FLOWERY NONSENSE

Leonel felt himself slowly calm down, his expression becoming serious. He didn't know how to feel about the conclusion he had just come to. It felt like there was something missing.

Sure, Ability Indexes were an anomaly that he couldn't quite understand. They appeared for seemingly no reason and they were an existence that manifested outside the bounds of reason.

It was no wonder.

Leonel had a deep understanding of his soul now, deeper than any comprehension he had ever had in the past, and beyond what even some with Life State Dream Force might come to comprehend. And yet, he had still yet to find the source of his Ability Index.

Could it be further down? Could it be located in the First Dimension instead of the Second? The Dimension of the impetus of Existence itself?

'There's a kernel of truth to that, something...'

Leonel's gaze flashed.

What about the universes necessitated that there be life? Why was it that under the pressure of evolution, life would appear again, and again, and again, given the right conditions?

The answer was obvious.

There was a rule as fundamental as any other rule of physics that everyone was ignoring, a rule so fundamental to Existence that it forced life into being.

What that rule was, what its parameters were, what limitations it had... those were the questions that would decide just how useful this information was to Leonel.

'The necessity of life...'

Leonel's heart thrummed and he felt his Vital Star Force comprehension shift. Those vague, partial runes that he had memorized as they fell from the Vital Star seemed to fuse, albeit only partially.

His hair danced in non-existence wind for a moment before it settled down.

He didn't feel much different, and maybe somewhat disappointingly, his Vital Star Force comprehension was still at Half-Step Impetus State. But it felt far more like his own comprehension now, as though rather than relying on the runes, he had taken every step on his own.Exclusive content © by Nô(v)el/Dr/ama.Org.

Something else changed as well. The world around his felt brighter, as though he could almost see the various colored swirled of Force.

It was gorgeous.

When you choose to see the beauty in everything, rather than allowing yourself to become tied down by its complexities, there would always be more to experience, more to love, more to care for.

'It's no wonder I'm so incapable with this Force...'

Leonel looked up toward the sky light above. The beautiful dome of glass that projected an image of the perfect blue sky.

If comprehending Life Force meant grasping the beauty of life, it really wasn't a Force meant for him.

He had only comprehended Vital Star Force to begin with because he just so happened to enter the Dimensional Cleanse Trial. And if that really was his future self, then the only reason he had placed Vital Star Force inside was to save Aina.

Well, Aina had been saved. Soon she would awaken and everything would go back to normal once again. So did he even need Vital Star Force anymore?

'Why am I running away from the beauty of life?' Leonel asked himself.

He knew the answer. He didn't really see the beauty of it at all.

Wildlife wasn't beautiful. It was quite disgusting and even more cruel. Beasts used the world as their own personal toilet, they fought and killed one another for scraps, scavengers might even have some dung for dinner if it meant surviving another day.

Child birth was something everyone tried to gaslight him into believing was a beautiful journey. But was it?

A woman would spend the end of her pregnancy in almost constant discomfort. Her back would hurt, her feet would be swollen, she would be a slave to her own cravings and hormones.

And on the day she finally did give birth, it would be the worst pain she would likely experience in her lifetime.

So why would they do it again? Well, it was because their brains would trick them into forgetting the entire experience, making them feel as though it wasn't so bad, all so that evolution could spur them on to have another.

What was beautiful about that? To be chained into being a slave of your own mind, or a law of existence as fundamental as life itself...

Even colors felt like a scam. You didn't even truly experience colors as they were, not only was a large segment of the spectrum hidden from you, the color of an object was only was it reflected and didn't want to absorb.

In a way, the "beauty" of colors was just an exhibition of rejection.

Of course, Leonel wasn't so cynical, especially not about the last of the three examples. But it was amusing to think about. It even sounded like something an intelligent designer would cast into being like a practical joke, almost like an animator hiding a penis in their work only they would ever know was there.

Even so, Leonel felt that it was all a farce. He simply couldn't see life as beautiful.

Or could he?

Wildlife in general wasn't beautiful, but who could deny the beauty of a blooming flower? Of Cherry blossoms gliding in the wind? Of a baby deer learning to walk for the first time or a majestic blue whale leaping out of the ocean for a breath of air?

Who could deny the beauty of holding your child in your arms? Of watching them grow up? Of experiencing their first crawl, their first word, their first walk?

And maybe the colors he saw weren't the rejects at all, but rather an amplification, a suppression of some kinds to accentuate the beauty of one above all else?

Leonel laughed. "What flowery nonsense."

Even so, a smile spread across his face, his heart thumping once, and then twice.

A radiant blue light danced within his eyes.

His heartbeat was so loud that it echoed like a boom.

His Vital Star Force crossed into the Impetus State in a single bound, and his blood roared in response.