A week after clearing out the hospital, Mark sat in a restaurant with an awkward expression with an irritated Josh in front of him.

“So… what do you want?” he asked while looking at the box with Domain crystals.

“Nothing, my master told me to give it to you.” He said just pushing it over but Mark stopped it half way.

“For what purpose?” Mark asked.

“If you are afraid of being in debt then don’t, neither of us care about wanting you in our debt. Still, it is a pain in the ass to reach you.” He said.

“I’m more impressed that you could reach me as easily as you did.” He said looking at the box there was a set of seven colored crystals and five pure white ones.

“The white ones are called space crystals and can form the raw space while the colored ones are the seven element crystals. When used on a space item or location that already has an open space, a domain for instance or a micro world like what I made with my crystals, you will balance all natural forces and create something more akin to a living world.” He said showing a crystal orb that he spit out but the internal space was tiny.

“That is small.” Mark said

“Only because it was just made, I’m branding it with my mental energy and infusing my mana into it and it will slowly adapt to my own body strength and energy purity and the size will match and I can make a spiritual mountain here. Also it only looks small, even now it has 20 km of diameter across.” He said before recalling that orb.

“Well humans can forge these but phantoms can’t directly use them. We can only use crystals we’ve created ourselves to absorb other parts.” He said.

“Yes… master mentioned it and sent an extra piece.” He said and tossed an extra piece on top of the five. “Master hides it in front of all the elders but he has told me that mortals cannot survive without soul society or at the very least, we cannot survive without the power of your upper echelon and your techniques for finding spiritual threats. He is a rare believer that the troubles of spirits must be dealt with among your kind and the fact that the world lacks a true underworld for souls to travel through to the afterlife is a serious threat that can only be resolved with a ghost building this himself.” He said.

Mark looked at him, “and you?” He asked.

“I half believe it. If there existed an underworld, there wouldn’t be even half of the souls that don’t move on and would remain in the world and we wouldn’t need people like you, the one in a billion with soul eyes to see the soul fragments and spend months in a city to piece souls together. They would create beings already specialized in culling spirits, humans would instead only need to focus on the mortal aspect after that.” he said.

Mark looked at him and the crystals and sighed, “Soul society has always been trying to create mythical artifacts. Anything anyone could think of such as the book of death are things that are theories at best. I’ve not even given that subject any thought, instead I’m in the group that wants to increase the number of people who can fight as exorcists to be able to handle more jobs.” He said.

“The Book of Death… I’ve heard once that IEO, or the divided group before it’s formation, had once battled a spiritual being that once created a book that could literally kill and absorb the souls of those dead. It was captured and sealed and that seal has been changed every generation to the most advanced seal. It’s been nicknamed the Book of Death. Soul society has asked to take it into their custody, since they have better seals, but we’ve never been so close to allowing that. There was even a large war for it that we won… at a price.” he said.

“It isn’t the same theory. The book of death in the theories I’ve read says it is something they all aim to create so that they can find the dangerous souls and send someone to capture it before they fully break up and forcefully pass on so that these souls do not remain on earth.” Mark said.

“That is an interesting concept but it is probably even more difficult than the book sealed away.” he said.

Mark nodded a bit awkwardly.

“So… how do I even break this thing?” He asked, looking at the extra crystal.

Josh just shrugged, “Your problem.” He said.

Mark sighed and looked at the crystal and channeled his spiritual power and surprisingly found a few very thin openings and channeled his spiritual power into these needle tip thin points and it went slowly to the center and to their surprise, after all of them were filled, suddenly crystals began a strong suction of his power and was surprised.

He looked at his own crystal and put it against it and it lightly glowed before the full crystal became like a gel like ectoplasm as did his crystal and they fused into a single crystal and his power filled them all.

When it solidified, he heard clicking and they broke, reforming into many pieces.

Josh watched and was surprised by the ease he found that out and Mark looked and from his momentary change in expression, he knew he already knew this fact.

“So that was how it worked.” Mark said and counted and smiled, “Seems it also follows desires.” He said and took one shard and did the same with the white crystals and it replayed the process but this time he wanted the crystal to remain a single piece and they reformed into a complete piece.

He spent about ten minutes going through the white crystals and with some worry he did the elemental one but they had no changes except they now radiated with a strong vitality to his touch.

