Traveling through the portal was unlike any other portal Felix had traveled through before. He was certain most people, in fact nearly everyone but him, wouldn’t have even noticed anything. He knew he was the weird one that examined and paid attention to the inner mechanics of portals. It didn’t even really tell him anything but still, it was different and that piqued his curiosity.

System portals were the cleanest and felt the most like wormholes. Like he moved from one place to another, instantly. Just like the physical environment, the Aether on the other side of a System Portal under the TFP seemed like it had been cut. Unlike the atmosphere and air, which was slowed but still melded across the portal, the Aether remained separate and so he sensed the immediate shift stepping through them. The farther he traveled, the more apparent the shift.

His Aether tunnels weren’t instant. They seemed almost instant but even if they were close in the physical world, even if he left and re-entered the universe at the same instant, he still came out the other side with experiences. His Soul was aware of his literally traveling through the Aether. Doing so, there was no sudden shift, instead he literally felt the movement as if he were simply moving really fast. It wasn’t quite like the wind blowing on his face when flying, but it was very similar.

The portal into The Abyss, was something else entirely. It wasn’t instantaneous like the TFP and the Aether was merging from one side to the other, like the atmosphere did. On top of that, Felix immediately noticed an experience he didn’t have an associated memory for. Instead of traveling through the Aether with barely any sense of speed, it felt like he had traveled not quite through the Ambient Anima, but almost. He felt as though the Ambient Anima had rapidly shifted then there was a jolt, like he had passed through a barrier or popped a bubble, then it shifted some more and finally, he landed on solid ground.

As soon as he did, Grim prodded him, The connection to your Residents on the outside is being hindered.

So they’re having trouble controlling their puppets’?

Not that they can’t at all, it’s like it’s being slowed, the connection is noisy and… like… bad wifi? What is that? Why did that pop into your head?

I understand, don’t worry about it. Let me know once one of them makes it in here..

Understood.

Looking around, it was nothing new, exciting or even interesting. It was a flat, grassy field on which a number of boars roamed around.

[D - Common] Field Boar (Lvl 102)

Hah! I knew they would be at the bottom of the D grade but… Field Boards were the first enemy I ever fought. It’s almost… fitting.

“Hey! You coming or what?” Melody called out from way out ahead of him.

Looking around, Felix realized he was alone as Peace and Adaline had already gotten ahead of even Melody.

Also, there was a boar that had charged into his side but, he had barely noticed or felt it. His Mind Residents hadn’t even activated his Mana Skin, it was just too weak. Looking at the boar, it was bigger and leaner than the ones he had fought in the tutorial. Its horns were sharper but otherwise, it was very similar. It definitely could have been the result of one of those boars evolving into the D grade.

He lightly pushed the boar back then launched himself towards them, catching up to Melody at least, very quickly.

The other two in their party had gotten much further ahead and had forked off, Peace to the left and Adaline to the right, to search for the exit. There was no reason for them to fight the boars at all since the early floors wouldn’t require keys or anything. There was just a door to find.

“Found it!” Peace yelled out then zipped off, a little to the left from where he had been.

The rest of them followed and Felix used a Force Spell to push Melody along so they wouldn’t be waiting for her. She was surprised at first but squealing with glee just a moment later.

The doorway to the next floor looked exactly like the one they had passed through to enter the abyss but this time, Felix didn’t feel the same jolt, just a quick pass through something like Anima, but not quite the same.

On the other side of the portal, Felix actually had to do a double take to make sure they had actually gone through a portal at all. It looked almost exactly the same. The Board were slightly stronger on average but, otherwise he couldn’t spot any other differences.

[D - Common] Field Boar (Lvl 104)

This time, they all split off in four separate directions, since the portal had dropped them in the middle of the field. There wasn’t even a doorway on the other side to arrive through, they just appeared at an empty spot within the field.

The field was big and looking out at the seemingly endless horizon, not curved like a planet. It was not however, perfectly flat and instead, the field was made up of rolling hills. It wasn’t too difficult to just fly up a little and out though to spot the door.

On the second floor, the door was quite a bit further but they still managed to find and jump through it in just a couple minutes.

The next floor was even bigger, or the door was just further, Felix couldn’t actually tell because he didn’t see any edge to the floor. It took them over twice as long, just over 5 minutes, to find the door that time. Then, it took them nearly 11 minutes which, Felix wouldn’t have thought was too bad, if it weren’t for how fast he, Adaline and Peace could fly. Even Melody, who wasn’t as fast was still covering a massive area in 11 minutes. The boars were now Uncommon though on top of their level marginally increasing which, didn’t matter to them in the slightest at the moment.

On later floors where the enemies were actually challenging though, it would and so Felix took note of that fact.

Luckily, the 5th floor was the first boss. Heading into the room, Felix found pretty much exactly what he expected.

[D - Unommon] Alpha Field Boar (Lvl 110)

The first through the portal was Adaline, because she was the one that had found it and there was no restriction saying they all had to go through at once. Once Felix had stepped through, the Alpha Boar was already dead and Adaline had already stepped through the next door.

They found themselves on a Frozen Tundra next, although the temperature was only slightly below freezing so, not very cold at all for any of them, even Melody in her fairly revealing clothes.

The enemies averaged around 108 on that floor, so lower than the last two floors of the last group but higher than the first floors. It was also, thankfully smaller again, like the very first floor meaning they found the door in just under a couple minutes.

The same pattern repeated itself with the floors growing larger, or the exit being further away, all the way up until the boss. Whoever found the last door usually killed the boss instantly and moved on.

Seeing as Melody was the slowest and Felix didn’t want her to get left behind as they didn’t bother waiting for each-other, he lent her Erevos.

Once she was driving, she became easily the fastest amongst them and they even blew through floors just a little faster.

Even though the first floor of a group was most often the smallest, by the time they had blown through around 20 groups, Felix was certain the smallest floor was bigger than the biggest one on the first group. So even though the floor sizes mostly reset with each group, they were still increasing in size overall.

Roughly estimating how much they were growing, Felix was a little worried for the later floors, especially when it became impossible for them to split up.

Increasing from smallest to largest wasn’t the only group layout though, there were also groups where the floors got smaller and some where they were all the same. The average time it took them to find the door though, completely ignoring the enemies on them, continued to increase.

They had also started to need keys for some of the doors, though they looked more like puzzle pieces that they had to slot into the frame, but even those weren’t as bad as Felix was expecting. At least on the D grade floors, the door was much closer and easier to find and the keys weren’t inside any of the enemies, they were instead on pedestals scattered around. On average, it took them about the same amount of time to find all the keys and open the door as it would have taken to just find the door, if Felix’s math was accurate.

Mera’s group just entered, connection to Mark seems normal now.

I see. So it’s something about the separation between this and the outside world. You talked to her right? How bad were the connection issues? Will the Residents outside be able to do anything while I’m in here?

They’ll survive but we should look into replicating Mark for when you’re in here.

Then create a more solid and stable connection between this Mark and that one for the Residents to piggyback off of, that makes sense.

To say blasting through the floors all the way up to the C grade was boring, was a complete understatement. Felix was a little annoyed at first that they had to waste so much time when they were already in the C grade but there was nothing he could really do about it. He could have left and let his team progress through without him but that would have been slower and realistically, he didn’t have anything pressing to do outside of The Abyss. He also didn’t want to fall behind compared to his classmates.

Instead, he occupied his time mostly just training his Instinct Casts. Those were the most important thing to him at the moment and he wanted to ingrain as many spells as he could into his Soul.

He also started manually removing limbs and other large chunks of his body as he flew around. It, once again, didn’t matter on the floors they were on and wouldn’t for a while but, storing them in The Blood Ring allowed him to heal much faster. In the D grade floors, he could easily afford to regenerate an arm as he flew. On the later floors, he was assuming he wouldn’t have that luxury.

Right near the end, when the enemies were around level 750, they encountered some floors where there were switches, instead of keys, that they had to flip. It changed nothing though in terms of the amount of time it took them.

In total, it took Felix’s party 35 hours to reach the first C grade boss where they had agreed to stop. At that point, Melody was exhausted and Adaline looked completely drained. Peace, who was a Spirit, looked a little tired but overall not too bad. Felix, hadn’t had to expend anything and had long since abolished his need to sleep to recover so he was fine, although quite bored.

[C - Special] Sea Wyvern (Lvl 1024)

Being the first into the room, Felix had free reign over the boss and so, he flew out over the sea and snatched it out of the air as it tried to jump up and grab him. Although it was a few times bigger than he was, his stats were higher than the vast majority of people at his same level. This thing, was a joke.

