28 - A pair of goth ladies

I had thought that Sylvia didn't want to talk because I wasn't at the void magic stage yet, so I thought she'd talk to me now, but she was only even more distant and angry than the last time.

She even outright used some strange power to throw me a few dozen kilometers away.

Getting up, I was utterly confused, but decided to go back for now.

After absorbing my first wisps of void mana I had come to visit Sylvia, but it looks like that had been a meaningless endeavor.

Returning to a house I had bought, since I was plenty rich enough and thought it was too much to be at the void magic stage, a being beyond the level of the realm, and still sleeping in inns every day.

Although the house was a modest 3 stories, the courtyard was huge, larger than a mansion's.

In that courtyard, I practiced the [Void Severance Slash] and absorbed more void mana.

This went on for a while, and I noticed that as I absorbed more void mana, my ability to cast magic was slowly but surely growing.

There were only wisps of void mana at first, so it didn't do much, but those wisps began to add up.

Normally, the mana in the body was self made. It wasn't absorbed from the environment. Usually, the only exceptions were mana potions.

However, at the void magic stage, it was the norm to absorb mana from the void. This wasn't the norm below the void magic stage because the mana in the environment was limited, and the absorption rate of the trace amounts of gaseous mana in the air was so slow, it was faster just to recover mana normally.

Essentially, it was useless to absorb mana from the air, since there was so little of it.

You could absorb from liquid mana or mana crystals, but unless you had trained and gotten a skill to help, like me, that would kill you.

Hence why mana potions were the only exception.

However, void magic was only castable using void mana, so it had to be absorbed, and moreover, it was endless in the void. Noone had ever found a limit to it.

The absorption rate was also not an issue, since void mana was stronger than normal mana by millions of times, so even a small bit of absorption was worth it.

For instance, just these few wisps gave me a noticable increase in casting ability.

Beyond complexity, high level spells required constant mana to be channeled into them. Since void mana was less prone to dissipation than normal mana, it made the casting process much easier, and since it was so strong and dense, it could be converted into normal mana at a high rate as well.

Mana was measured in MP, although I didn't know what that stood for, but it's what everyone used for some reason.

1 MP translated to one drop of liquid mana, and around 10 MP was what it took to cast most 1st circle spells.

In comparison, a single time cast of a 10th circle spell generally cost around one billion MP.

For reference, I had around 10 billion MP.

At the void magic stage, void mana was measured instead of normal mana, using the unit VP, or drops of liquid void mana.

1 VP = 10 Million MP.

In other words, my entire mana pool equated to 1000 drops of void mana.

Currently, all the wisps of void mana I had collectively added up to about 0.1 drops of void mana. However, using these to cast spells resulted in a qualitative difference.

When I say void mana doesn't dissipate as easily, I mean it really doesn't dissipate.

Some kind and communal god had measured it and spread the information around, and this was stated in [Basic Void Severance Technique], which had a lot of info about the society at the void magic stage. That god had measured how long it took for void mana to dissipate naturally in the void.

He died before finding out.

It had to be said that gods lived for billions of years.

Hearing the news, an immortal decided to perform the same experiment, and he reached a proper conclusion.

1 trillion years.

Void mana would take precisely one trillion years to dissipate naturally.

The book didn't go into further detail about why it was exactly that long, but it did state the meaningfulness of this information.

Normally, mana had to be channeled continuously to cast a spell, since the mana used in the magic circle would dissipate otherwise.

With void mana, although mana still needed to be supplied to the spell itself, the magic circle could be upkept indefinitely, or rather, for a trillion years. This was unimaginably significant.

After all, for normal spells, about 20-30% of the mana cost was in casting the circles, but even more importantly, in arrays, except for some unique arrays, usually close to or all 100% of the mana cost went to the runes.

Using void mana meant an array that could stand strong for 1 trillion years with no further mana brought in.

The uses of this need not even begin to be mentioned.

Arrays also used the nth-circle system to gauge complexity, even though there were no circles involved. A 10th circle array meant an array with the complexity of a 10th circle spell.

And just like spells, arrays went beyond the 10th circle too.

There were arrays using void mana at the 11th circle that could be made once and upkept essentially forever with enough void mana to start. It was ridiculously powerful.

Moreover, arrays could be inscribed on things. Meaning artifacts that kept their effects for a trillion years could be created with void mana.

I also learned something I found a bit ridiculous.

A realm was actually just a giant void mana array.

When I read that, the only thing I felt was a sense of being so small and insignificant.

How strong did you have to be to create such an array?

I had heard the term "god" thrown around both in the technique manual and across my life, but I still didn't know exactly how strong of an existence it was.

I book also described what the broader multiverse looked like.

The cosmos was set up in rings, at the inner ring were the strongest beings, and in the outer ring was everyone else. The multiverse was shaped like a giant cube, and at the bottom was a large amount of land.

This was called the cosmic floor.

