Noah breathed in, a slow, deep intake of the recycled, perfectly filtered air within his new skin.
The white and gold armor was a masterpiece of lethal elegance, its lines both beautiful and brutal.
On his back, the Modulator humd, a glorious blue light pulsing from its core. His entire existence now gave off the terrifying feel of a primal, ancient predator that had just been given a new, sharper set of claws.
He looked at himself.
Others took millions or billions of years to advance where he was and at the rate he was advancing.
But when he had Perpetual Harvest amplifying his existence, Cheating Architect amplifying his existence, RUIN/EDEN amplifying his existence, and now gaining another thousandfold amplification from this glorious living, growing armant…how could he not catch up and exceed all these monsters that needed millions of years?!
HUUM!
The further one traversed in complexity and purity, thr harder it was to gain more!
In the past day, Noah should have been feeling a pinch the mont he crossed 1 Quadrillion.
Lesser beings would have said man, reaching 2 Quadrillion is going to be even harder!
And yet.
And fucking yet…!
Less than a day later, he was not approaching 2 Quadrillion, but surging towards the 100 Quadrillion marker in Complexity and Purity.
And when he added other parts of him, his Modulator alone allowed that marker to be exceeded, and now his other part of him- his own Living Existential Armor…granted him 300 Quadrillion Purity!
"…"
Who said traversing existence was hard? Who said attaining Complexity and Purity only beca harder?!
"rely Complexity…rely Purity!"
HUUM!
His voice, a heavy and deep thing, bood out again as existence trembled.
Elara looked at him, and for the first ti since he had t her, she clapped her hands, a sound of pure, unadulterated, scientific glee. Her eyes shone with a brilliant, almost manic, light.
"We have to do so field tests!" she exclaid, her voice filled with a joyous, almost dangerous, excitent. "We will exit the Early Laboratories and enter the First Folds to test out just how effective it is!"
Elara was already talking about field tests, her voice a buzz of scientific excitent that was a stark, jarring contrast to the profound, internal symphony of becoming that Noah was experiencing.
He was still acclimating, still charting the new, expanded coastlines of his own existence!
The Aegis of the Architect was not just a suit of armor; it was a new organ, a second skeleton, a partner in his very being, and with every passing second, its integration deepened, its boons becoming more and more apparent!
So much so that after just a few monts passed…
|Master, the ongoing evolution catalyzed by the symbiotic link with your armor is producing… unexpected results.|
|Your Early Atlas of the Folds is experiencing the most significant amplification. The fusion with a material containing unique clusters of Everythings has granted it a new, profound capability.|
|New Ability Unlocked: [Atlas Doorway].|
|Function: While you are physically present in the Earliest Folds, your one hundred and fifty-nine Vital Lighthouses can now synchronize and form a stable, one-way doorway. Through this Atlas Doorway, you can transfer items, resources, or materials directly from your location in the past to your Radiant Shore in the present.|
|Limitation: The doorway is not stable enough to allow for the passage of any lifeform. It is a cargo lift, not a ti machine. At least, not yet.|
Oh!
A glorious, ongoing process of evolution. The armor was actively upgrading the very foundations of his power!
The mont Noah read the description of the Atlas Doorway, of the ability to pass resources from this primordial age to his own, his gaze, which had been turned inward, snapped open.
The brilliant, blue-gold light of his visor swept across the lab and settled on the mountain of vibrant, lustrous Early Omnichalcum tal off to the side.
His mind, a silent engine of tyrannical ambition, raced. He had to have this material!
To reproduce a version of the Justiciar armor for his people… it was no longer a distant dream, but an actionable plan.
The numbers would be limited, yes, but if he could give an Aegis to Khor, to Malphas, to Sigrid, to his son… the possibilities were glorious!
A silent command was given. Deep within the internal weavings of his Atlas, the one hundred and fifty-nine Vital Lighthouses blazed as one.
Their combined light began to weave together, not into a lemniscate this ti, but into the frawork of a new, impossible structure. A doorway!
As the doorway began to form in the conceptual space of his being, Noah turned his helted gaze towards Elara.
His voice, amplified and deepened by the Aegis, was a calm, resonant note in the quiet lab. "Can I take so of the Early Omnichalcum tal for… research purposes?"
Elara blinked, her scientific fervor montarily checked by the mundane request. And his deep commanding voice…seed extrely agreeable for so reason!
She looked at the massive pile of tal, then back at him. "Sure," she said, a hint of her old, condescending tone returning.
"But this tal is unique. You can't really place it in a separate storage dinsion or anything similar. It resists such simple manipulations. You would have to hoist it around the whole ti. It is a logistical nightmare. I can apply for you to get your own designated supply for your own lab, after all, if we can verify the capabilities of your Living Existential Armor…"
Her words trailed off into a stream of procedures. Noah listened, his expression unreadable behind the golden visor.
And then, he acted.
An ocean of blue mana surged from him.
It was not a violent eruption, but a calm, inexorable tide that washed over the entire laboratory. It wrapped around the mountain of Omnichalcum, every single block, every last piece. And then, the entire mountain began to rise!
It floated in the air, a testant to a power so boundless, so absolute, that it made the very concept of weight seem like a polite suggestion.
The mountain of primordial tal drifted towards his massive, white-gold form. And on his chest, the intricate, layered plates of the Aegis retracted, opening a small, circular doorway, a portal into the very heart of his being.
|[Atlas Doorway] formation is complete. Ready for transference.|
HUUM!
Noah began to funnel the tal. Not in pieces, but the entire, liquid mass of it, which flowed like a river of stellar white light through the opening in his chest. It disappeared into the conceptual space within him, passing directly through the Atlas Doorway, traversing the impossible gulf of eons to arrive in his Early Veiled Shore, countless years in the future!
Oh!
Stop for a second, and just think of what a terrifying capability this was.
To steal a mountain of such tal from the dawn of ti and have it delivered to his own, private sanctuary in the present!
It was a theft on a scale that transcended re criminality and entered the realm of existential temporal grand larceny!
And it all stemd from his grand foundation, his Atlas, now empowered even more by his Justiciar.
In re monts, the entire mountain of Early Omnichalcum tal was gone. The laboratory, once dominated by its imnse, silent presence, now felt… empty.
Elara stared, her mouth agape, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and a dawning, terrible awe.
She pointed a trembling finger at him, her voice a choked, exasperated squeak. "You…! I said take a little!"
WAA!
|Transference Complete.|
|Units of [Early Omnichalcum tal] transported to the Radiant Shore: 7,342.|
|Analysis: Based on the schematics for the [Aegis of the Architect], this quantity is sufficient to forge approximately 10-12 additional growth-type Living Existential Armors, or a significantly larger number of less… bespoke, non-growth models.|
Noah looked at the empty space, then at Elara's apoplectic face.
He felt the slight, almost imperceptible hum of his new armor, the steady, reassuring beat of his own, impossible heart.
As if he had done nothing wrong…
"You ntioned Field Tests? In the First Folds?"
…!
Elara: "…"
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