SNEER

"... I've managed to stall their plans quite considerably, and if I'm correct, I highly doubt they could get it back up and running without at least several more years. In addition, that should only be if they could focus their full attention on it. With the demons coming, I doubt they'll have the luxury of planning something so big.

"Things are relatively calm now, but they'll be crushed under the weight of battle after battle soon enough. When that time comes, they'll really have no choice but to use us as normal warriors for the time being, likely while they collect the corpses of the dead for the future."

"This was all caused by you?!" Noah's eyes widened in shock.

"Ah," Leonel waved a hand, "just a little."

Noah was speechless. This man had single-handedly ruined everything for these powers and they probably still didn't know that they had been played. Worst yet, he had just been invited by one of them to benefit from their resources on top of that.

Two snorts echoed in Leonel's ears, causing him to rub his nose.

"That aside, before I knew you were fine, my plan was just to save you. The second thing was to understand what the Godlen family wanted to do with the Domain Rings. Now that I have you here, though, what experiments are they running?" Leonel asked.

Noah frowned. "It's hard to remember clearly when I'm in that state, but I've been trying to improve my retention as well. I think that their original intention was to separate my mind from the Dream Plane.

"Although it's also a method of control, I think they also wanted to hide me and Amery."

"Amery is the other?" Leonel asked.

"Yes, he is the other." Noah confirmed. "As for the experiments, it seems that their focus is on the mind and the soul. I believe they're looking to perfect the Domain Lineage Factor, not just giving one an innate ability to use Spear Force, but a step beyond to use Sovereign Spear Force."

Leonel nodded slowly before he heard a snort echo in his ears again.

It seemed that the two women in his life right now couldn't use their big girl words, so this was about the only warning he would get out of them. It was likely that there was someone coming soon, so he should be on his way.

"Someone is coming. We can try and discuss this again later. Let me know if you have any ideas," Leonel spoke as he opened the door a crack and slipped out, unbeknownst to anyone but Noah himself.

Noah sighed. With a shake of his head, his gaze slowly turned dull as his room door was opened once again.

A woman who was just a few years shy of her middle-aged rushed in. She wore what should have been a lab coat, or what these Bubbles took as their own spin on the concept. Though the long coat was white, it was also embroidered with countless runes that formed a Force Art spanning the whole fabric. It made what was once a white coat radiate more like a steely blue.

She unceremoniously stepped forward, grabbed Noah by the tricep, and then pulled him out of the room.

...

Leonel watched this from a distance down the hall silently. He took mental note of the woman and then flickered and vanished, rushing toward the Godlen family library. He didn't have time to waste.

As he did so, he was mindful of a number of things as well. The Godlens were one of the families he had had conflict with in the Dimensional Verse. It would be hard to say what would happen if he ran into Simona, or her mother, or that annoying old man who didn't know better than to keep his father's name out of his mouth.

However, he also couldn't just hole himself up either. He quickly thought of some countermeasures to deal with him as he slipped into the library.

He displayed a token that Vivak had given him and was granted access.

'It seems that there are likely very few people that know about the situation with the Incomplete Worlds. That's probably why only the elite of the elites appeared during the "second round". In that case, they probably treat me like I'm any other disciple, which was why they gave me so much freedom.

'I'll have to be more cautious, though.'

Leonel was sharp. When he went to Noah's room, he had left his token there. He wouldn't be surprised if it had a tracking function of sorts, but he didn't try to tamper with it in case there were measures against that as well.

He quickly found a book on exactly what he was looking for.

It was titled [Universal Forces: A Comprehensive Breakdown].

The title couldn't have been simpler and it was very much beginner-friendly.

Truth be told, Leonel didn't know how much of these books to trust. These human powers had turned everything into an opportunity to suppress the masses and pass down their own teachings. They had even changed the name of the Dimensions so that their underlings wouldn't understand the importance of those words.

However, Leonel had a facade to keep up. If he was suddenly given a wealth of knowledge, and yet didn't use it, wouldn't they be suspicious?

It was only for a moment. While he was "reading" this book, he was consulting his father's words, trying to understand more about it.

Ultimately, he came to an odd conclusion.

'If I use [Caged Body: Chained Soul], it'll give me a stronger grasp over my body and I'll be able to sense the Constellation within me easier as well. If I match that with a trip to the Dream Plane, I should be able to sense and comprehend the Constellation as clear as day.

'That makes my path to understanding the Constellation clear, but what about my two remaining forces...'

Leonel's eyes narrowed and he decided to go over something he almost never did: techniques.

He had spent quite a long time in this world of battle and blood, but the number of techniques he had learned could be counted on two hands, and most of them were self-created at that.

It was a neglected aspect of his combat prowess, if he was honest. But he wasn't looking to bolster his strength right now.

If there was one thing that these powers couldn't hide, it was the intricacies hidden within their techniques. If they stripped those techniques of even that, then they wouldn't just be gaining control, they would be crippling themselves.

He didn't have enough contributions to spend on the techniques in the Silver Tablet, so this was the best he could do.

"You-!"

A voice made Leonel's eyes narrow and he looked up to find Simona and a young man about 15 or so meters from his seated position.

'What an annoyance,' Leonel thought to himself.

The problem with running into Simona wasn't her strength, the problem was having someone here who was intimately familiar with his true self. It would make fooling these people hundreds of times more annoying.

That said... he could use this as well. Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

Leonel sneered inwardly.