Eli strolled through dark alleyways in the old part of Anchora that had stood back in the 1800s. Or at least, the mass accurate replicas of the town after the Great Power Wars and emergence of spawn wrecked it. Each of his powers buzzed through his body with his every step while he searched for the Historic Anchora Library. Enchantments spread throughout his clothes helped filter the dump of information through its cool restorative layer of lumencloud that kept the fabric from combusting under the weight of enchantments.
It had been one week since he and Roman were stranded here in this dimension.
The last few days had been a whirlwind of activity as he pushed his powers and himself farther than he ever had. Simulated delves into the Crucible that gave him no new powers since he'd already killed all the monsters, but he still enjoyed the challenge. Otherwise, he spent all his time in the gym, attending Herbert's classes, but most of all, he researched everything he could.
He had worked each of his powers until he hit a wall and moved onto the next. Nullspace Horizon was almost ready to merge with the still lagging Warlock's Sanctum and Starlight Conjuration, which were both stuck at level four. Lumencloud Transfiguration had gotten up to level two in the past few days at least, but he was noticing a few problems with his build now that it was coming together.
With the way powers interacted and resisted each other, his powers suffered from a tremendous lack of immediate stopping power. Sure, with people he did alright unless if they had powers immune to his own, or if their physiology was sufficiently enhanced. Otherwise, teleportation did fatalistic wonders, but if that didn't work, he was forced to wear any enemies down to nothing with his superb flexibility, mobility, and recovery.
But spawn were far more resistant and hardy depending on their physiology and power evolution.
Hell, he'd been awake for nearly an entire week and then some with several fights in-between with only a few naps here and there. Eli was still going strong, even if it felt like his focus was slipping. It didn't matter, though. He had to succeed and make it back home. Nullspace Horizon let him snatch glimpses back home now and then as long as he maintained the non-existent state necessary deep in nullspace.
Eli sifted all the information he could through Nullspace Horizon and his enchantments. GPS was absolutely useless in this dimension. It worked, but it was spotty like most of their technology was when enchantments were removed from the equation.
All the information was up to the basic and middle level, but he found several stumbling blocks. Enchantments were a well-understood concept with several basic methods infusing other powers, but there had only been hints about how the System-interfacing enchantments worked. Other enchantments were described that took advantage of the laws of physics or even past powers someone had held, but he couldn't find out how to use them when he went digging for it.
Same with when he tried to dig farther into the mechanics of how powers actually worked. Space powers were a rabbit hole he'd thrown himself down whenever he had free time, along with potential options for new auxiliary powers he'd look to add to his collection once he finished his spatial powers and starlight power to merge them. He'd also researched dungeons, the categories of powers, System customization and the intricacies of it, and the rare stat evolution.
All he found for each of them were hints and pop-up status screens where enchantments tried to scan his System. He had searched in a variety of browsers and search engines, hunted in the college and city libraries, but instead of clarity, he got more restrictions and prompts to scan his status.
Everything online and easy to access was stale with their cookie cutter guidelines. Every form suggested taking several questionnaires and scheduling an appointment with a Power Advisor to craft the best portfolio for success. This dimension's lack of flexibility and wonder grated on him. Sure, they had plenty of guides and information on what perks going together would most likely make, but instead of celebrating the differences, they discouraged them or outright prevented access to them.
So, he started combing through archives at bookstores and libraries for whatever he could find.
He had found snippets of information from the period of the Great Power Wars, ripe with opportunity. Theories and experiments tossed aside from the public eye in favor of the current dogma. Accounts of people upgrading their stats, forcing their status to show them power and perk rarity, or pushing their status to reveal more information about their powers. Stories of people using enchantments to corrupt their powers or to even copy them. He already knew stats could corrupt powers, Body of Light had created glimmers of light in Voidspace Mastery that still persisted after its evolution and recycling into Nullspace Horizon.
It all tracked.
