Dimensional Descent

Leonel took a breath and closed his eyes. Although he had more treasures to go through, he directly shook his head, he needed rest. Without another word, he entered a pod and entered a deep sleep. It wasn't until three hours later, the equivalent of almost two weeks, that he finally stepped out.

His mind felt far sharper and he was also much calmer. These questions weren't things that he allowed to bother him any longer. The answer didn't matter. All that mattered to him was that Aina wanted their babies to be little princes and princesses. Simulation or not, real world or not, did it matter? He would just conquer it all and enjoy the smile on his wife's face.

With a sharp gaze, Leonel went through the remaining treasure in the spatial ring. As expected, none were as world-shattering as the first three. He didn't really want to waste his time with these things because there was nothing here better than simply training with the Segmented Cube.

'Hm? The Segmented Cube?'

Leonel's eyes suddenly lit up. Indeed, why hadn't he thought of that?

He had been looking for something to strengthen his most powerful combatants. In his mind, his top priority currently was the improvement of Aina, James, Emna, Elorin, and potentially Amery depending on how things went.

He had already greatly helped the first three, but Elorin had stumped him. He had hoped to find some inspiration, but how could families weaker than even the Morales and Suiard families have something as rare as a treasure that could help a time Ability Index user? And, even if they did, they would likely take such a thing to the grave, how could they allow others to know when they could use the façade of their weakness to avoid its reveal?

But Leonel had forgotten that he had the ultimate treasure right with him.

Whether it was the snowglobe or the suspended animation pods that had spun off from them, both were a spectacular application of Time Force, there was nothing else that could be used to describe them. It was very likely that Anastasia knew something about this Force that others simply didn't.

"Anastasia."

Leonel called the little cloud spirit over again. The analysis of the bronze disk was still going although he had given James, but Anastasia could multitask quite easily, especially since this was a question that should be within her purview to answer.

"You're ordering me around a little bit too freely, don't you think? And didn't I sense your father? That bastard is actually so close and won't come to say hello? How dare he?!"

Anastasia seemed to have been holding in this belly full of anger for quite a while, but finally couldn't anymore. She had wanted to play it off and be as uncaring as Velasco was, but clearly that wasn't within herself to do.

Leonel smiled bitterly. That old man was too busy sucking up to his mom after his past as a pervert was exposed to focus on anything else right now, how could he have the time to remember Anastasia especially since he had already given the Segmented Cube to Leonel to control.

"Humph, Humph, HUMPH!" Anastasia's lower half, formed of clouds, bristled and shook, even darkening as though she would begin to shoot out lightning bolts.

"Okay, okay, I'll bring him here to see you, promise. That aside, what do you know about Time Force? Do you think that it's possible for you to pass on any of that knowledge to someone else?"

Anastasia froze for a moment then looked toward Leonel. "You don't have any talent in such things. Just like Dream Force, if someone without affinity tried to mess around with Time Force they'd only hurt themselves. The consequences for messing with Dream Force might be devastating in that you'll forget yourself, but there's always a small chance you could come back. If you mess around with Time Force without affinity you won't just figuratively lose yourself, the devastation would be very real and there would be no coming back.

"Death would be the easiest and simplest outcome."

Leonel wanted to explain that this wasn't for him, but then he suddenly became curious when Anastasia said this.

"What would be a worse outcome?"

"How about being caught in a perpetual loop where you can only experience that same death again and again?" Anastasia said, somewhat annoyed.

Leonel sucked in a cold breath. He had experienced being eaten alive once before, but what if he had to experience that again and again.

"The causalities you have to deal with when using Time Force can easily trap you unless you have a talent for telling the difference between reality and constructs, only death awaits you."

"Why do I feel like my spear can kind of use Time Force, then?" Leonel suddenly asked.

Anastasia looked at Leonel deeply before shaking her head.

"Everyone has Dream Force in them, can they use it? Everyone has Soul Force, but can they freely wield it? In truth, calling it Time Force is incorrect, it's more accurate to call it Causality Force, Reality Force, even Creation Force would be more accurate. Time Force is the foundation that gives everything else meaning. Even space, location, and size are all irrelevant before time. Without time, there is no existence, you can describe a being without describing their location, but you can't separate them from the causality they're tied to.

"There was nothing before time came into being, and there'll be nothing after it vanishes.

"The so-called Time Force you're controlling is only you taking control of the causality of your spear. You've gained enough understanding of it to begin to shift and change its very being with your Spear Force, but don't mistake that for controlling Time Force. These aren't the same things."

Leonel's eyes widened. Anastasia had never spoken so much in one sitting, but when she finally did, her words seemed to hold the weight of a world.