I blinked in surprise when I felt the presence of Manifestation Essence in the corridor.

The existence of manifestation essence in this world clearly wasn’t natural. According to the Market’s analysis of this world, the two essences that existed in this world were binding essence and absorption essence - and the presence of absorption essence was very faint and rolled into binding essence.

I thought about how I could possibly encounter manifestation essence in this world, before I remembered our previous world.

In the world of the black sun, the four of us had encountered a creature named Sekundyrr, who had used Binding Essence, despite that essence not naturally existing in the world. It had been able to use binding essence to telepathically communicate with us. We had also encountered a lot of odd and interesting materials that operated off of different laws of physics, most of which had been stored within the ruins of an old Orthan research facility.

And, most notably, those materials and Sekundyrr had been found in other dimensions. The second Orthan empire had been capable of crossing the ocean of souls and making contact with other worlds, allowing them to step into the greater multiverse and mine other dimensions for materials.

Of course, exploring the multiverse had also led to their downfall, when they encountered the living universe and their civilization had been annihilated. The living universe had probably plowed through the expert mages of the second Orthan empire like a dragon tearing through a mob of peasants. But it was the only example I knew of where we had found an essence not naturally occurring in that dimension.

Was this world doing something similar? Exploring the Multiverse, and then harvesting materials from worlds they found? Even if the risks were high when a civilization explored the multiverse, the rewards were also high. If this nation had a way to explore the multiverse, it didn’t surprise me that it was exploiting it to fuel its advancing economy and increasingly powerful military.

However, the idea that this nation was exploring other dimensions also confused me. I had no idea how the two major disciplines of alchemy could possibly feed into dimensional exploration. Perhaps my understanding of this world’s magic system was just insufficient? Even if I couldn’t imagine how this world’s magic system could be used to open portals into the ocean of souls, it was possibly the result of some local quirk of physics, or something like that. I decided to investigate this matter later, if I found a chance.

asked Sallia, looking down the new corridor with bewilderment.

said Anise, frowning.

I said, glancing around using my spatial eyes. I didn’t see anything unusual around us, which was a relief. But now that I was aware of the potential danger, I carefully swapped my soul-sight back on, trying not to shiver. Suddenly, it felt like the walls might have eyes that I was unaware of, watching us and waiting for a chance to annihilate us.

said Sallia, breathing a sigh of relief. Sallia paused, before turning towards Anise.

Anise grinned eagerly as she looked down the hallway, her expression similar to a hungry ghost smelling a feast. she said.

asked Felix.

I said.

said Felix. I could hear a rising sense of curiosity from Felix’s messages.

I was also very curious - but I was also very nervous. Last world had been a shining example of why exploring the multiverse could be an awful idea.

The three of us began moving towards the edge of the hallway. Just like the previous hallway, as we moved through the area, I saw a giant window tinted copper off to the side of us. I glanced inside as we walked by.

On the other side of the window, I could see a giant orb. The orb was made of a material that resembled glass, but had a distinct blue-white tint to it. The material also rippled and changed as I looked at it - at first, it had resembled glass, but as I stared at it, it started to resemble a pool of water more. In a strange way, it reminded me of my dress.

The object also radiated manifestation essence like a miniature sun. The closer I got to the window, the more acutely I could feel the manifestation essence leaking out of the orb and spilling into the corridor.

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Apart from the giant orb, there were several neat, orderly rows of paper inside of the room. They were too far away for me to read, but I assumed they were research notes of some sort. I made a mental note to swipe them on the way out.

It was interesting how much less bad I felt about stealing an object from the government than from a random guy.

As I pondered my bizarre sense of ethics, Anise’s head popped up next to mine, and she also stared through the glass at the orb filled with manifestation essence.

she said, glancing at the window.

I thought about it for a moment, and then chuckled. I knew what Anise was thinking of.

I said. I didn’t think electronic alarms were within this world’s technological ability… but then again, I also wouldn’t have thought prosthetic arms were within this world’s capabilities if I hadn’t seen it myself. Better to be cautious until I had my assumptions confirmed.

Anise nodded.

I rolled my eyes, laughed, and gave Anise a quick hug.

Anise twitched, as if experiencing some sort of horrendous mental agony only acute embarrassment could inflict on a person, but then she nodded sheepishly.

The two of us moved away from the glass window, and Sallia opened the door on the other end of the hallway. Just like at the end of the previous hallway, there was another room that appeared to be a break room. However, there wasn’t anyone inside, so we didn’t stop for long before moving into the next hallway.

The third hallway had another room that we could see through a coppery window. And this time, there was something even more bizarre inside of it - there were dozens of items inside of it, and they looked like a mix between a javelin and a lightning bolt.

There were dozens of them, thrown across various tables in a sort of organized chaos I found hard to associate with the first two rooms. The first room had been very spartan with the four odd swords each neatly lined up in the center of the room. The second room contained the manifestation essence orb and piles of paper, but those piles of paper had maintained a kind of military orderliness.

The third room, however, looked like a tornado had passed through it. And the giant, glowing javelins of energy inside of the room didn’t make much sense to me either. They were shaped like lightning bolts, and I could feel manifestation essence and binding essence crackling through the room.

Then I realized something rather interesting.

Only some of the javelin-lightning bolts had manifestation essence. These lightning bolts looked prim, polished, and sleek, as if they were weapons of war ready to be activated and hurled at enemies. The lightning bolts made of binding essence looked a lot rougher. They were still filled with enough energy to pack a huge punch, and possibly kill me on the spot if I didn’t teleport it away - but they lacked a lot of the polish and efficiency that I could feel radiating out of the manifestation-essence lightning bolts. This time, I quickly figured out what I was looking at.

I said.

said Sallia, taking a look at the lightning-bolt esque bars of energy stacked inside of the room.

Anise shrugged.

I frowned. Anise’s question hit a key point. And it also made me think of another question. If this facility was dedicated to researching manifestation essence, why was Felix being raised in this facility? Something just didn’t add up here…

I shook my head, and we continued running through the corridors. We could figure out the nature of this facility later.

We pushed through another set of doors, ignoring the lightning bolts for now, and pushed into the last corridor.

There, I could see another hallway. There were four guards inside of it, and there was also a door attached to the right side of the hall. I immediately slammed my mind into the eyes of one of the guards, took over their vision, and created an illusion of us not being there.

said Sallia.

The guards started turning towards us, doubtless alerted by the sound of Sallia opening the door, and Sallia immediately made the ground underneath their feet tilt, throwing them off balance as they reached for their guns.

I immediately expanded the range of my spatial eyes, just in case.

Two of the four guards managed to get out their weapons, and fired their guns at us.

I felt my spatial eyes lock on to the bullets as they ripped through the air, and with a flex of my willpower and my essence, two objects that had been heading towards us vanished.

A fraction of a second later, those objects reappeared, right in front of the shoulders of the two guards who had fired at us.

With screams of agony, the two guards collapsed, holding their bleeding shoulders.

said Felix, before I heard two thunks.

At the same time, Sallia levitated one of the guns and proceeded to start brutally bashing the skulls of the two remaining guards. The two quickly went down, and stopped moving.

said Sallia.

Then, I turned towards the metal door separating us from Felix, and glanced at Salia.

She looked at me, and grinned.

Then, the metal door separating Felix’s cell ripped itself off of its hinges, as Felix’s alteration essence exerted itself upon the door.

“I am so glad to see you guys,” he said, before I ran up to him and gave him a hug.