Apparently, it was common for families to pass on legacy powers in their wills, and enchantments made the world go around. Ever since he found the breadcrumbs leading to this trail of possibility, he had practiced his enchantments through Warlock's Sanctum more. He had originally thought that it would only allow him to imbue his other powers and program logic into the enchantments, but he could do so much more.
Powers were just stable blueprints that he could map out into enchantments, but that didn't mean he needed them exclusively.
Eli had figured out how to create all kinds of enchantments after he started thinking about what his body and the laws of physics were already capable of. It was rough going to begin with, but Warlock's Sanctum didn't just store concepts and items, it also stored enchantments. Once he figured out the structure and weave of an enchantment, it was beyond easy to place it into an item or to even swap it out with the Ethereal Paradox perk he'd used in creating the original Enchanter's Dominion.
Currently, he had his clothes enchanted to boost his Perception while also boosting his general powers. It was a small enchantment that didn't amount to much, but it was the most stable set he had still. Other misshapen enchantments pulsated in a dark corner of Warlock's Sanctum. Self-Repair, Autonomy, Control, and so on. He had created a rudimentary Telekinesis enchantment, but it ruptured under the burden and would quickly crash. Kinetic amplification or nullification enchantments worked better.
Nausea threatened to swell as his sensory enchantments caught the faded lettering of the Historic Anchora Library sign and plugged in an image of a shadowed wooden building straight into his mind. A coppery tang coated his tongue while his ears rang from the cascading effect of the enchantments slipping. Warlock's Sanctum let him replace the sensory enchantment array with self-repair and more lumencloud. Thread frayed as it threatened to snap before the weave of self-repair fixed it.
Eli rushed through the narrow press of brick laid streets and winding alleyways until he finally arrived at the dimly lit entrance of the library. Warlock's Sanctum mapped out the sprawling hints of surprisingly powerful enchantments sunken into the structure of the building. Because it surpassed Warlock Sanctum's evolution by a sharp degree, he couldn't make out specific details, but he felt permanence, durability, and illusive enchantments to hide the strength and quality outside the building.
Space billowed out as he stepped into the greatly expanded interior of the library. It felt like he had stepped into the past.
Antique iron and bronze wrought chandeliers hung from the ceiling while silver sconces cast an even light along the walls. Labyrinthian shelves sprawled all over the place with an overwhelming variety of books. If sturdy enchantments weren't bolstering the wood, he bet the shelves would've buckled under the weight. Warlock's Sanctum let him study it while he tried to copy what he could into its vault, but whatever power created the enchantment surpassed him by a large margin.
Enchantments flowed everywhere from the partial marble tile and carpeted flooring. The furniture and walls felt stout enough he bet that the entire 3Delve team couldn't even scratch the paint with all their power combined. He walked deeper into the foyer next to an imposing stately desk of polished wood, where an ancient hulking computer hummed in the center. No one stood or sat behind it, though.
Eli frowned while he glanced at the endless fortress of books. His parents had taken him and his siblings to libraries all his life, but this awe-inspiring space stuffed full of books and enchantments intimidated him. Did they even have the Dewey decimal system here?
"Hello! My name is Amalga. Welcome to the Historical Anchora Library, home of all discarded and rare books within the city. I see you don't have a library card. Would you like me to help you make one, or is there anything else I can assist you with today?" asked a blue-skinned woman that appeared beside him. She looked and sounded normal despite the blue skin, except the longer she spoke and the more he scrutinized her, the more she looked off. There was a slight translucence to her.
She reminded him of Lyra's illusion powers.
He ignored the sudden ache of homesickness while he refocused himself.
"Sir?"
"Sorry, yes, I'd like to take a look at Enchanter's Almanac 18VII4, Bernard's Analysis of The First Great Power War, and A Systematic Encyclopedia: Through The Ages." Eli rattled off while he checked the notes of titles he'd curated in the past few days and stored in Warlock's Sanctum. Most of them were earlier editions and hadn't been pruned or System-locked as much as the others.