He didn’t even have to try against its struggling as he bear hugged its neck and continued flying towards the door.

He could have beheaded it with a blade spell, he knew that, but this resulted in less damage to the body and he already had a Resident lined up to puppet it.

Hey Grim, how’s Mera and the other Resident’s descent going?

Mera is just a couple dozen floors behind you. The others are behind that. No one’s died, or even really struggled in a fight much, it’s just that none of them are nearly as fast as you.

Felix nodded, How long until Mera is done?

It will probably take her team another 10 hours or so.

Will they manage if I leave?

They should be fine. I’ll warn them. They’ll just have to plan things accordingly. It might take longer though.

Luckily, the entrance to The Abyss was just large enough that he could squeeze the Wyvern’s corpse through it without anything more damaging than dislocating a few joints.

Nevermind. Grim seemed confused, For some reason, the connection in this direction is barely hindered at all.

That’s… convenient.

Also odd.

Does this mean The Abyss is designed to contain something and protect the outside from whatever that is? Instead of protecting what’s inside from the outside?

Possibly.

On the other side, Felix saw the arena was pretty much exactly the same as when he had left except that the stands were much less full. Some of them had obviously entered The Abyss after his party and so, some of them could have still been inside. It had also been 35 hours so Felix expected many of the crowd were sleeping. In fact, he was surprised the stands were still almost 60% full but, it was the first day so he suspected the excitement was keeping many of them up and watching.

As he walked across the arena, dragging the wyvern’s corpse behind him, a larger portion of the crowd than he expected cheered for him. Looking up at them, he saw that all around the arena, were what looked like screens. They were much like the screen in Rhonan’s room though with nothing behind them and no obvious spell creating them. There were hundreds of thousands, if not millions of them within the arena though.

The main visible screens were set up in a cylinder around the perimeter of the arena floor and spun around to show the crowd what was happening. Those screens moved around and shuffled themselves with even more screens inside the cylinder though to try and capture the most interesting scenes within The Abyss.

His eyes darted across a number of the screens as he walked and they did, he winced multiple times.

The screens focused on the most exciting situations which meant, they weren’t showing the other Eramith and Elite teams much. Instead, they were showing almost exclusively the participants that were still in the low end of the D grade. Many of them probably wandered in accidentally, though Felix had no way of identifying them. Instead, he just saw participants in with shoddy looking equipment desperately struggling against Snake creatures, Undead, Cloud Tigers and other various enemies he remembered fighting.

In fact, he could identify exactly which floor group each screen was showing from the beasts and environment alone.

He looked around for any that he didn’t recognize but he didn’t spot any during his walk out of the arena.

Back in the room where Ellie had coordinated their entry, Felix opened an Aether Gate back to Ked’s lab and stepped through, completely avoiding the crowd he could hear just outside of the room.

In the lab, he found Rewdan, Art, Eni, Ked and a few Residents. Sal had a class so he wasn’t expecting to see her and Fin was still busy coordinating the land they needed for the Mana Accelerator so he wasn’t in the lab often.

“How are things coming along?”

Rewdan and Ked both looked up from whatever they were working on and Ked’s eyes brightened, “You’re back. How far did you get?”

“We stopped on floor 170, the start of the C grade it seems.”

Ked nodded appreciatively, “Not a bad time at all.”

“What are you two working on?”

Rewdan stepped back a bit and gestured towards the table which held a large diagram of a machine. Stepping a little closer, Felix saw it was their current plans for a Soul Forge. It was the machine designed to replace him, as much as possible.

He really didn’t want to have to create and bind Souls himself and this was the solution they had come up with to solve the former. It used a large amount of Asphellum to create what was effectively a large press and pressure chamber within which they could forge Souls.

They had already tested the theory a little bit with prototypes but they all had issues that couldn’t be solved without expensive materials. At that point, they figured they would just create the final product and modify it if need be.

In the absolute worst case scenario, Nova could just consume the whole thing and so they would only really be wasting their time.

Felix had checked all the math and run simulations multiple times over and the plans before him were already as close to the final form as they were going to get.

“We were just figuring out how to split up the work.”

Felix nodded then turned to Rewdan, “I’m also planning on doing some more summoning and would appreciate your input.”

“Of course. What kind of Spirit are you going to summon?”

“Mera wants a Knowledge Spirit, which I suspect you suggested to her. I’ll need Nova to make a good body for that first though. I also want to experiment with Elementals. Mera also wants one as her familiar.”

Rewdan nodded, “Don’ worry about the body, she’s already handled that. As for Elementals, they are fairly simple but less intelligent than most Spirits. To summon one, you often need to use a massive amount of whatever it is as the bait.”

Felix nodded, “Like a massive fire for a Fire Elemental?”

“Exactly.”

“How do I do that when there are Stars and Planets to compete against?”

“Well, for one thing Stars and Planets aren’t sending out a beacon into the Spirit Realm. They aren’t looking for hosts. They still affect things though and so, you ideally need to use a Concept within the bait.”

“A Concept? Well shit.”

“If you can’t refine one yourself, you could always steal one.”

“Steal one? How?”

“Go walk up to a Star and rip out some Anima.”

Felix groaned a little, “Gotcha. I take it I can choose something less dangerous?”

Rewdan snickered, “Of course. Refining a Concept isn’t really that hard though. Creating one is much harder.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your friend Tam has essentially memorized- or rather ingrained in herself a specific version of the Concept of Fire and she creates it from base Anima, imbuing the Concept into Anima, from scratch. That’s impressive. All you need to do though is take Anima in and around large Fires then refine that down. Start stripping out the unnecessary experiences and incorporating new experiences from other sources.”

“Gotcha, so even if I don’t start from a literal star, I can refine and enhance much weaker Anima to approach the same result.”

“You could easily surpass the Ambient Anima within a star. The Ambient Anima there is undirected and mostly random. There’s no will. The issue, is that if you start from a source that isn’t very pure, or don’t refine it properly-”

Felix nodded, “When I go to strengthen it, I’ll end up with a garbage result.”

Rewdan nodded, “Most of the time, it will simply fall apart. Additionally, there are experiences you can’t get outside of a star, but they aren’t that important to you for the time being.”

Felix looked over at Ked, who had just been standing there listening along, “What do you think? You’re the Elementals professor.”

Ked smirked, “Yes but usually we create the Souls ourselves. Summoning a Spirit is a much better option but, not possible for more people. There are rituals but… it get’s very complicated very quickly. Usually just with compatibility issues between the body and the Spirit.”

“Likely because the body you provided isn’t pure enough.” Rewdan crossed his arms.

Ked nodded, “Yes, that is usually the problem.”

“Concepts allow you to circumvent that issue, a bit.” Rewdan looked back over at Felix, “If you give enough strength to the binding and a Concept to keep it around, it will refine its body overtime, naturally.”

“So it’s like bait to keep it around?”

“More like fuel for the fire, but sure.”

Felix nodded, “Okay. I guess I can try it out before Mera gets back.”

In the meantime, did she submit designs for her wand?

She called in some favors and had some talented Residents put one together.

Do you need anything from me then or do I just need to give Nova access to the tree?

We need you to create the handle.

Handle? For a wand?

Well, you’ll see. I take it you have no problems with crafting a shaft from your bone?

Uh… I guess not. I mean I am removing my limbs every so often anyways to fill up the ring. I can just change how it grows back and use that I guess. Why though?

It will bind better to your Soul. She has a whole plan set up. You’ll see.

Alright. Next time I feed The Blood Ring, remind me.

Nova was still asleep but Felix opened the portal to his Pocket Home anyways and tossed her inside, over the Giant Corpse that had yet to even begin decaying. Once she was done, she would whine and someone would notice, probably.

While he waited for her and Mera, he got to work on refining some Anima to extract a Concept.

He didn’t have anything around with a strong affinity to anything in specific but that didn’t matter for the moment. All he wanted to do at first, was identify a unique experience then isolate it. So, he started with specific metals in the warehouse within his Pocket Home.

At first, he just reached out and sensed the Anima within the metals, comparing them against each-other. It ended up being so beneficial once he got the hang of it, that he was still just sitting there comparing various objects when Mera finally left The Abyss. She had to sleep though and she decided to take Felix’s bed in the building around the arena.

He was more than happy to continue comparing the Anima within various objects though.

In metals, he was able to not quite isolate but identify a specific experience related to elasticity, plastic deformation, conductivity and density. All it really was was the experience associated with having that property. He had an experience of how his skin felt and how hurt it would be. Every time he then upgraded that, there was an adjustment period. He suspected the same thing applied to those with corrective lenses, having an experience of how they saw things and having that change.

