, to perform the exact task it does best, facilitating growth.”

He went on to explain some of the more popular facilities like the library, various workshops and material shops.

Once he was finally done, Edras smiled and waved, “I hope you find and discover exactly what it is you are hoping for and that you overcome whatever it is, that’s holding you back.”

A number of people in the crowd rose and applauded, some joining in shortly afterwards. Most of them were excited and pumped up but Felix wasn’t entirely alone in simply, not caring. There were at least a few others who appeared to have more dour expressions and left immediately once they were allowed to. One of which he recognized but, Adaline was already long gone and Felix’s list of things he wanted to accomplish was way too long to be talking to really, anyone else.

Felix got up pretty soon after, completely avoiding the recruits in the room who were excitedly talking with everyone around them.

Heading back out of the room though, he was stopped by 4 people standing there waiting. They directed him over to one of them who explained what was happening, “To facilitate the process of scanning everything you do here, we will need to scan your person now for all spatial storage items you have. Those items will then all be scanned when you leave. We assure you, nothing will be taken.”

Felix nodded in understanding, “What if I don’t want the contents scanned?”

“Of course. In that case you can deposit those items elsewhere then come back without them. We provide a service to store those items during your stay, if you wish.”

“What about Soul Spaces? I thought you couldn’t scan those?”

They nodded, “Correct. For those with Soul Spaces, we employ other tools to verify their claims. Since you’re only in the C grade however, we won’t need to use them.”

Felix shrugged and as he did so, sucked his Kryptos Repository, Erevos in band form and Devourer Rings from beneath his sleeves, into his freshly expanded Soul Space. He mentally activated the Kryptos Repository and dumped out anything even slightly more than mundane into his now massive Soul Space then reequipped it and held out his arm, “I just have this.”

They looked at it for a moment then nodded, “We can’t scan a Kryptos item trivially, could you please open it?”

Felix nodded and did so, combining all the pockets of the Repository to reveal its entire contents at once.

Their eyes blurred as they looked over at an invisible screen then they nodded and handed Felix a ring, “You’re clear. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Felix smiled politely, took the ring, then left and headed down the hall.

[D - Uncommon] Arcanum Pansophical Identification Ring

[Ring][Identification]

This ring marks your person as scanned and is used to access the facilities of the Arcanum Pansophical. Upon leaving, at any time, the ring must be returned. Upon arrival, after having been scanned, you will be returned a new ring.

Felix briefly scrutinized the ring to make sure it was what it seemed then shrugged and equipped it.

With it on, he headed down the hall towards his first destination that would dictate what he spent most of his time on.

Finding his way through the facility was trivial as the signage reminded him of an airport. However, the instant he tried to mentally map where he was going, he almost instantly got lost.

Following the signs to the Super Computer, Felix headed down a hall, turned left thrice without ascending or descending and ended up somewhere completely different than where he had started. Initially he thought it had to do with seamless portals, like the ones in the halls of Telviras’ teleportation hub but even if Edras didn’t need the TFP for his portals-meaning they wouldn’t buzz with anima-Felix knew they weren’t portals at all. Stepping through portals, no matter what they were, still led to a noticeable shift in the Ambient Anima and Aether which he now knew, was because Mana and Anima were separate from space itself. Portals didn’t affect them unless they were bound to matter directly and dragged through.

Not once did he detect either of them shift though so instead, there was something else going on.

He arrived at his destination before he managed to figure it out though and so, he headed over to the reception area. Much like when he was scanned, there were a number of people waiting to permit entry, like an amusement park.

Felix headed over to the first empty desk with an attendant behind it.

“Hello and welcome to The Arcanum Pansophical’s Super Computer, generously provided and maintained by Edras himself.”

“Thanks. Can I get some time on the computer?”

The attendant nodded, “Do you have your recruitment?”

Felix offered it to her but she just looked at it then nodded, “How many nodes hours are you looking for?”

“Sorry, could you explain that?”

“Of course. Nodes are the basic unit of measurement for the machine. One node is equivalent to about 1 million instructions per second. One node hour means using one node for one hour or, 4 nodes simultaneously for 15 minutes. Running operations concurrently is significantly faster but requires more advanced knowledge of how programs work.”

Felix nodded, 1 million per second per node is really low but maybe a node isn’t a physical thing at all.

“How many node hours can I use?”

“Based on the tier of your recruitment, you are permitted to use 1000 node hours, distributed amongst the time you spend here.”

“Can I get more?”

“Currently, no. Outside of the recruitment period you can buy more time up to a limit. Currently however, everyone is being rationed to ensure the large influx of recruits don’t use up all the resources in the facility.”

“What if I just want to learn and test my program first, does that cost me as well?”

