THE SELF (2)

It was a set of words, a phrase, a sentence... a knife through Leonel's heart.

He could vaguely feel what his father was trying to say. The path of Self Crafting might be as much his father's enlightenment as it was a lesson.

Maybe if his Dream Force was just the same he might have dismissed it. But right now, it felt like a final nail was being driven into a coffin. Whether it was his own or his father's, Leonel barely had the wherewithal to tell the difference.

Did the difference even matter?

It shouldn't be true.

How could life not be reproducible? Couldn't Anastasia copy his methods and remake perfect treasures based on his template every time? Couldn't he do the same with just an extra bit of effort?

But he knew it was bullshit. He knew his own thoughts were ridiculous.

Every time he picked up an ore, it would have a different set of characteristics. Part of the skill of a Life Crafter was that they could read and react to any materials they had, breathing life into them.

But no two Life Grade treasures could ever be identical. Every time one was created, it would have its own unique existence, its own unique path to follow. Even if it was just a minor deviation, it was a deviation nonetheless.

His father took a new route, diverting from the usual path of Life and creating the path of Self Crafting, one where the Crafter imposed their Will onto a treasure and forced it to mold into their chosen path.

It was a stroke of genius, one no less fantastic than the creation of [Final Destruction]. And yet, Leonel could hardly see the beauty in it.

He stared at a wall opposing him, his eyes somewhat vacant. His pale violet irises had lost so much of their color that they looked like streaks of different grays instead of their usual almost pink color.

It was funny. Leonel had felt a great amount of existential dread when he saw how flippantly the lives of others could be used and wasted. The Silver Tablet, or the Life Tablet now, was like something that constantly weighed on his soul.

Why was it that he could bring all those people from the Valiant Heart Zone back? Why could he bring his brothers back? He bet he could even use this tablet to resurrect Ninth Dimensional experts on a whim if he wanted to. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact Clarence's soul had scattered, he could have probably brought him back too just in exchange for some resources.

Technically it made sense. When everyone was around, playing god, what was so hard about recreating human life? Even the people of the Dimensional Verse like Heira had been able to create perfect clones of the human body, so what could people who called themselves Gods do?

In fact, Ninth Dimensional existences were almost quite literally immortal. Why wouldn't life be a flippant matter to them?

And yet, somehow... life also felt so very fragile. He was growing so powerful, and yet he couldn't even bring his own father back to life. He had to watch as his wife sobbed about her mother, completely unable to bring her back either. His entire Morales family was wiped out, and yet he had no method of resurrecting them.

It was all a big joke.

Leonel closed his eyes. He hated this feeling, he really did.

Subconsciously, he reached out, touching his father's glasses. They emitted a familiar warmth, even a familiar scent.

What was the point of life? Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

His thoughts ran back to words he had spoken to Aina. He told her that the only morality she was beholden to were those tied to the people she loved and nothing else.

Everything else was too complicated to decipher, too troublesome to parse.

There was probably no grand answer. He would probably never find an answer that could satisfy his mind, not with the way it worked.

But he was still very much human... so why not be human?

Leonel's eyes opened, slightly red, but more focused.

'The Self... imposing your Will onto the world... I quite like that. However, that's a matter for another day. First, complexity...'

Leonel's mind shifted from thoughts of dread toward a focus on making his father's path shine. If he wanted to truly grasp The Self, then he would first have to understand the extremities of Complexity.

The Complexity referred to an incredible depth of Crafting, one where one controlled the parameters of their Craft even down to the very molecular structure. Rather than relying on the macro, one would get very micro.

This was the level the key to the Dimensional Cleanse Verse had been on. However, even that key had just been a small inkling into this world of complexity.

From the start of Crafting, Leonel had learned the more parts a Craft had, the better it was. This was just taking this philosophy and stretching it to the extreme.

Reaching a deep level of understanding in this phase would allow him to create the Divine Armor he had in mind, but only in part.

However, The Self was something that struck Leonel with awe. That was because it matched with his thoughts so incredibly well that he felt like his father was even reading his mind.

The Divine Armor he wanted to create was something he wanted to feel much more like an extension of himself, it was living, breathing. But the Life Grade alone wasn't enough to accomplish this. He needed something deeper.

And now the answer was right before him.

Leonel started with a piece of what looked like brushed steel. He closed his eyes and his fingers began to move with lightning quickness as Tolliver moved to envelop it.

If one could see the molecular structure of the piece of metal, they would be greatly awed. That was because Leonel was using atoms themselves to draw Force Arts.