The issue was, much like in humans and how quickly Felix adjusted, the experience wasn’t very strong and didn’t affect the world outwardly. The experiences were just a reading of the outside world. To make a Concept, he would have to push and strengthen the experience to the point where it wasn’t trivially overwritten.

Before that though, the experiences he was identifying, weren’t Concepts, not really. He could likely have isolated and strengthened them to the point where he could imbue the experience into a material and alter its physical properties, and he suspected he would in the future, but it wasn’t enough to be self sustaining. That also required him to strengthen the experience to a ridiculous degree.

A Concept, like Fire, was so much more complicated. He would instead have to balance the various constituent experiences of heat and destruction and transformation and light. However, it was much stronger as a result and, especially if he imbued it into a physical representation of that Concept, he wouldn’t have to strengthen it nearly as much to have it last. Not only would it last though, theoretically it would be self sustaining, at least, that was the theory and his goal before he started summoning Elementals.

The most useful Elemental to him would be some form of Metal Golem. With his absurd Mana pool, he could deal a lot of damage but his burst damage was somewhat lacking. At least, he knew that was going to be his biggest problem very soon. For the time being, he could cast spells with massive amounts of Mana and obliterate anything even close to normal at his level in strength.

Sparring with Tam and Ameryl in Osgard, and even seeing Zeraxes, Romar and the other Prodigies of his generation in Bastorus One, he knew he couldn’t do as much damage as fast though. Tam and Ameryl both had something above and beyond just normal attacks. Tam used a tightly tuned Concept to enhance her Fire and make it deadly even to Gods and Ameryl was not only fast and skilled enough to strike nearly anything, but she had a sword, Convictions and Skills to inflict massive damage.

Zeraxes’ Divine Bolt allowed him to channel an absurd amount of energy and seemed to empower his attacks, to make them stronger along with having three solid convictions.

Romar also had a Concept at his disposal, not to mention his ridiculous skill with Fire, his race and his raw stats.

On top of that, both of them had Domains they could use to channel their damage.

Felix on the other hand, was just breaking into being able to use a fraction of his Mana through his Attuned Cores. Even then, he was limited by his ability to control that much Mana.

He very much wanted to alleviate that problem but he didn’t have any fast way of doing so so instead, he would utilize as many stalling mechanisms as he could. Nova was extraordinarily durable and effective but there was only one of her and he realized he didn’t love the idea of forcing her into protecting him and stalling his enemies.

Felix wasn’t sure if that was because he cared about her or because of her massive utility but it didn’t matter.

For the time being, he focused his efforts on Metal Elementals.

Nova was busy napping, still, but luckily he had a warehouse at his disposal. He didn’t have enough of any specific metal or even material to create something he would be happy with but he had more than enough tiny chunks to at least test things out.

Starting with a small softball sized chunk of metal, Felix held it in his hands then closed his eyes and let himself fall into one of his first forms of Meditation, Soul Space Meditation, from before his Soul Garden. He isolated his senses to just the chunk of material in his hands and fell into a void where it was him, and the material.

This time he had access to more senses and they were vastly more precise. He didn’t just see the metal. He felt it’s structure with his Matter Senses and the Anima loosely bound to it through his Anima Senses. He even felt the faint bit of Mana that permeated the material but he didn’t focus on that much.

Instead, he compared the experiences he had witnessed, within and common between various metals. He used his memory and his Matter Senses to isolate the experiences he thought were unique to the metal itself and slowly began to remove the excess.

It wasn’t like harvesting a Soul though where he tore and peeled off the outer layers. Instead, it felt like he was chiseling at marble or sanding wood to reveal something already within the Anima. What was left, didn’t really feel at all like a sculpture or art, but it felt pure and that, was exactly what he was looking for.

Taking the remaining Anima, Felix used his own will to protect and strengthen those experiences then compress down the Anima. He then supplied some Anima of his own and slowly wove it into the material, matching the experiences and strengthening them even further.

Once he was satisfied, which given the size of the metal chunk was relatively quick, Felix took the Anima and carefully set it aside.

Then, he quickly prepared the Spirit Summoning Ritual. Once it was complete, he simply held the Concept he had refined in one hand along with the chunk of metal and used the two of them as the bait in the Ritual.

Felix really had no idea what to expect. Some of his summonings had been almost instantaneous, some had taken much longer to get any kind of answer. As far as he could tell though, there wasn’t much of a pattern there.

For his first Elemental summoning though, he got a response the instant he activated the Ritual.

He quickly accepted and didn’t bother with a contract or anything because he really just wanted to see what was possible and didn’t feel it was necessary. Taking the Concept and the chunk of metal, he wrangled with the Spirit to bind it. It really did feel to him like he was trying to catch a slippery, overexcited animal or child.

The process wasn’t hard though and in nearly no time at all, the metal chunk he had been examining began moving on its own. At first, it just rolled around, smacking itself into various tables, machines and walls in the lab. Then, it began to jump and bounce around a little.

Within a minute of that though, it no longer looked like just a chunk of metal and had taken on a new form with something like a face.

It had features that looked almost animal like though not with any eyes. Instead, it just had something that was almost snout like, or possibly even fish like. Either way, he could more or less tell where it was looking, at least he thought he could.

Once it had a shape, it didn’t stop bouncing around at all. In fact, it became even more energetic, bouncing around the rest of the lab and into the heads of a few Adepts working on personal projects. None of them seem too bothered though, some of them just slapped it away and some of them didn’t even notice it hit them.

“Well, that was a lot easier than I expected.”

Rewdan shrugged, “For you maybe. I’m impressed you managed to create a satisfactory Concept so quickly. Especially from just a piece of metal.”

“I mean, I just compared the metals against each-other. That made the differences pretty obvious.”

“Your ability to Sense Anima is… impressive.”

Ked quickly nodded, “Elementals are usually much more complicated than that. I often find myself wishing I could easily create and harness Concepts.”

Felix snorted, “You should talk to Melody about some of things she can do. Anyways, I’m impressed it answered my summoning so quickly.”

Rewdan shook his head, “I’m not. Elementals by nature, don’t want to exist in the Spirit Realm. Most of them aren’t strong enough to exist within The System though. So, they float around the Spirit Realm, lost. You offering them a body, a Concept and offering to bind them, it’s a dream come true.”

“I see. So it should be relatively easy to summon Elementals then?”

Rewdan nodded confidently, “Definitely. They are quite picky and you need their specific material and Concept to summon them, but there are so many that are essentially stranded in the Spirit Realm, you should never have trouble finding one.”

Felix’s eyes widened a little, “So what you’re saying is, with the right material and Concept, I should be able to summon something strong.”

“Yes. Definitely.”

Felix spent nearly a dozen hours summoning Elementals until he finally ran out of materials he wanted to use for them. At that point, there were hundreds of little Elementals bouncing around the lab.

[C - Rare] Tiny Steel Elemental (Lvl 1427)

Ked didn’t seem to mind at all and was happy to have Elementals that were essentially harmless for demonstration purposes for his other classes. They also weren’t quite as fast as the first Spirit he summoned and so not quite so difficult to catch.

While he had run out of materials in his warehouse, he could have sourced more but by that point, Nova had started seriously working on Mera’s wand and his Resident Wizard was on her way over from the arena. With that in mind, he started reviewing the plans she had created for her wand. She wanted it to be a surprise so he only had the core mechanics of the wand at his disposal but even with just that, he had to admit, he was impressed.

It utilized a concept he had tested and really liked but had ultimately dismissed for his Attuned Cores because it was slightly too complex for a Mana Core. For a wand though, it seemed quite suitable.

He even briefly considered making something of his own. Possibly a wand but definitely with a different design. The issue was, he wasn’t sure what he could put in a wand at the moment that would actually help him in any way other than a battery or an Attuned Crystal. Theoretically he could swap out wands for complex Attunements he didn’t have in his Cores but that seemed like a lot of work to him for something he was hoping would become obsolete in the near future.

The first part of her wand, was an Attuned crystal shaft Nova had already created that would act as the core. It was surrounded and woven with a special alloy she had hand picked and communicated to Nova and just holding it, Felix got a little excited about the wand. It seemed perfectly normal from every sense except for his Mana Senses. Even without pushing any Mana through the core, it felt almost like it was vibrating.

Taking the shaft, Felix began to apply the latest revision of his Mana Battery technique to prepare the shaft for channeling Mana. It wouldn’t actually be used as a battery at all though and instead, the process was just designed so that it would be better at channeling Mana and in doing so, would amplify it in a way.

He finished that part of the wand just as the door to the lab opened to reveal Melody and Mera.

