Chronicles of the True Wizard

Chapter 244 - Book 17

Heading into the sandstone dungeon, Felix knew he didn't have time to wander around, although he was seriously wondering why he hadn't been tracked down yet. Still, he didn't want to make it easier for them. So, he followed the wards as much as he could which meant tracing them far enough along the outside wall, that he could find the center of the dungeon.

The issue, was that the dungeon was a complete mess. It wasn't labyrinthine but more like it was built to be confusing and ridiculous.

By the time he had mapped enough of the outside ward to form an arc, an hour had passed.

Judging by the arc's radius, it would take him days to reach the center so, he headed back to the Rokrunor facility.

He had the coordinates for the dungeon mapped and knew based on the dungeon registry which realm it was in so he wasn't worried about getting back there. What he was worried about, was a whole facility worth of guards chasing him down.

Back outside of the sandstone dungeon, Felix was honestly shocked to find no one around chasing him. He cautiously but quickly moved through the facility back the way he came and the entire way, he didn't find a living soul anywhere.

It was only once he reached the precipice of the next floor where he finally saw a guard, and not just one of them but what realistically looked like it could have been all of them. He sensed their presences though and didn't just rush headlong into them. Instead, he cautiously approached and got as close to them as he dared.

Felix was never very good at being stealthy, especially given the loudness of his Soul. He knew that and knew that they would notice him eventually, if they weren't already aware of where he was at all times.

At the same time, they never approached. Never even took a single step onto the floor he was on.

Are they… not allowed on this floor? Is that what's happening?

While he didn't want to approach them, he had to confirm his suspicions because it heavily changed his behavior going forward so, he stepped out into the hall leading to the stairs. At the top, he made eye contact with a number of very angry looking guards but none of them even tried to attack him with anything.

Well, that's convenient I guess.

The residents are wary that this will not last.

Yeah, good call. I'll leave some constructs behind, keep me updated.

Affirmative.

With that out of the way and Felix suddenly having much more time than he had expected, he headed back towards the sandstone dungeon and in towards the center. His progress was almost entirely gated by how often he could Aether Tunnel as the walls and halls were completely illogical.

As far as Felix could tell, the dungeon was either a work in progress or just used as a vault as it was completely void of traps or enemies though, it was laid out in a way where he expected there to be traps.

Finally reaching the center of the dungeon, he sighed when he found it empty and didn't sense anything nearby. He

No matter where they were in the Mental World, every Resident saw Felix's form projected up in the sky, directly above each and every one of them. He wasn't actually there and each Resident only saw him once, but every single one of them saw him.

I am here to offer you a choice. If you so choose, you may continue to live within my Realm. Doing so, you are subject to my whims and your fate is bound to my own. If I fall, so will you. However, if you choose to leave, I will grant you a body in the universe I live within and your fate will be unraveled from my own.

He paused for a moment to let things sink in then finished his speech.

Those of you that wish to leave, I will meet with you personally and we will begin creating your body on the outside immediately. Everyone else, I cannot guarantee I will have time to entertain this choice in the future.

Felix removed the projection of his form from every Resident's mind and turned to Grim, "How was that?"

He nodded, "Much less biased than I was expecting. I wouldn't have minded you making the option of staying seem more attractive, I think it's the better choice."

"I agree but I want to be fair to what you're asking so I tried to be as objective as possible. Now, they have the agency to make whatever decision they want. I'm surprised you didn't make me tell them I was going to fight The Dragon again."

Grim sighed, "You're still planning on fighting that thing? You really think you'll be strong enough?"

"I have no idea. I don't think I can not fight it though."

"Just… make sure you have a proper escape plan this time."

Felix nodded, "That's a good idea."

"Either way, they don't need to know about and approve of every decision you make. They just need to have the choice to say no if they want to."

Logically, Felix could understand what Grim was getting at. At the same time, he didn't care that he was essentially subjugating and trapping his Residents within his mind so, he listened to Grim and followed his suggestions so long as they were reasonable.

