What began as an interesting mission already turned into a headache, but then somehow things only worsened with every revelation. Usually, when the process was understood, then things became clearer, so then, why did everything about his situation say the exact opposite?

“More than 95% of the lightning elements gathered for every bolt is new. It strikes, diffuses into the clouds, and powers all that lightning. Most of which is reduced to heat with some elements returning up again.” He nodded along with the train of thought, three days of observations and tests clearly proved this to be the case.

But… There was one tiny, nagging, almost unimportant question which bothered him still.

“Where the fuck does it come from!?” Not once did he shout or roar overzealously at the clouds, but the intrinsic spite and anger as he approached the deadline without a lead only bothered him further.

So what if he understood how the lightning sustained itself or the mountain grew to its current height?

None of them directed the origin!

He checked so carefully, both inside and outside the sub-realm, especially in case some strange elemental plane nearby fed lightning elements into that specific point… But as the Nexus claimed, there was no external power involved. Everything made use of things naturally available to a sub-realm.

Oh! And he indeed combined Eye of Truth with his recent spell, Focused Sight.

It did absolutely nothing to reveal where the intent went afterwards. Every last piece simply vanished into thin air like a dementia-riddled patient! He learnt his lesson too, Akevorax spent three hours probing the clouds and sky itself to see if the intent simply diffused so thinly that his senses failed to locate anything. But unless the source reached the level of complete emotional control, it made no sense for the desires within that lightning to vanish.

…Maybe he was ranting a bit too much.

Without a doubt, flying about to speak of torture against clouds was a sign of onset madness. Very few across the eight worlds would ever say they’d ‘condense your brethren into water and drink them passionately in front of you.’ That was a direct quote no one, thankfully, will ever know about.

“I have a brain, surely I can figure out where the elements are coming from. Where should things start? The element’s source? Nothing else seems important, so what do I know?” Once again, he asked himself this question and listed off the relevant information. Starting with the biggest point in his opinion.

The source produced copious amounts of lightning elements; enough to create a cornem tier bolt every hour without fail. Or was it exactly a bolt every hour?

It also produced no spatial impact, no runic traces, no dimensional traces, no– Scrap that line. It produced NO traces whatsoever.

It very likely did not create the intent which filled those lightning bolts. Current evidence instead suggested something above the mountain itself gathered the elements, but then a release of intent moulded those unassigned powers into a bolt.

“Is it really just those three?

Rather than despair in his voice, confusion set in once more as he truly couldn’t understand how hundreds of arrays and hours of research barely formed three facts. And for two of those facts, he wasn’t even exactly sure of their specifics. If things continued this way, he’d absolutely wander around in circles for days, losing horribly at the end, and then he’d have to put up with mocking comments from the Nexus. Both of them really became too casual ever since…

When exactly did it get so close to him?

Such a relationship came about unexpectedly, but he really took the entire situation for granted.

There’s no way the Nexus ever reduced the price of information for anyone else in the past, all the knowledge Alkuthuzen bought at sky high prices had been acquired like a copper coin on the road. It even provided a copy to Adret, simply because he asked.

And, well, he coughed sheepishly as he realised one other fact about his situation. It didn’t have to go out of its way to use this unnecessary function, facilitating a challenge through this method, but didn’t it seem to apply some shackles to itself as well?

A bet could be organised simply through words, same for a quest, mission, goal. But these challenges clearly demanded the Nexus adhered, and that probably explained why it fell out of favour. Some absolute beings accepted a limitation to their power when they cared for the little ones below, but none willingly wore a chain around their throat which pulled them into line. The Nexus already implemented written rules for its nodes to follow.

For anything at the top, their word may as well be truth.

“Still, a damn hint on the source would’ve been nice! How do you create a seemingly infinite source of power without any measurable impact?” Without any other choice, Akevorax sat back down and considered spells which aided in detection or visual refinement.

One idea arose so far. Something crazy and ridiculous to the point where he questioned its viability, but right now he truly saw no other solution.

Look at those nanoscopic scales himself. See not only the vague movements of elements, but watch them close up for the moment and location at which they appear. In other words, find a way to improve his eyesight further by a factor of 10. Not just 2, 3, or even 5 times greater, but a whole 10 times.

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Doubling the precision could be done reasonably with a three word spell, but even the most demanding examples bragged only about a five-fold effect over the average use of Focused Sight. Which left just one possible method to increase his eyesight, the crazy solution.

Focus masses of divinity into both eyes.

Currently, the limit of his control evenly spread out throughout the body of ice cream, raising its defences by multiple tiers. Divinity never behaved as a simple durability enchantment. Just as its true power gave form to an incarnation filled with flaring power, in its raw state the power allowed for an enhancement of almost every single aspect. What was divinity?

The power to create!

To truly create something with divinity, one required godhood, but simply creating a higher level was simple. Akevorax held off these past few days though.