Noticing what he was holding, Mera’s eyes bugged out and she jumped straight up a meter into the air then scurried over as soon as she landed, snatching it out of his hand.

She carefully examined it for about a minute or two while Melody held back a giggle at her child like excitement and Felix held out his hand, waiting for her to return it to him. Once she did, he grabbed hold of his left arm, detached his Soul and pulled it free from his body, manually minimizing the damage from bleeding out.

He already had The Blood Ring active and it was more than happy to consume his arm as soon as it was free. Then, he began manually regrowing the arm just a bit before carefully placing the shaft where his bone was. Then, he began growing bone around the shaft to complete the handle.

It was a little tricky because he had to essentially layer the bone, like having a smaller straw within a larger straw because between them, went the marrow required to grow both of them. Once it was done though, which didn’t take more than an hour or so, he would simply remove the wand and the excess bone and marrow to reveal a completed shaft.

Despite the horror on her face, less than the first time she had seem him do the same thing, Melody pushed through to reveal the important gossip she had brought to him, “You know you could have waited for us.”

“Would it have changed anything? I take it you and Adaline went right to sleep?”

She shrugged a little defensively, “Yeah but… it’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“You think I care about being a gentleman?”

“I… shut up.”

“What’s Peace up to then?”

“He was solo clearing floors last I checked. Or… mostly just messing around with his new equipment and seeing how far he can push his transformations. Adaline’s already headed to The Realms of Annihilation so, she should be much stronger next we see her.”

“Really? You can’t gain levels in The Realms.”

“True. You of all people should know though, there’s more to strength than levels.”

“Of course… I guess we’ll see. She was already pretty strong though.”

“Yeah but, look at Zeraxes and Romar. Not only did they both surpass her in combat ability, you noticed Zeraxes’ Aura.”

“Yeah, it was kind of a joke.”

She snickered, “Maybe to you but, he didn’t even have one before going in. I’m not even sure he had fully ingrained his three convictions.”

“So it’s mostly about Soul Strength then?”

She scoffed, “No. I know you’re a complete freak who experiments with his own body but most of us don’t. In The Realms, it’s not unheard of for people to come out almost unrecognizable physically from when they went in.”

“What happens in there?”

She shrugged, “It’s like… visiting another universe. Many other universes. You meet people, cultures and civilizations with knowledge and abilities we don’t really have.”

“How much time did Zeraxes and Romar spend there?”

“No one knows but them. Our time is not attached to Realm time at all. Going in, no matter how many floors you clear or how much time you spend in there, you come out anywhere from a minute to an hour later. No more and no less.”

Wait… holy shit. That’s… Is it literally another universe?

“Anyways, you’ll see sooner or later.”

Felix nodded, “As for The Abyss, how far has everyone else gotten?”

Her expression shifted to one of partial satisfaction, “Based on how far we got and how much time it took us, we’re in the top third ish of the class. Zeraxes and Romar both took less than 20 hours. A few others had similar times.”

“Did they get any further than us?”

“They both stopped around 180, so just 10 floors past us.”

“Okay. Not too bad. How about you Mera, how was it?”

She shrugged a little, hung her head and kicked a table leg a few times, “It wasn’t bad I mean it was fun. I need at least a wand though.”

Felix nodded, “I was experimenting with Elementals as-” He gestured around him, “-you can see. Do you know what kind of Elemental you want? I can probably start on that while my arm grows back.”

She nodded quickly, the excitement washing away the disappointment, “Yup. I know exactly what I want. Here.” She handed him a handful of small crystals.

“What are these?”

“Take a look.” Mera smiled wide, like she was proud to show her teacher something for show and tell.

Reaching his senses into the various crystals, Felix was a little surprised he recognized at least one of the contents. It contained Anima that had been attuned from Peace’s new ring. Looking through the others, the intention was clear, she was targeting some kind of Storm Elemental.

Felix furrowed his brow a little, “How does this work? We can’t really provide it a solid body…”

She smiled wickedly, “That’s why I had Grim instruct Nova to make a Core.”

Felix cocked a brow, “Consisting of what?”

“Well, first we took Mana Computer from the farm so it has Intelligence then I had Nova coat that in Attuned Crystal for Wind, Force, Lightning, Sound and a few other things. Lastly, she coated the entire thing in a thick layer of Asphellum with some Demitium between the layers attached to some Energy Conductive grounding lines to absorb attacks and keep the core safe.”

“Huh. That’s… well thought out. I take it the Asphellum is supposed to act the same way Peace’s new robes will? They’ll merge with its body?”

She nodded quickly, “That’s the idea.”

“Okay, you want to retrieve the Core for me so I can prepare it to be a battery then?”

She nodded and darted off into his open Pocket Home as Melody turned to him, “I take it Asphellum is the weird ore I bought you in Telviras?”

He nodded.

“What is it?”

“You’ll see.”

She groaned then moved on, “You know, your familiars ability to duplicate basically any material is kind of absurd, right?”

He shrugged, “Yeah, I mean I’m surprised other people don’t use Material Sprites more often.”

She shook her head immediately, “Yours is not like any other. Every other one I’ve ever heard of took forever to break things down, let alone transmute them into something new. Not to mention, she’s a daemon. Most Sprites turn into Elementals or Spirits and don’t get any further than Greater Elemental or Spirit.”

“Yeah, that’s fair I guess. On the other hand, the best materials seem to all have some amount of Anima infused within them. It also takes her a while to transmute anything complicated, like Asphellum, Demitium, Dragon Scales and so on.”

“Dragon Scales?”

“Tekragoraxius gave her permission.”

“I… what?”

He waved her off, “Don’t worry about it. Is there anything I need to know or do before my next delve into The Abyss?”

She shrugged, “You should watch some of the tournament events and talk to sponsors but, not really. Take a look at the recordings of Zeraxes’ and Romar’s descents so far so you can speed through the floors they’ve done.”

“Where do I do that?”

“In the building around the arena. Ask the building and it’ll lead you to the record room.”

Felix nodded, “Perfect. Thanks.”

He took the core from Mera who had been poking him non stop since she returned and held it in his remaining hand as he began to drill into it with Mana to prepare it as a battery. He had to pay a little more attention to it than normal because he had to target the crystal and avoid the Mana Computer within but, it wasn’t so much that he couldn’t also manually regenerate his arm at the same time.

Examining the core as he prepared it, Felix was impressed not just with her selection of materials and the thought she had put into that but with the structure of the Core. It wasn’t just simple layers, the various materials were carefully structured and woven together. It allowed the Demitium to discharge into the crystal layer and also eject out of the Core, avoiding the sensitive innards. It allowed external stress to compress a softer material and push the energy into the Demitium, which absorbed it. It allowed the crystal to supply Mana to the computer and the Computer to communicate with the crystal. The crystal wasn’t just a battery either but also contained crystal specifically for binding the Elemental’s Spirit to it.

The entire thing looked like a masterpiece that someone had worked on with a team of experts for generations, which was completely possible in with his Mind City’s dilation assuming she had been thinking about this for some time.

He completed preparing the Core around the same time the wand handle was done so he handed the Core to Mera who held it like it was a fragile egg as he carefully peeled back his flesh and snapped off the bone he had grown beneath. With his remaining hand, he pulled a chunk of raw meat from his Soul Space and devoured it, using his Matter Control to dissolve the meat instead of chewing it.

At the same time, he used his Matter Control to hold the wand shaft before him and remove the outer layers of marrow that were no longer needed. Then, he cleaned up the ends so they weren’t snapped and fractured bone then handed the shaft to Mera as she handed the Core to Melody to hold for the time being.

Holding the bone shaft in her hand, she waved it around and laughed maniacally.

Felix sighed and turned his attention to the crystals she had given him and began to carefully replicate, combine and refine the Concept within. Just as he was beginning to refine them though, Mera ran over, “No, not like that. More of this one and less of this.”

He looked up at her and cocked a brow but she was adamant so, he listened. She continued to pester and micromanage his work, paying attention within his Mind City to his senses so she sensed what he did. Melody found the entire thing very amusing at first but it took Mera just a few minutes to rope Melody into the process as well.

She had Felix pull Melody into his Mind City then use her Soul Senses to augment his own and the instant she did, Felix was completely overwhelmed. For just a moment, it was like he could see everything. Not only could he sense other people, but he could literally watch the experiences that made up their Souls from multiple kilometers away. It was so completely absurd, he was too shocked to really appreciate any of it before Mera yanked on Melody’s robes in his Soul Garden and told her to focus on the crystals.

