Calvin stared blankly, confused. “What do you mean, master?”

  “For all spells that require divinity, such as creation, destruction, or anything that could be considered godly, you have to be a bit narcissistic. You have to believe that you are a god, or at least an apprentice of one on the way to become a god, which you are. That is, you must truly convince yourself that you—Calvin—are someone qualified to do this. You have to believe that what you’ve created isn’t just condensed mana, but a spark of life—a seed for a world.”

  A world. Not just a space, like this dungeon, but a full ecosystem. Calvin could only stare helplessly, dizzied by the sheer quantity of details he’d need to come up with for this to be remotely functional.

  “You don’t need to worry about the specifics just yet,” his master said with a quiet chuckle. “Right now it’s only about the potential. A space that can be a world, but doesn’t have to be. With sufficient familiarity and a certain level of control, the interior could be molded into any kind of space desired.”

  Calvin nodded, a bit of the tension leaving his stomach. That did sound much more manageable. He kind of understood. Straightforward enough, though he knew it would be a lot more difficult than it sounded.

  “The discovery of the technique to create subspaces is what had sparked the famous ‘God in a Bubble’ theory, back in the godly realms,” his master said conversationally.

  His master loved to ramble on sometimes, and Calvin adored that fact. It was soothing just to hear his master’s voice as he talked about all the fascinating things he knew. It enchanted Calvin, made everything feel worth it, even if he wasn’t fully paying attention. He stared into the blue marble of flame, trying to shift his perception of it from ‘fire’ to ‘world-spark’.

  “According to the Ginab theory, even the Godly Realms live within a subspace created by a fickle god from an even more Outer World. If it’s true, that would explain how unclaimed Universes keep showing up. Why a Godking is only a hypothetical no god has yet managed to reach. Perhaps even why all these unknown, fickle forces control the fabric of creation—destiny, providence, fate—and so on and so forth.”

  Surprisingly, shifting his mindset was easier than Calvin expected. Maybe he had some narcissistic tendencies—or maybe it was just because he was a disciple of a divine being, but believing he'd actually created a world wasn’t too hard. His master was obviously not lying, so why doubt? With the amount of time and pain he’d gone through to do it, he certainly felt like he deserved to have created a world.

  “Fortunately, there’s no need for you to fit entire universes in there, or come close to god-level proficiency. As long as it’s big enough to fit a sizeable forest wide enough to fit a few thousand wolves comfortably and peacefully, it’s plenty good enough.”

  “What would be a god-level proficiency?” He felt quite pleased with going above and beyond in keeping his soon-to-be-subspace’s shell so much thinner than his master’s requirements, but that didn’t last long.

  “Oh, that’s far too distant for you to worry about yet. Beginner proficiency for gods is a few billion times more mana in a much smaller space. Being able to ignore the laws of reality and create a full Universe yourself. But before you get any ideas, I should warn you that if you tried to do anything close to that before reaching EX-rank at least, you’d only burn yourself out.”

  “No worries, Master.” The sheer thought of having to repeat the past uncountable years another uncountable number of times was absolutely soul-numbing. For now. He was sure the idea would become a lot more palatable a few months or years later. “I don’t need to try becoming a god any time soon. I can enjoy being a powerful S-Rank Rift Sealer for a while first.”

  “Exactly!” His master beamed at him. “As soon as you’ve finished up this basic space.”

  Calvin nodded and focused, sinking into meditation. He’d been doing that a lot in the later stages and it really did seem to speed up the integration of concepts into mana control.

  He might not have even noticed when he finally succeeded, if not for the notification.

  System Warning!

  Fireball has been externally modified into Subspace Fireball. Using this ability may be unsafe. Please contact an administrator to repair your basic ability.

  Or perhaps he would have noticed immediately. It wasn’t just belief, but understanding. The fireball was a world.

  He could sense its untapped existence, throbbing with life. Intense vertigo overwhelmed him as he stared down at the tiny thing he held, something with the potential to be anything and everything he could imagine and then some.

  It was impossible. And yet it was truth, and it was his own creation.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Calvin, you’re at the final step. This is very impressive, you have a lot of talent,” his master praised, looking at him with visible pride. “Probably not as much talent as me, but still a surprising amount. Then again, I guess talent depends purely on effort when you're at this level of power and have a lot of assistance and support. Your progress demonstrates your effort and determination, your will. A strong will is immensely rare, and you have one.”

  Calvin smiled. “Thank you. Thank you so much, master.”

  Despite all his frustration and the desire to never repeat this process again, Calvin had mastered an incredibly powerful ability.

