Alexia

In the end, both Astrid and I require Ethan to help The Retreat once for losing against us. And the second time he lost to me I make him agree to assist me in case another Cataclysm Class monster shows up, meanwhile Astrid makes him agree to spar with her and help her in adjusting to her power as a Class S species. Something that didn’t happen naturally like it did with me, considering that she didn’t become one naturally.

Of course, Ethan decides to put away the games after that, apparently not one to continue racking up more and more debt to the two of us.

And eventually the Dimensional Council Meeting draws to a close, following which I’m teleported back into the dungeon again.

Then a System Notification appears in my vision, telling me that the next meeting will either be after the war is over, or right before the Ten Year Event. Whichever one comes last.

Hmm. Well, System Creator, now is as good a time as any.

He lets out a sigh before opening his eyes and flying in front of me. Then, to my surprise, he transforms into Luna’s humanoid form, appearing once again as a cute teenage girl. And younger version of me. Which still feels bizarre to look at considering his technical claim on being my quantum father or whatever.

The man growls, which doesn’t sound intimidating in his current form, as he says, “Energy manipulation is easier in a true form.”

“Wait, so would that be considered your true form right now?” I ask, tilting my head slightly and ignoring the cute sounding voice.

He grits his teeth some more and responds, “No, but it’s close enough. Now shut up and do what I do.”

I raise a brow at the Architect who clearly wants to speak as little as possible in this form. But I do as he says anyways, since he’s the one helping me here.

After closing my eyes, I focus my senses on the energy around us. And immediately after doing so, I find strange strings of energy leaving the Architect’s body. Tiny little strings that are connecting with all of the energy around us before vanishing. Then the energy around us seems to start moving all on its own.

My brows furrow at that, but I quickly notice that the energy changed ever so slightly. Whereas before it gave off a feeling of freedom, now I feel as if it’s under something’s control.

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The Architect’s control.

Then the Architect speaks, “Use your energy manipulation to manipulate your own energy into forming strings. Then use those strings to connect yourself with the wild energy around you.”

I quickly focus on the energy inside of my own body, finding it very difficult to pull any sort of control over it. At least, without using my soul. And I can tell that he’s not using his soul for what he’s doing.

From what I can tell, using soul to manipulate the energy around us only affects energy you directly touch and move around yourself. It doesn’t create any sort of bond with it for you to control, and it doesn’t let you manipulate it without direct contact.

So I at first try to figure out how to force my energy into strings, but I don’t even manage to sense enough of my energy to begin to do that. So after failing a bit, I decide to cheat it a bit by using my soul to gather it up.

Only to feel something hitting the back of my head, making me open my eyes to find the Quantum Architect standing there glaring at me.

They simply shake their head, clearly avoiding speaking as much as they can while still implying that I can’t use my soul for this.

But if I don’t use my soul… how do I manipulate the energy?

They sigh after a second before saying, “Look deeper into your soul energy.”

I blink at that, only to close my eyes and focus inwards.

After spreading my soul around my body, it’s pretty much everywhere. But most of it is in my blood. So I look into my blood through my senses, finding the small, glowing soul flowing through it.

I slowly begin to look deeper and deeper into my soul there, all the way till I find a tiny wisp. And then I look into that wisp as well, at which point I finally find some sort of energy inside of it.

Interesting…

But… how do I make it come out or use it?

To my surprise, just the mere thought of using the energy makes it fluctuate before leaving the wisp.

So it reacts to my will? Surprising, but simple at least.

I simply will the energy from there to move out of my body before also willing it to form a thin string. Only to hear a chime from the System while I’m doing this.

{Congratulations! Your General Skill ‘Energy Manipulation’ has reached Level 4!}

Oh, wow. That’s moving a lot faster now than it was before.

Up until now, it’s only reached level three no matter how much I tried to mess with the energy around me.

Guess I was just doing it the wrong way.

Or I was just doing the bare basics of it and not actually progressing past that.

Anyways, I will the string of energy to make contact with a small wisp of energy outside of my body. And it quickly does so before vanishing in an instant. But I feel the wisp of energy as if it’s my own. As if it replaced the string.

I know just from pure instinct that it’ll do whatever I will it to do. With limits.

“Do that a hundred more times, then condense the energy into the form of a bullet,” the Architect orders.

And I quickly get to work doing that, suspecting I know exactly what skill I’m working towards right now.

Anti-magic bullet.

It’s about time I got that skill.