Bright rays of sunlight shone through the concealed entrance of the cave. Although not much light was able to make it through, it was enough to illuminate the hazy atmosphere within.
Damien was lying on the cave floor, his body unmoving and his mind completely empty. Even if he wanted to formulate a thought, it was impossible.
3 days had passed since he passed out, and he had yet to wake up. The current problem wasn’t such an easy thing to heal from with just his regeneration abilities.
But 3 days of sleep was ample time. His mental stress had time to relieve itself and his body was no longer under any strain.
“Mmm…”
Damiens eyes slowly fluttered open, revealing to him the scenery of the cave. The second his groggy mind cleared up, his upper body shot up into a sitting position.
“Xue’er!”
Damien felt terrible. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but it didn’t matter. He was clear on what kind of effect his collapse would’ve had on her unstable psyche.
Hurriedly glancing around the cave, he panicked. ‘Where is she?!’
“Mm…Big brother…don’t leave…”
A small mutter resounded through the area. When Damien looked down, he noticed little Xue’er sleeping peacefully in his lap.
‘Ah, shit.’
With a light sigh, he brushed her hair, injecting a gentle stream of mana into her body. A light smile surfaced on the sleeping little girl’s face.
Damien wrinkled his brow as he looked at her. ‘I need to get her to a bath.’
Although he didn’t like it, he was nowhere close to civilization right now. The little girl had been caked in mud and dust when he saw her, and the amount only grew during their time living in the cave.
‘Damn, I almost forgot what it’s like living as a mortal.’
The constant need for baths and hygiene when mana couldn’t take care of all those problems easily, looking back at it now, it seemed like a hassle.
Even when Damien first came out of the dungeon when he was caked in blood and grime, he could’ve easily cleansed himself with mana. The only reason he didn’t was because he missed the feeling of fresh water on his skin.
And no doubt, Xue’er was probably feeling the same.
But he couldn’t help it right now. Although his mana capacity was full again and he could very easily clean her, he still needed all his current mana.
His task wasn’t even close to done yet, after all. And that task was for long-term benefit, not for a short-term solution.
Damien realized that he had a bright smile on his face. He didn’t even notice it before, but he knew exactly why it was there.
He could feel a connection far more esoteric than the connections he had to the stars.
It was a connection that spanned past the real plane and into the ethereal, yet it was so close at hand that he felt no difficulty manipulating it.
‘Success!’
This was the goal he was hoping for. No matter how he untethered the subspace from the surrounding three dimensions, he never touched the intrinsic connection it had to his being.
It was almost a like part of him.
His whole plan banked on this intrinsic connection. If he couldn’t feel it, he failed. But since he could, he knew it was time to move on to the next step.
The void was a concept that Damien had no information on. It was something so far away that even though he could manipulate its essence, he knew he wouldn’t be able to actually apply it to much.
He couldn’t even naturally call it forth. He didn’t have a method besides opening another crack in reality, but how much work had it taken him to create the one he just did?
‘But that’s good for me. Rather than trying to immediately gain control over such a high-tier essence, I can practice with the diluted version within me before moving on to the greater ones.’
‘Looks like I have yet another thing or study.’
Despite the increase in work, Damien was extremely happy. After all, besides the success in his experiment, he also became slightly closer to his Void Physique.
Yet another function was unlocked to him. Yet another aspect of the physique he had most likely possessed since birth had been revealed.
And this particular function, the connection to the void itself that he had only had the opportunity of feeling after creating a small crack in reality, seemed to be a true main function of the physique.
‘Damn, how long would it have taken me to figure it out if I had taken things slowly like I’ve been doing? How much more powerful would I have needed to get before I could tear open a crack in reality and form a connection to the void?’
He was extremely lucky this time. But this was naturally still a matter to be celebrated.
But that all came later. The reason he had infused his subspace with Void Essence and changed its fine properties was because nothing could survive in the void.
Anything sent there would be consumed and devoured. This was a base concept that even translated into an ability of his physique. To affirm that his subspace could survive without being subjected to such devouring, he essentially made it part of the void.
It could be called a trick more than anything. The void itself would recognize his subspace as a part of it and ignore the pocket of space that was being kept within it.
The problem that arose now was, what was the next step.
Right now, his subspace was just that. Sure, it became something that nobody would be able to access besides him, regardless of their strength, but that was it.
The next step was to turn it into a livable environment.
There was an interesting thing Damien learned about the void by interacting with its essence for an entire week without pause.
Void Essence, while being an embodiment of nothingness, was also an embodiment of everything.
Damien’s devour ability was an extremely diluted version of its power. There was a reason he could perfectly incorporate the traits of the things he devoured. There was a reason the ability was so optimized.
The void, the Void Essence within it, shared this ability but to a greater scale. It wasn’t limited to devouring mere beasts or living things. It wasn’t even limited to devouring matter. Such a thing was beneath it.
The void could devour laws, it could devour the fabric of the universe itself. That was the reason why it was so esoteric that not a single person could grasp a method to use it.
But Damien’s physique was exactly this method.
Although he couldn’t abuse it or even properly control it, giving it suggestions wasn’t a problem. If he wanted to incorporate the properties of life and mana within his subspace, it was entirely possible.
Elements weren’t nearly enough for the current task. But laws, laws would work perfectly. At Damien’s command, the laws within the Void slowly infused into the subspace that had been incorporated into it.
‘What an awkward feeling.’ Damien thought inwardly. Although he could understand what was happening, he couldn’t actually see or feel it. It was strange, as if he was reading about the events that transpired instead of actually directing and being a part of them.
But regardless of the strange feeling, and regardless of his limited understanding of what he was actually doing, the void itself seemed to help him.
It read his mind and understood his intentions. It acted like it had sentience of its own, but that wasn’t too surprising to him since his Void Physique had also shown such signs before.
Soon enough, Damien felt a flood of different essences that he had never felt before entering and infusing into his subspace.
‘Life, death, space, time, creation, destruction, these are all the elements I saw in my system window back then!’
They were the laws that the system had told him created the universe. And now, they were becoming a part of his subspace.
‘Damn! If I could gain authority over this power, would I be able to learn all of these? Would I be able to actually feel them instead of just being told that they are what is being infused into by subspace? Would I be able to actively control this kind of process?’
The things that were happening right now were by his design, but out of his control. It was frustrating and enlightening at the same time, making Damien’s eyes burn with motivation.
As the process continued, the 5 elements and many other essences were added to his subspace. The incorporeal space within began to transform. Half of it became land, the other half became skies. There were even pools of water that might one day become oceans.
Damien could only watch and admire the majesty of it all. The Void Essence, no, the void itself had turned his original idea into something much grander.
He wasn’t expecting there to be true land or skies. How could he predict that at all? He only expected a massive construct like Kurt’s subspace, which was a simple library and study.
But not even in his wildest dreams would he have imagined the current scene.
Damien was currently the only person who could witness such a thing.
It was the birth of a world outside of reality.