"One moment." Amalga said while power pulsed from her into the web of enchantments with the massive computer at its core. "Ah, yes. We have copies of each in-house in sub-basement 2, Section 14. Would you like me to accompany you?"
"No, thank you." Eli nodded while he headed over to the elevator.
"If you change your mind, just remember to ask for help!" She called out as the doors whirred shut.
Far more buttons than he expected glowed from their back light. It went as high as 5-10 and as low as S3-20. He brushed his fingers over one of the buttons while he teased at the sensations he felt in space. He wondered if the second number was an overlapping subspace. The rest of the library had far more spatial enchantments than he had seen anywhere else. Gentle music played over hidden speakers once he pushed S2-14.
Instead of a rumbling thrum as the elevator dropped, he felt it flood with electricity before a spatial enchantment tripped. Folds of space fluttered past outside the elevator like pages in a book. He tried to keep count with Nullspace Horizon as they descended two floors, then skipped across more than a dozen sections of space until they stopped on the fourteenth.
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Ding!
Eli stepped out onto a plush carpet full of tables and chairs, as well as clusters of desks. Further in the distance were rows of shelves that extended off into the distance. Little signs swayed from the ceiling on tethers above each section. He wandered forward while he read off each sign on the left side like System Initialization, Spawn Systems, System. Off to the right were more signs: Power Crafting, Porteology, Enchantments.
He could hardly contain himself as he prowled through the stacks and gathered heaps of books at the table he chose until he had a mountain prepared. Eli rearranged books into their categories while he summoned copies of his notebooks that he used Nullspace Horizon and Warlock's Sanctum in tandem to print out meticulous notes without even needing to read them.
Eli didn't need a library card when he was a one-man printing shop.
Notebooks rattled into shelves that rose out of the darkness in Warlock's Sanctum while he leafed through one of the last printed Enchanter's Almanac before the System-interface enchantment was created. Crisp, detailed schematics and descriptions of various enchantments and enchanting styles met his bleary eyes while he read.
Lumencloud Transfiguration cycled through his body to keep him fresh while he built his plans for the future.
Lumencloud Transfiguration covered his weaknesses with light while it enhanced his body and it allowed him to create constructs out of lumencloud, water, air, or light. Once he slotted into his Mind slot, it'd enhance his mental capabilities just as much as it already did and would improve him physically.
Whatever Nullspace Horizon, Starlight Conjuration, and Warlock's Sanctum became when he merged them three-way would hopefully allow him to keep all his tricks with space while making it more of his domain on top of enhancing his enchanting prowess. Not to mention the vault and storage capabilities Warlock's Sanctum already provided. With enough preparation and ingenuity, he could recreate most powers with enchantments and his ability to create copies and move enchantments around would solve one of the glaring weaknesses of enchantments.
Material durability and quality didn't matter as much when he could recreate the enchanted item in question at an instant.
Power Guides all over the Internet and even in these outdated books made it clear that certain utility powers had a place in every build. Stockpile powers that could build up energy of various types or attributes like Strength and Perception. It was one of the powers that everyone said was necessary to live a long, happy life since it could extend and amplify youth and longevity. Sensory powers to boost one's senses and perception, which would affect the dexterity of other power use. Mental processing powers to make it easier to parse loads of information at a moment's notice. Dream based knowledge powers that would keep memories and learned information clear.
Amplification powers to boost any other power or even enchantments used with it. Maybe with a general alteration power included to improve his variability with it and whatever he used it on.
Eli wanted all of them, but he found plenty of schematics and descriptions for enchantments that could take the place of a lot of these. Stockpile and conversion enchantments that could store and purify all kinds of energy. He already had sensory enchantments that he had plenty of ideas on how to improve them.