After his speech, Felix wasn't exactly sure how many would agree to his proposal. As it turned out, far more than he had expected had agreed and so, he began meeting with each and every one of them.

He was able to split his consciousness and project himself to multiple of them at once, which made all the difference. Especially when he realized his mistake.

In a city that consisted entirely of large, single floor buildings that looked like churches or cathedrals, all connected into a single network, Felix had a few thousand people that had accepted his offer. When he arrived in the center of the city, an open park, the entire city stood before him.

"Procreator, it is our pleasure to welcome you to our city."

"You wish for me to grant you a body so you may leave this Realm."

"Er… No."

Felix looked at the woman with confusion, though it didn't show on the sphere of pulsating arcane spell work that had replaced his head.

After a few moments of silence, she continued, "Ever since The Prophet Melody introduced us to your reverence, our Orgion has dreamed of the day we might share our worship with you."

Felix sighed internally, not outwardly showing his disappointment, "Does anyone here actually want a body to leave?"

Not a single soul in the Orgion raised their hand or otherwise made their presence known.

The woman he had been talking to smiled, "Would you prefer we demonstrate our worship with real bodies in your universe?"

"No."

"Excellent, let us begin."

What followed was about what Felix expected from a city where the founding religion had been started by a bored Melody. He refused to participate but that didn't seem to bother them much as they believed the orgy that followed, was somehow showing their dedication to and worshiping him.

He left, moving his projection of consciousness over to the next Resident that had requested his presence.

Out of the millions of Residents that had accepted his offer, a fraction of a percent of them actually wanted to leave. Some of them just wanted to meet him, others asked him to destroy their enemies, grant them power, give them arcane secrets. Others, just wanted to talk, wanted him to justify their moral decisions, reinforce their beliefs, argue with him that he wasn't real or even complain about reality.

Once he was finally done meeting with everybody and ignoring everyone who didn't actually want to leave, Felix recollected his projections and reverted his appearance in his Soul Garden.

"Did you know that would happen?"

Grim actually chuckled, "No. I thought about having you regularly meet with anyone who requests your presence but that's not reasonable."

"Thanks. How about, we put something in place so anyone can leave at any time."

"What did you have in mind?"

"We put a gateway, at the top of a mountain or deep in a forest or something. Make it hard to get there so anyone going through is absolutely certain of what they're doing. When they go through, Mark pauses them and their Soul enters a queue to leave that some Residents on the outside will manage."

Grim nodded, "That's a great idea."

"Okay, it's done." Felix smirked, "Now, let's get this thing out of me."

Returning to their bodies, Felix and Grim left the small room they had chosen and moved a few floors up, to a larger room where Grim could actually stand. Felix summoned Nova who happily roamed the relatively empty floor, testing her new Spells while Felix and Grim prepared themselves as best they could while waiting.

Once all the Residents who had requested to leave had bodies and were sent off into the Realms, they got started.

Felix handed Grim the stick then laid down in the middle of the room. Then, he began rearranging his Soul temporarily to expose his Core Soul by moving the planets out of the way and readying himself to open the outer layers.

Grim positioned himself above Felix, kneeling over his stomach with the stick pointed down into his chest.

"Ready?" Felix asked.

Grim sighed, "I still think this is stupid."

"I clearly can't control whatever this is right now and containing it is consuming a massive portion of my will power and focus. Taking it out of me will make me a lot stronger."

"Yes but this thing almost killed you when you put it in there now, it's mostly stable. Poking it just seems like a bad idea." He shook his head, "Ready."

Felix took a breath then closed his eyes and disconnected himself from his body, paralyzing himself temporarily so he didn't move. Then, Grim took a large knife and stabbed it down through Felix's chest, pulling it back and splitting him open before tilting it to the side and prying open his chest cavity.

Using a few metal bars Nova had created, Grim placed them to hold the chest cavity open then placed both his hands on the stick and began lowering it.

As soon as Felix felt the stick poke at his outer Soul Layers, he broke them open, damaging his Soul for the time being. First the film he maintained over his skin that facilitated his Mana Skin all the way through to the lattice layer that surrounded his Core Soular System. As soon as it was opened, Mark put all the Residents to sleep and Felix knocked out their Souls then Mark gave Grim the signal to continue.

