“I am finally free of his endless chatter… Even facing Silmar directly wasn’t this difficult… Was it a mistake to sign that contract?”
The everlasting flame flickered, “Your words are somewhat hypocritical… Although both of you are schemers, he at least has the decency to let others know his dubious nature… Out of the two, you’re way worse in my opinion.”
Soren frowned. “You’re also a version of me, so stop acting as if that doesn’t apply to you as well.”
“You’re wrong,” it replied. “I am a better version of you.”
Soren shook his head as he stood up. “Whatever, it's finally time to get busy. Did you prepare the things I told you about last time?”
“Yes, everything is ready.”
“Good,” he nodded as he headed out from the central marble canopy. Reality shifted around him—what was once a solitary island with a beautiful field of night phlox flowers overlooking the crayon painted night sky had now been morphed into a spacious open-roof hall.
Soren glanced around, taking in the somewhat familiar furniture. Desks lined with countless books, beakers and alchemical tools stood in their usual places. Divination mediums, measuring tools, and scrolls filled with diagrams of intricately drawn spellforms were neatly arranged in designated sections. At the far end, there was even a separate section meant for testing out magecraft spells in a safer environment.
At the center, the familiar enchanted flame cast a steady glow, illuminating everything within its presence.
Soren watched as [Fictionalization] finalized the last few remaining items. This entire space had been manifested from his memories of Cassia’s laboratory.
He nodded in satisfaction.
“You’ve done well. I have to say, you definitely are more meticulous than I am. Is that due to the Abstract Rune we’re both merged with?”
The flame flickered, “No, it is simply the result of my own paradoxical existence.”
“And what kind of existence is that?”
“Telling you would undo my existence.”
Soren grinned, “Oho? So what you’re saying is—you’re hiding a secret, and if I manage to unravel it, you’ll no longer haunt me?”
“Correct,” it replied robotically. “But that’s simply impossible to achieve.”
“We’ll see about that. However, getting rid of you right now is certainly difficult… My focus will be on stopping your attack five months from now.”
The flame didn’t answer, but he was okay with that. There were much more important things to do at the moment. Like uncovering a safer way to combine axioms of two different affinities…
Indeed, there was a lot to unravel with the limited time he has in this space. Soren was sure that after he returned, it would certainly be impossible to resist the Rift’s encroachment if he dared to try entering again. The blessing Mr. Unknown had offered to him was slowly being bled dry—if he couldn’t figure out a way to defend himself without its help soon, then he might as well give up and hand the controls over to Mr. Figment of his Imagination.
That’s why, he decided it was best to use this opportunity in the best way he can. Since there was still a week left until Sienna and her crew returned, Soren had a lot of time to finally figure out whether his hypothesis will be true or not… Leaving this space early would certainly be a waste.
“Say, how slow does time run inside this space?” The last time he entered, Soren spent many hours inside, fiddling and getting used to [Fictionalization] as well as conducting a divination for his fate. And yet, only a portion of that time seemed to have passed in Yarian.
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The flame flickered slowly, “According to my observations, the ratio seems to be thirty minutes outside for every hour spent here. Though, that only seems to apply to Yarian.”
He rubbed his chin, “If it applies to Yarian, it will apply to Earth as well. The two realms share exactly the same speed of time.”
“Indeed.”
He sighed. If Soren had to be honest, when he first arrived in Yarian, a part of him almost believed he hadn’t traveled to another world at all. His earliest theory was that Yarian was a parallel Earth that had diverged at some point in its history…
The evidence for this was somewhat obvious—aside from the time being the same, there were other similarities too. For one, Yarian’s callander shared exactly the same amount of days for a year. What’s even more strange was that the hours in a day were also freakishly similar—24 hours long. That had to mean that for one, Yarian’s planet was exactly the same size, shape and distance away from the sun. Its gravity was exactly the same as well.
Another strange thing was the lack of pathogens. Even after all this time, Soren had not gotten sick a single time since his arrival in this world—something that should have been illogical. After all, as a being from Earth, his immune system should not have had a way to defend itself against the viruses and bacteria of this world.
It was only after Soren discovered that his body in Yarian was actually an avatar that his suspicions were quelled. Mr. Unknown did say that his soul had adjusted to the rules of this world, after all, so the body that had been constructed should also have undergone such a change.
The final piece of evidence, however, was the gateway he observed when he first arrived in this enigmatic space. For some strange reason, both Yarian and Earth shared the same gateway, even though they were separate realms. This hinted at some form of connection that he was unaware of…
Fortunately, he had obfuscated the space around the central canopy prior to the meeting with Tazzith… Otherwise, this important secret would have easily been scraped. Unless it provided him a benefit, Soren was reluctant to share everything just yet.
Still, his earliest theories regarding this were objectively wrong—Yarian could not have been a parallel Earth. For one, the constellations in Yarian were not the same ones on Earth. Heck, not even the planets in this solar system were the same—all of them bore different shapes and appearances than the ones he knew of.
Their numbers were also less than his original realm’s solar system. Aside from Yarian, there were only five other planets—much less than the eight (or nine if you count Pluto) that he was used to. The planets here were also named after the orthodox gods.
Then there was also the geography. The continent of Yarian was a supercontinent that stretched for thousands of kilometers. It was completely different from Earth’s land masses.
Soren sighed and walked to the nearest set of instruments. A four-by-four miniature chessboard was placed to the side for minor runological studies.
“It’s time to begin.”
Since hunger and thirst wasn’t an issue within this space, his plan was to stay here until a week passed in Yarian. Time was also cut in half here, so in actuality, he had two weeks to fully study the concepts he needed to look over as well as experiment with his affinities.
He glanced down at the wand strapped to his belt and frowned. “If only I could enter and leave this space freely… I wouldn’t have had to waste my first spellfocus on such a dangerous experiment.”
Because [Fictionalization] interprets his thoughts and imagination perfectly, the need for a spellfocus was made obsolete. He could theoretically cast any magecraft perfectly as long as he had the sigil, axioms, geometry and symmetry of the spellform memorized completely.
However, that did not mean that casting them didn’t cost anything. His anima and the limited time his Soul Realm could stay active for before exhaustion sets in meant that he had to be careful with his experiments to make the most out of this opportunity.
“You said you had a hypothesis,” the voice echoed out. “What exactly are you planning to do?”
Soren smiled as he flipped through a page in the book in front of him. “Nothing too complicated. I just want to try reinterpreting one of the axioms available in the ‘Bind’ spell to that of my original affinity… Essentially, I’ll be using divination to search and discover material runes with a similar effect. If I could do that successfully, I'll then substitute these runes with each other to see what effect it will have on the spellform.”
“...That sounds extremely difficult.”
His smile widened. “Let’s make a bet. If I manage to achieve this within the next two weeks, I want you to help me with something.”
“...And what do I get in return for accepting?”
A flame of madness ignited within Soren’s eyes, “I’ll allow you to have some autonomy over this space. Because your existence is tied to my Soul Weapon, all your actions need to occur through my commands, correct? Then with my own thoughts, I will command you to operate independently. Doesn’t that sound interesting? To finally achieve some semblance of freedom?”
The flame flickered unevenly for a few moments then voiced its question:
“You have no guarantee of success—aren’t you being reckless? Why… Are you doing this?..”
Even though it asked, it was certain of the answer.
Soren flashed a grin. “Why? Because it's thrilling of course. And I work best under pressure.”