That just left an amplification, mental processing, and some kind of dream power to fill the gaps in his build. Luckily, he already knew someone he could talk to in order to find out about new powers. But first, he had to finish his transcription of all these books and make the last push to merge his powers.
After a few hours of rapidly devouring books and copies of notebooks as he stuffed Warlock's Sanctum with all that he could before the illusive librarian appeared beside his table.
"I'm sorry, but we're closing. Would you like to check any of these out?" She smiled at him. What was her name again? Eli checked the teeming book in Warlock’s Sanctum he had started to use to record what happened to and around him until he found it in a ruffle of pages. Doing this had been a lifesaver for his classes, but it was full of useless fluff that he'd need to trim to make it more useful than it was as a reference.
"No, thank you, Amalga. Have a good night." He smiled at her as he left, using the elevator.
Muggy May air breezed around him as he stepped outside and moved into the alleyway, where he flashed out a haze of enchanted lumencloud to disguise his teleportation. He vanished through the threshold of the void into the nothingness of nullspace. Teleportation anchors weren't necessary as much anymore now that Nullspace Horizon let him bypass the limitations of his range. Visualizing the almost always abandoned trails of Hydreigan Lake, he slipped through nullspace as he appeared on the cement path.
While he walked with his hands in his pockets, he pushed his awareness into Warlock's Sanctum. It was more than a vault that stored items, enchantments, and concepts. It was his place with the Demispace Vault perk integral to the power. He felt like it was eager to adapt and change to according to his desires.
Eli remembered how the power cramped when Maeve had intruded into Avaricious Vault, but she had made it inside. Would he be able to bring other people into Warlock's Sanctum once he merged or evolved it?
He pushed his will further into its architecture while he thought about a kitchen full of cozy shelves with an island and all the normal appliances. Warlock's Sanctum immediately complied as darkness boiled away as the room appeared in its wake adjacent to the vault. Gaps filled the interior of the room where a fridge, sink, and oven would be.
Eli sensed it had used lumencloud, wood, and various types of metal—including starmetal—he had copied for everything else, but it hadn't attempted those appliances since he either lacked the materials or functional understanding of the appliances. Shelves and countertops were far easier for it to make than technology, apparently.
Warlock's Sanctum waited while he plotted the next rooms in his head.
He wanted a study with a workshop, a bathroom, and a bedroom.
Darkness seethed in anticipation, but tension restricted it while shadowy boundaries of the rooms etched into existence. Eli felt that space outside of the vault was limited for him to expand and adjust. So, he trimmed the size of the kitchen by a dozen square feet and then more until it only had enough room for a countertop and shelves.
A study appeared across from the kitchen. Bookshelves lined the walls, while his notebooks and all the books he copied filled them up. Armchairs and couches popped into existence around a small fireplace. Long sturdy workshop tables snapped into existence alongside the far wall racks for all his inferior Lumencloud Fortification weapons and armor, along with empty spaces for his next creations.
Blank space rested where a desk and office chair would be, and then it was filled with a replica of Dad's office furniture. Down to the initials he and Lana had carved into the underside when they were nine and seven, respectively. He frowned at the homesickness and pain at the reminder, but he left it.
Anchora University's campus beckoned as he emerged from the walking trails around the lake and drew closer, along with many of the students coming home to their dorms or leaving to start their weekend of partying. He bit his lip while he considered heading down into the gym to do another round of training. It had been awkward since his fight with Roman. They talked, but it was barely more than grunts and nods when they saw each other.
Eli didn't want to get in his friend's way and the sooner he finished getting his spatial powers up to snuff, the quicker they could get home.
He headed for the gym, then stopped on the sidewalk.
Why go to the gym when he could make one of his own?
Space bulged in the study as the corner full of lounging furniture and the fireplace was replaced by training dummies and targets. Racks of dumbbells and a bench with a barbell on top appeared along with a mirror. Punching bags appeared suspended from the ceiling. He stepped inside the naturally cooled room at the exact temperature he liked.
