Dimensional Descent

Leonel laughed to himself when he had this thought, it really wasn't much of an exaggeration, actually. In fact, it was entirely true.

He hadn't spent long with this version of Aina by his side. Not long after he had cured her curse back to a level she could manage herself, they entered the Valiant Zone and found themselves separated. Then, after they got out, they were thrust into the situation with the other organizations and the rest went about as poorly as one could imagine.

But, even in that short time, Leonel realized that Aina was always the center of attention when he was around without even trying.

That was just the way the world worked, unfortunately. It was a sort of double edged sword for both men and women.

On one side, there were men who, no matter how handsome they were, had to find their worth in either their personal strength or their wealth. In most cases, a woman wouldn't choose a man purely based on looks in a world like the Dimensional Verse where your death could be lingering around the next corner.

Leonel himself was fairly handsome. Maybe not as handsome as Wise Star Order or Elthor, but that was mostly because he dressed down a lot of the time, hadn't had a haircut he didn't slice with his own blade and years, and couldn't be bothered to worry about useless stuff like looks.

However, even then, he could be considered to be within the top percentile of men and practically no one gave a damn.

On the other hand, there were women who no matter how talented and strong they were, were still measured by how much beauty they were born with.

Leonel had seen this all too often with Aina before her curse had been cured. She was no less powerful than himself, and even more so during most points in their journey. In fact, before his fight with Myghell, Leonel was certain that he could defeat him, but he had no idea if he could do the same with Aina. Maybe only now that his Nodes were being used properly could he say that he had a good chance at beating her. And yet…

All anyone seemed to talk about was how ugly she had been or how beautiful she was now.

When Leonel said he didn't care about Aina's beauty, he had meant it. That wasn't to say that he wasn't enthralled by it, he was a man, after all. It was just that beauty alone wasn't able to move his needle one way or another.

Maybe considering his logical brain, he should be going after the most beautiful woman possible to maximize the good genes his offspring could have. But, Leonel had always felt that a healthy family had to have foundations beyond this.

Wise Star Order shook his head. "That's because you lack status. You can't have a symbol like that by your side and be a weakling."

"Can you stop calling her a symbol already? She's a human being."

"Oh? Are you mad?" Wise Star Order laughed. "I thought you didn't want her."

"That doesn't mean I have to allow her to be disrespected."

"What a foolish little brat. I don't know what I'm going to do with you."

"How about you be useful and tell me why the Universal Cycles are ordered the way they are? It makes no sense."

"… What?"

"What are you confused about? Don't tell me you've never thought it was weird either. Wouldn't it feel better if the order was Natural Light, Four Seasons, Heavenly Body, Constellation, and then finally the Cosmos Realm? Why is it Four Seasons, Heavenly Body, Natural Light, Cosmos, then Constellation? It feels like someone shuffled it into the order than made the least amount of sense."

"…"

Wise Star Order didn't know what to say for a long time. First this kid all but threw down a gauntlet to face the Regulator, now he was doubting a power system that had been the same since the beginning of time. Did he think that things could just be like this by accident?

It was like Leonel went out of his way to make him think that he was crazy. Day after day of this stuff. He might as well go back to being tortured by Leonel's Scarlet Star Force because the shaving down of his lifespan was about the same anyway.

"… The names of the Universal Cycles don't just represent the complexity of the event itself, they represent the inherent importance of the events as well.

"You seem to think that the Night, Day, Dusk and Dawn are lesser than Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall. But, is that true?

"Night, Day, Dusk and Dawn are constants, or relative constants. No matter what world you're on, they will appear in some form. However, how many places can you think of where only a single Season is experienced? There are many places where a shift between Summer and Winter has no meaning whatsoever. Are the Four Season still beyond the cycle of Light then?"

Leonel's brow furrowed, not answering immediately.

"… But aren't there places where there's only Day as well? If I go to the north pole of Earth, the sun rarely sets. It can go months without experiencing 'night'. And then there's Planet Luxnix. Isn't it always day here too?"

"This three planet rotation is an artificial construct, it isn't part of nature's will. It's just a representation of three greedy families who didn't want to allow any of the others to have a leg up."

Leonel's brows shot up. "You can move planets?!"

"You've been to the Dimensional Cleanse Trial World and have seen the Dyson Sphere, but you're surprised by this? I really don't know what goes on in that head of yours."

Leonel felt that Wise Star Order had a point. It seemed that he was still stuck in the mind frame of an Earthling. If even Earth could terraform their continents and move them about as they please, why wouldn't far higher Dimensional Worlds have methods of moving entire planets?

"But still…" Leonel mumbled. "… The rest doesn't click with me…"