Myriad Heavens: Rise of the Rune God

Chapter 238: Chapter 239: Day Two and Beyond

The next three days of the exchange passed in a focused blur for Runar.

He remained seated in the same central position for most of the time, his body relaxed but his mind operating at full capacity. His perception spread out like an invisible net across the entire massive venue and far beyond it. Nothing important escaped his notice. He continuously read and absorbed principle fragments from every available source. Every time a fighter activated a divine ability in the tournament matches below, Runar carefully analyzed the hidden traces within it. During the intense half-step Multiversal battles in the void, he studied the deeper rule expressions that flashed across the empty space. Even when things were quiet, he turned part of his attention toward William’s universe origin itself, reading its fundamental structure with calm, patient focus.

His near-infinite computational mind worked silently in the background the entire time. It sorted, connected, and stored everything he gathered. Inside his consciousness, an extensive internal catalogue kept growing. He now possessed seeds for several new principles he had not yet given names to. Some fragments were small and bright, others more complex and layered. Connections between different pieces were slowly becoming clearer, forming the early outlines of larger underlying structures he was only beginning to map.

At the same time, Runar had been passively reading William’s universe origin directly through his Multiversal-level information perception. He did not force his way in or take anything hidden. He simply observed what was openly available to someone at his level — the elegant flow of fundamental laws, the subtle rhythms of energy, and the deep, carefully designed architecture that held the entire universe together.

William had noticed this early on the first day. Runar felt the cosmic being’s attention brush over him for a brief moment. But William said nothing about it. There was no warning, no objection, and no attempt to block him. Runar took the silence as quiet permission and continued his reading without worry.

He sat there for hours at a time, eyes half-closed, breathing slow and steady. Occasionally, small motes of light — invisible to everyone else — flickered around him as new fragments of understanding settled into place. The process was peaceful but incredibly productive. With each passing hour, his knowledge grew richer and more complete. The seeds in his catalogue were becoming stronger, and the connections between them were starting to reveal patterns he had never seen before.

Even while doing all of this, Runar remained fully aware of his surroundings. He could hear the excited voices of the crowd during exciting matches, feel the shifting emotions of the people around him, and sense the quiet pride radiating from his family seated nearby. He was working deeply, but he was not distant. He was simply doing what he did best — learning, understanding, and growing stronger in silence.

---

On the second day, the Quasar bracket opened.

Celestia and Nyla both registered to fight.

They had reached this level through the special time-dilation cultivation space Runar had created for them long before the exchange began. Inside that space, thousands of years of subjective training time had passed while only a short period went by in the outside world. Their foundations were not rushed or unstable. They were deep, solid, and carefully refined over what felt like centuries. Runar had taught them personally — not just techniques, but the underlying principles behind every move, the structural logic of their own abilities, and the specific optimizations that made each approach perfect for who they were as individuals.

They stepped into the Quasar bracket and began fighting.

The results were immediate and one-sided.

In their first matches, both Celestia and Nyla dominated their opponents. William’s Quasar-realm fighters, who relied heavily on raw mechanical power and innate divine abilities, found themselves completely outmatched in technique depth and principle understanding. Celestia’s **Unity Cycle** technique — which Runar had personally modified and perfected for her — operated on a level that left her opponents with no natural counter. She moved with graceful precision, cycling between defense and offense in perfect harmony, neutralizing powerful attacks and striking back at the exact right moment.

Nyla fought with sharp, creative energy. Her combat style had been built and refined across thousands of subjective years. She found gaps in her opponents’ defenses with the precision of someone who had spent a very long time learning exactly how to exploit weaknesses.

The crowd reacted strongly as the matches continued.

During Celestia’s first fight, surprised murmurs spread through William’s side.

"Who is she?" someone whispered. "Her technique depth is completely different from the other Willith cultivators."

By the second match, the murmuring grew louder.

"They’re with the Multiversal being," another person said. "His people."

"His wives?"

"Both of them?"

"Apparently."

A short pause followed. Then someone chuckled.

