Chapter 208 (1/2)

Randidly raised his hands like a conductor. How did one construct a world?

One piece at a time, he supposed. The first action he did was construct the core. The creature was right about one thing; his knowledge of time was a useful base. But he didn’t want to rely on just the objective face of time, but also the subjective one. He wanted to created an interactive system of time that would function through the core.

With a pounding headache, Randidly’s hands began to move. The empty and cold emerald crystals, vacated by the wisps, were his first medium, as he began to shape and work with them, turning them into wheels, cogs, clockwork, pressing them together into a huge, complicated pattern. They were empty vessels, used to holding life, so Randidly took a fragment of the creature’s great weapon and put them into each one, sliding into their emptiness, filling and animating the crystals with a cool illumination.

They once more glowed with power, but it was an unnerving, unwavering black light they produced, filled with destructive energy. Faster and faster Randidly moved, bound only by the limits of his will. Perhaps in real life, such a thing would be impossible, but here, in his Soulscape, constructing his new Soul Skill… it was possible to move these things with just his will.

Luckily, the amount of empty crystals was huge, so Randidly had all the materials he needed to work with in order to create a large construct, designed to release energy and radiation upwards in the form of Aether. The fuel for machine was the core of the weapon, a large rune that looked like a hand, halfway between being open and being clenched into a fist. The “fingers” curled with obvious power, and a perfection of construction that left him speechless. Even with the fact he was in absolute control, here in his soul, he could not break this core of the construct.

But he could harness its ambient energy, fueling his world’s clockwork core. He was inexperienced, in the grand scheme of things, but his familiarity with clockwork mastery due to his few experiments was enough. In addition, here in his soul, anything was possible. He just added more and more complexity, trusting to his intuition, even when his senses were at a loss.

When he slid the last cog into place, the whole thing trembled, then began to hum, as the wheels slowly began to turn. The black light produced by the core grew brighter, in so much that it shifted towards the color spectrum of grey, a strange, pure energy flowing upwards.

Randidly abruptly returned to himself, and found himself sweating. That… had felt like it had taken him a lifetime, but as his subjective time snapped back to the objective, it seemed it had only taken him a few seconds. But still, another strike from the creature was imminent.

With a wave of his hand, Randidly gathered the shattered shell of the weapon seed and slowly lowered it towards the core, surrounding it. The hole he made was large, too large to completely eradicate, so Randidly hesitated. Then he manipulated the crust of his new world, stretching and separating it, so there wasn’t just one big hole, but 8 small holes, and then innumerable holes that were extremely tiny. From these holes, that grey power gushed upwards.

The he reached for the cold, murderous energy, the energy of rain, and towards his soul skill. The wisps swirled excitedly.

Warning! Your actions will deconstruct your current Soul Skill. If another one isn’t created shortly with a similar or greater level of power, some of the benefits you have gained will decay. Proceed with caution-

Eyes burning, Randidly ignored the message. He knew, in a way, that what he was doing was foolish. The system, at least partially, was a way of absorbing meaning, shaping your own Aether in a way that was proven to give power. But he had left that path. After meeting the creature, after seeing this world…

He needed a power that was enough to shake the system.

As if on cue, Randidly’s mentalscape shook, hit once more by the finger of the creature, and a loud crash revealed that this blow had finally shattered his remaining defenses, or at least most of them. The sinister power of the creature came creeping back, but it was far too late.

Randidly pressed, and cut, splitting all four, murderous cold, cool rain, pulsing rot, and burning ash, each into 2 pieces, and flattened each of those 8 split bits of energy into a membrane. These membranes were lowered onto the 8 main holes on the crust. At first the grey energy resisted it, building up behind the membrane, but then the pressure grew to the point that it was enough, and it burst through, throwing up this elementally aligned energy into the sky and the world, dying the slowly growing world different colors.

Around the murderous cold membranes, chilly wastelands began to form. The Rain membranes created seas, which spawn rivers and streams that flowed outwards into other territories. The Rot membrane created vast swamps, with forests and plains growing around the edge. The Ash energy cause volcanoes to form, making mountain ranges and lava plumes.

Randidly beckoned at the growing number of wisps, “Now it’s your guys turn.”

Them

“Come here, children. Let me make you more.”

More. MORE.

The wisps swirled down towards Randidly excitedly, a huge storm with him at their center. But before he touched them, he pulled on his connections to his four blessed individuals. He needed power, but more than power, he needed their meaning.