The end of the stick poking into his Core Soular System was a weird feeling, it wasn't painful but it was uncomfortable in an indescribable way. As it touched his Core Soul, there wasn't any pain initially but Felix knew the stick had to pierce his Core Soul, not all the way in but just enough that the Fractal Mana Form wouldn't escape.

He relaxed and slowly pulled back on his Core Soul, letting the stick slowly pierce it. The only way he could do that was to convince his Core Soul that the stick wasn't an attack. As it began to pierce it though, the intense pain he experienced, that completely eclipsed the pain he had felt from pushing the Sub-System Chunk, made it nearly impossible.

It wasn't really harming him, he knew that. Penetrating his Core Soul was completely antithetical to its nature though. He was letting it in, pushing things aside so it could sink into it. It was also the worst pain he had ever felt both in intensity and in the way it pulsated through his Core Soul directly.

Once the stick had pierced just below the surface of his Core Soul, he focused his consciousness and began pushing the Fractal Mana Form out of his Core Soul. It resisted at first, unwilling to leave but then slowly, it began to move towards the edge of his Core Soul.

Felix kept pushing on it until finally, the very edge of the higher dimensional Spell Form touched the stick. The instant they made contact, the Fractal Mana Form vanished, sinking into the stick and Felix pushed it back out of his Core Soul.

Grim immediately pulled the Staff back out and Felix closed his body and Soul in a matter of seconds with his renewed will power.

He felt instantly better as his Core Soul snapped down to an even smaller, denser mass now that the Fractal Mana Form wasn't pushing outwards on it. His will power was no longer occupied and he felt like a massive weight had been lifted from his Soul.

Using his Matter Control, Felix lifted himself to his feet and took a deep breath, unable to contain the smile on his face.

He looked over at Grim who had dropped the Staff but instead of falling to the ground, it simply floated next to him. Nova sat in one corner of the room, worried and scared initially, until Felix looked at her and she experienced a wave of relief.

"Are you okay?" Grim looked at him seriously.

"So much better than okay." Felix said as he snapped the Staff into his hand.

He didn't even have to use his Matter Control to move it as he felt an intrinsic connection to the Staff, likely due to how long the Fractal Mana Form had spent within his Core Soul.

The Staff had morphed the stick. It was straighter, slightly longer and the small branches on the end had shifted and grown small leaves, making the entire staff look like like a bonsai tree with a really long trunk. It still seemed to be made from a weave of roots or branches instead of a solid stick but now, the branches and roots forming it twisted and moved slowly. Finally, in between the shifting grain of the Staff, a slight blue glow pulsated and crackled outwards every once in a while.

"Well, that w-"

Before Felix could finish, the staff interrupted him, asking for Mana and Anima through their bond. Felix obliged, providing it with both from his reserves, waiting for it to be satisfied or full but it never was. He ran out of Mana first at which point he cut off both streams. He could feel that the Staff wasn't any more sated than it had been, he wasn't filling some battery or pool. Instead, it was growing stronger as he fed it. He would never get that Mana or Anima back but, the Staff was stronger than it had been a moment ago.

It can't just grow infinitely… can it?

There was no way for him to verify that at the moment so he looked to Grim, who just nodded to him, before he rushed out of the room to test the Staff.

Nova followed him eagerly to one of the more open dungeons they had found that seemed empty. He released the Staff which remained floating next to him and let Nova sniff, bite, lick, chew and otherwise examine it while he explored the extent of his bond with the Staff.

Their Soul's were bonded, just like Felix's Soul was bound to Grim and Nova but it felt different. It wasn't quite the same way his Soul was bound to Mark's Soul, in that Mark was created from his Soul. In some ways it felt like a stronger, more fundamental connection, if that was even possible, and in others it felt like a weaker connection. The Staff was alien to him in a way Mark wasn't but at the same time, it felt like it was a part of himself or just an active extension of his own Soul, while Mark and the Residents didn't.

