Rainer looked at the Werewolves practicing with the Void-step body enchantments with a smile on his face. Any Werewolves unloyal to the tribe had long since left when much of Demon-kind turned against them. Everyone that was left represented the future for Rainer as they would eventually follow Kara as their tribe leader.

Them being Demons would be a non-issue, as Rainer’s recent gains in rituals let him understand more about restrictions in enchantments. He guessed he’d have his first Demonic Aura-hiding bracelet ready in a few weeks. It wouldn’t compare in strength to the original, but it’d be a good start.

It was the same for the Rite of Passage. While it would be consuming for him, he was already playing around with a way to replace the blood sacrifice with an Arcane-weaved Ritual circle. It would take thousands upon thousands of Arcane Power to create such a ritual circle for just a single person, but with his Spatial Storage freezing time on Arcane Weaves, it’d be easy to do so.

When it came to Demons, they could survive with the whole world seeing them as enemies. And with such small numbers at that. Any Tier 1 level 25 Demon could fight against a Tier 2 Human. Combined with Body Enchantments, and then actual enchanted gear from his eventual Guild, what kind of force was Rainer building under him?

“So what happened last night?” Kara asked, seated beside him as she took a break from helping her fellows learn how to use the enchantments. Anyone lacking enchantments worked on building up their residence. With Delilah's pack on their side, they need not worry about monsters in the immediate future.

“A bit of a mistake when practicing getting Void and Arcane to function together,” Rainer said. “Just in case, since the space is linked to my Soul, I sent everyone out.”

If Talvara heard him call it a “bit of a mistake” she’d likely try and fight it out with him. The damage from the [Sleep Learning] space had even reached her true body. While the damage was inconsequential to the ancient Void-being, that the injury happened at all from a supposedly illusionary space was frightening. Since it was also basically impossible for her main body to be hurt by such a minor Avatar taking damage, Talvara briefly considered whether she’d ever help with another experiment. But only briefly.

The Void-being was attracted to the power produced just as much as he was.

“Did you forget I’m a Werewolf?” In the past she’d have to try and listen if someone was lying, now, she couldn’t help it. Especially with the constant changes to her bloodline. She had already noticed that her Demonic eye had already grown a bit darker in color. Not to mention the random gains in attribute points.

“Honestly, yes.”

Kara just laughed and did not say anything else. Telling him to be more careful with magic would just be a pointless gesture and only serve to annoy him. So what was the point? But she knew Rainer valued his life, and he had already shared a few ideas for how he’d become immortal with her. So she had no worry that he wasn’t taking his life seriously.

Rainer looked out over the snowy north, wondering if this forsaken place might be a bit better for the future of his Academy. No matter, he was an [Archon] and a [Harbinger]. All places on this planet were always just a moment away.

“How about we makes things more interesting?” Talvara asked Francis as he set everything up for them to play against one another. She found the idea of racing little vehicles against one another to be quite silly, but no matter.

“How?”

“A bet. Nothing too onerous, merely a single request from the other. So long as it won’t cause great personal harm, it must be done,” she said with a grin. She wasn’t particularly interested getting his favor in such a manner as she was simply winning at something he considered himself skilled at. It rankled her that his space was so much better than hers. And that he himself could resist and hide from Divinity while she was trapped in the Void no better than a rat.

Francis grinned deeply. This wasn’t going to be fair in the slightest.

“Deal.”

Francis raised an eyebrow as he heard the snapping of plastic, though she had fixed the controller before he even saw what happened.

“What was that?” he asked, amused. He had just won the first game, by a significant margin too.

“Nothing, I am merely unused to this material,” Talvara explained, giving her best smile. Inwardly, she promised that if she ever found a race of people that had blue shells she’d wipe them from the face of the plane.

“So your request?” Talvara said…

With the fakest smile Francis had ever seen.

Talvara gritted her teeth as she lost in yet another game. It made no sense. She was even using seven different consciousnesses to deal with different parts of it, yet it was as if he could see the future! She was even cheating and looking at his seperate screen using the space’s power, but it didn’t help, she always got shot before she even had a chance to understand what happened. She had even gotten him to agree to best out of one hundred.