Above the cosmic floor were 9 layers of "sky", and the 9th sky was the rest of the space in the cosmos.

The cosmic floor was the largest connected part of the cosmos. Meanwhile, in various parts of the outer ring were the "Outer Realms".

The realm I had been born in and the one I was in now were both outer realms.

The inner ring was veiled in mystery, and the only thing known was that there were 3000 realms in the inner ring, and everything, or almost everything, in the outer ring came from these 3000 realms, be it techniques, bloodlines, or even the outer realms themselves.

Realms had shapes, and that meant they had edges. If you went to the edge of a realm from inside it and broke the void barrier, you'd be able to see the realm's outline behind you as you stepped out, but if you entered the void from somewhere within the realm, you'd have to travel past where the edge would've been to see the realm's outline.

The void magic stage was large, and it encompassed many levels of power.

This was because from having mere wisps of void mana, to having billions of VP, was all encompassed in the void magic stage.

[Basic Void Severance Technique] had but one 11th circle spell right at the end, [Void Hazmat], and it cost 10,000 VP.

Spells from the 11th-20th circles were called Grand Magic.

Most Grand Magic was large in effect, but sometimes there were cases like these where it wasn't.

[Void Hazmat] used the Void Mana one absorbed to form a barrier against the void mana in the void, allowing safe traversal. It was a necessary spell to know.

Of course, while casting it I couldn't use agility or flight spells, and even if I could, the distances in the void between realms were still too far for me anyways.

I'd need a really high circle spell to gain the speed to traverse the void myself, which I would have to continuously cast on top of [Void Hazmat]. Instead of that, it'd be faster to study arrays and create a ship.

That's right, this was the standard of the void magic stage, using ships with void mana arrays inscribed into them.

Thinking up to here, there were still many problems, and I realized I was still far away from going to another realm.

Step one, the centerpiece of it all. What allowed me to even dream of such things in the first place.

I needed to reach the absolute peak of the void magic stage.

Of course, this was easier said than done. For now, I'd just absorb as much void mana as I could.

Step 2, I needed to become an array master, and not just some weak one either. I at least needed to be able to inscribe 11th circle arrays.

Step 3, make a ship and go to another realm to learn more about the void magic stage.

I wish I could just ask Sylvia about it, but she was still ignoring me.

Was this what it felt like to get rejected?

But...I really wasn't interested.

Joking to myself, I cleared my mind and focused.

I had the thought to go exploring around this realm now, since I should be at the peak of power in it, but after meeting Sylvia I had realized there were stronger beings than anyone knew about living here, hidden away.

I wasn't planning on going around and accidentally provoking those people.

For now I intended to just diligently practice absorbing void mana and studying arrays.

If the results weren't satisfactory after 5 years, I'd think of something else.

***

In the Chiral Prism Dimension.

A strange fractal of space twisted and contorted, revealing a figure that walked out of it.

It was a figure clothed in a mix of light and dark colors, and that had a perfectly sculpted physique. Their skin was a pristine white, but their was a black pattern on top of it.

It seemed somewhat like a tattoo, but it was far too black for that. It seemed as though it was a piece of cloth draped over their skin with no wrinkles, and it was absolutely pirch black.

This black pattern was striped, and the stripes slowly increased in distance from on another the further up the arm one looked.

At the shoulders, the last stripe traveled towards the torso to form an unusual pattern on the chest, abs, and back, reminiscent of the tattoos of binding often cast by gods to restrain themselves.

The figure revealed itself to be a woman, well endowed and tall, perhaps some 6 feet.

On her forehead was a pattern of black resembling what one might see on Earth's victorian era crafts and architecture.

When placed on her forehead, the pattern somewhat looked like some kind of odd crown.

The woman's eyes were pitch black, and her irises were a glowing white. Indeed, they glowed in the dark of the Chiral Prism Dimension.

Walking forward in a regal and upright manner, hands clasped in front of her, she walked out from the darkness of that part of the dimension and stepped to the side, where there was light.

The Chiral Prism Dimension was a dimension full of large translucent and transparent prismatic crystals, arranged in a large fractal the size of over a million kilometers.

It was enough to get lost in, but to make it worse, the whole place had no gravity.

You had to fly or otherwise hold onto the air, or the crystals that were everywhere, to move around, otherwise you'd just float there, moving to and fro, just as the crystals did.

The dimension was a giant cube, and the walls of the dimension had several thousand kilometers of solid blue crystal on them, forming a sheet on each surface.

The sheets weren't flat, but full of minor ridges and imperfections, almost like someone had half-assedly compressed the thing into a sheet with haphazard attacks.

If that was what had happened, they had done a decent job given the size of everything, since the largest ridges were only one kilometer tall.

Near the center of the whole dimension was a cluster of crystals with webs strung on them in exquisite patterns, and at the absolute center was a group of over a dozen or so sets of crystals with slightly different looking webs inbetween them.