Trying to communicate with it was a bit like communicating with Nova, if they were talking through cans connected by a string. It was like they didn't speak the same language or even existed in the same universe on top of the connection between them also being spotty. They couldn't have a conversation and sometimes Felix would say or ask things and it just didn't react, other times it responded instantly. As if some of what he was trying to communicate just never arrived.

Even when he did get responses, they were cryptic and confusing. The Staff communicated through intent but sometimes, Felix just didn't understand what it was responding to him with.

Beyond communication though, Felix knew he could summon the Staff at will, seemingly from anywhere. He teased Nova quite a few times with that. He could also send it Mana and Anima through their connection, or more accurately, he could feed it from anywhere.

He had Nova create him a training dummy and whacked it a few times but the Staff didn't do anything special, nothing an ordinary stick wouldn't have done.

Finally, Felix tested the most important thing, casting a Spell.

Before the Fractal Mana Form had merged with the Staff, Felix had tried casting spells through the stick with mixed results. He not only wasn't sure how he was supposed to cast through it but also, none of the ways he tried seemed to do much.

Holding the Staff now, Felix instinctively knew what to do.

He pushed the Spell Form into the Staff through their connection, which was orders of magnitude easier than creating it outside of his body, then he pushed Mana into the Staff.

Cautiously, Felix started with a simple Fire Bolt which was one of the Spells he was the most familiar with.

Casting it through the Staff with just 10 Mana, the blue crackles and pulses quickened for just a moment before a small bullet of Fire appeared within the leaves at the top of the Staff. The bullet raced out of the leaves without touching a single one or diverting from its path then shot out and smacked against the far wall.

The Fire Bolt cast through the Staff didn't seem to have any special effect. It looked just like the Fire Bolt Felix could cast without the Staff. It felt completely different but Felix couldn't even begin to compare them. It was like the two weren't even made from the same thing, like his was cast with Fire and the Staff had cast with something else entirely.

Huh. That's a bit disappointing.

Next, he moved on to instinct casts before he ran through every Spell he knew. He wasn't entirely sure what he expected out of the Staff considering an Instinct Cast was essentially his Soul tapping into his raw experience of casting a Spell.

Still, if it was possible he wanted to know.

He didn't have an instinctive understanding of what to do the same way he had with the traditionally cast Fire Bolt so, he started by just casting an Instinct Cast Spell. Using a Force Burst to move himself across the room, the result was exactly what Felix expected but the actual process was weird.

The Staff had essentially done something through their Bond to somehow affect the Cast but, Felix couldn't tell what it had done at all.

Mostly confused, Felix began running through every Spell he could think of along with every one he could cast as an Instinct Cast. By the end, though none of them seemed too different, he felt a bit less disheartened. The Spells he cast were ever slightly more accurate in their output but it was hard to tell because Felix's Spells were already nearly perfect in terms of accuracy.

If he Instinct Cast a Force Burst, he never cast it with too much Force or too much Mana.

His Spells just being more accurate would have been disappointing but, Felix had also started to get the sense that the Staff wasn't doing anything because he didn't need it to. There was no need for him to hit the dummy across the room with a Fire Bolt that could obliterate it.

The Staff wasn't listening to what he wanted it to do, it was determining what he needed it to instead.

He would have to test it in real combat if that was the case and he wasn't ready to do that at the moment. Instead, he turned his attention to other things.

Firstly, now that his will power had been freed up and subsequently strengthened, he took a look at his Mana Core and began experimenting.

Before, it had taken Felix a few seconds to Attune Mana which was a massive improvement from when he had first created his Attuned Cores but was still far too long to be usable in combat. Testing it after creating the Staff though, he couldn't help but smile as he pulled raw, unattuned Mana from his central core and attuned it at will, instantly.

Well, looks like it's time to do some cleanup then.

Since he didn't need the Attuned Cores anymore, Felix completely removed them from his body, tossing them to Nova who was sitting and begging for them.

Then, he was just left with one singular Core of 10 billion Mana.

