Scribes are far from helpless in battle, even if you ignore the single use items, they pose a threat by virtue of runic flags and tiles. While expensive and highly specialized gear, they can be laid as traps ahead of time, and sufficiently skilled scribes can even deploy them during the battle, often through the use of air, wood, or metal mana.

  — Excerpt from Comprehensive Introduction to Scribing and Seals

  Day 140, 4:20 PM

  Metal flowing into lava was a major hit, but one large dump was clogging up the flow, since it failed to melt instantly. The fix was simple, and I made a mental note to try multiple smaller inlets in the next loop.

  Electricity generator, on the other hand, was a massive blunder. Electricity follows the path of least resistance. I knew that much already, but that knowledge translated into my realm just as randomly as it did in Everrain.

  Sometimes lightning arced into the air, sometimes it struck water, sometimes land. I tried adding a large metal rod at the top, and electricity mostly flowed up through it to a random height before lashing out just as randomly, often preferring air, probably because of the height. What it was striking, I had no idea.

  In the light of my ordeal, the pursuit of physics suddenly seemed a lot more important, but I decided it was temporarily not worth the time investment. Science fell apart in the world of my mind made material by magic. In fact, I was certain believing something was more important than being objectively correct.

  The second loop was nearly over, and I had several more ideas to test out before I could move on to the proper realm shaping. In the third loop, I found the shaping required less focus, but the same amount of time, since I was more familiar with the objects I was sculpting. I spent a dozen loops of careful measurement of the mana inflows, making a wonderful discovery. The more elements I added, the faster I took mana in. Two elements in the form of lava created mana just as quickly as wood and water, or water and metal.

  Two elements yielded ten percent extra mana equally split across the elements, three yielded twenty-one extra percent, four - thirty-three, five - forty-six. Like everything system related, the growth was in multiplicative steps of one hundred and ten percent, and it meant the more elements you managed to combine, the more monstrous you would be. My findings completely contradicted the conventional wisdom, and they explained why dual-elementalists were more powerful, even when relying on a single element.

  But it wasn’t all great news. Rot or decay wasn’t a separate element, and neither was ice. As for electricity, I made it work with a pair of towers, three layers apart, but that was just the start. A pool of boiling water, right next to the lava river, which flowed nowhere but evaporated like crazy, billowed steam which condensed into clouds. Ten days were a short period to make anything major, but tiny patches of fluff wandered the sky, which was slowly turning blue.

  Hopefully, continued production of clouds and the buildup of electricity in the air would create proper thunder clouds, and thunder, even if only a trickle of it appeared, was a new source of energy.

  Continued experimentation also yielded some surprises. For instance, the elemental nature of a realm was determined when the last patch of the original dust became elemental aligned. Once that happened, no new elements could be introduced into the realm, but you could cram as many as you could before that.

  It was yet another marvelous discovery, something I bet nobody had noticed before. With the ideas regarding my realm’s future mostly sorted out, it was time to spend loops working on leveling my class.

  First, I expanded my realm to the fifth layer in just over six hours, then I sculpted the first three layers, properly setting things up for the future even if I knew the loop wouldn’t stick. Then, I performed the most basic Black Fist strike, since Dandelion already had a skill which would help with the spell execution.

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  I tried the same approach in the first run, and it produced no results, so I was ready for a long, disappointing slog lasting me multiple loops, but my fist turned grayish and hardened, the system notification appearing before my eyes.

  I didn’t have metal mana to fuel it! I realized the problem almost immediately before focusing on the notification.

  [You have used a mageknight ability.

  You have leveled up.

  Select a skill within sixty seconds or a random one will be assigned to you.

  Expert Body Reinforcement - Your physique greatly increases compared to an average awakened of your realm.

  Initial Mana Purity - Your mana slightly condenses compared to an average awakened of your realm.]

  I stared at the notification and rubbed my eye in frustration. Expert Body Reinforcement was a killer, but what I needed was my mana and magic to be more potent. I took the third Initial skill in a row, grumbling all the while about my horrible luck, before checking my level up condition, advance your realm.

  So, most mageknights needed to reach the second realm to become third level realm mageknights, then the third realm to reach the fourth level. That already eliminated a stupidly large number of awakened, capping them at level two to three. It was safe to assume, however, that anyone at the third realm was a level four realm mageknight and had a random collection of four skills.

  Interesting, but irrelevant.

  Since the loop was meant for leveling and testing the waters, I focused on absorbing the manarium reserved for advancement, and soon enough, my sixth layer formed and I shuddered, my heart racing.

  My soul quaked, and I entered my realm, already knowing what I would find.

  My inner world was an imitation of the real one, on its way to become as good a replica as I could make. And in that fake world, she stood, waiting for me. She wasn’t old like when she died, no my goddess was young, full of life and vigor and free of the clothing’s entrapment.

  “Aang,” she said, her red lips making my head spin.

  She was a phantasm, a demon spawned by my heart, she was perfect, her breasts full, her eyes warm, her body bare.

  “Manny.” Tears slid down my cheeks even as I approached her. I hugged her and just held her in my arms for what must have been an eternity. Then I slid down her and suckled on her breast while she gasped and moaned. I spent ten days in my realm, loving the memory of my wife before I passed out.

  When I awoke sprawled on the dark cave’s floor, my throat was sore from thirst, my guts writhing from hunger, and my head throbbed in pain from all my unmet needs. I checked Redo, and I still had a day, so I entered my realm and found my goddess, only to hug her and weep. Centuries separated us, but she was there, the purpose of my life, the one creature I ached to meet again in this infinite, cruel world.

  Another loop passed. I didn’t even try to sculpt my realm in that one, nor the next, nor the next. Instead, I made love with her; I held her tight, and I wept. As loops passed, the tears dried and my lust died.

  “You know,” I cupped her cheek, staring at her breasts, “I don’t think I will get tired of those even after a million years passed. They are a thing of beauty.”

  I kissed her lightly on the lips, and the pent up passion, the desire, the intoxicating need for her had died down.

  “Thank you, I really mean it. Even if you’re a fragment of my soul out to devour me, I am grateful for putting up with me.” She remained silent, a simple visual construct, unable to carry a proper conversation. A doll with barely any sapience.

  “I miss you, I really do, and this mana-doll in your likeness was a really beautiful therapy. It helped me calm down, find my center, and remember the reason I’m doing all of this, why I’m seeking godhood.”

  She stared at me lovingly, but her love was a sham. She had no idea what love was, no idea what existence was. I sighed. I didn’t like what was coming, but it was something I needed to do.

  “Manny, I will find you, and we will reunite one day.” The heart demon cracked. “I repeat my vow to you before this mirage. I will be king, you will be queen, and together we will live and love forever.”

  The mirror of my love burst into fragments, glassy shards falling to the ground and turning to mist. My six-layer realm stood empty, ready for me to sculpt it and ready for me to see which skills lay beyond the next level.

  There was a lot of work to do, a long road to walk until I grew powerful enough to make good on my promises, but even such long paths started with the tiny steps a novice had to make on the road to becoming a master.