"Yes! That’s the name! You answered one of the questions; now, where is it?” the immortal asked.
Miles was cursing inside; he guessed the name not because of intuition or anything but because the office was the strongest, extinct civilization, so he just said it. But, asking him where the office is? That is asking too much.
Looking back, he saw the gray chains and said, "It is chained."
The cultivator looked thoughtful and, after a moment, said, "That is correct! Congratulations! I will teach you!"
Miles sighed with relief; he obviously didn't say where the office was, but the immortal cultivator accepted him anyway. It seems his words are not very trustworthy.
Miles bowed and said, “Thank you, senior!”
The cultivator smiled and said, “Now, what do you want to learn?”
“All about illusions!” Miles said.
“What about illusions? Who doesn't understand illusions? Oh wait, you are just a mortal; I forgot!” the immortal looked as if he had discovered something crucial.
He continued, “Let me see … about illusions … Let's teach by actually doing! Talking won't help!” He smiled and snapped his fingers.
…
“What?” Miles looked around and saw distant lights.
“Those faraway lights are worlds! Have you ever seen Endless Space? This universe has so much space that is unthinkable to mortals; only when you become immortal can you truly see its scale!” The immortal cultivator, who appeared beside Miles, said.
As smart as ever, Miles quickly picked up on the crucial word, “This universe? There are other universes?” He knew of the existence of other worlds but not of different universes. After all, he is only a rank three and has no access to those extremely advanced pieces of information; in any case, there is not much about different universes, even in the entire Clocks Academy. That information is only valuable to very powerful rank 13 and 14 civilizations.
“Yeah! There are endless different universes in the creation! The office itself came from another universe. I was the first to find it, but I failed to keep it,” the cultivator said.
Seeing the immortal was in the mood for talking, Miles inquired, “What happened then?”
The immortal shook his head and said, “The office is a universal ship; it can move from one universe to another universe. It has the ability to move from one charge of reality to the other and can harmonize charges without issue as long as its creation energy reserves are not depleted. It has other abilities; it can charge itself automatically; there is no need for one to put creation energy in, as it can extract creation energy itself. I wanted to use it to explore other universes, but other immortals of my time wanted to use its extraction power to use it as a mine for creation energy. In my view, that was a waste. My biggest mistake was not hiding the fact that I owned the office; one day, when I was out, all our elders united and attacked me. I died that day. After me, they hid it and used it to extract creation energy; they used its 'universal seal' ability to license universal law and gave the power to use universal law to even those without the knowledge. You know, I have seen other universes from the office’s database. Rank 12s and 13s aren’t this common in other universes because to use universal laws, people there must be able to use them without a license granted by the office. The office’s licensing is a simplified way of using universal laws and is not the authentic way!”
Miles felt his brain smoking; the knowledge the man said was too much for him to understand in depth. He, of course, understood on the surface, but his knowledge of magic was not enough to understand things the man said with any depth. It was like hearing someone teach about advanced math when one doesn't know plus and minus.
Not intending to inquire further on these advanced topics, Miles asked for something more immediate, “Why are we here?”
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The immortal cultivator said, “This is the illusion of endless space I created!"
Illusions are dreams of the universe, but it doesn’t mean they appear only when the universe wants. Mages and other supernatural masters can do it if they have enough knowledge.
Looking confused, Miles asked, “Why are we here again? I don’t understand at all!”
The immortal sighed and said, “We must start from the basics, as your level is so low! Now, you won't learn anything if I tell you everything! You have a billion years to find the illusion world we are in; if you fail, you don’t have an affinity for illusions!”
“Wait!” as Miles said that, the immortal disappeared.
Trying to move, Miles felt ridiculous; he barely can move, so how can he find a tiny illusion world in the endless space?
“What kind of teacher is this?” he cursed, but nobody was there to hear it.
...
Fortunately, even though he was barely able to move, barely still indicated he was able to move at least a little bit.
Moving extremely slowly, Miles reached the first speck of light after a million years. The 'speck' of light was a massive world shining with golden light.
“Why do I feel like this?” Miles was troubled. His timer showed that more than a million years had passed, but thinking of the past million years, Miles felt it passed in a blink; it was like a few minutes ago.
“Time is seriously twisted here!” He felt a headache. His lifespan had been increased to an absurd number, but only immortals were safe in twisted places like this. Even if his life was hundreds of trillions of years, it might pass in a moment if the time was twisted enough.
Universes do not have any gravity, so Miles was able to float around the golden universe peacefully.
“Will I die if I go in?” Miles thought. His illusion intuition of master level was clearly not good enough to guide him in such situations. The illusion was far too advanced for any master of illusion.
Sighing, Miles decided not to risk it; even though these were illusions, they could still kill him.
But before he could back away far, a golden light shone on him, and he disappeared.
...
“I'm getting tired of it!” Miles cursed. Because his rank is too low, he cannot even see who caught him; if he were immortal and couldn’t resist, at least he could see.
Looking around, he saw gold everywhere.
“This is that golden universe!” He thought.
“How should I find the illusion world from here? I can't get out of here by myself!” Miles thought with despair.
But looking ahead, he saw a room in the middle of golden light.
“That room? Is that the room the immortal man called the office?” He was astonished.
"It couldn't be just luck! The man must have done it purposely." Moving forward, Miles entered the room; it was no different from before. A table, with pen and paper, and books.
...
Miles spent his time in the room, and ten million years passed.
“Is it really 10 million years?” Every time Miles thought of the timer, he sweated coldly.
Clearly, 10 million years had passed, but his memory was wiped; he could not remember what he did in these 10 million years.
“Maybe something is wrong with my memory?” he thought. It is possible that the illusion is messing with his memory.
In the last 10 million years, he had been studying the office; he understood some things.
First, no matter how he changed it, the office returned to its default state every 1 hour. He had tried destroying it, tearing the books, burning it, etc., but everything returned to its natural state no matter how he damaged them.
Second, this thing could control the entire world. Miles had been able to move around in the universe using the office’s ability.
He had already been able to move through the entire universe a few times; it must be said that the speed of the office is beyond measure.
It has three movement styles.
First is the push method, which moves in a straight line in space. Usually, the speed of light is the maximum speed, but the office breaks all these rules with creation energy and can move far beyond the speed of light.
The second mode is space jump, which warps space to move far distances. It takes more energy than the push method but is far faster.
The final method is charge.
The office can move itself to different charges of reality, either travel to a different universe or cover vast distances within this universe. This method is the fastest but is currently unavailable due to its high expense.
“Hey! The charge method is now available!” Miles suddenly noticed that the charge, which was not accessible until now, had become available.
“Maybe enough creation energy has been collected!” Miles smiled.
Then, he started playing with the settings. His illusion mastery is far higher than it was millions of years ago. He is close to the great grandmaster level! He knows that using the office here, it's entirely possible to find that illusion world.
How? Illusions are different charges of reality, and the office can travel through different charges of reality. So, Miles just has to use it to return to the main charge and find the illusion world.
After setting everything, he pushed a button. “Let's go!”
...
Rachel had been trying hard in her headquarters to calculate the infinite universal law quickly.
She had not paid attention to anything else for a long time, focusing all her attention on the task.
But, at this moment!
“What? Why is the office unsealed?” she thought with horror. She had sealed it with her gray energy, so how did it break the seal?
Looking at where she had sealed it before, it was empty.
“It somehow broke through it!” Rachel felt a headache. She didn’t think it could break her gray energy seal.