With the Fractal Mana Form now extracted, there was something he had been thinking about trying along the same vein but he asked Grim first, just to be sure.

Moving my Mana Core into my Core Soul. Bad idea?

Don't know. That seems safe to test though.

Cool. Thanks.

Taking half the Mana in his Mana Core, Felix siphoned the Mana towards his Core Soul where it resisted at first. Felix had plenty of recent experience letting things into his Core Soul though and so he slowly relaxed it and let the Mana in.

Once a small portion of it had made it inside, it was like his Core Soul had realized Mana wasn't a threat because suddenly there was no more resistance at all. 5 billion Mana poured into his Core Soul forming a tiny bead at the very center.

Then, Felix pulled Mana back out of his Core Soul and used it to cast a simple Fire Bolt.

It was, significantly slower than pulling out of his normal Mana Core. When he pulled the Mana out and through the Staff though, it was even faster than his normal Mana Core because the Staff was connected to his Core Soul.

While he wasn't willing to completely rely on the Staff, Felix decided to move his Mana Core to his Core Soul because there were too many benefits to doing so. At the same time though, he created a planet of pure Mana, the size of his old Mana Core, orbiting his Core Soul that he could use as a backup, just in case.

Once the backup was in place, he began channeling Mana into his Core Soul, filling up the new Core which wasn't any different than the old one except that it was now in his Core Soul and therefore it was easier for him to compress it down.

He managed to get 5 times as much Mana into his Core Soul as he had had in his last Core before it seemed like anymore would start negatively affecting him. He was pretty satisfied with that.

Then, the Staff reached in and began moving and shifting the Mana.

Felix desperately reached inside himself to tear apart the connection between them as the Mana in his Core Soul shifted from a bead of highly compressed Mana to a three, or even potentially higher, dimensional fractal of Mana. If it cloned itself within him, he would lose all the will power he had just freed up.

Before Felix could take any action though, it was already done. The Mana within his Core Soul, his new Mana Core, was a higher dimensional fractal that he couldn't completely sense, let alone understand.

It didn't however, affect him at all. In fact, he felt just as good as he had.

He calmed himself down, realizing it wasn't trying to clone itself then took an objective look at what had happened. Even though he couldn't grasp what was inside of him, it was stable and required little to no will power for him to maintain. Either it was just stable, or the Staff was maintaining it itself.

On top of that, it no longer felt full. It was simultaneously less volume, more mass and significantly less dense. It shouldn't have been physically possible except that Mana wasn't matter and didn't abide by physical laws.

He didn't have the Mana on hand to keep filling it so he instead took a look at the backup Core he had created and began morphing it to match the core the Staff had created.

While he didn't understand it, he could replicate it because he had a perfect template. He knew he never could have created it from scratch but just replicating it was much easier. It took him may tries but eventually he succeeded and proved that it wasn't the Staff doing anything actively. The shape was simply stable entirely on its own.

Huh. What else can you do?

Next on his list, especially now that he needed Mana to fill his new Cores, was finding a way to equip the bracers he had stolen without constantly losing his arms. He pulled the two bracers out of the Kryptos Repsitory with only minor damage to the room as he had learned from last time and had placed them in the smallest possible space.

They immediately started pouring Rich Anima and Chaotic Mana into the room so he cast a Mana barrier to try and contain it. If he could find a way to create a barrier that could, he could use that to protect his own body while he siphoned the Mana and Anima into himself.

The barrier that came out though, was nothing like the barrier Felix had intended. He had intended to cast a simple Mana Barrier so he could examine how it degraded.

What instead appeared, was a barrier of woven Mana and Anima producing a wall of tiny shapes all interlocked together, like a giant puzzle. The barrier that appeared, wasn't degrading at all and contained the Anima and Mana in the room perfectly.

Looking down at his left arm, Felix lowered the staff towards it and as it approached, his Mana Skin shifted. Within a small area around the staff, his Mana Skin was no longer a thin film of Mana, instead it looked almost like the barrier he had just cast. They were smaller though and the shape was different, they were closer to scales or leaves but tiny, almost imperceptible.