“We have testing nodes that are free to use but are significantly slower and run on a queue system with a limit of 20 minutes every hour.”

“How much slower are they, can I try one of those?”

“Of course. I will issue you test credentials right now, please press your Identification Ring against the desk right here.”

Felix did as she asked and a moment later, the gate opened, “If you wish to use the nodes yourself, you will have to return so I can issue you real credentials.”

He nodded and thanked her then headed through the gate and down the hall into what appeared to be, a futuristic office space. There was a grid of seats at long desks, each with some semblance of a computer at them. The computers though, weren’t screens at all and the keyboards, unrecognizable.

Felix walked over to the nearest empty one and sat down, looking down at the keyboard and groaned. Even without reading into the language of what was happening here, the keyboard was a keyboard of symbols he vaguely recognized. Instead of letters though, the entire purpose was to write programs and so, each key represented a fundamental operation.

There were buttons for read, write, move, copy, comparison, arithmetic, gates, scoping and everything else he could think of.

People really spend their time programming like this? I was hoping for some super high level language here. Grim, I know it’s not entirely comparable but in the last few minutes, any chance you found a way to measure Marks operations per second?

Grim mentally squinted, No. We tried but your brain and Mark are too abstract and comparing analog computers to binary computers, which this appears to be, doesn’t map perfectly. Any number we come up with wouldn’t be comparable, simply because of analog specific optimizations Mark can employ.

Yeah alright, I was just hoping. How long would it take me to enter an algorithm to find crystal configurations in here?

Mark already translated it for you, shouldn’t take more than a half hour.

Perfect. Hit me with it.

Typing the exact characters that appeared before him, Felix wrote out some of the messiest and unformatted code he had ever seen. It was the code a computer would produce, not code a human would write but it didn’t matter because with Mark being a computer and his own brain verifying it, it worked on the first try.

They had to slightly adjust it to show progress because otherwise it just waited for a combination of a specific efficiency level but it worked. It was also, perfectly parallelizable so all he had to do, was head back and get some real credentials.

“You’re back already.”

“Yeah, I got the program I want to run working on the test machine. Could you issue me real credentials?”

They nodded, “How many nodes will you be using concurrently?”

“I have 1000 node hours right? How about 10,000 for 6 minutes?”

They looked at him like he was insane, “Are you certain? If your program doesn’t work, you’ll use up your time a thousand times faster than if you used only ten at once. You understand that right? We do not refund time for programs that don’t function.”

Felix nodded, “Yeah, that’s fine.”

They shook their head in disbelief and had him press his ring then he headed back over to the terminal he was using where he transferred the program he had written then ran it on the super computer.

They made sure to load it up with the baseline configurations Mark had come up with so it wasn’t starting from nothing and Felix had high hopes for the results. As he waited, he began organizing and mentally walking through the plans for everything he wanted to do during his recruitment quarter in the Pansophical, fully planning for the super computer to fail.

Even if it was effective, there was no way for him to get more time on it without buying someone else’s computer time. While it was possible he might be able to do so, he didn’t have high hopes for the results. The operations per second, assuming his understanding of an operation were correct, were too low to make any real dent in the problem. It was far more likely it barely moved the needle a few percent and if it did, only because they were still early on in the process.

Additionally, Mark wasn’t designed to calculate the efficiency of Mana Crystal combinations but he might as well have been considering how effective he was at it. He was a computer that used the attunement of mana to make calculations so the program he could run was extraordinarily simple because all the complexity of the simulation, was handled by the nature of mana interacting. The digital super computer Edras had, had to simulate things with raw math.

Six minutes passed relatively quickly as Felix worked through the plans for his plan A. The super computer was just a plan B and he didn’t really consider using his super computer time a waste because plan A, would net him infinite super computer time in the future. It was also something he wanted to do anyways, whether or not Edras’ computer worked.

Heading back over to the terminal, he was presented with a crystal configuration that netted him a grand total of 13% efficiency.

Previously he had been rounding but Mark gave him the actual number they had input as a starting point and compared them. Felix verified the output and the samples it had tried and sighed. The program worked perfectly and the computer managed to try out over 200 million configurations. It just didn’t find a single one that was better than the starting point they had entered.

Well, on to more important matters.

From the computer room, ignoring the look of pity from the attendant, Felix followed the signs over to the room he had been allocated for the quarter.

It was a simple room with a bed and a desk and just enough room to stand between them and that was it. While Felix had no intention of staying in the room himself, it was a place where he could be reasonably certain no one would interrupt him.

Placing the identification ring on the table, Felix also prematurely cast a Force Bubble around himself, that blocked light, sound and kinetic energy, to test out his ability to block being observed. Within that Force Bubble, he also manually fought with The System static but didn’t even try to fully suppress it. His only goal was to see if someone would come running.

