Dimensional Descent

The moment things clicked into place, Leonel felt that the rough surface of the Memory Ore had suddenly become smooth once again. He smiled lightly, knowing that he had come to the right conclusion.

Now that Leonel thought about it, he probably could have asked the dictionary to do it all for him. On a distant world, Uncle Montez was definitely choking on his drink.

The test of the Memory Ore was meant to be completed individually. The dictionary was definitely something the person who created it wouldn’t have taken into account and it would have been nothing short of cheating to make use of it.

Either way, the dictionary might have been able to direct a solution, but the deft control of Dream Force it took to implement it was a different story entirely. There was nothing that it could do about that.

Leonel’s mind delved into the Memory Ore once again. This time, however, it felt as though he was witnessing the birth of a gorgeous and clear picture. Compared to the jumbled mess there was before, it felt like Leonel was going from reading the scribbles of a toddler to the master works of a world renowned writer.

Leonel had always thought that a Memory Ore had to be ‘read’. But now he knew it was something you experienced and felt.

The best way he would describe it was like ringing a tuning a fork. Depending on the size and material, a resonance of sound would be produced. A Memory Ore was like this… But for the mind’s eye.

The Memory Ore resonated like it had been rung under the influence of Leonel’s Dream Force. The result was a vivid picture being painted in his mind. Leonel realized then that it would always be obvious when he had come to the right conclusion. Only this conclusion could make the Memory Ore sing like this.

Suddenly, Leonel didn’t just have a location in mind, but he could feel it.

What was most astonishing, though, was that he didn’t get the chance to go toward that location. He couldn’t even react before the sparse Force around him began to resonate along with the Memory Ore.

Leonel’s eyes hardly had time to widen before all the Force on the small, desolate planet he was on whooshed toward him.

A massive dust storm of red-brown sand, dirt and rock was formed. From above, it looked as though the small planet was forming an eye of its own all around a tiny spaceship barely two meters in length.

Then… It all vanished.

When the dust storm cleared, there was nothing but a small crater left. As for Leonel… He was nowhere to be seen.

**

Within the depths of the Sixth Dimension, a small silver ship hung in the skies. Unlike what one would find in the Fifth or Fourth Dimensions, space travel within the Sixth was as common as driving a car was back on 21st Century Earth.

All around, there were ships of all shapes and sizes, following ‘lanes’ controlled by magical beams of light.

These lanes of light seemed to manifest from nothing and curved in controlled paths as though they had minds of their own. If one observed closely, they even seemed to follow orbital-like patterns of their own, slowly and subtly shifting through the deep skies as they weaved in and out of each other.

Yet, as opposed to the chaos one might expect from such a thing, it had a maddening sort of order to it that everyone involved seemed completely used to.

Some spaceships shot into the distance, leaving the orbit of the three planets. Others carefully changed lanes to reach their desired planet. And, still others like the small ship manned by Yuri, took their time to circle around the sparser regions to enter their desired path.

After a moment, Yuri managed to find a lane toward the planet violet planet with silver lands, following along the congestion. Despite the traffic, she was finally able to relax and allow things to go on autopilot.

As ‘in control’ as she had pretended to be this whole time, this was the first time she had manned a ship to cross Folds of Reality. Doing such a thing was incredibly dangerous and many died doing so. This was why no one casually shifted between Dimensions if it could be helped.

If one was going to do so, the easiest way would be to use a top quality talisman. At least this way, the process would be smooth. Unfortunately, Yuri hadn’t had one.

Yuri her chair back to look toward Aina and Savahn. She nodded to herself when she noticed that Aina was at least more put together now. The only shame was that Aina’s gaze had returned to the same coldness it had when she exited her very first Zone, the very eyes she had had when she killed Conrad. If Yuri had to pick a moment, that was the one where her determination was the highest.

Right then, it seemed that Aina was consumed with thoughts of revenge.

“This planet is controlled by the Viola family and shares their namesake. They are a powerful Sixth Dimensional family. To be honest, I don’t know how adoptive father is related to them, so I can only say that we should be careful.”

Savahn nodded as she stretched her limbs and fingers out one by one. She was still trying to get used to the Sixth Dimension. It wasn’t as exaggerated as Yuri made it out to be—at least she didn’t feel as weak as a mortal—but it was definitely far heavier than a Fifth Dimensional world. It felt like the gravity was three or four times the norm despite the fact they weren’t even on a planet yet.

“Aina.” Yuri called out.

“Hm?”

“You can’t walk around with that pretty face out like this. The Sixth Dimension is dangerous enough without having to deal with horny men all the time, where this.”

Yuri took a mask out of her spatial ring and tossed it over. Aina was speechless, but she could only shake her head at Yuri’s teasing.

Still, she put the black mask on. But, at least Yuri also took out two more for herself and Savahn as well.

At that moment, the silver ship broke through the atmosphere of the planet. Down below, a certain man was already waiting.