Once the area he had touched had shifted, the change began to spread, transforming the Mana Skin next to it and accelerating out across his body until his Mana Skin was completely gone, replaced. In its place, was a skill Felix was dubbing Mana Scales, due to their visual similarities.

He didn't immediately test them though, first he destroyed the barrier he had cast and stepped into the room, the Chaotic Mana and Rich Anima no longer affecting him, before he equipped both of the bracers.

They cinched themselves down onto his body but his Mana Scales still lay between them and him so his arms were completely unaffected.

That also meant he wasn't siphoning anything from them just yet though so, he let one of them through, sinking beneath his Mana Scales, which reformed above the Aether Bracer. As soon as it was through, Felix's arm began to deteriorate faster than he could ever hope to heal it. Instead of trying to create some kind of channel though, he let the Staff guide him.

He moved the Staff towards the bracer and focused on his Soul in his arm. It didn't directly change anything but through their connection, Felix knew what to do. He followed the instructions accurately and created a path down his arm and into his Mana Core where his Core Soul easily handled it.

Then, he did the same with the Anima Bracer.

Since both of them were really just stable portals into a higher pressure area, Felix could only pull so much from them before the pressure equalized but, the Staff had thought of that. The path the Staff had directed him to create somehow maintained a virtual vacuum around the bracers to constantly pull from them, before pumping everything through his body.

That meant he had an unlimited supply of both, restricted only by how quickly he could pull from the bracers which, was far better than any manual regeneration relying on the weak Aether around him.

He allowed his new Mana Core and his Backup Mana Core to fill up before directing the excess into the Staff that happily fed on the streams. That way, the Staff would constantly be growing stronger as it fed on the Anima and Mana and he wouldn't be wasting anything. When he needed to regenerate Mana or Anima, he could and when he was full, the Staff would consume the rest.

With his Mana Regeneration solved, Felix began practicing his Spells. He wanted to get used to the Staff and casting through it as well as using his own will power to attune Mana instead of his Cores.

Specifically, he wanted to make Spatial Translocation an Instinct Cast, now that he wasn't reliant on Attuned Cores and had much more Mana at his disposal.

It took him nearly 3 terms to finally get to a point he was satisfied with. He had managed to make Spatial Translocation an Instinct Cast in a matter of days. That wasn't enough though, he wanted to be able to cast the Spell instantly, including the time it took him to gather and Attune the Mana so, he kept practicing.

Once he had finally mastered it, the Spell was no longer a Spatial Translocation. He had mastered it to the point where it was officially, Blink.

The only downside to the Spell once he had mastered it, was that he couldn't use it too many times in succession. The more he used it, the more detached his physical body became from physical reality. It took time for him to reconnect and so if he Blinked any more than 5 times in a minute, his body would fall out of reality and into the Aether which, would likely kill him since even if he could find his way back, he had no way of reattaching himself. At that point his body would just slowly degrade until it was nothing more than a disperse cloud of Mana in the Aether.

With his training complete, and given how long it had taken, Felix Blinked down to the main floor his Residents were using to check on their progress.

"We have many iterations. None have been deemed acceptable." Arysha informed him.

Felix nodded and looked at one of them, "This a recent prototype?"

She nodded, "Realtively."

He reached over and touched the end of his Staff to the cloth, expecting something magical to happen. Instead, nothing happened at all. The cloth remained exactly as it was.

"Huh. Thought that would do something. Alright, I'm going to see if I can raid some vaults or dungeons for materials then."

She nodded, "Have you attempted to open the Soul Vault with your renewed will?"

His eyes widened, "No. I have not."

Felix Blinked out of the room without another word and excitedly pulled the Soul Vault from his Soul Space. He didn't even bother trying to open it with his own will as he was pretty sure breaking into it was nearly impossible. Instead, he held it in one hand and touched the Staff to it with his other.

