Chapter 827: Natural, Personalised, and Standard Aspects of Power
"Hmm? Yeah. Adamas. Adam, whatever you want to call him. Same person either way," Barda replied.
"Right, that. But you keep saying ’Adam’s Universe,’ like it’s just one. Doesn’t he have at least a couple trillion under him or something?"
Arthur expected that a Progenitor as old and powerful as Adamas would rule over a multiversal-scale empire, and at his question, Barda blinked in confusion before realisation crossed his eyes.
"Seriously, what kind of Progenitor are you? You really have no idea how the Origin Multiverse works?"
"Of course I don’t. I’ve never been there," Arthur shot back immediately.
At this, Barda sighed and explained.
"Whenever a Progenitor is born, a ’big bang’ happens in the Origin Multiverse.
In other words, the birth of every Progenitor spawns a new universe within the Origin Multiverse, and that universe becomes ’theirs’. They’re inherently linked to it, and ONLY they can ever be the Master of that universe.
The Main Entities of that universe can ONLY be members of their race, too.
The universe born with Adam is ’Adam’s Universe’, or, as most call it, the ’Human Universe’. Giving them special names is troublesome, so everyone just refers to them by the race name."
Arthur was left silent for a few seconds, stunned by the explanation. He had never imagined that somewhere in the Origin Multiverse, an entire universe was waiting for him to inherit its mantle as Master.
"When you enter the Origin Multiverse, its location will reveal itself to you."
Right after saying this, Barda’s gaze shifted to Arthur’s right hand, and he added,
"Don’t think about going there now. Not only would you be putting yourself into Luka’s reach, but the Master Authority of a Progenitor Universe is far heavier than even that of a Primary Universe like this one.
Trying to claim that mantle in your current state would kill you."
"I seem to be running into a lot of things that could kill me lately..." Arthur muttered with a sigh, and hearing that, Barda clarified.
"It’s the Authority of an entire universe, you know? You’re just a Low-Tier Deity. Do you honestly think you can withstand it?
Especially when those Natural Aspects you have already occupied nearly all the space in your soul."
Barda pointed out one detail that made Arthur sigh again.
The Aspects of Time and Destruction he possessed had almost completely filled his Soul Space.
There was a limit to how many powers an existence could contain, and that limit was determined by the strength of their soul and the amount of ’space’ it held to accommodate such powers.
Origin Cores formed when comprehended laws were stored in the soul, and the same was true for the Runes of Skills, unique abilities, and the like.
Arthur’s Aspects were present there as well, and considering their power, it was only natural they consumed a vast amount of space... far too much, in fact.
If Arthur were to comprehend a new law in order to gain an Authority, he doubted there would even be room for the Origin Core to form.
That was just how much space they had already occupied.
It hadn’t been this bad at first, but once he became a Cosmic Being, more of their power was released, and the space they demanded grew in proportion to the expansion of his soul.
To add another Authority, Arthur would first need to advance into the Mid-Tier Deity realm.
Which, naturally, was easier said than done.
"About those Aspects...you and your siblings keep calling them ’Natural Aspects,’ care to explain that to me?"
Arthur pulled out a chair from his subspace and sat down as he spoke, and upon hearing him, Barda yawned before answering.
"That’s rather simple."
Concepts governed the phenomena across the Cosmos, and the universal laws woven into the fabric of reality were born from these Concepts.
"The word ’Aspect’ refers to a particular part or ’feature’ of something. So, a ’Natural Aspect’ of a Concept is simply a ’feature’ of that Concept.
Take something we both share as an example: Time. Time can be ’Stopped’, ’Slowed’, ’Sped Up’, ’Reversed’, ’Fast Forwarded’, ’Skipped’, and so on.
That cluster of Cosmic energy within your soul embodies one of these naturally occurring facets of ’Time’. While you can use it to perform all of them since it’s tied to the Concept itself, there will always be one it excels at, and you’ll discover which that is eventually.
The difference in efficiency would be so extreme that using it for anything else would be wasteful and inefficient to the point even a blind man could see it."
Barda’s concise explanation was enough for Arthur to narrow down which ’Facet’ his Aspect embodied.
’It’s either ’Slow’ or ’Stop’. My efficiency when using either of those is remarkably high.’
