[Eridius World, Outer Space]

A golden streak could be seen exiting the Eridius World as it zoomed towards the moon. It was fast, incredibly so. But although its speed was enough to make the origin of its nature a mystery that couldn’t be identified with a mortal eye, compared to the distance from the planet to the moon its speed could be called ‘leisure’.

Still, who else could it be other than Eridel? At this point in time, he was the only one capable of freely leaving and entering the planet at will, so it was clear that it was him whether you could make out his details or not. But it was somewhat odd. Eridel could appear anywhere he wanted so long it was within the domain of his territory. The moon was certainly within it, so why did he not just appear there like he does in other places?

No doubt, he had another agenda.

…

As Eridel made his way towards the Moon he thought about many things at once. Mainly, the current events taking place in the world, the things he had just done, and the things he was about to do.

Before he had spoken with Gasalm, he had been aware of this World’s very first grand conference that had taken place on the Central Continent and had been watching it keenly. How could he not? He was quite happy with how the event had gone and knew that it had set things in a good direction.

Sooner or later, he would be able to finally create the 7 Empyrean Virtues. It was a dangerous decision to make, especially as burdened with fortune as he already was after creating the 9 Hells and Grand Heaven Realm, but he had already made extensive plans to deal with fate, and either way, with the method he had used to create the Heaven and Hells, he was already in fatal trouble. It didn’t matter if he added cherries on top.

As for Gasalam, that had also gone pretty well. But he knew that there was still room for failure.

If Gasalam decided that he wanted to comprehend Fire instead of Lava, he had a much higher chance of achieving that with his raging mentality than he did with lava. Lava was a slow, patient, unstoppable force that destroyed everything in its way. Being vigorous and volatile was more like fire and lightning.

And it was for that reason that Eridel employed 2 methods to lower the chances of Gasalam comprehending Fire and raise the chances of him comprehending Lava.

The first one, in order to make the second one work, was to purposely antagonise the boy. To make the boy hate him so much that he would do anything to harm him or at least anger him. Such as ‘ruining’ his plans.

Even if the boy didn’t recognise that he could comprehend Fire, with the way Eridel had been telling him to be wrathful and angry for the sake of comprehending lava, for the sake of his own goals… he was bound to do the opposite, just to spite him. And with the boy being a kid, it made that likelihood higher.

That’s why Gasalam had stopped screaming towards the end of their ‘conversation’, forcefully trying to restrain his anger in order to rebel against instructions.

But little did he know that was exactly what Eridel wanted. As the boy patiently held onto his anger, his wrath burning like nothing else but slow and restrained like a thick liquid, he would inevitably find himself drawn towards the ‘like-minded’ lava currents.

On top of that, if he wanted to live and not die a dog’s death filled with endless regrets, then he would have to do something if he wanted to protect himself from the creatures in the 1st Circle. Eventually, as he ran from the nth attacker, he would decide that enough was enough, he would comprehend lava and destroy all of his foes. It didn’t matter if he was complying to the will of that ‘Grand Elder’ because he would destroy that ‘Grand Elder’ too.

It was for that reason that Eridel had said the words: ‘This lava here is your gift. Claim it and burn me with it if you dare, and make all of your suffering worth it.’

He had been sowing a seed of thought. The boy, young and ambitious as he was, would really think that he could do it if he worked hard enough or got lucky enough, so when he next met the ‘Grand Elder’, he would ‘surprise’ him and make him regret everything he had done to him, thinking it ironic that he would use the ‘Grand Elder’s’ gift to end him.

Also, the words ‘make your suffering worth it’ doubled as a way to prevent the kid from becoming suicidal out of despair. It could still happen, but the chances were lower with just those 5 words.

Now some might question his methods. Why didn’t he just present himself as an ally? Why didn’t he just encourage the boy to comprehend lava, taking the place of someone who wanted to pass on an ‘inheritance’. And the answer to that was that it was inefficient.

The mentality of someone that was carrying a suppressed but boiling anger compared to the mentality of a confused but hopeful boy. It didn’t need to be said which one was better when it came to comprehending lava.

That was all. Eridel had done it all for efficiency.

He always had a plan and took everything into consideration whenever he made decisions. He wasn't just being a dickhead for the sake of it, although he would admit that he enjoyed acting like a movie villain. At the end of the day, everything would all benefit Gasalam. There was just a price to pay, and although it may have been painful, it would all be worth it.

When Gasalam got older and realised how essential power was for those who didn’t want to suffer in life (especially in this era), he might just end up thanking him for what he had done.

…

[Eridius World, Outer Space]

The Moon had changed quite a bit from what it used to be. No. It was more than just ‘a bit’. It was a lot. After all, there were trees here now. Trees, growing on the moon. The wood may have been grey and the leaves silver, but they were still trees.

And that wasn’t all. There was grass too, amongst other forms of plant life. And in terms of structure, it looked like mountains had been created as well. The random craters had been tidied up, and there were even lakes filled with Lunar Water that could be found here and there.

It was af it the Moon had been trying to emulate the planet it was orbiting.