Endless.
The sea of darkness filled with shining stars that surrounded them was truly endless. It was like looking into a boundless abyss that could swallow everything, yet it was filled with life.
It had been a month since Damien’s group had left earth en route to the Cloud Plane, and they were finally able to see how different the observable universe was from the previous notions on earth.
The Milky Way Galaxy itself was no more. Instead, it had merged with the surrounding areas and created a massive starfield. Most of the gas planets that inhabited the galaxy were nowhere to be seen, and even mars had all but disappeared into the void.
When Xiao Zhen was asked about this phenomenon, his reply was simple.
“Not every planet has the ability to adapt to mana.”
Those planets that didn’t have as much corporeal mass or the ones that couldn’t birth intelligent life weren’t suitable for a universe introduced to mana.
The world cores of these planets weren’t able to grow and facilitate this new energy, which led them to be either banished somewhere else within the infinite void or destroyed without a sound.
Just thinking about these massive celestial bodies disappearing without a trace sent shivers down the spines of everyone present, but they quickly shook it off. They didn’t have the power nor the ability to comprehend such large-scale destruction.
Instead, they focused on the new worlds that inhabited the space around earth. As it turns out, many discovered exoplanets were still remaining in the area but hadn’t developed as earth had.
There were also countless new worlds radiating life. In the short month that they had been traveling, they had already come across 3 other worlds that were either beginner worlds like earth or middle worlds like the Cloud Plane.
These classifications were also provided by Xiao Zhen. Apparently, they relied on both the mana density and purity and the strength and number of the beings residing in the world.
Higher worlds, which none of them had ever seen, were said to contain tens of demigods and had ambient mana that would feel heavenly to people like them. But Damien didn’t necessarily believe this.
The mana purity aside, the fact that there were worlds with such large numbers of unascended demigods didn’t sit right with him. Didn’t they want to pursue more power? What would drive them to give up that path to stay within their worlds?
Still, he tried his best to take his mind off the hypotheticals.
The flying treasure itself was another marvel for Damien’s group. It was similar to a luxury cruise ship, with many built-in facilities. There were halls filled with bedrooms that could contain a few hundred people if they shared 4 to a room, and training and dining halls as well.
There was also a sort of recreational center meant for killing boredom. Although Damien didn’t visit it yet, he was slightly curious about what it held. Recreational culture would also differ between worlds.
However, there was one thing he was most excited about. The ship had its own gravitational field, allowing the people on board to use the balconies attached to their rooms and feel as if they were truly standing alone in the vast space.
Why was Damien excited about this? Well, it wasn’t simply to sightsee. Rather, it was for training. Damien has known for a while that he could traverse space with his bare body already, and he had been dying to try it.
The only problem now was that the ship was moving leagues faster than he ever could. If he simply left its premises for a few minutes, he’d get stranded. Although he could warp back on board, he had never tried this skill on an object without a fixed position, so he didn’t want to risk it.
As he told Rose about this, she reminded him of something crucial.
“Can’t you just do that yourself through your vector manipulation?”
Damien smacked his forehead. His excitement had turned him into an idiot for not thinking of such an easy fix.
Putting some thought into it, Damien realized that this was an even better option. If he got to control the gravity field, wouldn’t he be able to train as he pleases? Still, vector control drained his mana, so he couldn’t use it to form a continuous field as he had no idea how long he would stay training.
It didn’t take long for Damien to put his plan into motion. The very next day, he left the protection of the flying sword and sat atop its hull. The gravity here was still present, but it didn’t isolate the ship as much as the areas on the balconies.
This was probably due to the fact that the people who designed it didn’t mean for there to be people sitting on this area of the ship.
Still, this was the perfect environment for Damien. He hadn’t even begun to comprehend what dimensional magic could do, and being in outer space was the best place to do so.
As he entered a meditative state, Damien felt the presence of a larger volume of spatial mana than he’d ever felt before. Well, this was obvious since he was surrounded by the element.
‘Is it even an element? This spatial mana seems to be much stronger and more profound than anything that could merely be called an element.’
He opened his eyes and tried to see the swirling ambient mana that always colored his vision, but he wasn’t able to do so.
‘Is it because the element is colored black like the space around me? Or am I too weak to see it?’
He had the faint feeling it was the latter, but it didn’t make sense to him. His eyes had never failed him before this, so they shouldn’t do so now.
‘No, being overly reliant on them is stupid.’
Damien shook off his stray thoughts and went back to focusing on his surroundings. The mana around him carried its own ebb and flow, but the space itself was incredibly still.
He wanted to compare the sensation he felt to peeling an onion, but that metaphor didn’t do it justice. There were just too many layers to call it as such.
‘What is space?’
He thought he already had a good grasp of the concept, but this experience was proving him wrong.
‘It’s ever-expanding, but it also constricts upon itself. If it collapsed, then the result would be chaos. Can time even flow without the presence of space?’
Time and space were two interconnected concepts. Without space, where would time flow? Time was sometimes said to be a concept only perceived by the mind, and it was something that was perceived differently by many beings.
Could the difference in the processing speed of the brain contribute to how beings perceive time? Time continued flowing no matter what, it was like an immortal and unbiased river. It listened to no opinion and never slowed down.
What changed was how people used their time, and how much time they had. Damien remembered the murals on the ancient temple in the Eternal Secret Realm. Those demigods on Apeiron lived for at least ten thousand years.
How would they perceive time? The measly 21 years he had been alive would only be a drop in the ocean for them. They might even spend a longer period of time simply sitting in meditation as he was doing now.
‘What would people do if they had the ability to stop or even reverse time?’
Revive the dead? Fix their mistakes? There were plenty of options, but would any of them lead to positive results?
As he figured before, time was an unbiased concept. It was impossible for someone to manipulate it in a single instance solely for their own benefit without affecting anything else. Time was a river, and swimming upstream in that river would inevitably cause massive ripples.
‘But would I still choose to change the past, ignoring these ripples?’
For Damien, the answer was a resounding no. His fall, the bullying he suffered, and even his father’s disappearance were all events that led him to where he was today as the person he was today.
Without those events, he wouldn’t have become strong. Without those events, he wouldn’t have met the people he cared about. He might not even have been able to heal his mother.
But for others? He knew that there were countless people in this ever-expanding universe that would do unspeakable things for the chance to change the past. To turn the wheel of time on a universal scale for such a selfish action was absurd, yet oddly relatable.
‘But what about controlling time within a smaller area? Does this relate back to space?’
The two concepts went hand in hand. They showcased duality and a balance in the universe.
Without space, where would time flow? And without time, how could space expand?
‘Why did I start thinking about time all of a sudden?’
His thought process had skewed so far from the original goal that he almost forgot he was meditating.
However, unbeknownst to Damien, two different translucent types of mana began slightly stirring around his body.