Dimensional Descent

"I see." Leonel nodded.

The Spear Faction seemed to be more important than he thought. Usually, talks of prestige and public perception wouldn't bother him that much, but the more he learned about the Dimensional Verse, the more he had come to understand that many things weren't as simple as black and white.

For example, the so-called Constellation Alliance Nazag had mentioned had rolled off of Leonel's shoulders before, he hadn't really cared. But then when he was reading in the Void Library, something suddenly clicked for him.

The Lio family, the Pyius family, the Tarius family, the Gemin family, the Lira family, the Taur family, the Cornus family, the Cancer family, the Ram family, the Virgo family, the Quarius family, and the Pisc family.

Of those families, Leonel had had run-ins with all of them during the True Selection, some in passing, and some in much more fierce confrontations. He hadn't known their names before, but when he did come to know them, the answer was so glaring that he couldn't ignore it.

Weren't their names too similar to Earth's 12 most important constellations? Whether by legend of infamy, who of Earth didn't know those 12 names? They might have been a bit different, but three was already a coincidence, so what exactly did a dozen make?

One might ask why this was even important and what it had to do with Leonel's thoughts of public perception.

Well, the answer was quite simple for a person whose mind worked like Leonel's.

How did Earth so suddenly stumble into such names for their constellations? Anyone who had ever seen the actual alignment of stars could very easily tell that said constellations looked very little like their namesakes. Whoever named them most definitely had an overactive imagination and would probably see entire storylines while cloud watching.

If the star patterns were hardly recognizable from their constellation patterns, then how exactly had Earth stumbled onto the exact right names?

It wasn't just the name that was similar, but even the meaning behind them seemed perfect.

Take Vega Quarius for example, the very same woman who tried to recruit Aina into her Faction. Was her hair not blue? Was that a coincidence? It seemed like a ridiculous one.

Even further, many had seen Vega fight before, she was without question someone with a strong water affinity.

And what about Nazag Tarius? Could it be any more on the nose that his family was part of the Constellation Bow Alliance and that he was a genius archer?

And then there was the overly arrogant Conon Lio who had a head and face of golden hair that quite frankly looked more like the mane of a lion than anything a human should have.

[AN: I have no idea which bastard wrote this, but we Leos are not arrogant, we're just very handsome and everyone hates us for it]

All of these things couldn't possibly be coincidences. So, what had happened? Had these families sent representatives of Earth to spread word of their family names?

That didn't make much sense to Leonel. At the very least, if they had taken such an approach, the names wouldn't have been "kind of similar", they would have been exact. In addition, what would be the point of that?

But then Leonel felt that he was still thinking too rigidly. What if there was actually a benefit to spreading your fame like this? If Artistic Conception could wield such power, who was to say that there weren't other things that Leonel had been unaware of that could potentially hold such strength?

Then Leonel remembered that in his second ever Zone, he became enemies with Shield Cross Stars because they had interfered with Joan. And then they actually appeared again in Camelot's Zone.

By this point in his analysis, Leonel had to take a step back and shake his head. The actions of Shield Cross Stars had been very conservative and very covert, it couldn't be compared to something so obvious. And, clearly, changing up the names a bit wasn't exactly stealthy.

Though it wasn't obvious, there seemed to be a bit of a taboo in talking about Earth.

No one here ever mentioned Earth, no one in the Luxnix family had mentioned it, and everyone seemed to approach Earth in a hands off fashion. Leonel didn't believe that these families would be so brazen.

There was a piece of the puzzle Leonel thought he was missing. But, that was when he thought about things in the reverse fashion.

What if it wasn't that the families wanted to spread their influence to strengthen themselves, but rather that they were powerful already and as a result, the influence of their constellations influenced Earth unknowingly?!

The more Leonel thought about it, the more he felt it made sense.

When he fused an Artistic Conception into his spear, even if someone couldn't quite understand the foundation and root of it, he could still convey a feeling. And, what was the Constellation Realm if not the ultimate Artistic Conception?!

It was the highest Realm you could touch and the strongest Universal Cycle you could comprehend. It made sense that if it took its place in the night sky, that people would be able to vaguely understand the meaning it was trying to convey. And, if it was strong enough, maybe even hear a little bit of its name.

Of course, there were many other things Leonel was confused about. For example, weren't he constellations in the Milky Way? But they weren't even in the same Galaxy anymore.

However, toward these questions, he could only ignore them as this was probably related to higher level secrets he wasn't aware of.

The original point of this line of thought stood strong, though. Things like reputation, while feeling intangible, could actually have real world impact even on a Third Dimensional world countless light years away.

In that case, what effect did they have on higher Dimensions that were far closer?

The Spear Faction's blade seemed to be dulling continuously and their enemies were taking advantage of it as they pleased.

Leonel never cared much for the spear as a weapon. He chose it originally by coincidence, and then he stuck with it because he had a Lineage Factor to pair with it.

But, if there was one thing he did care about, it was losing. He really hated to lose.

"Thank you for the information, Dmitry. Can you show me what Void Star Missions are available, please?"