Once she did, everything else vanished and he was left with the Anima within the crystals alone. With her Soul Senses though, he could not only get a sense of what the experiences were but he could dissect individual experiences. He could separate and feel individual parts of experiences, instead of the experiences as a whole. He didn’t need the experience of the cold and specific gases in a cloud of a storm, he just needed the absurd Force it carried.

Mera wasn’t done there though, she roped in a number of others from Felix’s Mind City and set up a facility where they could all work through their combined abilities to analyze, dissect, reconstruct and refine the Concept she was targeting. She directed the entire process and Felix felt a bit like a puppet. Were it not for the fact that he was learning so much and knowing how much it would help him in the future when he created other Concepts, he would have been annoyed.

As for how or even where Mera had learned all this, Felix had no idea but he made a note to look into it later, it couldn’t have all come from Rewdan.

What they ended up with when they were finished refining was nothing like what they had started from. It was a single experience, not many stitched together. It was carefully balanced as per Mera’s specific specifications and it put all the Concepts Felix had created on his own, to shame.

All that was left was for him to carefully empower it, which he didn’t need any help with, so Mera dragged Melody off into his Mind City while he worked.

Once he had added enough Anima to the equation, Felix prepared the ritual then found Mera and Melody in his head watching back some of his memories from The Integration. He yanked the both of them out, forcing Mera into her puppet and Melody back into her body then held out the refined and empowered Concept along with the Core.

Felix filled the ritual with his Mana then nodded to Mera.

She immediately looked at him with confusion, “What?”

“This is your Elemental. You need to provide the offering. I’ll make it a bit louder if need be, but I think you should call it so we can maximize compatibility.”

She nodded, “Okay. Let’s do it.” Then reached forwards and took the Core in her hands. Felix held the Concept with his Soul Tendrils and lowered it to the ground as she got on her knees and looked upwards, like she was worshiping a God.

Felix immediately felt a response and began to reach for it but Mera rejected it before he could accept it. Then, there was another and she rejected it again. There were thousands of responses and Mera continued to reject or ignore them for minutes. Then it was dozens of minutes. His Mana began to drain past the halfway point, which was absurd given his pool but she continued to wait.

“Mera, I don’t know what you’re waiting for but, it might not be be listening.” or exist.

“It’s out there, can you amplify my offering?”

He sighed and nodded then reached forwards and amplified it a little. He was more cautious doing so now than he had been after Rewdan had chewed Eni out for yelling into the Spirit Realm.

“More.”

He pushed a little more, convinced this was going nowhere.

“Felix, MORE!”

He sighed and pushed her offering out, not quite with everything he had but definitely loud enough that a lot of Spirits would be mad at him. He even noticed out of the corner of his eye, Eni and Rewdan wincing from across the lab.

Then, they got a response. This one was obviously different from the rest and Mera immediately pulled on it. She wasn’t nearly strong enough though so Felix reached out and grabbed hold, yanking the Spirit to them. The process of summoning it from wherever it had been was much tougher than any other summoning he had done, in his limited experience. It was a summoning he had to work for instead of one that traveled to him.

He had more than enough Soul Strength to pull it to them but it took quite a bit of effort.

What appeared before them on top of the ritual was a massive sphere of Anima three or four meters wide that looked like a tornado or hurricane shaped into a ball to his Anima Senses. It was dense and just his periphery sense of it was that it was ancient and contained unknowable secrets he didn’t even know existed within Storms.

The Sphere of Anima brightened and spun a little faster, the golden cloud and winds growing slightly silver as it did so then it flashed and an echoing boom reverberated through the entire lab. At the same time, the air in the lab began to move and form strong winds that circled around the sphere.

Felix tried to listen and communicate but he was getting nothing real back from it and he was reluctant to give it a real body so he looked over at Rewdan who was cowering behind a table along with Eni and Ked.

Rewdan met Felix’s gaze but didn’t understand what he wanted, Can you communicate with this thing?

Communicate with it? Banish that monstrosity. It’s probably not even conscious.

Can. You. Communicate. With. It.

I… maybe.

Try.

Rewdan looked at him reluctantly then grumbled and fought his way through the winds towards the Spirit. He grabbed onto Felix’s robes and cowered behind him to protect himself from the wind as he peered around his body and echoed out a message into the Anima.

The Storm Sphere seemed to hear and respond to him as it flashed a few more times, looking a lot like Lightning as it did so.

It wants the Core and the Concept.

Can it guarantee not to kill us?

It just keeps yelling to give it the Core and the Concept.

If I do that, how strong will this thing be?

Uh… I don’t know.

Can I stop it if it decides to try and kill us?

Maybe… It will take a while for it to adjust to the body so…

Felix sighed, I guess Rhonan is on planet…

Using his Soul Tendrils, Felix snatched the Core and shoved the Concept into it, he carefully bound that in the correct locations then reached forwards for the Storm Sphere. Before he even touched it though, it swirled down like a vortex and entered the Core all on its own.

As it did, the wind completely abated then vanished as the Core lay still and dormant on the ground.

Felix looked over at Ked to apologize but he wasn’t paying attention, instead he had run over and was crouched down, examining the Core from a few meters away.

It seemed prudent to maintain distance and everyone else in the lab seemed to agree but Felix, stepped forwards and grabbed the Core with his hands. Then, he surrounded it with his Soul Tendrils and readied himself to act, if need be.

Theoretically it could be stronger than him physically but he was pretty sure he could take it Soul on Soul.

“Release me at once, Wanderer.”

“Wanderer?”

“Release me.”

“Are you going to try and kill us? Will you form a contract with me to ensure you won’t?”

“What purpose would I have in fighting you?”

“Contract or I end this.”

“Fine. Contract of peace with everyone present until the sun sets.”

“Deal.”

Felix offered the contract himself and the Elemental accepted a moment later. It was definitely strong and Felix was certain it could kill him. At the same time, his Soul Strength was much higher but much less aligned. It didn’t have convictions but the entirety of the Anima that formed it nonetheless was entirely synchronized in a way his wasn’t.

“Now, provide me quintessence.”

“The what? You mean this?” Felix offered it a trickle of Mana.

“Yes! Quintessence. I am not accustomed to drawing from the fundamental planes.”

Aether?

He sighed and began funneling Mana into the Core, providing millions of Mana a second until he was down to just a quarter of his pool and stopped the flow, unwilling to provide any more.

The Core then pulled against Felix’s Soul Tendrils and he released it, now that they were in a Soul Contract. It flew up, hovered in the air then shot itself straight at Nova, stopping just an inch short of her. She looked at it, smelled it and pawed at it, unsure what to make of it.

“Daemon. I require material to form my body. Create this for me.”

Nova meowed at it in confusion as it created a tiny ball of Matter in front of it. Nova looked at Felix and he gave her permission after realizing the Matter was almost entirely water. She meowed once again then spewed out a massive stream of water at the Core which happily took control of the water and began to spin it around itself.

After hundreds of gallons had been taken and somewhat consumed somewhere, a shell of water had formed around the Core. It quickly zipped back over to where the ritual had been cast and began to spin.

The water shell accelerated until it began to shift from water to vapor and that vapor slowly compressed itself into a dark grey cloud. That cloud was compressed until it looked almost like a solid and once all the water had been transformed, the cloud shifted and a burst of steam was released.

The steam dissipated a moment later to reveal, a humanoid man, sitting on the floor. He sat in a meditative stance with long blue robes of flowing water. He had nearly perfect looking smooth skin that was so dense, it was impossible to tell visually it was made of clouds. His long beard and hair however, were more obviously made from clouds. Lastly, his eyes were just bright blue shapes made of a constant stream of coursing Lightning.

“I am Okotama Thunder, Prime Sage of the Storm.”

[Ancient] Okotama Thunder, Prime Sage of the Storm

In Felix’s mind, especially with his meditative posture, Okotama looked every part Sage. He looked like an old Guru that had spent his life meditating on top of a mountain in solitude.

Rewdan, what’s a Prime Sage?

It’s… Rewdan stared in disbelief at what they had summoned, He’s… the highest form of Elemental… the living embodiment of a Concept that has grown a consciousness.

Felix nodded and stepped forwards, “Okotama, it-”

Mera ran forwards, “You’re perfect.”

“It was you who summoned me. You appear young and yet, you contain a deceptive quantity of experiences.”

She held out her hand, “I’m Mera.”

Okotama bowed his head slightly and gently lifted his hand to grasp hers, “What is it, I am perfect for, may I ask?”

“My familiar.” She smiled wide.

“I am not aware of, familiar.”

She pointed at Felix and Nova simultaneously, “Like them.”

“You would have me be your servant?”

