For the next few minutes, the two ate in silence, Kayden marveling at his food and Triz embarrassed by his speech and a strange feeling about the latter. Her contact with men of the opposite sex had been ridiculously little in her life. Since she was little, she was protected from any contact with the outside world. He practically only met 30 people in his entire life. She didn’t even participate in the gyms and similar things aimed at the younger generation, her parents considered it a waste of time considering her strength.
"That was the best meal of my life," Kayden commented when the two were finished. Triz didn’t understand his words perfectly. To her, this was just normal, boring food.
"Let’s get to the main topic," Triz put on a serious face. "The invitation you received is to the greatest treasure that the elves possessed, one of the reasons that make us capable of dominating so many planets. It is a rupture in space that can be opened by a ridiculous amount of mana, large enough to annihilate an entire planet through poisoning, regardless of realm. Even those at the ninth rank can fall if they are not careful."
Kayden raised an eyebrow in surprise. This was a realm far away from him, but also a realm that should be just below divinity. It had to be something very strong and special and finding out that they could be killed like that was ridiculous.
"Only Merlin is capable of opening this room, not even he knows where he came from or how he got here. It was before he created the solar system. Simply put, you are teleported to a room with infinite space. No matter how far you walk, you will only see white in all directions. You will only get out of there when you have one day left of your life expectancy. Being alone like that for so long... it’s scary," Kayden cracked a smile to himself when he heard that.
"Hey! I saw this. Do you think it’s easy to spend centuries without any social contact, just with your mind?" Kayden responded calmly.
"Yes, that’s not a problem for me." If you think about it from a certain point of view, Kayden was alone for centuries, his last two true friends died along with Han.
Triz looked at Kayden looking for any sign of ego or arrogance, but there was nothing, not even a microexpression appeared on his face, the boy was sure of what he was talking about.
Updat𝓮d from frёewebnoѵēl.com.
"How much mana do we have in the room?" Kayden asked, depending on the amount it wouldn’t be worth it for him to enter.
"Practically infinite, but there is a small problem. The more mana you use, the louder the voices in your head get. It’s a little mystery that no one knows why, but there are some voices in your head telling you to kill yourself every moment, every day, every minute."
Kayden didn’t care about that either, his will couldn’t be broken, not even Merlin was capable of doing that, the golden eyes strengthened him to a completely ridiculous level.
"Are there any other disadvantages?" Kayden asked.
"No, it depends, if you don’t have confidence in reaching the peak of your realm and learning enough to advance when you leave, it will be useless to enter. That’s why many people refused this invitation, they are afraid of being incapable and stuck in a barrier."
Kayden had thought at this point, that if he hadn’t been able to pass the third level of the third realm for any random reason, he would have practically wasted his life going to that room, simply because he wouldn’t have been able to look for a solution to his problem.
"I see, is there anything else you want to tell me?" Kayden was already feeling that old feeling of wasted time.
"No, but I would like to invite you to tour the palace and learn a little about the elven race." Kayden looked straight into Triz’s eyes and saw an innocence and lack of knowledge about life.
"Is this a date?" Kayden couldn’t help but plant his roots in an innocent mind. His words immediately caused Triz’s cheeks to turn red, even her ears turned that color.
"No!! I... this..." Triz stuttered for the first time in ages and was lost for words.
"What a shame, then I’ll have to refuse, Miss Triz. Please let me know when the time is right. Thanks for the meal." Kayden stood up over Triz’s embarrassed eyes and logically he wouldn’t miss the opportunity to leave a final touch when he was a few meters in the air. "Ah, I recommend you learn to control your face, shame makes you beautiful, but it doesn’t suit your social status."
Kayden left before she could respond, again he would see red cheeks and ears. Triz was like a flower in a greenhouse, not even heirs from other races and planets dared to even approach her, but a simple human from the third realm flirted with her shamelessly.
Before, Kayden’s image was just that of a cold young wizard spoiled by Merlin, who would easily solve any of his problems by calling God. But now, the image she had of him was of someone confident and elegant, exactly the image Kayden wanted to portray.
***
"That’s why we should always opt for incomplete conjuration, prioritizing increasing the quantity the closer we get to consolidating our concepts into truths," Kayden was in a lecture on conjuration speed and strength.
It had been about a month since he had the conversation with Triz. During all this time, he ignored all invitations from her and any member of the elven race, focusing only on learning as much as possible.
The class he just saw explained exactly how incomplete world-driven spells worked, opening Kayden’s mind so he could expand it to his pentagrams.
After clapping for the speaker a few times, Kayden headed to his next talk. They were all done in special rooms where there were a ridiculous amount of chairs available for them to sit on.
It was very similar to ancient European theaters, made mainly of wood and leather. In addition, they had the famous giant red curtains, as well as a wooden stage and a structure that descended towards the speaker.
Kayden has only been to high-level talks so far and in many of them, there has been mention of something called truths. He didn’t know exactly what they meant, but it was clear that it was a level above concepts and necessary to move into the fifth realm.
"Hello everyone, let’s start the talk about the truths..." The presenter, who was none other than Triz, fell silent when she saw Kayden sitting in the first chair in the auditorium with a smile on his face when their eyes met. "I am Challenger Triz and I will give this talk."
Everyone who was there knew the legend of Triz, the elf prodigy, the greatest pride of the elven race in recent centuries. Practically any self-respecting elf would know about her history, even those on Earth were taught about her.
"Everyone learns concepts to advance their kingdoms. Their quantity is limited by the person’s talent, but we already know that quantity doesn’t mean anything close to quality. One high-level concept is superior to ten weak ones and they have a similar learning time, but what defines something to be strong or weak?"
His question was followed by a great silence from everyone in the auditorium. No one dared to open their mouth and be wrong in front of the greatest genius in the elven kingdom. As the seconds began to tick by, Kayden raised his hand to respond and save Triz’s lecture.
"I could be wrong and I ask you to forgive my ignorance, but would it be the complexity of the concept that makes it superior?" Kayden’s response caused everyone to fall silent, and then some mocking laughter appeared.
Everyone there knew that Kayden’s answer was wrong, the reaction he was receiving was exactly what everyone feared, but Kayden... couldn’t get even one thought out of his mind.
"Your answer matches what we believed in the past. Challe …" she was about to call Kayden the Challenger, but Kayden interrupted her in a way that many would consider inappropriate.
"Don’t call me by my title, please." Triz frowned, Kayden was again the first person in centuries who interrupted her in a speech.
"Okay, Kayden, your answer is wrong. Today we know that the quality of a concept is the depth we learn about it. The same concept can have different strengths depending on the person, for example, someone who learned the concept of wind and storm should have a deeper understanding of storm than someone who learned air and storm."
Kayden felt his mind opening with the new information, the primitive way of thinking was probably what all civilizations developed first, something that Earth as a recent planet developed.