She wiggled uncomfortably as she adjusted her short skirt. She had expected favours or perhaps services from her followers, instead his requests just got more and more embarrassing. Her ‘servant’s’ outfit that he had her wear made her feel more embarrassed than a lack of clothing.

Three of her Avatars were dealing with the previous bets, one rubbing his feet, the other feeding him a fruit called a ‘grape’, and a last one fanning him with a ridiculously sized leaf.

They may be her Avatars, but it was still her, and it still infuriated her. His casual attitude as if trumping her was an afterthought only further angered her. That he was using the requests for having fun with her rather than getting anything even remotely useful was somehow both simultaneously endearing and embarrassing, leaving the Void-being utterly confused.

Nothing in this world made sense to her anymore. She may as well be a goddess of the Void, so she didn’t understand anything she was feeling nor had she experienced such things before. But she knew one thing...

Victory would be hers.

“How about another game?” she said sweetly. At the very least she wouldn’t let him know how much he was getting to her.

Francis just chuckled and grinned back at her. Seeing her act this way was proving to be a far better alternative to making a Void Sword.

Rainer paced alone in his [Sleep Learning] space, in thought on the nature of this whole place. His Avatar was off elsewhere, working on recreating Kara’s bracelet for hiding Demonic Aura.

Last night proved beyond all doubt it wasn’t illusory and there was nothing fake about it. However minor, the damage had extended beyond his own Soul and to himself.

While the applications of that for the future were beyond interesting, Rainer’s immediate thoughts were on the result of Arcane and Void colliding together with his Soul as the medium. The experiment didn’t mean the path was wrong, but rather that there was more to it. Like having a certain thing in his Soul as a buffer, something his Avatar didn’t have. But it was too early to test it directly on himself.

Talvara was fuming and angrily mumbling to herself off to the side, occasionally demanding him for a new game to play against Francis. She even went so far as to ask for games he hated or was bad at.

As if a game he was bad at existed.

Rainer opted not to tell her that the younger him, because of [Sleep Learning], had time for both a social life and copious amounts of gaming. And he may or may not have cheated with [Sleep Learning] powered gaming when little kids insulted both him and his mother online over his lack of skill. No matter how powerful, how could a novice compare to the old him, let alone the attribute enhanced version?

It was far more fun watching the stoic Void-being lose all sense of decorum. No doubt she was letting out her frustration here to hide it from Francis.

Rainer found himself momentartarily ruminating on what might have been. A professor of all things or a professional gamer, there truly were few boundaries when it came to [Sleep Learning]. All the while, his sister fighting and killing, living a life far different than his comfortable future.

Ah, now I’m mad again. I wonder if Luna would mind if I brought her here tonight?

How much of this anger was his, and how much was influenced by his Arcane Power? How much was influenced by the temporary Void Will he currently had? Was he always doomed to have thoughts and feelings that were not his? Even if he balanced these two forces, would anything left of him just be an amalgamation of the two, rather than himself?

He was unwilling! He was unwilling to be influenced by the Divine, so why should this be any different?

He closed his eyes and focused on his feeling of anger. With a thought, he devled his mind into his Arcane Power. He was no more than a small boat awash in an ocean. His feelings and thoughts of anger were taken and enhanced beyond reason.

With another thought he sank into his Void Will. His emotions became no more than a single ripple of a calm sea.

Rainer went back and forth between his two energies, trying to keep steady the thoughts that were his own.

If anger was no good, then what about love? He thought of everyone he cared for, before eventually returning to the Fairy he just thought of earlier. He went back to his Arcane Power once more, and yet he held on as best he could to what was truly his. The Arcane Power couldn’t increase his passion, nor could the Void Will dampen it.

So he went deeper into both energies, switching back and forth the moment his original love changed to something that wasn’t completely his own. Every cycle he felt himself growing more and more in control, more balanced, more resistant against the effects of both Arcane Power and Void Will.