“I would have you be my friend.”

“And what does a being a friend of Mera entail?”

“Talking and fighting and traveling and having fun and… you know, friend stuff.”

“What if I did not want to be friend of Mera, now or in the future?”

“Not possible. Everyone likes me.” She put both her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest.

“I see. Then hypothetically?”

That’s a big word for someone who just started using language. Rewdan took longer than that and he’s been in the material realm before…

She pouted a little, “I’d be sad…”

“I see. In that case, I accept. From, this day forth, I Okotama Thunder, Prime Sage of the Storm shall also be known as Okotama Thunder, friend of Mera.”

She absolutely beamed then leapt forwards and wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing him in a hug.

That… worked out surprisingly well.

Have you thought about how you’re going to have them bond?

Felix sighed, I assume she’s thought this one through?

She has. She knows.

Do the other Residents in puppets know?

They do. They’re mostly curious to see how it goes. No one else is ready.

Noticing Okotama looking at him, Felix met his gaze.

“This Core you provided me is curious. Am I permitted to modify it?”

Felix shrugged, “I guess. What are you going to change?”

“May I perform the modifications then permit you to examine the Core for yourself?”

“Sure.”

Okotama nodded then his body vanished into the Core. It lit up brightly for a few moments then hopped into the air and into Felix’s hand. He then reached out and sensed it over with his Matter Senses and gawked at the result. The Mana Computer at the very center of the Core was gone and in its place, was a storm of electrical synapses that seemed to exist completely independently of a body, using just the vapor of a dense cloud to move.

The rest of the Core had also changed but not quite as drastically. The crystal largely remained the same but the Demitium was restructured and the Asphellum had been melted away into the Cloud body.

Huh… I wonder if I could do something similar with my computers or brain.

You’d lose all the benefits you have from your Control over Mana though.

Sure, this has to be faster.

I doubt it’s worth it for you. Not to say Mana Computers are the be all and end all.

Alright, fair enough. Guess I can wait until I can control and read microscopic electrical arcs to test the theory.

“Are you satisfied with your examination?”

Felix nodded and tossed the Core into the air where Okotama reformed his body, standing this time. Felix also noticed the Asphellum from the core was dissolved into the water robes to give them a bit more structure.

Mera excitedly darted around the Storm Spirit, looking up at him like he was a celebrity.

“Wand or Tome?” Felix said, trying to move things along.

She jumped up and turned to Felix in excitement, “Wand now. You don’t have enough Mana for another summoning just yet.”

He nodded, “You’re right. Do you need anything from me for that, or can I recharge?”

She quickly shook her head, “Just need you at the end.” Looking up and over her shoulder at Okotama, she grabbed his hand and dragged him over towards the table she had been using before, “Come see Oko.”

He nodded and let himself be dragged, his feet floating off the ground, like he was an intricately shaped balloon being dragged along.

Heading over towards his Pocket Home, Felix grabbed Nova from the ground and carried her in, tossing her at the foot of the warehouse. She yawned then meowed at him curiously, as if asking what he needed.

Felix smirked, “Well, I happen to have a lot of junk to sort through and I thought you might be interested in some of it.”

She meowed and he began ejecting all the random loot he had gotten from The Abyss. None of it was worth mentioning, only a few items were even Special and all of them were D grade. There were weapons, armor, jewelry, consumables, potions, poisons, materials, books and scrolls. He had already scanned everything he could and not even the information they contained was useful in the slightest.

He held out high hopes for the later floors but he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.

As the pile grew, Nova happily dove into the sharp weapons and dangerous consumables, vacuuming up anything she was even slightly interested in, along with everything around it.

Once it became obvious there were certain items she was avoiding, Felix began collecting those as he simultaneously regrew his arm and forged a Soul. The arm grew back relatively quickly as he began to place the items into his warehouse, as per Grim’s instruction and his Mind Resident’s organization.

Then, before leaving, he quickly topped up his Mana pool from the Mana Engine at the top of his tower.

With his body and Mana restored, Felix left his Pocket Home to find a very happy Mera skipping around in circles waving her nearly completed wand about.

While it wasn’t quite done yet, Felix was already impressed. First, there was the bone white shaft she had engraved with very specific channel patterns to better channel and normalize Mana. Within them, she had inlaid an iridescent material for Mana conductivity. That was only the handle though and at the end of it, there were 7 serpentine and draconic heads.

Each one was made of Attuned Crystal from Felix’s tree that Nova had shaped and each one was a distinct color. They all split out and twisted forwards where the heads all met and pointed in the same direction, as if they breathed out the magic she was casting.

They were how the entire wand worked, based on a concept he had considered for his own Mana Core at one point. Mana flowing down the shaft was amplified as much as possible, the noise normalize to the point where the Mana contained all Attunements as equally as possible. The ultimate form of chaos. Then, instead of imbuing an enchantment, the heads would each filter out everything but a single Attunement, effectively producing the perfect Attunement for 7 different spells.

Walking up to her, he snatched the wand out of her hand before she could react and began the process of preparing the crystal heads in a similar fashion as he had the crystal core. For the heads though, they just had to have high Mana conductivity. Eventually, she had also planned them around each head having it’s own Concept imbued within it but that part of the wand would wait until he was more proficient with Concepts and they knew more about them.

The final step, was to imbue a small part of his own soul into the bone shaft, along with a small part of Mera’s. His Soul was there to improve the Mana Control and Mera’s was to bind it to her. The tiny fragment of his own Soul he specifically tuned for that purpose but for Mera’s, he simply took a piece with her permission.

As he did, he was astonished by how complex her Soul was. When he initially created her Soul and all the other Souls of his Mind Residents, except the Rakyt he had adopted, they had been simple. He had added Core Soul Experiences of his own choosing and randomized some things and then finally imbued the Spark of Life. He had known the Spark allowed them to shift and change but he hadn’t expected her to feel so real.

It made the final part of Mera’s whole plan a little more reasonable, at least to Felix.

Once he was finished with all 7 heads and imbuing the Souls, he identified the wand, mostly out of curiosity.

[C - Arcane] Hydra Wand of the True Wizard’s Apprentice

[Wand][Spirit][Growth][Soul Bound][Currently Bound]

A wand created from the bones of The True Wizard with a core of specially treated Soul Imbued Attunement Crystal with a tip of seven heads, each specializing in a specific Attunement. This wand only responds to one master and her deity with whom she crafted it. This wand substantially improves the Mana Control, Speed and Force of the Caster. This wand substantially improves any spell cast using at least one of the 7 specific Attunements of the heads. This wand will grow along with the Bound user. This wand cannot be unbound as it was bound when crafted.

Cast Speed +5028%

Mana Discharge Rate +502956%

Spell Power Normalized to within 5% of 5.9M

Mana Attunement Precision +92.4%

Concurrent Casts: 7

Spell Stability: 914M%

Mana Turbulence: 0%

Attunement Filtering Efficiency: 58241%

Mana Power Scaling Factor: N/A

Mana Instability Sensitivity: 0.1%

Added Mana Instability: -99.8%

Energy Level Conversion Rate: 9814%

Mana Control Limit: 1.2B

External Fluctuation Sensitivity: 0%

Mana Isolation Limit: 422B

Maximum Flow Rate: 436 m/s

Cocking a brow and looking up at Mera, “Since when were you my apprentice?”

She was pulled out of her reverie, staring up at Okotama and immediately dove past his midsection, snatching the wand as she did so. She landed with a somersault and rolled into a cross legged sitting position where she stared down at the wand, her eyes filled with greed.

He sighed a little then began setting up the Spirit Summoning Ritual for the Knowledge Spirit. This summoning was much simpler and the offering Felix provided, was simply a massive repository of Spells and other knowledge. They focused primarily on Spells then secondarily on Enchantments, Rituals and Wards and then lastly and definitely least, on the entire repository of knowledge in Felix’s head.

Mera provided her own Soul as well, so they could ensure at least some compatibility and finally, the body.

Instead of a tome though, Mera provided a rectangular slate of metal with a number of colorful metals embedded within it. They weren’t visible at all but they were close to the surface and the idea was that the Spirit would use the colored metals to create images on the surface, like Grim did with ink. Felix was reminded immediately of a tablet and considering she had been raised in his head, he was pretty sure he knew where she had gotten the idea from.

The summoning for the Knowledge Spirit was much faster than the summoning for Okotama and went fairly quickly. The Spirit readily agreed to a temporary contract with Felix provided he feed it a small tidbit of knowledge. After that, he bound it to the slate and handed it to Mera.

She happily bounded around the room talking to the Spirit that, to Felix, seemed like a baby. The more she talked, the more he realized it didn’t understand her in the slightest.

