‘Well, I guess it’s enough for now. After all, if that Dominator didn’t help them, all the spectators would have ceased to exist just from gazing into the Tribulation Realm, much less face the after effects of the attack.’
Seated in a private invisible booth built into the very walls of the arena was a tubby dark elf with a saddened expression.
“There goes another one,” he mumbled with a look of reminiscence. “That leaves only the two of us, and the aspiring cultivator…”
“No matter how much he tries to extend his lifespan through cultivation, he’ll still end up dying before either of us, you know?” a kind-looking old man with white hair, something rare even for the oldest of dark elves, asked rhetorically.
“Maybe if he began cultivating when he was young and vigorous he’d still have a shot, but alas, old age is a curse impossible to beat,” he continued. “He should just stay content with the fact he became a Dominator in his lifetime and die in peace; why must he cling to phantom straws?”
The tubby had a thoughtful look in his eyes listening to the kind-looking old man: “If only the ascension gate wasn’t broken—”
“Idiot!” the old man interrupted. “We live as gods here, yet you want to become some force’s war-beast, for what? Extending your lifespan? What kind of life is that anyway? Fighting day and night for thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of years for a cause you don’t believe in nor care for. That, to me, sounds like hell. I’m more than content just staying at the peak here, for however long I can, and so should you.”
“That was just two groups!” the tubby retorted. “With the way our ancestors described them, there’s a good chance they’ve both gone extinct by now; it’s been more than ten million years since they started their conquests. Remember, it wasn’t just our ascension gate that was destroyed. Without a continuous supply of slave Dominators, odds are they were swallowed up by other groups.”
“That’s not a risk I’m willing to take, not only for me or our species, but the entire world,” the old man proclaimed with conviction. “If that ascension gate is repaired, every able bodied group in the Immortal Realm would detect our position instantly, before sending out powerhouses to colonize us.”
“It doesn’t matter if we’re Dominators or not in the face of Immortals,” he elaborated. “If we don’t reform our connection to the universe through immortal mana, then we are just slightly more powerful ants to them; there’s no fighting back against them.”
“How does it matter what people they send to Graaryll when we would already be in the Immortal Realm?” the tubby asked with a ruthless glint in his eyes.
“Hmph!” the old man snorted. “It seems age is really getting to you, Grolf. Even if you don’t care about our species, you’d do well to remember how you became a Dominator. If it was Passlaw who said this, it’d be fine since he accomplished everything he has on his own, but you…if more than a hundred million of our brethren were to die, so would you.”
“I know you’re thinking that when you become an Immortal Dominator, those limitations will disappear, but that’s far from the case.”
Tubby Grolf simply frowned at the old man with dissatisfaction and mistrust.
“Don’t look at me like that, you old bag,” the old man voiced his annoyance. “I’m done talking to you; come find me when you sort out this dementia of yours. I’ll go have a conversation with the, what was it? The Nameless Fool?”
With a whoosh, the old man disappeared from the room, leaving only a seething tubby to marinate in his anger. Anger at the old man, and at the cruel nature of the world.
…
“Oh, hell no!” Fillan thought in annoyance. “Just when I relieved my pent up anger, one of those damn Dominators—of course—just had to interfere.”
One moment Fillan was enjoying the looks of pain, shock, and most importantly, shock on the crowd’s faces, the next, he found the world around him shifting until it settled on a wooden mountain cottage.
Fillan was very familiar with teleportation, and this was not it. Rather than him being transported across space, it was more like space was transported to him.
It was an incomprehensible sensation that felt like the world wanted him to be somewhere, so he appeared there.
The cottage was sparsely decorated with a table, two dining chairs, two rocking chairs, a bookshelf, and a very tacky carpet.
Leisurely curled up on one of the rocking chairs was a grandfather-like figure reading a book, pretending like he didn’t see the near-tantrum throwing Fillan stood there, like an idiot, in the middle of the room.
“Who is this guy kidding?” Fillan wondered. “Like I don’t know he left the sub-arena with me in ‘toll’; damn old man is trying to act cool!”
“But damn it, I’ve come too far to throw it all away now! Even if I don’t find something that helps me ‘humanize’ my soul quickly, I’ll still go back for that star-planting technique and reverse soul engraving technique; no way in hell this I’m letting grandpa here fuck this up for me.”
And so, Fillan stood there in complete silence as the old man kept reading at an agonizingly slow pace.
Ten minutes.
Twenty minutes.
An hour.
Two hours.
Three, excruciating hours.
“I’m losing it!” Fillan shouted to himself for the umpteenth time.
It’s one thing to spend a long time doing something he enjoys, or at least something that will benefit him in the future, but this…this was truly worthless.
Even if Fillan killed himself, came back to Argaria, and repeated the two hour long walk to the library, it would still have been faster than this. But when the realization struck him, it was already too late for.