Alright so, plans for recreating the machine th-

Knock knock

What in the hell. That was fast.

Felix opened the door to reveal someone he had never expected to see, Adaline.

“You are definitely not who I was expecting.”

She scowled, “Who were you expecting?”

He shrugged, “Don’t know. What’s up?”

She looked at him with her usual frown then looked behind him. He immediately understood and let her in the room, instantly making it feel cramped.

Felix closed the door and turned to her, standing between the bed and desk.

Adaline pulled out a small device and placed it on the desk next to her then activated it. Immediately, Felix felt a bubble surround the two of them, replacing the one he had dropped when he opened the door. Her’s however, was a spatial bubble. Just a 100 days ago, Felix wouldn’t have had the prerequisite intuition to recognize it, let alone have the knowledge to even know what it was. Though he might have assumed.

While it accomplished what his Force Bubble had fairly efficiently, it did not block out The System static in any way.

Adaline immediately addressed that fact, “System spying skills will still get through.”

He nodded.

She handed him a memory crystal which he immediately dove into. Inside of it, was simply a memory of her talking to herself in a mirror back at Eramith. It was something she had prepared ahead of time.

“You have a Soul Space. I can’t risk what I do here being scanned. At the end of the term, I will hand you everything I’ve created and you will smuggle them out for me without them being scanned. What do you need in return for this service?”

Felix returned to his physical body then shrugged, “Teach me how you do everything you do.”

She shook her head, “I can’t.”

“Now or ever?”

“Now.”

“Okay… Let me examine your guns.”

She nodded, “I’ll be modifying them anyways. You will need to take them for me. I can’t stop you from scanning them.”

Felix nodded, “Alright, I can do that.”

“How much room do you have?”

“Uh… a few cubic kilometers?”

She looked at him incredulously for a few seconds then glowered, grabbed her device from the desk and pushed past him to leave.

Felix stopped her just before she opened the door, “One more thing.”

She stopped at the door.

“Why do you hate me?”

She looked back with a slight frown, “You haven’t asked Melody?”

That’s… a good idea actually.

“Never cared enough to. I’m only really asking out of mild curiosity anyways.”

She stared into his eyes for a few moments with a hard expression then opened the door, “I don’t.” Then she was gone.

Well, that was fun. Felix erected his bubble once more, Anyways. Grim, can you patch Nucleus in?

Yes, I’m also going to add in Arysha, Mera and Alken.

Who?

Grim knew Felix knew who Arysha was, Mera and Alken are descendants of the originals and have been consuming all the mana, enchantment, spell, ward and ritual theory you have in here.

Okay, cool. Nucleus, I know you started us off with the plans but any insights you can provide are much appreciated.

The Nucleus visibly brightened from within his Soul Space, I understand nothing about this but I can definitely help with construction.

Felix’s brow furrowed, Wait, you can affect the physical world now?

I always could. It just wasn’t a good idea.

Why didn’t you mention this before?

Cause you didn’t plan on physically constructing anything in your Soul Space until now. And you didn’t exactly have any room for me to do anything useful until now.

Felix shrugged, Okay fine. Fair enough. You have no understanding though, right? Grim, any ideas on how to patch Arysha, Mera and Alken through Nucleus?

Grim nodded, If they construct things here, I can transfer the experience to Nucleus to build.

Perfect. You three good with that?

Felix’s mental attention fell onto Mera who looked to be a little girl. She looked up excitedly and smiled when she sensed his attention. Alken was serious looking, gruff middle aged man and he bowed, I would be honored to contribute.

Arysha knelt on one knee, This is wonderful. May I… request something… however?

Of course.

Right now, our brains are all scheduled.

Felix nodded, Right, of course. Mark can’t run you all at once right now so, you sleep. Mark, can we run these three at least all the time?

Of course. This will slightly decrease the awake time of the other residents.

You can also allocate them time on my brain if I’m not using it.

Of course.

Okay then. Art, you there?

I’m here.

Grim, you can get Mark the plans for this, right?

I’ll copy them into myself as blueprints for them to follow.

Perfect. Art, any objections?

I… don’t think so. What exactly are we doing though?

Oh right, I kind of kidnapped you without saying anything and stuck you in a completely blank void. We’re going to recreate the machine that created The Nucleus, here. In essence, it just uses entanglement to form a material connection between objects then detaches those from space and physically mounts them to a central object.

Uh… okay.

If this works out, we’ll use it on my brain next then we can see about the future. In the meantime, I’ll personally work on fixing up the Mana Computer growth farm and producing enough Mana Computer for everything. First things first though, I need to go buy a bunch of raw materials.