“Well I honestly didn’t expect to get this as soon as I did.” Mark said.

“Are you going to try to add it to your domain?” He asked.

“Not sure, I’ve read up on it but all attempts to date have failed.” he said.

“Can I read the theories and construction methods that these are incorporated to?” He asked.

Mark looked at him for a while and then took out his phone and opened the files and passed it over and he started to check it out and after reading it a while, his brows raised.

“So this is how phantoms view the structure of phantom domains.” he said.

“Do mortal people view it differently?” he asked.

“Yes, we view it more on the aspect of a space tool. An isolated dimension of its own however, phantom domains as seen by you all is a connected but distorted piece of space. Trust me when I say it isn’t although initially it could be but for sure there are things that break away from the world’s own space. That said, this aspect is actually poorly developed for you ghosts. Maybe it is because you all don’t use space storage that much but your space theory is actually quite lacking.” he said.

He lifted up his ring and actually took out more than twenty rusty old rings and pushed them over and told him to sense.

Mark took one and used his spiritual power and actually found a void of space there and disconnected from the real world but anchored to the ring.

He looked at the body and could see the spiritual runes that humans used.

“Okay so why did you bring out so many?” Mark asked,

“Try to see if your domain can absorb the spiritual formula of the rings and incorporate it. If it can, it might mutate into a much better world.” He said.

Mark snorted, “It is easy for you to say that because it isn’t something so intimate to you. I could die if that place is destroyed.” He said and tried and figured out how the rings worked to absorb the other ones and then stored the box.

Mark thought a while and asked what he wanted in return.

“I said nothing.” He said.

“I know but don’t think the crystals are cheap. In spirit dollars, they go for $5,000, in US dollars that is $250,000 a fragment.” Mark said.

“Then leave an IOU. If your domain evolves then it is sure to form unique spiritual materials. If so then you can pay me back with these unique things. Spiritual dimensions like domains have a tendency to create unique materials unseen before.” he said.

Mark thought and nodded and took his phone and they gave each other their numbers because it was a possibility that they would likely interact in the future.

After that Jose left but Mark looked at all the items and took the rings out and examined them in detail and gathered his spiritual power over runes that were letting out tiny spiritual pulses and after breaking them, the ring structure did not change because the energy there was not the same as the rest.

He cleared all the rings of these tracking runes and then the box he did a thorough search before packing everything up and got in his car and headed home.

Jose naturally sensed this and in his car he snorted, “Cautious fuck.” He cursed and just let it be.

After a few hours of driving, since Mark had set the location far from home, he finally arrived and after parking, he headed down below.

Entering the space, he could feel it was already stable but the ring on his finger started to give a reaction as soon as it entered and he felt a very weak pull but he headed to near the center before taking out the box and opening it.

He then took out the many rings from the first storage ring and he could feel a pull from the domain towards everything.

He looked at the rings and found the one with the strongest pull and looked at the rusty looking ring but he knew it was the best one. The internal space only looked about twice as big but it definitely, at one point, had a huge space but age had broken it down.

He channel spiritual power and flowed it out into that ‘pull’ and the domain finally got the support it needed but beyond just that ring, all the rings began to float and they flew out towards an aura and all of them began to release old and weak runes and after releasing them all, the weaker rings fell out and the same runes began to fuse and repair each other to perfection before infusing into the strongest ring and repairing the formations of the ring to complete.

When it was perfectly restored, the rest of the power was pulled out and now that large spiritual orb floated there but it lacked a link to grow.

This time a second pull got stronger and he found it was the five white crystals but he took one and put it in the middle of the spiritual rune orb.

The reaction expanded and the domain began to tremble as the domain rules throughout the domain began to vibrate alongside the ones in the crystal and it melted and infused into the orb before it rapidly expanded.

It filled the entire space going to every last corner and at that moment, Mark felt a massive change in the domain.

The other white crystals reacted quite strongly and flew up into different ‘voids’ in the rules and melted before infusing into the domain’s space before their rules all spread out and infused into Mark’s own rules and acted just like the rings did for the best ring and enhanced the rules of his domain and made them more perfect while the space rules infused into the middle of the rules.

Finally, the elemental crystals shot out and took their own place and melted into the world and the rules of the seven elements infused into the domain.

At this point, Mark finally felt an immense pressure attack him as all the rules started to affect him, especially the elements.