Right now, his body needed the infusion of divinity just to stand atop the mountain without falling out of the sky, going up into the clouds filled with elements was just asking for worse. That didn’t stop him this time. He spearheaded towards the darker clouds and retracted the divinity around his body, first casting Focused Sight as it required the least effort, and activating the Eye of Truth.

His vision refined countless times in an instant as both spells overlapped. From the dust and char which floated freely, to the mist of water and ice forming this cloud, everything grew endlessly larger as his eyes identified one tiny region of space to focus on. From millimetres to micrometres, he already jumped a thousand-fold instantly, but the combination of spells didn’t end there. Further and further they zoomed in until his whole field of view was merely 300 nanometres… A ridiculously large range on an atomic scale. Still in need of another thousand time refinement.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to go that far. Yet.

Akevorax placed a levitating array below him as a platform, and removed the protection of divinity entirely. Just the surges of elements stiffened limbs in an instant. If it were any wonder why even Alkuthuzen struggled against the bursts of paralysis, that’s just because someone underestimated the power of lightning.

However, this only turned movement into a struggle, his divinity flowed into the red ruby eyes and lit them with a soft, golden light. The white beams emanated by the Eye of Truth immediately followed suit as it shifted in hue, all that remained was his vision.

And it exploded in power.

The flow of lightning elements in his vision, previously just millions of particles which acted like rivers of sand, now refined into a field of hyperactive children running at full speed. He could individually track the elements by eye, and if he really focused, then even the water molecules themselves appeared. Countless molecules all floating tiny distances from one another, but kept stable as the tiny forces between them accumulated into a great structure. He did not see the atoms in any form, but the rough locations and orientations of those molecules appeared.

And now, as he focused onto this newly minimised level, something new shined through. The missing link of several questions. Left dumbstruck by what appeared, dazed and confused beyond belief, he almost doubted the sight in front of him. Lightning elements rushed out from a converging point, but many moved so fast they completely escaped his senses and the general area too quickly.

Only the occasional slow element appeared for fractions of a second, in fact, for better results, he accelerated his Mind at a 10 times speed for 5 seconds. Far better information processing slowed down the world immensely as he saw thousands of white masses fly out in all directions.

His spatial sense showed nothing, and not a single coloured dimension reported elemental oddities there. But none of that mattered because he already saw it. With both eyes staring at reality, looking at a minutia of space, the answer to his rants and malicious testimonies towards this place found its answer.

Because there was a hole.

A hole in space from which endless lightning could surge through. He didn’t have to research, nor peer into it, in fact, he even dispelled both Eye of Truth and Focused Sight. Somehow, unprecedented relief washed over him… All while newfound anger clashed relentlessly.

“So where is the intent!?” He repeated into the storm cloud. Time and effort painstakingly answered one question, but he only reached a deadend. Every assumption in the last three days assumed that the source of this lightning also infused its intent, it best explained how the lightning gathered and why it struck this area without fail. Something which created so many elements obviously possessed means to flood its attacks with intent too.

His guess assumed that an intelligent lightning creature managed to dominate this sub-realm long ago. Provided that it lived in the sky, everything lined up in that it began to destroy mountains until somehow combating that lightning crystal. From there… Not that it mattered. That was all incorrect without a single doubt.

Because he found a tendril of the Lightning Source.

Just a tiny offshoot with a fraction of the Source’s endless power. And somehow a noiseless connection between this plane and that tendril, but a connection nonetheless.

All Sources worked like this, but most of those planes existed at the blank space’s boundary. In a way they functioned as landmarks for many, but not all Sources existed so far out. The Pure Source, an infinite wellspring of mana, existed as a dimension not so different from the coloured forms, overlaid almost everywhere. But to access the Pure Source required power, knowledge, or a bloodline.

And even then, who dared connect their existence to a land filled with endless energy?

The Lightning Source acted similarly to the dimension, with some slight changes. Instead of harsh lines drawn throughout every corner of reality, the Source moved like tree roots spread throughout everything. Some roots were thick like a tree, but others more delicate and thin than the hairs on vegetables.

Even a small tendril was never to be underestimated.

Given what else he knew too, hundreds of those miniature entrances existed all around this mountain peak. Now the question asked where the holes even came from. Their stability after formation was guaranteed at least. Akevorax now at least forcibly accepted this mistaken direction and went back to his drawing board, ready to pick up a new path to see where it led.

An answer to the holes’ appearance would be given at the end of the 7 days, but obviously it didn’t matter compared to finding the lightning’s origin.

The search for intent fruitlessly wasted time on his third day, but given that horrid venture, he was ready to stop this farce. Half the story hid within the mountain, and the past two days gave him much to think about and learn. Learn where the mountain originated from and how it formed that stable crystal structure.

A wave of inspiration struck Akevorax as the direction of his research refined his options. A blindingly obvious choice which even he exclaimed about, “Why am I finding answers instead of history? Which came first? The mountain, or the lightning?” Several times now he put the cart before the horse, but this time he was sure in his decision. Many argued endless variations of whether the chicken or egg came first, however, he never even knew which option was the egg! What was the point if you got them mixed up?!