When we arrive back at the tower, I am determined to start the next excursion immediately. Perhaps it is impatience, perhaps it is foolishness, or perhaps it is childlike excitement. Regardless, my heart is set on it.
"Leviticus, raise the tower’s security level to maximum. I am going to collect the final noble souls we need on my own."
"Sir!" He shouts. "You don’t have to do that! We’re here to help you!"
"I know. No offense to you, however, but things generally tend to go faster when I work alone. Tell everyone of my whereabouts. I will be back within four days." He looks like he wants to object, but resigns himself and nods solemnly. I exit the tower unnoticed and find a sealed flux rift we haven’t gone through yet, and for the last time, open it and walk through.
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The world on the other side is unlike any I have encountered so far. It is a lush rainforest, so I cannot see six feet past the trees. I hear the sounds of native wildlife all around me. Something about this feels familiar. As I walk through the rainforest, I see new yet familiar animals. That’s odd. The vis here is completely natural. Could it be?… I activate my thaumostatic harness and levitate high above the forest. I keep rising for about three hours. At this point I’ve breached the atmosphere. If my body were still human, I would be very dead right now. I look down and, sure enough, my suspicions are confirmed. Holy shit. I was right. The supercontinent… Pangea.
I gape at it in all of its glory. So, this must be a mirror world of my own, only created much later. No gods exist yet in this entire universe. Unfortunate, but I should be able to gather enough benign and predatory souls to equate to a single noble soul. As I begin my long descent, I see something in the distance that at first greatly confuses me. It looks like… me? The clone rapidly accelerated towards me, confirming my suspicion. I grace for impact, but it grabs my throat, somehow outpacing my own movements.
"Calm the fuck down! Who are you? What do you want?"
"I am you!" He responds in my voice as we hurtle back towards Earth. "Sorry about this. It’s necessary for what’s going to happen within the day."
"What are you talking about? Release me at once before I kill you!" I throw a punch, but it deflects off of his runic shielding, just like mine. I realize I am hopelessly outmatched. As we near the ground, I see that we are plummeting straight into a thunderstorm. Oh shit. We submerge into the storm as we both continue to struggle with one another. As I rear my arm back for another punch, a divinely lit bolt of electricity strikes us both midair before we hit the ground. I get up quickly to confront the impostor, but he is already gone. "What the hell…?"
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I sense something in my focus pouch is giving off a different aura. I narrow it down to my time stopping foci. What the fuck happened? I slot it into my gauntlet and cast the spell. Like normal, time around me stops. However, I notice something unusual: time is staying stopped. I also notice the spell focus has some sort of ring around it. Curious, I touch it, but nothing happens. I try all sorts of things on it until I begin twisting it backwards. That’s when I realize the entire world is moving backwards with it. Oh my God. Is this… oh my fucking God…
Thirty million questions of mine all receive their answers at once, and thirty trillion more are spawned. I wrote the Thaumonomicon. I wrote the tomes. I am the shadowy figure that approached Leviticus. I go back in time to attack myself. But why? How does this work? My working theory is that the lightning bolt that struck us triggered some sort of reaction in my spell focus due to it shooting a great amount of Potentia (Energy) Essentia through the focus, creating a new focus entirely.
But still… how did I create my own self-sustaining time paradox? How is any of this possible? I conclude that traveling through time must affect every single dimension. With this godlike new implement in my arsenal, I realize what I must do.
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I return to the Emptiness. At this time, it looks exactly the same; however, the tower is gone. I fast forward time until I see a hooded man. I stop it, and bend the light around my armor using the infusion I put on it to give myself a shadowy aura. I tap him on the shoulder. He jumps viciously, and when he turns, I recognize him as Leviticus.
"Oh my God, another person! I thought I would be alone here forever!" He shouts. His voice is extremely coarse.
"Leviticus," I say, lowering my voice, "take this tome and guard it with your life." I hand him my journal, which contains all my notes about Thaumaturgy. "It is called the Thaumonomicon. There will come a time when a savior will arrive here to deliver you from this place. Before that, more people will end up here. With them you will build a tower. You must NEVER read this book yourself. Do you understand?" He looks scared and confused, but with no other options, he nods and takes the book. He is crying.
"Wait! What’s your name?" He asks. I turn to him.
"I’m sure you’ll figure it out."
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After placing my notes on souls (the Anininomicon) where the praetors would eventually find it and my notes on Media in the cave I originally found it, each about a year prior to their discovery, I fulfill the requirement of going back to fight my past self and getting him struck by lightning as to prevent any time paradoxes. As I return to the present and take a seat to rest, I contemplate what just happened. I just traveled through fucking time. Holy shit. Well, at least I can safely cast Nefarium here. I’ll make sure to place a flux barrier around this rainforest so the rest of Earth remains unharmed. The number of benign and predatory souls in it should be about sufficient to finish the fueling of the Gate of Heaven. As I construct the barrier and cast Nefarium, I cannot help but revel in my recent success. Godlike power, absolute knowledge, and supreme command are all mine. But most importantly of all, I am soon to receive God’s grace and forgiveness directly. Only a few prophets can say they’ve had that.
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I return to the Emptiness and rewind time to just after I left. As I enter, Leviticus is shocked that from his perspective I am back so quickly. "Did you forget something?" He asks.
"Only to tell you that we now have a sufficient energy source to power the Gate of Heaven."