He felt pain and quickly ran to the altar and pushed all his books to the side and began to train immediately. His body was trying to adapt to the immense number of rules.

He trained and felt the formation of things he had not even known about but was part of the mortal body. They were called spirit roots, they are aspects of the mortal body that formed the dantian and the talent for cultivation. They were also part of the meridians and were the reason humans could even cultivate. A person’s potential was usually dictated by the quality of these roots.

For a phantom, these did not exist even when they regained their mortal body, not until they become nature spirits where they reconnect to the natural elements and have full complete human bodies forged and reforged many times to perfection.

For him, he felt it’s formation now and it was changing his mortal shell’s structure. Each element of the five primary elements forced itself into the ectoplasm that had taken on the shape of his organs and it fully perfected the forms of each. He was absorbing and burning through energy as he adapted as best he could to these changes and soon everything that wasn’t solid had formed from ectoplasm and he was already reforging his skin to the quality it needed to be for a walking corpse.

Outside of his body, his domain was getting more and more extreme and it expanded and space seemed to distort and the land changed.

All his items scattered like the books and the fragment stones were all brought close to his altar but the space beyond expanded far and even formed a horizon while the ceiling expanded up. The rocky ground, beyond a short 2 km, became soft soil and strange, blue colored grass began to grow in abundance before different kinds of sprouts were born and soon a forest formed on one side. Space almost completely disconnected except two things anchored it. The ley line vent and the elevator entrance. It was mysteriously not affected by the countless changes in front of it and was still human size despite the immense space warping happening here.

After the space calmed down, the elements began to calm down and it was demonstrated in Mark’s own body that it took complete shape but was not yet solid.

When it finally calmed down, the 2 km wide domain had grown to the base size of 30 kms.

When he opened his eyes, he was shocked to find the blue sky, gentle breeze and barely notice the rock ceiling that was incredibly high above his head now.

He sat there feeling the feelings of this domain and how many massive holes had been closed. Holes that felt like they should have been closed from the beginning now were truly closed and it felt comfortable, like a leaky faucet that was finally fixed and water was running as intended.

He still felt faults though and it was things born from the new changes but his mind felt like something was constantly filling his mind.

He got up and headed to the nearest one and felt the space of distortions. It was a little different from the first time when the elder used the coins. He did teach him about these because they weren’t lacking rules, just faulty and not built right. He modified the energy and rules but an instinct guided him to fix it like a guiding hand and it slowly closed one by one.

When he was done, he had spent an unknown amount of time already here and when he relaxed, he only felt a few empty voids but they weren’t rules related to the domain, some of them were like the spaces that the white domain crystals had infused into.

“The domain is complete… it can’t get more complete but… those holes i feel in the domain… it changes the fundamental purpose of the realm. Left alone, it will grow normally and become like any domain but if they are filled.” He muttered and looked at the mother and child books and checked the mother book that had been 80% repaired.

He put it back on the altar before checking the child books and found they were already fully repaired and put another group and just sat there bathing in the feeling of his domain that was in constant change and trying to understand all these peaceful feelings.

The cycle of day and night appeared in his domain as clearly as outside throughout the days he just felt the energies and their constant changes while watching his books repair themselves for a month and finally they finished and he had the mother book in his hand, fully repaired and he took the first child book and touched it on the first page.

It started to glow before it was absorbed into the first page and a number ‘1’ formed at the top right before the page flipped on its own and he followed up going through all the child books until he had no child books left and they were absorbed.

The book began to glow and adapted to the number of child books and formed three pages for each book.

Finally he channeled a small technique and absorbed the book into his soul and sat in on the altar and began a short training and infused his own spiritual power into the book that sat near the core of his soul just like the axe.

The book sucked up his power and he could feel the bond form between them and fill the cover and every page and after a while all of the book had absorbed his power and rejected more of his power and he called it out.

“My book is finally done but I don’t have the immense energy to power it.” he said.

He sat there and held the book before a faint smile was on his face as he felt a pull from his domain for the bonded book but it didn’t know how to incorporate the book’s rules and it would likely destroy it in the process.

When he looked out into his own world he felt a really good feeling and got up before walking around the 30 kms and stopped as he found some strange herbs and carefully packaged them in boxes made to carry spiritual herbs and walked out and commissioned a transport to Josh to replay the crystals.