The Soul Vault brightened and suddenly the plates that formed the protective outer layer began to shift and rearrange themselves. The outer layer retiled itself and produced a hole the size of Felix's finger then, the layer beneath that began to shift. One by one, the layers were rearranged and solved until the hole that had formed on the outer layer went all the way through the protective shell of the vault.

Then, the layers all spun around the hole in various directions and the vault began to grow until it was big enough that Felix could fly through the hole.

He smiled widely as he floated into the vault, noticed it was much bigger on the inside and it was completely full of items and artifacts.

Felix and his Residents tore through the vault, examining and cataloging everything. The vast majority of it went to either Nova or the Residents to break down because they were too weak to bother with. There were some standouts though.

Only one of those Felix took for himself. It was an amulet, a black chain with a disc hanging from it, like a coin with a hole drilled in the middle. The disc was completely black with runes carved around the outside that Felix didn't recognize. It didn't look or feel like anything particularly special but his Staff had pointed to it directly so, he took it.

Having it equipped, didn't seem to change anything and he tried poking and prodding it in various ways but it didn't seem to react at all. At the very least, it was durable enough that it wasn't going to melt the second he got in a fight though so, he had time to figure it out.

The last thing left before Felix left to fight the Dragon then, were his robes.

His Residents were still working on them though so, Felix went and raided the dungeons all throughout the facility. With his new Blink ability, raiding the dungeons became rather trivial. His increase in will power had come with the usual increase in Matter and Mana Sense range so he was able to Blink anywhere he knew was empty with his Senses.

Nova happily followed along with him but kept getting frustrated that she wasn't as fast as he was.

She had the Matter Sense range she just didn't have the same training he did and even with Experience Nexus translating everything for her, she didn't have the same will power as Felix did. He could have manually modified her Soul but, his Staff once again, provided him with a different solution that honestly, made him feel a little stupid for not thinking of it.

Nova. Don't just move across the room. Shrink your body down as small as you can first, then move, then grow again.

She meowed at him then tried it, moving nearly instantly. As soon as she appeared she insisted on a race which Felix accepted. Her overall movement time was way faster than it had been, nearly instant but, there was now a delay where she had to shrink her body and regrow it. Nova could do that nearly instantly, but nearly instantly and instantly were two completely different things.

Felix slowed himself down a little so he didn't win by too much which made Nova mad, but determined.

It didn't take more than dekad for the two of them to raid all the dungeons and vaults, biting quite a few of them along the way. They found some interesting materials and items but nothing Felix equipped for the time being.

Instead, he handed all of it off to Arysha and the Residents who sent them off to where they needed to be.

"You figure out the Amulet I see?" Arysha asked as he finished handing her the loot.

Felix frowned, "What? No, I haven't looked at th-" As he looked down at the Amulet, he realized it had changed. No longer was it just a black disc. Now, all of the 16 runes on its face were glowing white.

"Huh." Felix said as he reached down and poked at it with his finger.

The weirdest part was that he hadn't noticed it change with his Matter, Mana or Anima Senses and even now, it seemed exactly the same.

He looked up to respond to Arysha but realized he was in a completely different room. He was in one of the dungeons he had just finished raiding somehow, in the exact spot he had left the dungeon from. He looked around curiously and Blinked back into the Rokrunor facility just a short distance away.

Picking another rune on the amulet, he touched it and was instantly transported to another dungeon.

Holy shit.

To confirm his suspicions, Felix tapped through all of the runes on the amulet. It drew massive amounts of Mana from him but he had such an absurd amount now, it barely put a dent in his Core.

It records the last 16 universes or spaces or something I've been to? Hey Grim, how's this as an escape plan?

See if you can make it so you don't need to touch it with your finger.

Right. Good call.

The amulet required he touch it with something physical, as neither a Tendril nor his Matter Control worked but, turning it around and using his bodily control to touch it with his chest was easy enough. All he had to do was fasten it tight. The other side of the disc looked identical except that the runes there were different and weren't glowing.

They either did something else, as Felix had visited more than 32 spaces since equipping it, or they didn't mean anything.

Either way, he was very happy with the Amulet.