  He had learned to create a world—something that belonged in the realm of gods. Not something he ever thought he’d be able to do, no, never even dreamed it would be a possibility. But thanks to his master, he had achieved something like this.

  His master waved off his profuse thanking. “Now, Calvin, enter that world. You should be able to ‘create’ the entry with a single thought.”

  It was vague—more vague than any of his master’s previous instructions. But somehow, it clicked instantly. Calvin focused on the fireball at the tip of his finger, and everything around him disappeared. With a single blink, he was no longer in the dungeon. Instead, he was in a vast, dark space, a void. His canvas.

  It wasn’t much of a world yet—just an empty space—but with a thought, everything would change. He waved his hand, and a wide expanse of grass appeared. The sky turned a pleasant blue, the sun casting a warm glow, and the grass beneath his feet felt soft and real. With another thought, trees, mountains, and rocks appeared, giving the world more substance, the terrain varied enough that his pets could enjoy themselves.

  Calvin waved his hand again, and piles of meat appeared all around him.

  However, creating the meat took slightly more mana than creating the grasslands. It wasn’t a huge difference, but it was noticeable. Considering that the grasslands stretched for at least a few thousand kilometers, and the meat, even if stacked next to each other, would only stretch for five hundred kilometers, that was a major difference.

  Calvin wondered why. Was it because he had intended the meat to nourish the Relfows? Perhaps it was because he had subconsciously infused more of his mana into the meat, trying to make it not just ‘passable’ but excellent?

  Calvin took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh mountainous air. For the first time since he met his master, for the first time since beginning his journey, and for the first time since he had been born, he felt truly peaceful.

  Not afraid, not angry, not frustrated, not afraid, not focused, not apathetic.

  Simply peaceful.

  Dominic wanted to gush over his disciple, coo at him till his disciple—or Gabrielle—ended up snapping at him to “get a grip”. That was how proud and happy he was feeling. If he were someone else, the bubbling pride and joy in his chest might have induced dancing or singing or simply screaming his happiness to the sky… but that wasn’t the kind of man Dominic was.

  Was this how he had been with his own master? Had he also tried so hard, like a determined little puppy? Or kitten, perhaps? Yes, a kitten fit Calvin better than a puppy. But Dominic would have totally been a little fox.

  He grinned. Yeah, having a disciple was definitely worth it.

  He should get more, a lot more. Maybe even form a large army of hundreds of disciples in this world—he could praise them all day, coo and gush over them, watch over them like a proud little hen. Was he allowed to be both the fox and the hen? Ah, no matter.

  Calvin was so adorable, he couldn’t handle it.

  Calvin looked at his pets and then turned back to Dominic. “Master, should I just summon the fireball and throw it at them? Will that send them to the other world?”

  “Yep,” Dominic said. “If you think of it as something that will harm them, it will act as a real fireball, reducing them to ash. But if you think of it as something to protect them and give them a new place to live, you’ll tap into the subspace and send them there safely.”

  Calvin nodded. Without hesitation, he summoned the fireball with a flick of his finger, sending it toward the pets. As soon as it neared them it expanded into a sea of light, blindingly bright, and engulfed all his hundreds of Relfows at once.

  Within a second, his disciple’s army of floofy children had vanished. And a chat window appeared almost in the same moment.

  You’re doing strange things to my system, you know. Could have warned me!

  ( ,,?'︿'?,,)

  “Like what?”

  Eheh, nothing too bad! Just your student’s status might be a bit strange for a little.

  Don’t worry about it, Mister Dominic! I’ll fix everything!

  （⌒▽⌒ゞ

  Ah, true. He was teaching Calvin techniques from a more advanced world-version. But it would take her a few decades of study to catch up properly.

  Just patch the display for now, he instructed. The ability is still functional.

  Will do! Gabrielle out!

  (?? ? ??)

  When he looked around, the dungeon’s oversized hallways looked awfully empty now without the Relfow frolicking about. Empty caves, with only the boss room door standing to distract from the monotony.

  Time to move on.

  “In order to break through to the SS rank, you’ll need to experience things you’ve wanted to but never had the chance. What did you most desire, Calvin, from when you were an orphan? Was there something you wanted more than anything? Anything that made you envious, made you feel like… That was what life truly should be lived like?”

  Calvin was still staring down at his tiny world with all his even tinier wolves frolicking inside it. He only hummed under his breath, saying, “Can you give me a few minutes, master? I wanna watch them for a bit.”

  Dominic chuckled. “Alright. Think about it while you do so. Let me know if you come up with anything. For now…” he turned to Hannah. "Since we’re done with getting Calvin to S-class, and you’ve fulfilled your promise, let’s go get you your religious supremacy, shall we?"