It was like a lineup of webs, as though meant to show off one web pattern next to the others.

On one of these webs, there was a woman sleeping, who suddenly woke up when she sensed someone enter the dimension.

It was the woman Merca had seen in his dreams years before.

As mentioned before when Merca had those dreams, she had a clear black spider body for her lower half, and black, doll like hands and forearms.

She had made multiple beds for herself with different web patterns, since they gave a different texture and felt different to sleep on.

She had long decided over the years that the 4th bed was her favorite. She had even memorized the pattern on it.

Well, she remembered all the patterns of webs she had ever strewn.

Rubbing her eyes, she saw the black tattooed woman draped in black and white cloth walk up to her.

"Oh, hi, dear customer. Do you wanna try one of my beds? They're very comfortable. I can sell them to you for the low, low price of an eternity in Hell. My treat. Oh no, I suppose an eternity in the Abyss would be a fairer price? For someone like you I mean."

The tattooed woman looked somewhat annoyed, and spoke.

"Arachne, stop playing games and talking nonsense. I came this time because I sensed a spatial fluctuation come out from this place. Considering the arrays in the spatial tunnel, I'd reckon it took me at least a decade, maybe 2, to get here. Tell me, what did you do back then to cause that?"

"Oh that? Nothing much. Actually, now that I think about it, I haven't the slighteat clue what you mean. Did something like that happen? Sounds like it has absolutely nothing to do with me. Why don't you head back and look somewhere else?"

The air around the tattooed woman began to be enveloped by a black haze as she failed to control herself, but she finally drew it back in.

The haze had come from her "tattoos".

'Making me spend over a decade getting here just to tell me to waste another decade going back with nothing to show for it? Little bitch.'

"Arachne, didn't I already tell you to stop playing games? We might not be taking action right now, but there are still things we can do to make you suffer if you won't cooperate."

The woman's tone was laced with malice, pure and deadly.

"If you want to go down together then sure. Shoot your shot."

"You think I won't?!"

The woman flared up and lost control again, but seeing Arachne smirk, she calmed down.

The last thing the tattooed woman would do was give Arachne what she wanted.

Seeing her calm down, Arachne lost her playful expression and replaced it with one of boredom.

Sighing, she said,

"I wish I could help you (lie), but I really don't know what you're talking about (lie). Although, now that you mention it, there was something weird (truth). Back around the time you mentioned, there was this black liquid that appeared in some of the crystals (lie). Well, I drank it all, so it's mostly gone (lie). Of course, don't take my word for it. Here, I saved some, you can have it. Go study it or something."

Taking out a vial of black liquid from thin air, Arachne threw it at the woman.

Narrowing her eyes, the woman recognized what it was.

'Indeed, this could cause a spatial fluctuation, but why would it randomly appear here in the Chiral Prism Dimension? There's no way for Arachne to get her hands on it. Unless...could it be? Is our presence outside the abyss too much for the main theme to handle? Or...did they really follow us out all the way here? Whatever it is, I have to report this.'

"Thank you for your cooperation Arachne. Tell me if there's anything you want."

Arachne wouldn't help for nothing.

'Oh, this silly girl, she really thinks I'm helping her! Ha! What a joke. I don't think she fully realizes the goal of the main theme this time. Well, she's been in the abyss her entire life, of course she doesn't get how things work up here. It's quite pitiful, actually.'

"Well, if there was something to ask for....how about a Sanctum Septica?"

"..."

"..."

"Arachne, this is the 3rd time I'm asking you to stop playing games."

"Oh no, I'm serious this time."

"Wha-come on, don't be ridiculous. A Sanctum Septica?! You know we can't give you that."

"But I need it for making new types of silk. You have to know, it's my hobby to make new silks and make beds out of them, and I've had to work with the exact same 3 silks for thousands of years now.

This is not ok. This is abuse against all spider kind."

Arachne made an expression of being wronged and dramatically wiped a fake tear from her eye.

The tattoed woman stared back at her with a slight crease between her eyebrows, evidently not amused.

"You-argh, fine. I'll see what I can do. But if you get it, it'll be sealed to oblivion, I hope you know that. You'll only be able to make silk with it, nothing else, and besides texture it won't have any other properties. No magic, no nothing."

"Of course. Just what do you think I'm going to do with it, plan a rebellion? Little ol' me? I could never. I'm just a little spider lady. Yup, that's me, just a cute, itsy bitsy spider. With huge tits."

'She really didn't need to add that last part. I swear, we're both women, and it's not like mine are small or anything. Is there a need to say these things?'

The more she looked at Arachne's foolish antics, the more annoyed she got, so the tattooed woman turned around and hurriedly left.

The moment she did, as the fractalesque portal closed behind her, Arachne's face changed from one of tomfoolery to an incredibly wide grin.

It was a smile even the Devil would find inspiring.