Chapter 85 85: Void Expanse
The shifting sound of the door opening resounded, Rio walked in to the room — his eyes staring at the spacious vacant area.
It was exactly as the same as last time he used it. The room was utterly white, the walls and ground beneath was spotless clean. Further the end of the room, some dummy Ragdolls were situated — mostly used for testing and experimenting skills and attacks.
Suddenly, from his body — a tanned, muscular man dived out of his body. Faust hovered around the air, muttering. [There\'s something covering the room...is that a formation? It\'s really advanced...I studied some formation in my life, but I can understand only a little of that.]
"It\'s rumoured to be specially crafted by Director Guinevere." Rio commented, his body walking to the middle of the room. He used a beginner skill, blasting a fireball to the walls.
Rio continued: "It\'s the most believable explanation. The Director did create this academy and handled most of structure and defenses."
In that moment, before the fireball could scar the walls — a blue protective barrier swallowed it, protecting the walls from getting damaged.
Faust raised his eyebrows with interest, saying. [This is really interesting. Mind if I study it for a while?]
"Go ahead, I\'m going to be busy experimenting with my Dimensional Expanse," Rio muttered, letting Faust go.
Faust flew through the air, arriving at the blue barrier as his eyes stared intently at the invisible glyphs on the walls.
Rio deeply breathed, preparing himself. He adjusted his posture as he sat down on the ground, closing his eyes. Every Rank B and above Sorcerers had their own dimension they could access on. He was no exception. The last time, he had accessed his dimension using Dimensional Expansion.
...But this time, he wasn\'t going to access the dimension by using Dimensional Expansion — but rather he was going to access it in a different way.
He was going to transport his mind to the dimension itself by concentrating on it deeply — that concept was called the Mindscape. The Mindscape was the process in which a Sorcerer would transport their mind inside their own dimension.
\'Alright. Let\'s try it.\'
He closed his eyes tightly — looking deep inside his body. His spiritual vision wandered inside his body, staring at the two floating white cubes beneath his heart. The first one was small and pure white. The second one...was large, not extremely large, but still huge compared to the first — also, contrary to the white color of the first cube, the second one had infinite depthless darkness contained within.
Those were his two Miracle Cores; respectively, the Rank E Miracle Core, and the Sorcerer Rank B Miracle Core.
He ignored the small, white cube as he focused on the second cube. He stopped his vision for a moment — deeply breathing once more before he dived deep into the Rank B Miracle Core.
In that moment, his mind blanked — his body convulsed. Rio opened his eyes...but this time, his surroundings were different. Unlike the spotless white room he was previously in — the surrounding area was that of the void. Infinite, and depthless darkness surrounding his body.
"This should be my own dimension then..." Rio muttered, his body moving within the dimension. The dimension had no end, only infinite depthless darkness. He nudged his hand. In that moment, he felt something connect within him.
The connection was faint, but he could feel it. He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating on the connection. The connection was a faint red string loosely attached on his body. He grabbed the faint red string.
As soon as he grabbed the red string, his mind trembled, appearing on a different space — on this space, it was still the same depthless void — but unlike the empty dimension earlier, this one had two items floating on it.
The first one was a snake scythe, the long handle of it emanating divinity from its regal, godly scales.
The second one was more abstract — he couldn\'t describe it other than an image of a virus or curse.
Then Rio realized why he felt familiarity from the two items. Both were the things he had erased from existence using [Essence of Nothingness] from his fight with Aza. His brows furrowed, confused on why there were here.
\'Didn\'t the items and curse return to Aza the moment the Dimensional Expansion collapsed? How were they here?\'
He thought as he pondered deeply, the items shouldn\'t be erased anymore since it returned to Aza before they could throughly be erased from reality.
\'Perhaps there was a trigger that caused them to come back? If so, what?\'
Rio tried to think of an answer. A while later, he arrived on a possible answer.
The most likely answer was.... Aza\'s death.
...That\'s the most possible conclusion he could reach for now. Aza\'s death had caused the lost and erased items to be back in his dimension.
This was mystical. It showed that as long as he used [Essence of Nothingness] and killed the opponent — he would get whatever he had erased.
It was similar to a co-op game where the death of the player drops loot. So to say, player one died by player two\'s hands — then player two would get player one\'s loot. And next, if player two died by player one\'s hands — then player one would get everything stolen from him back.
In his case, he was player 2 and Aza was player 1. But instead of dying by player 1\'s hands — he survived and killed player 1 instead, keeping the loot he had obtained.
Rio floated through the void, closing in to the two items that were contained by the void space. He looked at the first item, the snake scythe — above it, he could see a description of its history.
[Aza Ledger\'s (Divine Weapon)
Scythe of Death (4 hours)
— The faint, partial representation of
Qrqvitiq\'s demonic strength. It is a scythe
molded from the user\'s desire while the
power is from Qrqvitiq. Its power is to dec...]
\'The four hours should be its years of existing in the world. Meaning it only existed yet for a short, measly 4 hours in the world.\'
Rio read the description, his face turning into a frown. The power of the scythe was no joke. At the slight slip of touch to a being — the skin of that person would decay and rot, and when the blood of the person gets caught by the blade, the person gets cursed.
All of that was exactly what happened to him. In under normal circumstances that would\'ve been an insta-death for him. But he had the Dimensional Expansion and removed them.
Then Rio realized as he read the text. That was the true power of Miracle Invokers, The power to make the impossible, possible. The power to overturn what is normally unstoppable. The power to negate laws and create a miracle situation.
\'No wonder the title of wielding magic is Miracle Invoker\'
Rio thought as he moved his eyes from the scythe to the second item. He shifted his attention to the floating abstract image beside the snake scythe. He looked above the curse, staring at the description attached to it.
[Curse of Qrqvitiq (Unawakened) (1 hour)
— The curse of Qrqvitiq that
reduced an whole civilization
to a deathless and empty state...]
\'Though, the real question is...can I take these items out?\'
Rio thought, his brows raising with interest. Could he? If he could the scythe would be an extremely strong item he could use as an trump card in the future.
Thinking of that, he immediately floated to the scythe to try. His body floated on the scythe, closing his eyes as he grasped the snake scythe. He concentrated his mind on leaving— In that moment, his mind trembled as his body convulsed.
Rio opened his eyes, staring at his surroundings. It was white. He was back to the training room... For the snake scythe... He shifted his eyes, staring at the item he was holding on his hand.
"It worked,"
Rio muttered, his hand grasping the snake scythe. He could take out items he had erased previously. He tried wielding it, swinging it an arc as it slice through air.
His eyes darted around the room, noticing Faust hovering around the air — his eyes still fixtated on the walls.
"Well, let\'s try this [Divine Weapon] out," Rio said as he gripped it tightly. His body approached one of the Ragdolls in the room, taking a step back as he assumed a stance.
Then he dashed in, his body vanishing like a blur. He swung the snake scythe — tearing out the Ragdoll\'s metallic body. A loud tear resounded, the ragdoll\'s metallic body tearing itself apart.
He stopped as he stared at the teared metal. Slowly, the shiny and glistering metal changed — its metallic components decaying and rotting away as the shiny luster it had, vanished.
"So it even works at materials and not only living beings, huh?" Rio asked, casually wielding the snake scythe. The snake scythe was good, but he would refrain from using it. He didn\'t know how to use a scythe — and the slightest mistake from the snake scythe could cause him to kill himself.
Suddenly, as he was thinking, the snake scythe on his hand vanished. Rio frowned, confused. In that moment, he felt the snake scythe return to his dimension. Realizing the cause, he muttered.
"Oh so there\'s a time limit? Interesting..."