Unknowingly, the white void around him shuddered.

Talvara was brought out of her cursing as she looked in shock around her. The [Sleep Learning] space was already bordering on perfection. Skills could be leveled, magic used freely, even an entire Void made just for this space.

And yet it was improving. The natural laws of the space came even closer to reality. The change was minute to the point anyone other than her would likely not even notice. But it was still changing.

Hours later Rainer finished his attempts, having finally reached a limit to how much he could sink into each energy pool and remain unaffected.

This is the balance I need…

Rather than trying to balance his Arcane Power and Void Will by adjusting them, he should rather improve himself. Make himself a place where Arcane Power and Void Will could function together. Looking at his Soul with [Soul Detection], he saw that his Soul had strengthened in a strange way, and he guessed it would be harder for the two energies to go out of control.

He had finally found a way forward. A way where the end result was him having true control over the Arcane and Void, along with the impossible energy they created when colliding alongside his Soul.

[General Enchanting has reached level 6]

All the while, his Avatar worked tirelessly alongside him.

Francis looked out over the city fortress, its shimmering barrier and tall, elegant wooden buildings giving it a sense of wonder. It protected the nearby Port, looking like something out of Victorian England though the strange floating ‘cars’ gave it a different feeling.

“The land around here is quite perfect,” Frederick said, flying beside Francis.

“How do we clear them out?” Moving out thousands of people, unconscious or not, would be a lot of work.

“Simple. We’ll steal the device that operates the barrier. It is worth more than the city itself. The chances of them placing another out here is next to none. They’ll consider the city as good as dead given the animal activity in this area.”

“And the Mages?”

“I’ll tell them you are capable of safely removing their collars. I’ll kill any who resist or ask stupid questions. There shouldn’t be that many in the city that are combat capable. Most war mages of this country are currently busy dealing with their neighbors.”

Francis raised an eyebrow at that murderous statement. It was easy to forget his ‘kind’ grandfather had a massive body count. But, he was too affected by the Void to care about Mages who got in the way. He valued his grandfather’s safety far more than theirs to suggest for him to stick to non-lethal.

“I’ll start.” Francis flew over the center of the barrier, which seemed to be at a massive manor that easily had over 500 rooms within. There wasn’t any doubt to who lived there.

[Void Descent]

The world turned grey and thousands upon thousands of people felt an unspeakable presence enter their minds. Even the most willful only resisted for the barest of moments. Only those with enough Mana stayed awake, but whether or not they’d be willing to fight after that experience was a different question.

Francis flew straight into the manor, bypassing the barrier with ease as he used a [Void Call] to create a hole. His grandfather, along with several of the more powerful mages from their base, followed behind, Helen from last night among them.

Using [Arcane Revelation], he easily located the massive core responsible for the barrier. He flew through the manor, passing by the collapsed residents.

It took only a few minutes for them to enter the basement and find the massive black orb that functioned as the barrier’s center. They passed by numerous defensive installations, but their operators were unconscious. What was an impossible mission in the past became a casual fly-over to the core.

A [Void Hold] and an attribute-enhanced chop to the neck handled the single powerful mage guarding it. Francis destroyed his collar, but didn’t bother trying to wake him up. They weren't here to recruit anyone.

Helen appeared next to him, the rest of the seven-man team using gravity magic to remove the core, and then earth or fire magic to move their way upwards. Francis could feel the sheer amount of magic in the sky as his grandfather fought off whoever resisted.

“You know, when I heard the plan I didn’t quite believe it. But that…” Helen shook her head. Seeing people on the street just fall over had been beyond strange. And even though the presence was on her side, she still shivered a bit as she thought about it. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be the focus of it.

“Things are really going to change, huh?” she said, unable to hide the sheer amount of hope in her voice. To one day live in such a beautiful city…

Francis looked over, but, before he said anything, he saw the tear dripping down her face. What was an easy and casual act for him affected so many lives, now and in the future.

“Yes, they are.”