He still wasn’t certain which one in particular it was, since the efficiency shifted between them, with ’Slow’ sometimes outperforming ’Stop’.
"If there are Natural Aspects, then there must be Artificial ones as well, right?" Arthur asked, but Barda only shook his head.
"It’s not an ’Artificial’ Aspect, but a ’Personalised Aspect’.
That’s Quasi-Supreme business. The Aspects formed there are unique expressions of one’s personal understanding of the laws they have comprehended and assimilated.
Everyone interprets laws differently, even though it’s the same thing we all comprehend.
The way I understand time might sound like gibberish to you, just as your own interpretation could sound like bullshit to me.
A Personalised Aspect is simply the outward expression of that individual understanding. But ’Understanding’ itself is abstract, and on its own it cannot affect reality, which is why it’s paired with the First Concretization to be ’Manifested’ into reality."
Just as Barda finished speaking, he paused, turned to Arthur silently, then nodded to himself.
"Okay, you already know what Concretizations are, good."
He had just glanced into the future, seen himself asking Arthur that question and receiving a positive answer, so he skipped asking and continued.
"Anyway, that’s what ’Personalised’ Aspects are. You can have as many as your soul can handle without bursting, but they take up a huge amount of soul space, so most people stick to their best laws and coin Aspects from only those few.
Lastly, there are Standard Aspects."
"There’s a third type?" Arthur asked, blinking in surprise at the number of categories, and Barda nodded casually.
"Yeah. These are the most common ones.
They’re the boilerplate Aspects, the ones anyone can acquire as long as they have the prerequisite laws comprehended and assimilated.
An example is a Racial Aspect."
Barda extended his hand and muttered.
|Aspect of the Dragon: World-Rending Claws.|
Cosmic energy burst out as Barda’s left arm morphed, transforming into a muscular, draconic arm covered in scales, its claws stretching over fifty centimetres in length.
He was about to demonstrate their destructive power, but the scene of Chazat’s destruction that crossed his mind made him decide otherwise.
"Only existences with Dragon Factors can obtain this. It requires a fixed combination of laws that must be fully comprehended and assimilated to form it.
The same applies to other races, yours included. That means you’ll need to figure out which combination of universal laws best draws out your race’s latent power so you can forge the ’Aspect of the godslayer’ or whatever you decide to name it."
Barda’s arm reverted to normal, and he placed his hand behind his head as he leaned back and said,
"You don’t have full control over those Natural Aspects of yours, so they’re bloated and occupy more space than necessary.
With better control, they’d compress and occupy less space, but would be denser and of higher quali—! Wait, why am I even teaching you this!? You haven’t accepted my deal yet!"
Barda cut himself off midway, realising he had unconsciously slipped into teaching mode.
As mentioned before, the Levites were teachers who had mentored countless Ancient and Elder-Breed dragons, and although some of their methods were questionable, they were undeniably skilled at it.
They also had a certain enjoyment for teaching, and some, like Barda, often drifted into lecture mode without noticing, just as he had done with Arthur, only to suddenly recall that Arthur had yet to accept his offer to be groomed as the next Eternal of Time.
Arthur, for his part, had also forgotten about that offer until Barda brought it up again.
"Right, you did mention something about becoming an Eternal..."
He muttered with a weary sigh before shaking his head and continuing, "I don’t think I can accept that. I have this instinctive feeling that I shouldn’t get any closer to the cosmic force of..."
Arthur paused, adding more intent to his words as he continued a moment later. "I don’t think I should get any closer to the cosmic force of chaos than I already am, so becoming an Eternal doesn’t seem like the best idea, since that would put me as close as I could possibly be."
However, Arthur’s words made little sense to Barda, and the man’s reply reflected it.
"The heck are you on about? You already have two Natural Aspects inside you. You’re already closer to chaos than 99% of the Cosmos."
"99%? That’s more than I expected," Arthur admitted in surprise, though it only lasted a moment before he returned his focus.
"Anyway, even that’s already too much for me. I never planned on getting these Aspects in the first place. I just ended up in situations where they jumped me, and now I’m stuck with them."
That much was true. Arthur had no intention of getting involved in the Candidate Selection process, but circumstances had made him the only Dual Candidate currently in existence across the Cosmos.
"I get that, but in the end, that’s just your perspective. The other Candidates won’t see it the same way, you know?"
