Chapter 388: The Endless Dark

Twenty four hours moving like a headless insect was excessive, even for me, but there was something about this total darkness that gnawed at my sanity, and I just wanted to leave this place.

It was not just the darkness that pressed against my consciousness, I think it was also the lack of essence in the surroundings that threw me off, reminding me a bit about my time in space, but even then, I think there were small bits of essence in the air... there was nothing here.

It took all that time to pass that I finally decide to stop moving and I sat down on the ground in the dark with my knees drawn up to my face, while ignoring my first instincts to kill myself, this was how I got my Death Consort Title, and I had a vague premonition that if I willfully kill myself here, Death may play another crazy trick and just upgrade my Title to something much more restrictive.

Also, there was also this truth that I do not truly understand the limitations of this loop, and I don’t want to die in space or any other unknown location. Of course, the Soul Flayer had suggested that the mechanics of the loop may be far greater than the Sovereign of the Stars believed it to be, I could not take this risk easily, not unless I fully understood where I was.

Ignoring the urge to take the easiest path, I gave myself the chance to think. My glowing channels threw away the darkness around me, making this place to be less stifling.

What if this space extended forever, and I could not escape, then what could I do? After a while, I tentatively gave myself nine months. Despite being lost in this darkness, I believed... I hoped I was still inside the Caelith, and this meant that in nine months, the hold that the Jade Oracle have over the Pale Matron would end, and the Demon God would burst out of her prison.

That eruption should destabilize this space, and if I could not escape this darkness in nine months, then that would be the right time to leave. I analyzed my thought processes, and did not see anything truly wrong with it. I had a deadline, even if it was an uncomfortable one, nine months in this darkness... I am a mage who has died hundreds of times, why would nine months of solitude be anything to me?

My status screen vibrated and I glanced at it...

Stormstep: 93 → 94 (Legendary) — Broken-Celestial

... well that was something.

∞

There was something about being alone with your thoughts that was awfully calming to me. My teachers told me that this was a great trait to have for a mage, as we would be spending a lot of time alone, experimenting on our magic and learning new knowledge.

Not all of us could have this trait, and that was the reason why Meditation was such an important skill for any mage. When I was an Acolyte, Meditation would be a great way to quickly regenerate Anima, but the stronger a mage becomes, Meditation served another role.

My Meditation had been growing all this while, even when I had not truly settled in one place and placed my mind inside a realm of calm and silence, but Meditation was something much more than sitting in one place and seeking silence.

Every time I pulled my mind back from madness, and found laughter and joy in battle and deaths, my Meditation grew, and now it was in the Arcanist Tier. I could not help but wonder if there were other mages that had been able to grow their Meditation in this manner.

Still, I was able to easily slip into the silence of my mind for a few hours, and when I opened my eyes, I knew I was well into the second day, and I hopped onto my feet.

Just because I believed that this space might be broken in nine months did not mean I would be doing nothing in that time period. I would be exploring this space as much as possible with every tools I had, much more carefully than my first panicked rush to see what I may have missed.

So, the first thing I needed to do was to map my surroundings. I picked a direction, arbitrary, I mean, there is no direction in here that is different from any other, so I did not stress much about this, and I flew in a straight line for six hours at a speed that would have crossed my continent twice. Then I turned ninety degrees and did it again. Then again, then again, boxing the darkness the way you box a valley.

There was nothing to see, when I shot my lightning out from my hand it was simply absorbed by the darkness after it crossed a certain distance from me, and so I have no shadows.

In my flight, I felt no difference in temperature, it was just cold, and there was no smell, or wind, this place was just sterile, and the one thing I have is the ground... this damned floor.

What can I say about the floor... well, it was flat, hard, and it holds my weight and it feels like the black stone of a Caelith under my boots... and I have not found an edge of it in any direction.

Well, I had made my box, and with the strength of my soul, my memory could hold all of this in mind, and the last thing I did was to return back to the center of the box I created in my mind, and sat down in Meditation, to signify that I had just truly finished my first day in this place... I refuse to acknowledge the day I spent before running around like a headless insect.

∞

I woke up from my Meditation in the second day, and my eyes turned to look straight up. It was time for me to see how high I could go to complete my mental map.

I stretched for a few seconds, an absolutely useless gesture, but I still did it, and I flew straight up into the air for ten hours, and I had hoped that a higher elevation might change something, even if it was very minute, a single degree of change in temperature would be welcomed... but there was nothing.

After ten hours of ascent, I came down and there was no change in the floor, since I left a lightning marker behind with almost all of my Anima before I flew up, and despite the darkness having a propensity for swallowing anything behind, there was still a lot of power in my marker when I returned, which was an interesting development.

I sat back down in meditation, this was a good day work if I say so myself, and I went into Meditation and waited for the next day to arrive. I would like to rush this process, but I fear that this darkness would punish me if I was not careful.

Besides...

Lightning Edict: 103 → 104 (Legendary)

Stormstep: 94 → 96 (Legendary) — Broken-Celestial

... the day was not wasted.