Whenever Fillan got “trigger happy”, the thought of the old man finishing with his book soon kept him from going through with it. After all, it would be an even greater waste of time to go through that sluggish walk after waiting this long, and so, he stayed.
It was only after another hour that the old man finally put down that dreaded book.
“I swear, if that book doesn’t hold the answers to the universe, then this guy is going to be in for a world of hurt in the future. No one but me gets to waste my time!”
“You truly are a patient young man, aren't you? The old man asked with admiration. “When I was your age, I would have snapped after the first five minutes, much less four hours— Nocturn’s future truly lies in good hands.”
“If my old comrades were as patient as you, they’d never have fallen like they did, but…sigh.”
After sighing, the old man took a tiny breather, before continuing further: “I must say, young man, that your spell truly surprised me to the very core. What was it called, Cataclysmic Lightning God? Cataclysmic indeed; if me or Grolf didn’t step in, the entire library might have been electrocuted into nothing, hahaha.”
Like a river, words just kept pouring out of the old man’s mouth like he’d never run dry, leaving Fillan to only listen, but never respond.
“Even more surprising was your magical realm: Conduit. Never in my long life could I have expected such an attack to be launched by someone below the Dominator realm, much less two realms lower.”
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“I can only imagine the destruction a Dominator could exert with such an attack. Not only am I certain they could destroy Graaryll with ease, but they could probably cause significant damage to the Realm Barrier as well. Which is why I’m certain this spell has never been seen before on this tiny little planet of ours.”
Despite not asking a question, it was clear what the old man wanted: an explanation.
“Of course it hasn’t,” Fillan proclaimed with pride. “Because I made it myself.”
Since it seemed like the old man wasn’t out to get him or anything, despite hating him to the core now, Fillan decided not to put on an act of subservience.
If the old coot wanted to know where the spell came from, he’d tell him. If he wanted him to use it again, he’d use it again. If he wanted him to give up the spell pattern, he’d give it up, not because of “respect”, but because it wouldn’t matter when time was going to reset soon anyway.
There was no need for fear or deceit on his part, since it wouldn’t really matter as long as the old guy didn’t kill him before getting what he wanted.
“You made it yourself, huh?” the old man mumbled. “Then may I ask, what did you derive it from? The spell gave me a familiar sensation, but even I couldn’t define what changes you made to the universe for such a thing to occur.”
“It’s quite simple, I just studied the lightning tribulation cultivators and body temperors go through from time to time,” Fillan replied. “I found great inspiration from how, despite them being made to look naturally produced by clouds, the lightning within actually came from a different universal plane.”
“I then managed to find a spell pattern that would trigger the descent of such a tribulation, tweaked it with a bunch of different lightning, but also psychic spells, to fool the universe into creating a “god” who controls the Tribulation Realm, as I called it.”
“Unfortunately, my lightning aptitude was insufficient to accomplish what I truly wished for, and the final soul engraving became flawed.”
“You’re telling me that was a flawed product?” the old man asked in disbelief.
“Of course!” Fillan responded. “There’s a reason I named it Cataclysmic Lightning God, not Giant Lightning Hand and Sword, or something in that vein.”
“Truly spectacular—”
“I originally wanted the ‘Lightning God’ to manifest physically, but the degree of manipulation required for that to happen would directly dissolve all the universal laws that make up Graaryll.”
“So, not only was it a matter of my own inadequate talent, but also the immense complexity of temporarily substituting all of the universe’s laws in the area while a being, who’s very presence was continuously degrading our physical dimension, would be launching attacks.”
“No mortal would ever be capable of something like that, and as such, I came up with a way to still get some use out of my spell—which I worked hard to create: the entity would have to exist purely in the Tribulation Realm, while I open a tiny crack between dimensions so that it can attack from there.”
“This, of course, came with great limitations on both the amount of attacks, and their power,” Fillan concluded. “But granted the opponent isn’t a Dominator, Law Palace, or Earthly Palace expert, very few would be able to survive in the face of my spell.”
Being petty towards the chatterbox, Fillan decided to not let him interrupt his monologue, vocalizing everything, in vague detail, of how the current Cataclysmic Lightning God came into existence.
Old man Morph, who realized what Fillan was doing, was too engrossed in his thoughts to care.
“Could this be a rumored advanced spell?” he thought in horror. “How could a little brat like him possibly create an advanced spell, and then have the gall to make it seem simple?”
Unknown to Fillan, it wasn’t just humans who lacked advanced spells like he thought, but also the elves. Potentially only the most ancient and noble of dragons on Graaryll might possess advanced spell patterns. Not even with their arrogance would they dare engrave something like that on their souls without proper justification.
The difference between simple, advanced, and even “divine” spells is the number of runes and spell patterns they are integrated with, and their state.
A simple spell can be just a single rune or spell pattern consisting of runes, but could also be something like a semi-formation made up by several different simple spells. And, more often than not, the more patterns involved, the greater the spell.