As for building the foundation in the domain, he wondered how he would do that. He definitely had to build some kind of foundation to expand that vent or it might stagnate him.

In the end, he sighed as he had to call Billy and the elder to come by and he showed them.

Their faces showed expressions of shock and horror after seeing the full size.

“W-what did you do?” the elder said.

Mark invited them to the altar and explained the process of incorporation of the seven elements along with the rings.

“To think… to think the clue to expansion were the mortal’s spiritual space technology mixed with a domain crystal. How big is the base?” the elder asked once more.

“30 km in diameter if the phone’s distance gauge isn’t wrong. Was quite a pain to properly get it but it was just about 30 kilometers.” Mark said.

“This is the biggest domain for a poltergeist. It will grow so massive after each upgrade in rank.” Billy said, rubbing his head.

“How does the foundation for the vent work at this size?” He asked.

“The foundations are max size at 5 kilometers in diameter. They will only build that far and then you need to build upgrades that build off that.” Billy said. “Kid, what the fuck are you doing with this place?” he asked.

“I don’t know… I didn’t know I was going to make this or even get in contact with this stuff. I just happened upon a domain fragment when i purged a dark specter and than suddenly i got domain crystals with a message that a phantom with my obsession and dedication to it could build the solution to the problem faced by the world and build a real underworld to deal with the billions of souls that don’t move on.” He said.

“You’re letting that rise up to your head.” Billy said.

“No I’m not, I’m just telling you what I heard. It is one IEO big guy’s thoughts of me. Most of my movements towards the domain have almost exclusively been to deal with those annoying voids and faults in the space. Now the only empty spots are things that I feel would change the fundamental function of the domain itself and maybe a few weak voids where normal domain crystals could enter. The rules of space are all stable with no problems.” He said.

The two were frowning, “Do you plan to actually build an underworld?” the elder asked.

“How would I even do that? If somehow it comes to happen then I would probably do it because being the king of the underworld also means I can become the greatest and most well known exorcist in the world, the grim reaper, or whatever it could be called. It honestly would make organizing and recruiting phantoms to fight dark spirits and collect the souls of the world to properly judge so much easier.” Mark said.

“Kid… this is serious, you are talking about making an underworld. It isn’t the first time someone tried to do it and it was extremely harsh when such things appeared in the past to the point that soul society doesn't like spirits that openly say that and could even regard them as rogue.” Billy explained.

“Yeah… but again, I’ve not actively pursued that path. The only active thing I went after is trying to forge a working Book of Ghostly registry which I think I might have succeeded but don’t have any capacity to test.” he said showing them to the book.

“How!” The elder shouted.

“How? The process I purchased was viable. The only thing that you need is to make 4 extra copies for the mother book and stack them and the top book absorbs them and with the material from the four others he rebuilds the burnt pages. It is charred initially but putting them in an altar where it receives spiritual energies slowly heals it. After that is just doing a similar step to the child book with fewer books eating one another and then just restoring them all and fusing the child into the mother book and forms the system.” he said.

The two of them were in utter shock because the assimilation aspect was never seen or thought of before.

He showed them the complete book that had already fused with his spiritual power completely making it a part of him already.

“Are you planning to use it?” Billy asked.

“Well I need to test it somehow right? I’ve not had time to because my mind was occupied but I do want to see the result on a phantom.” Mark said.

“Use me then.” he said, seriously.

“No.” The elder butt in. “The book was designed originally as a systematic method for the ‘mother’ to empower the ‘child’. A poltergeist cannot empower someone who is a walking corpse.” the elder said.

“What do we do then?” Mark asked.

The elder snorted, “As we’ve always done experimenting with some kind of spiritual object like this. Use criminals and the souls of evil men to do it.” the elder said.

Billy nodded while Mark was in thought, “I also want to test something, I want to see if the book has the capacity to summon all the fragments of a broken soul.” he said “Or even a spector that lacks a few parts.”

They were both shocked but understood that it could be incredibly useful to find souls like that.

“If that is the case, we should properly test this because then we can also see the danger and benefits of the design created by the society and if it can be used in any way.” Billy said.

They agreed because it was a big thing to be able to make a huge fighting division with everyone capable of fighting spectors.

As such, the three left the mansion towards one of the prisons where they could get the names and faces of prisoners including those fragmented in the air and some spectors that move about in the jail without attacking anyone.