The Gamer's POV

Chapter 342: The Other Side of the Page

Cedric leaned over and reached for his cup, only to frown when he realized it was completely dry.

"Fashkire dark brew no longer does the trick," he muttered as he set the cup back down on the desk. "When is Lumieria going to produce something like the Winterberry Blend of the Evrarel empire?"

Winterberry Blend was a coffee made specifically for Dominants. Because higher-grade Dominants possessed incredible bodily resistance, at a point, standard caffeine barely registered in their systems. Winterberry Blend was designed to bypass that supernatural tolerance entirely, processed and graded to match a Dominant’s specific tier.

It was so effective that if a Grade Two Dominant accidentally drank the blend meant for a Grade Three, they would be so jittery and could even stay wide awake for more than a solid week straight.

Unfortunately, due to the current friction between the Lumierian Empire and the Evrarel Empire, imports of the Winterberry Blend had completely ground to a halt.

Cedric sighed and folded the latest edition of the Fashkire Gazette. He then picked up a small diary from the side of the desk and flipped it open before him. After dipping a feathered quill in dark ink, he began to randomly jot down a few things he had learned about himself.

"All my subjects of influence have been given feathers by Aika. Which means I have feathers scattered across the empire."

He stopped writing and muttered, "So many of my subjects of influence died during the war that there’s not a lot left." He turned his head slightly to the side and asked, "How many subjects of influence do I have remaining?"

The Gamer Privileges interface responded immediately:

[295]

’Hm... so I lost more than two hundred and fifty of the first ones, but gained about a hundred and fifty something recently.’

He turned back toward his diary, the quill scratching against the parchment. "There were not a lot of first-year cadets from the Florentian Empire in the First Ring during my eclipse. Only one bastion came, and from them, only a few died. Among the people I had earlier brought back to life, only ten were from that bastion. So I have just ten subjects of influence from that empire."

He dipped his quill once more and continued writing: "I’ve noticed that it doesn’t matter if I’m dead and have my physical body completely destroyed; Aika can still use my mana. The fact that she is even able to manifest despite my death is proof of that in itself.

"Which means the mana core is not just anchored to the physical body, but sits somewhere between physicality and spirituality.

"So, if only one of us between me and Aika dies, my feathers which are scattered around will not vanish because they are being powered by the one who remains alive. If we both die, however, all those feathers will vanish instantly, as there will be no source left to sustain them."

He paused and looked lost in deep contemplation for a moment. Eventually, he put the quill on the paper and wrote something entirely different:

"God of Divine Restoration and Benevolence."

He tapped the feather of the quill against his chin, then after some thought, he drew a neat circle around the word restoration. He muttered that word to himself a few times as he tried to piece certain things together.

He then remembered how he managed to restore his temple every time it decayed into its dilapidated state. When that struck, the final clue clicked into place, and his eyes widened slightly.

"That’s it! It might just work!"

After deep contemplation, he began to see that his power — Chrysalis — was not just about bringing people back to life.

It was also about restoration. Restoring that which was lost, and restoring a broken state back to its perfect, original wholeness.

"Could I restore them back to their perfect state?"

He muttered as he tapped the quill against a book a few times without actually writing anything. Then he sighed.

"I wouldn’t know until I try. But that leads me to the next hard bit. Multiversal travel. This is either going to kill me, or it’s going to be the greatest gamble I’ve ever taken."

He began writing again on the paper.

"Loophole."

He circled the word. After a few quiet seconds, he continued. "The teleportation aspect of One with the Ravens is fueled by my mana. The further the place I want to swap to, the more the mana cost. In other words, distance. City distance is about spatial separation, while multiverse distance is about variation and probability.

"Now that begs the question: what defines the distance across dimensional boundaries?

"We are able to travel through worlds because of the bridges, which close the gap between realities. Does this gap follow a set distance, or are the different realms merely overlapping layers, like pages in a book that are stacked atop each other?"

He thought for a long time, absentmindedly tapping the blunt end of the quill against his palm.

"If the gap follows a set distance, then the actual spatial gap will be far too large, and the mana cost might be astronomical. If I try to swap, I’ll die before I even know what’s up.

"But if they are overlapping layers, then the other world might just be inches away, just in a different vibration or layer. This means the mana cost might not be based on miles, but on the density of the veil between worlds."

A minute passed... another... and then, it hit him.

"Wait... veil!"

That’s it!

The answer was right in front of him. It had always been.

Truth be told, right from the beginning, he had always been hearing of the worlds beyond the Veil. But only now, at this moment, did he truly understand what the Veil itself really meant in the more literal sense.

Some people called the veil the blue bridge itself, while others called it the gateway between worlds.

However, all those were not accurate. It was called the world beyond the veil because the veil was the barrier between the worlds.

The other realms which revolved around this Cradle were really just overlapping layers, like different pages in a book. The Veil was the hardness of the pages, and the bridges were what helped one get from one page to the next. The First Ring and all the other Rings were not far away across an endless void. They were not like planets in a solar system. They were right here.

Which meant...

"They are just on the other side of the page."

Cedric ran a hand through his hair as the weight of the epiphany settled over him.

"That explains why, even though it’s faint, I can still feel all the feathers I left in the First Ring before I died."

He stared down at the paper as the pieces finally clicked together.

This also explained how Leon had been able to get essence from his subjects of influence in the empire even while he was in the First Ring.

It was the question of how this was possible that had caused Cedric to think about all this in the first place.

He was trying to figure out the possibility of traveling back to the First Ring to gain subjects of influence, and now, the path was unfolding right in front of him.