EXHILARATING

That was the beauty of the Life Grade, a seamless creation... one that reflected real life itself.

That was also how he had to think of Simplicity. He had been so close, and yet so far at the same time.

"This is why how you comprehend something is more important than that you've comprehended it... I was already aware that the dictionary used something about the environment to elicit changes to its structure and deliver its responses, but it never really slid into place until now..."

The dictionary was akin to a world. This world had the influence of evolution pressing it down from all sides.

"The way evolution works is that the weak fall to the wayside and the stronger, or rather, stronger, survive and continue to breed, passing down their mutations until it's ubiquitous among a population and the population becomes strong as a whole...

"A similar principle is being applied here. The Craft is structured and enclosed within an atmosphere that has certain parameters dialed in to force certain responses.

"Evolution is very flexible. The kind of evolution that occurs is entirely dependent on the atmosphere in question. Cold-blooded animals wouldn't survive in the cold. White creatures wouldn't survive in dense forests of green and brown...

"I have to essentially create an environment with my ore choices, my Force Art choices, and my Force choices in general that elicit a specific response in my Crafts.

"But that's just the first part. The core layer, the "creature" that's responding to the environment itself, also has to be carefully chosen.

"Even if I wanted to create a creature capable of handling the pressure of the oceans thousands of kilometers below, it would be stupid of me to throw a leopard down there, no amount of evolution is going to turn a big cat into a fish..."

Leonel's thoughts churned and he slotted in his new understanding piece by piece.

The deeper his understanding became, the brighter his thoughts became. And for the first time, he could see a narrow path toward Crafting the dictionary he had relied on all this time.

"It was still far beyond him, and he was certain that it had many applications of the Self Path in it. But he already had thoughts on how he might even go about creating an AI of his own."

The feeling was better than he thought it would be, mostly because he also felt that there was hope in helping Anastasia through this path as well.

"So long as he kept pressing, he would be able to reverse the stupidity of the Minerva Race."

Leonel delved into a practice session.

"To him, with the way his mind worked, theory was often just as good as actual practical application. He usually didn't have issues and was able to perfectly replicate the thoughts in his mind to action."

"But in this case, he wanted to see it in action."

"To truly test the limits, he made a weapon he wasn't too familiar with: a sword."

"He only used three ores for it, and it was a hiltless weapon. He forged it into a single piece of sleek silver metal. It was so simple that it looked like something forged in the Middle Ages... except for the fact its body was so perfect and without flaw or imperfection upon second expectation that it couldn't be tied to that era at all."

Leonel smiled and retracted Little Tolly and let the little guy wrap around his arm.

"With a thought, he raised the sword with his Earth Force. Then, he released it."

SHIIING!

"The sword buried itself into the floor. The simple sword flashed with Forces and then dimmed as though it had run out of energy. Then, it crumbled to ash."

"Leonel whistled."

"He wasn't disappointed by the outcome at all. In fact, he was in shock."

"He had only used Fourth Dimensional materials, and it had torn through the floor of the Lab Setting."

"Although Anastasia was a home and not a fortress, everything around here still had the air of the Ninth Dimension. In addition, this Lab Setting was designed to at least be able to withstand some backlash and potential explosions from experiments. For a sword formed of Fourth Dimensional materials Leonel had casually created out of thin air himself to pierce into it... and from a simple fall at that..."

"Leonel grinned."

"'It worked.'"

"It was hard to see the 'environment' when it was a sword and not an enclosed mechanism like the dictionary was. But that was the beauty of Simplicity."

"The environment or atmosphere didn't have to be so elaborate. Just something as simple as the interaction between the Forces and Force Arts he chose could have this sort of effect."

"Just now, he designed the sword with Ores with strong repellent Forces. Then, he formed Force Arts that contained the repulsion, rebounding it and forcing the Ores to repel it again."

"This feedback loop would continue until the sword pierced through what it was trying to repel away or it collapsed like it just did."

"The Complexity came in the obvious pitfalls of this sort of path. If the Ores were designed to repel everything, then why didn't it just bounce off the floor instead of piercing through it and repelling the sides instead?"

"That was where Leonel's creativity and flexibility came into play. How he diverted the Forces, how he forced the sword to 'adapt' and 'evolve' with the environment around it, was all now part of his Crafting process." Material © .

"And it felt... Exhilarating."

"He gripped his fists, his eyes glowing with a fierce light."

"Aina took a breath and exhaled slowly. The number of corpses around her could pile into a mountain while her face had a slight hint of paleness to it."

"A ticker appeared before her for the fourth time. It seemed that it was time to battle again."

"As Forces rose into the skies to launch an attack at her again, she vanished."

"When she appeared, a familiar lazy Cloud Race youth was standing 20 meters from her."

"Yet another Council Member."