The last step of everything, was to bind Mera to Okotama and her Tome so that she could take them with her into The Abyss and so that they would be hers. The wand wasn’t sentient and had no Spirit so Felix had simply crafted it using a piece of her Soul.

Her Spell Book, or rather Spell Tablet, and especially Okotama, had much stronger Souls. If he were to simply enter them into a contract with her, there was a good chance either of them could overpower her. On top of that, she was essentially isolated in his mind so there was a decent chance the contract wouldn’t work at all.

To remedy these issues, Felix knew they would have to actually move Mera into a body of her own. The body she was currently using was a temporary one at best and so, Nova was already working on a new one, using a small piece of the Giant corpse in his Pocket Home.

Due to the similarities between him and Mera, they planned on simply giving her a copy of his own body, with all the modifications he had made, just in a different overall shape. She was more than happy with that and the only big change that had to be made was for her to choose a body and face.

As she did that, Felix checked in on Art, Rewdan and Eni who weren’t actually working at all. Instead, they were gossiping with Melody and glancing off to the side, at Okotama.

Approaching them, Melody grabbed his robes and pulled him over, “Felix.”

“Melody.”

“How did you manage to summon that?”

Felix shrugged, “I don’t know. Just followed Mera’s instructions.”

“Okay but, I’ve never even heard of Prime Sage Spirits.” She thumbed Rewdan, “From what Rewdan here tells me, their like… some of the strongest Spirits in the Spirit Realm.”

Felix looked over at him and Rewdan nodded, “At least now. This one isn’t quite as strong or old as… some of the others but Okotama is still a Prime Sage.”

“So?”

Eni rolled forwards, “You do not understand. Prime Sages are candidates for the Spirit Council.”

Felix sighed, “I don’t know what that is. I have no concept of what any of this means.” Felix looked back, “He seems strong. Physically, I’m pretty sure I can handle him Spiritually though.”

Rewdan scoffed, “Yeah but you’re… unique.”

Melody looked between them, still not entirely aware of the true extent of Felix’s Soul, despite her talents.

Before she could ask though, Felix sighed, “I just don’t know if I can make Mera strong enough to handle a Spirit Contract with him.”

Rewdan nodded thoughtfully, “You’re going to move her into her own body?”

“Wait… She’s not in that body?” Melody looked around in confusion.

Felix nodded to Rewdan’s question, ignoring Melody, “I’ll strengthen her Soul as best I can but I can’t just make her as strong as I am.”

Rewdan shrugged a little, “Easy, just enter them into an Arbited contract. Assuming Okotama agrees to that.”

Eni nodded along and Felix cocked his head, “Is that what it sounds like? It’s a contract between them but my Soul is the one keeping both sides in check?”

They both nodded and Rewdan smiled, “Exactly.”

Melody cocked her head, “I’ve never heard of an Arbited Soul Contract… I guess we just use The System as the Arbiter in those situations… How do you… do that?”

“Basically, Felix just gives both of them a small part of his own Soul and they exchange a larger part with each-other. They don’t need to give anything to you because it’s about you-” Rewdan fingered Felix’s chest, “-keeping them in check.”

He nodded, “Okay. That works. Any other tips?”

Rewdan shook his head and Eni shrugged.

“How much longer until Nova is done?” Melody gestured towards Nova.

“A half hour probably. My body is… complicated.”

“You’re replicating your own body?”

“Not an exact copy, she’s choosing how it looks, but more or less.”

Melody laughed, “Mera is a construct… she’s about to have the single strongest wand I have ever seen along with a Spirit that rivals A grade Elites, at least as her familiar along with a body that has stats easily falling into the B grade.”

Felix nodded, “Not quite. She won’t have access to my Mana Core or channels and won’t be able to use the Reaper’s skills right away.”

She shook her head, “Remember when we decided not to have Mera enter The Abyss at the same time as us to create a separation?”

“Yeah.”

“That was a great idea. You’re welcome.”

Felix snorted, “Uh huh.”

“Speaking of, why in Rhonan’s name don’t you have a wand like that? Or even make your own robes for that matter?”

Felix nodded, “I will. Eventually. I haven’t found a wand that’s… perfect yet. Same with the robes, I need the right materials and weave.” He nodded once to Rewdan in recognition of his advice on the weave part.

Melody smacked Felix as hard as she could, which wasn’t much considering her Strength, “Just choose something for now you dolt.”

He recoiled a little, though not out of pain, “Not worth it. It needs to…” actually work for my very unique situation.

“be perfect?” Melody finished his sentence for him incorrectly then continued to smack him to no avail, “Seriously, what is wrong with you?”

“Whatever. Don’t you have sponsors to shmooze or something?”

“I don’t shmooze you schmuck.”

Rewdan giggled and Eni just looked at them in genuine confusion, not understanding the interaction of beings from the material realm.

Felix lightly shook his head, “Are you heading back into The Abyss? How many classes do you have?”

Melody sighed, “Just a couple I took for fun so doesn’t really matter if I miss them. I had more but dropped them when I learned about The Abyss. Besides, Adaline is heading to The Realms, should be back any time now and Peace is still in there, experimenting with his… weirdness. Who else am I supposed to bug?”

“Literally anyone.”

She scoffed, “You love me. Don’t try to deny it.”

Felix sighed and looked back to check if Nova was done yet and unfortunately, it didn’t look like it. Mera had stopped skipping but she was still talking to her Spell Tablet while Ked and Okotama were talking, a number of Adept crowded around as well.

With nothing else to visibly distract himself with, Felix turned to the work Rewdan, Eni and Art had been working on, Art still working despite the commotion. Melody continued to pester him and the rest of them though. Rewdan didn’t seem to mind at all and was more than happy to answer her questions which did nothing towards Felix’s goal of losing her.

Eventually, he just got fed up enough that he just turned around, grabbed her, and swung her over his shoulder, simultaneously yanking her Soul into his Mind City. The elatement he felt from her as soon as he did confirmed these had been her intentions all along.

Sighing, he ripped off his legs and stuck them into The Blood Ring, floating around with his Matter Control in their place.

Rewdan mostly worked on the construct factory while Felix ran some tests and began prototyping the Mana Accelerator. Where particles were accelerated by an electric field and controlled with magnets in a particle accelerator, his Mana Accelerator was going to have to use Anima to bend the beam and Spells to accelerate it. The hard part, was actively targeting the Mana within the system when it was so small and moving so fast.

He didn’t make much progress in a half hour though at which point Nova spat out the body of a small girl, wrapped in cloth for modesty’s sake. Felix had already prepared everything on his end so all that was left, was for him to manually strengthen Mera’s Soul then bind it to the body.

He mentally nudged Mera and she looked at him from across the room, “Are you ready?”

Her usual childlike glee and seemingly endless excitement was immediately replaced by a serious look as she looked over at Felix and the body at his feet. She nodded, “I’m ready.”

Okotama floated over along with Ked to watch while a number of Adept stood a little further away to observe.

The first step, was for Felix to remove her Soul from the planet she lived within in his Soul. Doing so, he held her in his Soul Space and replicated the very same thing The System had tried to do to him during his first evolution. She wasn’t nearly as strong as him and so Mera was completely knocked out. Then, he had to carefully dismantle her Soul part of the way to remove the Mana Computer that was her brain.

Following that, he carefully stitched things back together, adding in a second, third and even fourth layer to her Soul. First he upgraded her Core Soul, increasing its size with Anima he had wiped clean then added in some Spark of Life. He also compressed it down as much as he could. Next, he added in a layer that was tightly integrated with her Core Soul that contained almost entirely pieces of his own Mana Control and Matter Control, as much as he could isolate them to create a Control Layer. Then, he added a protective layer, just in case, using the same lattice techniques he used on his own Soul.

On top of that, was what was traditionally the Second Layer, the one that controlled her body. That one he constructed from pieces of his own Second Layer he could easily regenerate along with pieces from various Souls he had harvested, including Hollow Claw and the Giant.

On top of that, was another protective layer that served to simply dampen attacks, mostly Soul but also Energy and Physical to a certain degree. It would never do what his did, she didn’t have the will power for that, but it was something.

While he had been constructing her Soul, Mark had already begun downloading her Memories and restructuring the Mana Computer in her head to match the computer she had used previously through Felix’s Mana Control. That didn’t take much longer than Felix did and so, once he was done he walked over to her body and placed his hand on the body’s stomach.

