Chapter 138: Chapter 138 Experiment_1
Late at night, Aiden stood in the center of the mist-shrouded office, calmly observing the "change" happening in his own office.
The fog that obscured his vision suddenly cleared, the scattered files on the ground automatically returned to the shelves, the fallen paintings floated back to the walls, the spilled coffee returned to the cup, and the objects on the office table resumed their places.
Just now, he had tried using the "Return" incantation he had mastered in his office.
Although he had personally experienced the effects and value of the Divine Decrees during his battle with Presia, it was not until today that he started to seriously delve into researching and practicing the effects of this particular Divine Decree.
Speaking a Divine Decree with one’s physical body requires transforming the vocal cords into an extremely altered state. Like his own ability to use body modification without personally paying the price of pain, every time he used a Divine Decree he would experience pain as if a blade had slashed across his throat; thus, he couldn’t possibly use this particular Divine Decree frivolously or just to be lazy and clean up his room.
Aiden paced back and forth in his office, checking everywhere to confirm the effects of the Divine Decree.
The fog he had created with dark magic had also been dispersed by the Divine Decree. This dark magic could completely obscure another person’s vision, although the user’s own vision was better than others’, it was still significantly impaired.
The deliberately messed-up items had mostly returned to their original spots, and the floor was much cleaner than before—he had noticed earlier that scraps of paper on the ground automatically flew into the trash bin.
This "Return" effect could sometimes surpass the limits of what ordinary human effort could achieve. Even ink splattered on paper and coffee spilled on the floor would revert to their original places as if time had been turned back—however, he didn’t really want to drink that coffee anymore.
Then, he walked back to the front of his office desk and carefully examined the documents on the table.
There was a photocopied document sent by the HR department for review on the desk. Aiden reached out to pick up the document but ended up only pinching a fragment.
He narrowed his eyes and drew his finger across the paper twice, and the paper completely separated into several fragments—it was initially torn into pieces, just pieced back together with an extremely fine technique to appear intact at first glance.
Before using the Divine Decree, Aiden had specifically torn this document into fragments and crumpled them together. Under the effect of the Divine Decree, the pieces of the document became flat again and were finely pieced back together.
Aiden glanced again at the wastebasket. Along with this document, several pieces of useless waste paper had also been torn and crumpled into balls; those waste papers didn’t get reassembled like the document but automatically flew right into the wastebasket.
Aiden picked up the kettle filled with boiling water, ready to pour it onto the ground, but not a single drop of water came out of the spout.
He stared at the clock, maintaining this position for quite a while, then water finally started pouring from the spout, creating splashes on the ground; Aiden quickly leveled the kettle.
This time he measured the duration of the Divine Decree’s effectiveness—about thirty seconds or so.
So that was it... Aiden felt he had touched a bit of the boundary of the effects of this Divine Decree.
The efficacy of a Divine Decree is based on the subjective judgment of the caster. For Aiden, although both the document and the waste paper were torn and crumpled, the document was useful while the waste paper was useless, thus the Divine Decree allowed the document to revert as much as possible to its original state, while disposing of the waste paper in the bin.
However, although the document had "returned" to its place, its damaged state had not been remedied.
Extrapolating this to dark magic, this "Return" Divine Decree can disperse magic and return some of the effects of magic to the state before they took effect, but it probably cannot repair the established damage caused by dark magic to the target of the spell.
Originally, what Presia used on him was a persistent form of Mental Magic. Once the spell was dispelled, his senses and spirit were to return to their original state. However, if at that time Presia’s magic had caused irreversible damage to his spirit, or had she simply shot him, the Divine Decree of "return" would have been powerless.
In other words, this Divine Decree could only be used as a means of dispelling or purifying in battle, and could not be used as a healing ability like a support skill.
Besides, Aiden had roughly determined the range of this Divine Decree through several prior attempts—it was approximately a five-meter radius around the caster, and the caster’s consciousness had to be able to perceive the space.
For example, right now, the range of the Divine Decree was actually larger than this office, but because Aiden couldn’t directly perceive the situation outside the office, the Decree could only take effect within the office.
He had asked Presia before; when he used this Divine Decree on Presia previously, she felt a force trying to pull her spirit out of Rebecca’s body. But in the end, the Divine Decree did not take effect, probably because Presia’s body was outside the range of the Decree.
Honestly speaking, the Divine Decree that could dispel black magic was very useful, and to a certain extent, it could even achieve an effect like that of a "mage slayer".
But his Divine Decrees had limits in effect, range, and duration, and although they could prevail over black magic, they might not necessarily work against other Divine Decrees.
By Aiden’s estimation, if he faced an opponent like the witch Vila, his chances of winning should still be quite good.
But if the opponent was Abigail, or "that person"...
No, he might not even be able to defeat Lamia and Qiqimora, who also wielded Divine Decrees.
Divine Decrees are the authority of the gods, and their power surely goes beyond this.
However, in his hands, the effect of this Divine Decree could only be considered a useful purification spell; this was probably due to his limited power as the user.
Even the sturdiest and sharpest axe, if wielded by a child with no strength, cannot chop through a thick trunk.
He remembered Melifilia saying that the effect of a Divine Decree would improve with mastering other Decrees under the same authority.
After grasping three Decrees of the same authority and obtaining the corresponding "Sole Authority" followed by completing the associated ascension ritual, one could become a ruler directly...
Since he could not see through Melifilia’s true intentions, Aiden was still cautious about her suggestions. When Melifilia had previously mentioned this, he had not given her a positive response.
But Melifilia was right about one thing—that if he didn’t make an effort to master as many Divine Decrees as possible, his situation would eventually become very difficult.
Melifilia might have her own agenda, but she seemed intent on letting Aiden approach the ruler’s authority—of course, this could be using him, but for Aiden, this exploitation was potentially profitable.
It was like making a deal with a tiger, but at least for now, the tiger was on his side.
Having made up his mind, Aiden picked up the lantern and once again opened the entrance to the passageway.