An advanced spell, however, takes this to an entirely different level. Not only does it consist of a great number of simple spells, but they also need to form a certain synergy that allows them to enter a state of semi-fusion. In other words, the patterns form something superior to a formation, by turning all the spell patterns into different parts of something greater.
The catch to this though is that when spells enter this state of fusion—which is unstoppable—if the synergy is lacking, or if the engravings are sub-optimal, then the mana they were engraved with will turn unstable and explode.
This would leave a person severely crippled at best, with most of their soul missing, or at worst, straight up dead, without much hope for reincarnation.
So, there is this unstable balance of great benefits if successful, and terrible losses if not.
The victors get a tremendously powerful spell, built up by individual spells which are all being boosted due to the fusion, that they can use whenever they please. While the losers get fucked for at least three reincarnations as the soul repairs itself, or they cease to exist entirely.
This is also disregarding how difficult devising advanced spells are in the first place.
“May I ask, young man, what level of spell is this?” Old man Morph asked with a near undetectable tremble in his voice.
“Do you mean like simple or advanced?” Fillan asked for clarification.
“Exactly,” Morph awkwardly chuckled with a little embarrassment.
“It’s an advanced spell, but it should have been higher,” Fillan sighed.
‘I should have waited for my lightning aptitude to improve before attempting to engrave the spell; damn it. Engraving Plasmatic Annihilator and that made me too arrogant.’
The that he was referring to was the divine spell engraved on the back of his soul. However, unlike Plasmatic Annihilator, the spell on his back is much more enigmatic and profound in nature, to the extent that Fillan couldn’t decide on a decent name for it.
“You darned brat,” Morph growled. “Do you understand what you’re saying? Even looking at every elven Dominator from the moment we were introduced to Graaryll till now, not a single one managed to even create an advanced spell pattern, and yet you’re sighing over it not being of a higher tier? What kind of dream am I having? This isn’t good for my frail old hearth! Not good I tell you!”
‘It was definitely a pipe dream to imagine the elves could help me if this is how one of their Dominators reacts to a mere advanced spell. Just that alone consists of more than a thousand individual simple spells, and fourteen advanced ones…’
“Sigh.”
It took a bit of time before Morph calmed down from his conniption, after which he just sighed helplessly.
“Why would you even bother going to the Library of Knowledge when you’ve surpassed everything inside it?” he asked despondently.
“Well, it’s actually a long story,” Fillan replied, not wanting to start another thing with Morph. “But, I got interested in the soul-improvement techniques stored there.”
“Soul-improvement techniques?” Morph wondered out loud. “The entire point of soul-improvement techniques is to either extend lifespan or improve defenses; it’s worthless to someone as young and powerful as you.”
“Are you sure,” Fillan doubted. “I found some techniques that sounded like they had much greater aspirations than that.”
“Like what?”
“How Planting Stars In the Soul Could Elevate It to New Heights, Ten Thousand Steps of Magical Refinement: Engraving the Soul on Magic, and Sacrificing the Body to Become an Innate Dominator, all really impressed me. Just reading the titles alone has given me some ideas.”
“And these are verified techniques?” Morph asked.
“No…But that doesn’t mean they don’t have potential!”
“Did they have potential?”
“When I was about to read them, some of your enforcers demanded I go fight the Demon Voyeur to the death—”
“Vanquisher; Demon Vanquisher,” Morph chided.
“Whatever, the point is I didn’t get the time to read them.”
“Well, you see, young man, ninety-nine percent of all ‘experimental’ techniques are untested, ungrounded, works of total and undeniable fiction. You’d have a better chance of finding working techniques by visiting a pig’s dreams than through what is stored on those shelves.”
“There’s something to be gleaned from every aspect of reality, no matter how ridiculous, impractical, or impossible it sounds,” Fillan voiced. “One man’s fantasy could be another’s reality, and one man’s joke directed towards a crowd could enlighten the right person; it’s all about perspective.”
“Do you think a mortal man unknowing of higher lifeforms and magic couldn’t dream about a way to make fire with his mind, or chop wood without his hands?” Fillan continued.
“Even if the technique is bogus, I can still take inspiration from it!”
“Brat, don’t forget that I’m more than four hundred years older than you,” Morph reprimanded. “Do you think I don’t know? Even still, my opinion remains steadfast.”
“However, our conversation today has given me a lot to think about, so go read what you came for; just don’t ruin yourself chasing a madman's delusional ramblings.”
When Morph finished his piece, similar to how he arrived at the cottage, the world in Fillan’s eyes suddenly began changing rapidly, and before he knew it, he was standing back in LIB75N12.
“Damn Dominator voodoo!” Fillan grumbled. “It doesn’t compute in my little brain how he even did that.”
“Let’s just go get the books; there’s no way they’re going to flag me in the system after that old guy was fine letting me back here.”