Using the Anima regeneration from the Anima Bracer, Felix recreated his Spirit Avatar then finally headed to see if he could help the Residents.

He had long since accepted that they were more capable than he was at most things. He tried his best to simply not get in their way and only help when asked.

"How are the robes going?"

"We test many threads and weaves. None are sufficient."

"Show me the best candidates."

Arysha nodded and walked him through a few hundred cloth prototypes. By the end of it he was simultaneously very impressed and slightly disappointed. The amount of knowledge and experience that had gone into their work was astounding. All of the prototypes he had seen would be more than sufficient for anyone in the A grade.

The issue, was that he was planning on fighting The Dragon next which, was an S grade that was stronger than it should have been.

While Felix didn't have nearly the same knowledge and experience as his Residents had, he did have full access to his own brain and all of their knowledge so, he sat down and tried to process through everything. He quickly realized there was no point though because Mark had done the same. The Staff still didn't seem interested in helping with that specifically so, there wasn't really anything he could do.

"What if we just have Nova create some Asphellum and I make robes like Peace's? They should be a decent temporary set."

She nodded, "That is something we consider many times."

"You've already tried recreating the robes the Ano Matriarch was wearing, right?"

"We try many ways to weave Anima into solid."

"Okay, we're not there yet then. I take it it wasn't an issue of will power then?"

"No." She answered simply.

"What if we do some kind of hybrid approach? We infuse a material with Anima and make threads from that?"

"We also try this."

At that moment, Felix finally felt something from the Staff. A pull on their connection.

He had no idea what it wanted but just assumed it had something to do with the conversation they were having so, he summoned Nova, who blinked directly to him, and had her create a small ingot of Asphellum. Then, he took some Anima from some ros they had lying around and stacked them on top of each-other.

Finally, he touched his staff to the both of them but, nothing happened.

It pulled again on their connection with no clarifying information, no information whatsoever in fact. He tried again a hundred different ways by first turning the Asphellum to thread, weaving them himself, running the Staff along them, holding the Staff against them and even hitting them.

Each and every time he got the same pull from the Staff until finally, he threaded the Asphellum thread into the leaves of the Staff. Then, it pulled on him again but this time, on the Mana and Anima he was supplying through their connection.

Felix pushed and let it draw from him as much as it needed and finally, the thread appeared on the other side where it looked, completely different.

Instead of Black and Navy, like Peace's Robes, the thread was completely bright white with an ethereal glow.

It better damn well glow considering how much Mana and Anima I just had to pour in to make a single damn inch of this stuff.

The expense was both annoying and exciting, given what it implied. Felix had a source of both Anima and Mana that were, as far as he knew, infinite so all it was going to take was time.

As the staff created the thread, somehow, his Residents spooled it up and began experimenting with different weaves of cloth. It didn't matter too much what they decided on because Felix, too excited to just sit and wait, had done some experimenting and found it was trivial for him to rearrange the threads at any time.

That meant theoretically, he could have different weaves for different situations.

For the time being though, they settled on just creating one while some of his other Residents, created sample robes for him to try from other materials so he could evaluate the fit and feel. Given his ability to rearrange the threads, that also wasn't a huge deal but he wanted to at least have a favorite of some kind.

It took multiple terms for them to create enough thread to create a full set of robes which, was a bit annoying to Felix. The time was irrelevant but the fact that he was once again limited by his regeneration, even after just upgrading it, was a bit annoying.

At the same time, he could hardly complain considering just how much Anima and Mana had gone into the robes themselves.

In terms of weave and fit, he settled on a thinner weave for the time being because it felt less restrictive. The trade off was that there was more material because the thread needed somewhere to go. The robes were similar to his previous robes with multiple layers, large sleeves and a hood. He even changed the color of the layers, which he could also do at will, so that they weren't all white because he felt too much like a priest.

Instead, he made the top layer black, the next layer blue and the last white. It wasn't particularly fashionable, as a number of his Residents had pointed out numerous times but he didn't care for the time being.

Once they were done, there was nothing left for him to do in the 2499th Realm except test his Spells before he fought The Dragon.