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"No worries at all. Getting a glimpse of a promising junior is always a pleasant diversion." Renova chuckled. "If he caught the eye of Lady Hephaestus herself, his future is guaranteed to be bright. I know a solid investnt when I see one."
Bright future? Hephaestus smiled but didn't say a word. The sheer, overwhelming pride she felt toward Lucian was becoming increasingly difficult to hide. Forget the mortal realm—even a divine being like herself had been left completely awestruck by his Ga Board concept. It was an unprecedented, paradigm-shifting thodology.
"So, are you two on a date?" Renova suddenly asked, her eyes darting between their matching formal attire with a knowing smirk.
"You could say that," Hephaestus replied. Her posture stiffened for a fraction of a second, but she was no tsundere. She owned the situation with natural grace.
"How wonderful." Renova sighed playfully.
Standing quietly to the side, Riveria watched Lucian with a flicker of genuine surprise in her eyes.
A romance between a mortal and a god? It was incredibly rare.
When the gods descended to the lower world, they wanted to experience every facet of mortal life, and romance between mortals and gods was inevitably one of them. However, almost all of those relationships ended in profound tragedy. The human would wither and die, leaving the immortal god to endure lifetis of agonizing reincarnation, waiting for a soul that might never return. The sheer, terrifying obsession so deities displayed toward their mortal lovers was often deeply unsettling.
But judging by their current dynamic, they were strictly in the dating phase; they weren't fully committed lovers just yet. The emotional intensity hadn't escalated to that terrifying, irreversible threshold.
After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Lucian and Hephaestus left the shop.
As the door chid shut, Renova turned to the High Elf. "What do you think of that kid?"
"There's an incredibly strange, ethereal aura surrounding him," Riveria murmured. "I have a feeling he's going to achieve sothing monuntal in the field of magic."
Her intuition regarding magic was unparalleled, which was exactly why she had been quietly observing him. However, she had kept her distance, offering only a polite nod. At the end of the day, he was just a rookie. She didn't foresee their paths crossing in any aningful way anyti soon.
If Lucian truly did rise to prominence, the Loki Familia's inevitable expansion would force them into contact with the major forging factions anyway. Since they were destined to et eventually, there was no need to interrupt his date now.
"I trust your instincts implicitly," Renova muttered to herself. "Guess I really did misjudge him."
Riveria knew exactly how prone the shopkeeper was to idle rambling, so she simply shook her head and took her leave.
anwhile, Lucian and Hephaestus continued their stroll through the city, snacking on local Orario street food while simultaneously rapid-firing theories to refine the Ga Board's rules.
Suddenly, Lucian froze mid-step.
As the newly compiled rules successfully integrated into his psyche, his consciousness was violently pulled into a boundless, dream-like dinsion.
"What's wrong?" Hephaestus imdiately asked, her tone laced with concern. "Did the structural compilation of the ntal Landscape fail?"
"No... how do I put this... it went far smoother than I could have ever predicted." Lucian paused, analyzing his internal state. "Through [Rule Creation], I successfully anchored my psyche and manifested it as a ntal Landscape. I've successfully constructed the [Sea of Illusions]."
"But there's a slight complication. This Sea of Illusions has literally beco the centralized battery for my ntal energy, and it has assimilated my magic slots."
Based on his research prior to crossing over, combined with his own internal observations, Lucian had ntally categorized the fundantal nature of the soul.
'Mind' or 'Spirit' was simply an alternative expression of energy, comprised of two core pillars: Consciousness and Thought.
Consciousness was the hardware's ability to perceive and acknowledge external stimuli. Thought was the advanced cognitive processing built upon that foundation. The overarching concept of 'Spirit' encompassed a human's consciousness, thoughts, mories, emotions, willpower, and intellect.
An adventurer's 'Mind' energy was the physical weaponization of that spirit. Crucially, it only utilized the surplus energy left over after the brain had allocated enough power to keep the biological body functioning. This was exactly why completely draining one's Mind resulted in an instant, localized coma.
By applying [Rule Creation], Lucian had successfully unified his 'Singular Inner Reality' and physically manifested it as the [Sea of Illusions]. This conceptual ocean now served as the ultimate, infinite container for his soul.
But in doing so, his core psyche had completely rged with the Sea of Illusions, essentially transforming his entire soul into one colossal, overarching 'Magic Slot'. This singular, massive slot had fully engulfed the three standard magic slots granted by the Falna, and worse, it had absorbed his actual ntal energy reserves. His personal power and his ntal Landscape were now perfectly, inextricably linked.
"Is that a good thing?" Hephaestus frowned deeply. "Can you still cast your other spells?"
"I can. The three core spells have basically beco the foundational pillars of my inner world," Lucian explained. "The only issue is my original blueprint. I intended to keep my personal combat capability completely segregated from the Ga Board's infrastructure. I didn't expect the system to forcefully rge them."
Lucian's baseline stats were objectively weak. If he tethered the absolute limits of his Reality Marble to his own physical and ntal capacity, he would never be able to render the massive, world-spanning maps he desired.
His original plan was to isolate the Reality Marble entirely. Once isolated, he would seek out an independent, infinite energy source—like the Fla of Heaven from Olympia. By hooking that external battery into his [Ether Circulation] loop, he could theoretically render infinite maps without draining his own life force.
But since his soul and the Reality Marble were now a singular entity, the maximum rendering capacity of the [Sea of Illusions] was strictly hard-capped by Lucian's personal power.
Therefore, he needed to perform a surgical strike: severing the Sea of Illusions from his core psyche.
He pitched the concept to Hephaestus, plunging the goddess into deep thought.
After a long silence, she finally spoke. "I believe it's theoretically possible, but there are several critical fail-states you need to account for."
"First, you must ensure the severance doesn't lobotomize you. You can't execute a total, clean cut, or you'll lose administrative access to the Sea of Illusions entirely, effectively building a god-tier weapon for soone else to steal. You must hard-code your absolute, un-revokable admin privileges into its core."
"I know. That's non-negotiable," Lucian nodded in agreent.
"Second, even after you successfully isolate it, a ntal Landscape isn't inherently infinite. It still requires a structural load-bearing chanism."
"You can use the very maps you create as the architectural pillars holding up the Sea of Illusions. You need to code a strict equilibrium equation," Hephaestus explained carefully, mapping out the divine logic. "For example: The higher the physical density and total volu of your World Bubbles, the vaster the Sea of Illusions becos, thereby increasing its maximum load-bearing capacity."
A Reality Marble was the magical materialization of one's inner landscape. Once deployed, it completely overwrote the physical rules of the imdiate environnt with the user's localized physics engine. The physical world was essentially compressed and temporarily shoved into a tiny container to make room for the inner world. This container was theoretically classified as a 'World Egg'.
If the Ga Board remained purely virtual, capacity wasn't an issue. The human imagination is inherently boundless. Lucian could temporarily project any map he wanted without performing a dangerous psychological severance.
But Lucian's ambition wasn't a VR simulator. He wanted to code the virtual frawork first, and once he secured enough raw energy, he intended to permanently rip the Reality Marble out of his mind and anchor it into physical reality.
Just like how Nrvnqsr Chaos deployed his Reality Marble entirely within his own physical body to bypass the World's automatic conceptual correction, Lucian planned to turn his entire psyche into an isolated Reality Marble. As long as he didn't project it outward, the World couldn't crush it. This loophole would allow him to foster genuine, physical alternate dinsions within himself.
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