ALMOST NO DIFFERENCE

"Oh?" Leonel asked with a smile.

Celestia was put off by the casualness, but she shrugged it off immediately afterward. This wasn't a debate about random subjects, this was something she understood intimately. It was impossible for Leonel to pull one over on her, especially when this was something she had been drilled about.

Many of her ideas weren't her own, they were Minerva's. Of course, she would never admit this, nor did she need to. She had already taken the optics loss on this point, so going forward it wasn't as though Leonel could try and ding her for the same matter once more.

Thinking to this point, she felt like a burden had been flung from her shoulders and she unleashed her inner pride. Since Leonel dared to meet her on this sort of battlefront, she would crush him.

"You may not be aware of this, but the word Creation in this case isn't translated from the same Creation that represents the First Dimension.

"If you truly get into the weeds, the latter form of Creation doesn't refer to Creation itself at all, it's rather a spark, akin to the Big Bang. It didn't create anything, it just set the stage for Creation to happen.

"On the other hand, the former form of Creation, the one referred to as the Convergences, is translated from the original Minerva language as actual Creation, more akin to childbirth rather than child conception.

"Just because of this alone, it can't possibly refer to the First Dimension as there aren't any living entities in the First Dimension to begin with, there is only a force of nature that guides the laws as we know them.

"To make your statement even worse, you confused the true definition of Point of Creation and assigned it to the Point of Dimension instead. Then, you topped it off by saying that Master Lythariel was wrong when you misinterpreted her definitions to begin with. How can you even assign correctness and falsities when you're incapable of understanding the underlying argument to begin with?"

Celestia's words were clearly much sharper than they usually were, and she was severalfold harsher. However, no one really blamed her. Leonel had clearly come in, guns blazing, once again.

And, just like before, his smile didn't fade.

"You seem to be quite intimately familiar with the Minerva language, that's good," Leonel said with a chuckle.

Celestia frowned. What was he trying to imply here?

"Then, you should probably understand that when you're translating a language, you should probably understand the culture around it first-grasping the climate of the time and what social proclivities people in that era might have had.

"There are many words that fall into and out of favor depending on the times. Medical terms in one era can easily become insults in the next, there are even words that, when used in the incorrect fashion for long enough, will become the correct fashion.

"Language is a conduit for people to interact with one another. It isn't a rigid structure or set of rules, and if you look at it that way, you will suffer.

"Near the end of the Minerva Race's existence, that version of the word Creation did, indeed, come to mean a spark rather than the actual action or creation itself. However, do you know what was happening during the end of the Minerva Race's era?"

Celestia instinctually used silence, wanting to stop Leonel from talking, but to her horror... she had forgotten that he was still number one. The placements would only change after the hour was up, and even if they changed right now, they had the exact same number of points!

Contrary to that, Leonel could actually still silence her if he wanted. © 2024.

'No, not like-'

Leonel continued without a care.

"The Minerva Race was obsessed with Creation, obsessed with replacing the God Beasts of Creation. They were not only striving to Create, and yet failing to do so, but they were also dying off as a result.

"In the past, they were filled with optimism and hope for the future, so to them, there was little difference between a spark of Creation and Creation itself. To them, it was one and the same. They were the strongest Crafters to ever exist after the God Beasts of Creation, so practically anything they put their minds to, they likewise managed to succeed in.

"Do you see the issue here, now?

"You're using the correct definition of Creation... if Lythariel wrote her words in the era you're referring to. Unfortunately for you, she didn't.

"So why are you lecturing me on something you have little understanding of?"

Leonel tilted his head to the side as though he was really waiting for an answer, one that would probably never come.

Celestia's lips parted, but she had no rebuttal.

The pillars trembled and Leonel's points moved up from 10 to 11.

Let alone Celestia, even Minerva frowned. Was what Leonel said true? She had no easy way of confirming. She didn't have an encyclopedia of history in her head like Leonel did.

The history of the Gods was so long and winding that the "end period" Leonel referred to could have easily covered tens of thousands of years. Lythariel definitely existed before then, so the odds that the definition had changed were quite high and plausible...

Celestia gritted her teeth. Verma wanted to tell her to calm down first, but Celestia had already begun to speak.

"You said the entirety of the theory is false, anyway. Prove it. No one here has dared to say such a thing, even those far above myself have never made such a claim."

"Sure, why not?" Leonel chuckled. "My main gripe with the theory is that it treats Crafting and Force Pill Crafting like they're truly two separate existences that can only overlap at these "Convergences". That isn't true at all.

"The truth is that there's almost no difference between the two at all, and that's precisely what makes the world of difference."