Clothes flickered as his streetwear was replaced with a breathable lumencloud shirt and a pair of shorts before he realized he was completely alone. He didn't have to worry about going too far and destroying the room or resort to practice by sending his powers into the void with no idea of what the impact was. Eli didn't need to hold back anymore.
He moved to teleport by the workstations and smiled as Warlock's Sanctum bent space with a gentle nudge to deposit him there. It was quickly becoming one of his favorite powers, and it wasn't even done.
Glimmers of starlight shone at his back while he condensed it into beads. He wanted to see if he could pump out that last level now that he should be in the clear for the leveling penalty since he'd gotten it to the same level the Starwraith had it at. If it wasn't simple power use, then he'd try to see if he could nudge it into the direction Photon Shot had been at.
The idea of being able to potentially create fields of stars around him in space that he could use to fire wherever he wanted was vastly appealing to him.
But first?
It was time to enchant.
Eli drew on Warlock Sanctum's vault as he crafted ingots of starmetal, hard light, starlight, and lumencloud. It was a gradual process as he hammered his will into the materials through his power while he slowly twisted the copies into a new form before feeding it back into the vault step-by-step.
Now that he had starter materials, it'd be easy enough to create copies or to pump out authentic versions of it. He bet Roman would love to make a mech suit out of literal starmetal. Enchanter's Almanac 18VII4 had raved at the possibilities of power-based elements and materials offered, especially when enchantments followed the natural qualities the original power shared.
Eli willed out an arrow of inferior lumencloud to appear and smiled at the fragility of it. Lumencloud Transfiguration had improved the quality of his innate and newly created lumencloud greatly, but his evolution gave him exceptional control of the previous evo-0 version of it. A gilding of starmetal coated it while he tugged out lumencloud feathers for the fletching.
An identical copy appeared beside it that he immediately used his powers to blast it into one of the target.
Flexible metal twanged as it thudded into the hardwood target without shattering. It was a bit too slow for his liking, but with teleportation and Lumencloud Transfiguration, he doubted that'd be a problem. Especially once he figured out a kinetic or velocity boost enchantment.
Warlock's Sanctum flared while he draped a Photon Shot enchantment over another replica. Once it struck, it'd turn into a light that'd blast into the target on impact.
Time passed while iteration after iteration was summoned with tweaks made to the composition and enchantment and then loosed into the target with an explosive flash until he finally had it.
A radiant silver-and-gold celestial arrow with a blight enchantment from his Blight perk sunken into the arrowhead gleamed menacingly. It was fletched with sharp feathers that strobed with turbulent lumencloud. At its core was the Photon Shot enchantment, but wrapped around it were enchantments to convert friction into light energy which would get stored in the center. Six different sets of heat and light amplification enchantments were looped into each other that he activate individually or collectively at-will. Finally, he had a velocity enchantment plugged into the back and along the shaft that would ramp up its velocity when engaged.
Eli beamed as the System rewarded his efforts with a level. He only had Starlight Conjuration left now. He grabbed the dense core of light the size of a soccer ball before unleashing its celestial wrath as a burning beam of light... then grimaced at its weak shudder before it dispersed in a bright flash.
He still had some work to do.
Nullspace Horizon Ev. 0 Warlock's Sanctum Ev. 0 You may now select from one of the following options: Evolve Power Merge Power Obtain New Power N/A> [Stats: Body: Light (Photon Shot) Mind: None Will: None ] [Equipped Power List: Slot One -- Starlight Conjuration Ev. 0/Lv. 4 Slot Two -- Lumencloud Transfiguration Ev. 1/Lv. 2 Slot Three -- Warlock's Sanctum Ev. 0/Lv. 5 (Maxed) ] [Unequipped Powers: Nullspace Horizon Ev. 0/Lv. 5 (Maxed) ] [Unequipped Perks: Blight ]