Reaching in with his Soul Tendrils, Felix carefully placed the Soul within the body then began manually stretching and shaping it. As he did, he bound the body, not just to the core bindings Erolan had kindly demonstrated for him, but all throughout the body. He couldn’t bind every cell, but he could bind the Soul in enough locations that it would maintain its shape and over time, her Soul would bind to her cells all by themselves.

The most complicated part was her brain because it had to be bound to the Control layer he had created without being physically located next to it. She could have done that herself but him doing it minimized potential problems because she would have to do it without a brain at all.

The whole process was carefully observed by Ked, Okotama, the Spell Tablet that was hovering near her along with a small gathering of Adepts that Felix was pretty sure had no idea the significance of what was happening. So, as he removed his hand, he made sure to fold the cloth over her again to hide the hand mark he had left behind.

It looked far too similar to Rhonan’s and he wanted to avoid that association as much as possible for the time being. Nova’s was similar too but her fur and shape shifting made it look like a blob or a scar, not like a hand. Using his Anima and Matter Senses, Felix could tell Mera’s, looked almost exactly like Rhonan’s.

Before he woke her, he floated her puppet body to his hand using his Matter Control then pulled it into his Soul Space, only squishing it a little bit to do so. There, he removed the robes she had purchased with Melody’s wallet and placed them over her body so she had something to wear when she woke up.

Then finally, he reached in with a Soul Tendril and prodded her Soul to wake her.

Warning: Your Race has been Downgraded

Your race, Wanderer, is no longer unique within the multiverse. It has been downgraded from [C - Unique] Wanderer to [C - Ancient] Wanderer to reflect this.

No stat, racial ability or other changes have occurred.

That’s… actually great news.

Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Epic] Mind City (Skilled XIV) => General: [Legendary] Mental Metropolis (Apprentice II)

General: [Mental Metropolis (Legendary) Using a combination of Mental and Soul Projections, you have crafted a metropolis within your mind. The buildings in the metropolis dictate the connections, automations and functions this skill provides. The consciousnesses of the various citizens allow functions to be automated and run in parallel to your mind’s main functions. These residents are capable of reproducing so long as they are provided sufficient Anima and Mana Computers and in doing so, the population of your Mental Metropolis is growing exponentially. This skill can be upgraded. The functions and capacity of the settlement are determined by the buildings within it. Some functions can be lost should the building dedicated to it become damaged.]

That’s… not the upgrade I was expe-

Ding You have become more proficient with the General skill: [Legendary] Mental Metropolis (Apprentice II => Skilled IXX)

Ding You have upgraded the General skill: [Legendary] Mental Metropolis (Skilled IXX) => General: [Divine] Mental World (Skilled I)

General: [Mental World (Divine) Through a combination of Mental Simulations and Constructed Anima Experiences, you have crafted a world within your mind. This world contains multiple biomes, cities, races and cultures along with diverse flora and fauna. Some building and Residents of the core city, Arkade, automate functions of your body and skills. These residents are capable of reproducing so long as they are provided sufficient Anima and Mana Computers and in doing so, the population of your Mental World is growing exponentially. Through the deep interconnection with your Soul, you have enabled a level of automation over your own will power, enabling skills most would need to dedicate their own focus to. Through the interconnection of multiple cities within your Mental World, the citizens have grown diverse and varied. This skill can be upgraded. Automated skills and abilities are determined by the buildings within the world. Some functions can be lost should the building dedicated to it become damaged.]

What is happ- Divine!? Ugh, Melody. I’ll deal with her in a minute.

Felix would have dealt with her immediately but he had more pressing concerns, namely, Mera’s eyes had shot open as she leapt into an upright position, the only thing keeping the cloth and robes around her was Felix’s Matter Control.

He glared at her and physically prodded her with the robes so she got the hint but she was far too distracted.

He was less worried about her being naked, everyone in the lab had dealt with constructs and corpses before. It was nothing new.

He was very worried about the mark on her stomach however.

She wasn’t even aware yet as far as he knew and instead, she walked around, smacked her feet on the ground and wiggled her fingers as she adjusted to her body.

[C - Ancient] Mera (Lvl 1262)

He had Grim pull up her Status Screen for him while he manually held the cloth and robes around her to keep her modest, and hidden.

Name: Mera FREE 0 Deity: The True Wizard STR 462 Class: [C - Mythic] Wizard (Lvl 1,000) DEX 982 Race: [C - Ancient] Wanderer (Lvl 1,785) AGI 645 Profession: [C - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 1,000) PER 522 Health: 6,863,850 / 6,863,850 VIT 686 Mana: 13,044,070 / 13,044,070 INT 1,304 END 602

Stupid Deity thing again. Does that mean if she dies, she ends up in my Mental… World now? Does that mean Zero is still out there?

Having gotten the downgrade notification, Felix had been hoping for a lot and still, he was pleasantly surprised.

She got the same Race level as I have but her Class and Profession are reset. That’s about the best we could have hoped for.

He stepped forwards in a flash once he was done examining things and grabbed her arm to stop her, “Get dressed so we can bind you to your familiar and Spell Tablet.”

Her eyes widened in excitement and she quickly scrambled to get her robes on while Felix held the cloth Nova had created around her like a circular curtain changing room with his Matter Control.

She was finished in just a moment then rushed out to stand in front of Okotama. Felix stood beside them, “I will be acting as Arbiter over this familiar bond to ensure fairness.”

Mera nodded impatiently as soon as he looked at her and Okotama hesitated a moment but nodded in the end.

“In addition to the standard familiar contract, we will be adding a clause-” Mera stared daggers into him but he ignored her, “-in your travels together, you, Okotama, might come across some secrets of Mera’s or mine. In addition to being partners with her, you will agree to safe guard these secrets and not to share them without my permission, as determined by the piece of my Soul going into this bond. Do you agree?”

“Your intentions are clear and despite the deceitful nature of your request, you seem to have genuine intentions. I accept.”

Mera relaxed.

“You Mera, already have knowledge of many of my-”

She nodded quickly and impatiently, “I accept. I won’t say anything.” She had already pulled out a, much larger than necessary in her excitement, chunk of her Soul.

Felix sighed and took out pieces of his own and waited for Okotama to do the same. The Prime Sage, noticing the unnecessarily large piece Mera had extracted, offered up a piece at least equal in size to hers. Felix swapped the two chunks and added in the pieces of his own then the two of them filled the holes in their Souls with the chunk from the other.

Once the process was complete, Mera leapt forwards onto Okotama and climbed up onto his back where she remained for the entirety of the very same process with the Knowledge Spirit in the Spell Tablet. For that, she offered a much more reasonably sized piece as per Felix’s insistence and the process went just as smoothly.

Then, he finally tossed her her wand he had been holding onto.

She caught it then pointed towards the door, “Onwards Oko, we’ve got floors to conquer, sponsors to woo and glory to win!”

Her familiar accelerated along out the door and off into the sky, with Mera on his back.

It was only then that Ked approached, and the Adepts burst into whispers.

“As a Professor, I feel it is my duty to confirm-” He pointed at Melody’s seemingly lifeless body draped over Felix’s shoulders with one of his elongated fingers, “-that she is… alive?”

Felix shook his head in exasperation, “She’s alive and in my head willingly. She’s just annoying about everything.”

Ked nodded slowly, “Seeing as the Planet didn’t protect her, I will assume you are being truthful. As for what just happened, Mera came from your head?”

Felix nodded, “She did. At least, her Soul did. I added a Mana Computer to act as her brain.”

He nodded, “I see. How exactly did she come to be in your head?”

Ah shit, either I lie and claim I brought someone back from the dead or I say she was born there and I claim I literally created life…

“I crafted her Soul from a combination of other Souls. She’s been living up there for a while now.”

“I see… I am curious what led to you doing so much for her, offering her one of the best bodies I have ever seen dedicated to a construct along with that wand and that Spirit as her familiar…”

Felix shrugged, “I want to see what she’s capable of I guess, and in turn, what I can do. You know she’s entered into The Abyss?”

He nodded, “I am very curious to see how far your constructs can get however, I am beginning to wonder if our ideas of what this epoch long project will accomplish, are vastly divergent.”

Felix smirked, “Probably. I mean you have the plans.”

The Professor nodded, “I do. Still, the capabilities of your constructs seem to vastly outpace what I expect from… myself and Sal working together, let alone any of my students. Even the Spirits you’ve summoned are nearly incomprehensible and you managed to summon hundreds of Elementals in just hours of even beginning to broach the subject.”

Felix shrugged and dismissed his praise, “Lots of luck. Anyways, I want to spend a bit more time here before I head back into The Abyss. Before that though, let me deal with this nuisance.” He gestured to Melody then walked over to the table while he entered his now Mental World.