Early Afternoon - Early Summer : Bahamut Estate

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"Well, Young Lord, Young Miss, shall I show you to your rooms?"

Quickly glancing at Krystallo to make sure she was ready, I stood up. "If you could."

He immediately bowed slightly before turning toward one of the adjacent halls. "Then please follow me."

Quickly changing back to my humanoid form, I hopped on Ilios and hastily followed after him and Krystallo.

Galen stopped to look back at me while I changed forms, though. "Do you prefer your humanoid form, young lord?"

"No, it's just so I don't break the floors." -The already shattered floor in the main hall shattered further under my weight.. so…-

"Haha, you should be alright. The floors here are capable of handling the weight of even large elders!" He held his head high with confidence as he spoke.

"I mean.. alright…" Deciding to just show him, I hopped off Ilios and changed back to my dragon form.

*CrUnCh* The floor shattered before I could even finish my transformation.

Galen just stared at the ground with wide eyes as I let out a sigh. "Haah, I’m a bit heavier than I look." Promptly changing back to my humanoid form, I got back on Ilios and looked toward Galen.

He gave me a slightly nervous look as he tapped his head with a handkerchief. "I will have someone come and strengthen the floors immediately. I apologize for the discomfort, young lord."

"Ah, you don’t have to worry about it; I can strengthen it myself."

"I wouldn’t dare let the young lord do such a tedious task himself." Immediately calling over a nearby maid, he whispered in her ear and had her quickly run off. "It should be done by tomorrow evening. In the meantime, shall we continue?"

-Tomorrow? That's fast…- "Sure." -I guess that's better for me though… Since I entered that.. space.. I have some more important things on my plate…-

Continuing down the hall, we eventually came across two huge doors on either side of the hall.

Galen was quick to point out what they were. "Young Lord, this room on the left is yours, and young Miss, this is your room on the right. If either of you needs anything, there is an artifact you can touch on your bed that will ring a bell here in the hall. It will call in a maid, so use it as you wish."

-That's convenient…- "Thanks."

"It is no issue. If you ever need me, just let me know." Quickly giving a deep bow, he turned back around and started heading toward the main entrance.

There was a short moment of silence between Krystallo and me before I eventually turned to her. "Well, I'm gonna head inside. If you need me, just knock."

"Okay!" She flashed me a childish smile before turning to her door with an excited look.

"Haha." -It’s good to see she’s enjoying herself still.- Finally turning to the colossal, dragon-sized door, I hopped off Ilios and pushed it open. *thump*

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But they didn’t budge. -Huh?- Looking up the door, I noticed a sizable blue orb bridging the gap between the double doors. "Oh, it's a mana lock, Krystallo. Inject some mana into the orb over your head."

Seeing her quickly unlock it, I wasted no more time injecting some mana and pushing open one of the doors. *Fwoosh*

Inside, the room was absolutely massive, with more than enough room to move around, even in my dragon form.

All around the room were many artifacts, sculptures, and paintings, but the thing that caught my attention was instead the large, raised stone platform in the middle of the room with a monster core on a pedestal on its edge.

-That's the bed?- Although I wasn’t opposed to sleeping on stone, after experiencing the cushions in Kaelallan, my standards had changed some.

Hastily making my way onto the pedestal, I released my aura into the room to start strengthening it and got to experimenting. -Let's see if I can make a cushion…-

Shockingly, it only took a few minutes to get something that was actually pretty good. -It's a bit firmer than the ones in Kaelallan but that.. might be better…-

Quickly making it big enough to cover most of the platform, I made a several-centimeter-deep impression in the stone and set the cushion in it. *puff* -Perfect…-

Assuming it’d help support my weight, I walked out onto it and changed into my dragon form.

*creaak* The flooring around the stone pad creaked, but thankfully nothing broke. -Sweet…- Finally laying down though, I felt a wave of comfort and drowsiness wash across my body. "Mmm…" -This is better than expected…-

I laid there in silence for several minutes, but eventually, I snapped out of it. -Ah! Right! I can’t sleep now!-

Slowly sitting back up, I woke myself up and prepared to address a much more pressing matter.

*Vwowowowoom* The noise of mana rippling filled the air as I pulled out a huge mass of mana and flooded it into my space node.

Immediately noticing the barely detectable cloud that exited the node, I took control of it and closed my eyes to try and read it like aura.

-I wonder if…- My previous thoughts immediately came to a screeching halt.

Although there was an incredible amount of interference with the normal mana in the air, there was something that was simply static that practically completely filled the air. -What.. Is this?-

The only way to describe it would be as a massive crystalline, 3-dimensional grid of space mana that seemed to never end and warped around mana and matter.

"W..woah…" Moving my claw through the cloud I controlled, I watched the grid warp around it as if it were pulled inward by the presence of matter. -What the…-

Pulling away my claw and looking along it extremely closely, I noticed that light warped in a very similar fashion to the grid. -How fascinating…-

Deciding to try something else, I focused on the cloud of space mana again and used it to push away the grid from a single spot.

Before I knew it, the crystalline grid that was being pushed away had formed a familiar sphere that quickly grew in size until I could easily see it with my own eyes. -Is this what the space rune did?-

*Vwoop* The instant I let it go, the sphere shrank back into nothingness, and the grid perfectly repaired itself.

-Did the space rune just squeeze us into this grid? Is that what that other realm was?- The only thing I could think of was that it was inverted space, but that didn't totally make sense either. -How.. Weird…-

But after deciding to set that confusing thought aside, I decided to test one last thing. -I could make matter in that realm… Can I do it here?-

Promptly following the same process as I did in the other realm, I quickly formed a tiny, marble-like ball of aluminum. Okay, so I can form it… will it destroy itself when I release it though?-

*fwip-puff* Immediately falling onto the cushion, the small marble simply sat there and didn’t change at all. -So it was the space mana that broke it down in that realm… Then that means…!-

My excitement quickly grew as I looked down at the small metal ball. -I can actually create matter!- It was a power that could lead to infinite possibilities. "Uwaaah…" -But figuring out those possibilities is for another day…- With a yawn, my drowsiness quickly returned. -How am I tired? How long was I in that realm…-

Even my biological clocks were totally out of whack after coming out of the space rune. -But I guess it doesn’t really matter…-

Finally deciding to just lay back down, I let out another yawn and slowly closed my eyes. -I think I’ll call that realm the void, and this grid…- Although it took a moment, a memory from Earth popped into my head. -The ‘Fabric of Space’… That feels.. fitting…-