"I guess the wives of a Multiversal being can’t exactly be weak."

"I would be embarrassed to be weak if my husband could destroy universes by accident."

"That’s not—"

"That’s exactly what almost happened. I heard from my Universal Uncle that Willith threw him out."

Laughter rippled through the nearby crowd.

On Willith’s side, watching through the broadcast, the reactions were filled with pride.

"Are those not Runar’s companions?"

"They’re dominating the Quasar bracket."

"Against divine ability users."

"He probably taught them personally. Did you expect anything else?"

Further back, one cultivator sighed. "I trained for three months for this exchange. Three months." He paused. "They probaly trained for thousands of years in subjective time."

"How do you know that?"

"I don’t. But look at their technique depth and tell me that’s three months of work. Especially that Nyla, I once saw her in the Academy, she was just a weak planetary being, Now she is a Quasar being."

Silence followed.

"I need a time dilation space."

"We all need a time dilation space."

A senior cultivator nearby spoke dryly, "Perhaps focus on the match."

Runar watched Celestia’s third fight with quiet focus. His information perception saw everything clearly — her technique expressing at the exact depth he had helped her build, the Unity Cycle running precisely as he had designed it, the small optimizations he had created for her movement style visible in every smooth transition. He watched her fight and felt deep satisfaction seeing the results of their years of shared training expressed so beautifully in real time.

He said nothing, but the gentle, proud expression on his face was noticed by exactly two people nearby.

Cassia closed her notebook for a brief moment, then opened it again with a soft smile. Willith’s projection glanced at Runar, then looked away without comment.

---

After the third day of intense tournament matches, the schedule shifted to the academic portion of the exchange.

Both sides began crossing back through the massive wormhole into Willith’s universe for the Dao talks and knowledge-sharing sessions.

The crossing itself was full of interesting moments.

Willith’s cultivators stepped back into their own universe with visible relief.

"Finally," one of them sighed deeply.

"I forgot what breathing normally felt like."

"Three days. I aged three days in that universe."

"You didn’t age."

"It felt like aging."

Another stretched his arms dramatically. "My cultivation base has been running at sixty percent for three days."

"Mine too."

"Mine was forty."

"How are you alive?"

"Spite."

Laughter spread through the group.

On the other side, William’s inhabitants stepped into Willith’s universe and immediately noticed the difference.

"It’s lighter here," one said, looking around.

"This is what their normal feels like?"

"How do they train in this? There’s nothing to push against."

William’s academic minority immediately began studying the environment with great interest.

"The origin structure here is different," one noted. "More complex in certain areas. Less unified."

"More diverse," another added. "Look at the Law distribution."

They started reading Willith’s universe with the same focused curiosity Runar had shown toward William’s universe.

Meanwhile, William’s combat majority were less interested in the ambient energy. Several of them quickly went looking for food and found it with satisfied expressions.

---

Runar decided to split himself.

He created a perfect clone and sent it through the wormhole to attend the Dao talks in Willith’s universe. The clone’s purpose was clear — every presentation, demonstration, and discussion would be a rich source of new principle fragments. The clone would absorb everything and feed the insights directly back to the main body.

His main body stayed in William’s universe. He still had not finished reading the universe origin here, and the remaining time was best spent continuing that work.

He told Celestia where he would be. Both of him, technically.

Celestia looked at the clone, then at the direction his main body was facing, and accepted it with the calm ease of someone who had been with Runar long enough that seeing two of him in different places no longer felt strange.

Nyla stared at the clone with open curiosity. "Does it think the same things you do?"

"Currently yes," both Runar and the clone answered at the same time. "It will start to diverge as it accumulates different experiences."

"So there will be two of you with slightly different thoughts?" Nyla asked.

"For the duration of the talks," they replied together.

Nyla looked back and forth between them. "That’s going to take some getting used to."

Runar (both versions) smiled gently. "You’ll manage."

The academic exchange in Willith’s universe was about to begin, while Runar’s main body continued deepening his understanding in William’s universe. The grand multiversal event was entering its next important phase.