Dimensional Descent

Leonel and Aina left the Senate Branch after completing a few other things. But, Leonel still seemed lost in thought as though he was still trying to work something out.

”What’s wrong?” Aina asked.

,m From what Leonel had said earlier, it sounded as if all their troubles were dealt with.

”Did my cousin say anything else to you? Anything that might sound suspicious? Anything that stood out?”

Aina fell deep into her thoughts but after a moment, she shook her head. She couldn’t think of anything like that. Back then, she had been very focused on the contract and negotiations, so she had practically memorized every little thing Sceio said. But, even then, she couldn’t come up with anything like what Leonel had asked for.

”Is there a problem?”

”I’m not sure.” Leonel said honestly. ”It just feels too easy. On the one hand, the Void Merit rule should be rarely used. Void Merits alone are difficult to gather in the first place. Although you’ll have almost 200 at the end of this month, there are very few people who could boast such a thing. The number of individuals on the leaderboards to begin with are barely a fraction of the number of students in the Void Palace, and that doesn’t even consider the fact that only the top three get to enjoy Void Merits in return in the first place.

”Then there’s the fact that anyone who could earn Void Merits through any method to begin with wouldn’t normally be people that would need to get out of a contract. They would be geniuses that would be easily taken in by a Faction or Party without issue. Something like selling themselves in exchange for help would never happen.

”So, that would make the use of this rule even rarer.”

”Then that should be a good thing. Why are you worried?”

”Like I said, it just feels too easy. If my cousin is intelligent, he’ll look at things from all angles. He should know both how valuable Void Merits are and the fact that you’ll earn a lot in just a couple more weeks.

”If I was him…”

Leonel’s gaze went into a daze for a moment as he activated an ability he had only just created. He called it Dream Perspective.

With Dream Perspective, he could ’forget’ the things he knew and only ’remember’ the things his target would. This way, he wouldn’t have his thoughts colored by bias and matters he already understood.

One of the most difficult things for people to do was look at matters from the perspective of someone else. However, with Tier 4, Control, Leonel could create a Dream Clone in his Dream World that had the exact knowledge of whoever he chose. Then, he could simulate how they would think about a situation.

The more understanding he had of a person, the more accurate it would be. He could adjust his intelligence and deductive ability, as well as factor in personality and tendencies as well. But, since Leonel knew so little about his cousin, he could only draw conclusions with about 20-30% certainty, using an ’average’ Sixth Dimensional existence as his Dream Clone.

”… I would be cautious. With the importance of Void Merits, why give a chance for this variable to pop up and bite me in the ass at all?

”There are too many ways to circumvent that problem. The easiest way to do things would be to shrink the deadline. Rather than a month, I would give you two weeks. Two weeks is still semi-reasonable, especially since neither of us would be aware that the clinic would mark up the price so much just because of a grudge they had with me.

”Now that I think about it, a month is overly nice.”

”It’s possible that he’s greedy,” Aina supplemented, ”though he didn’t say anything that could give away his real goal, he did say: ”I never touch the women of my brothers. However, I will take their money.” to me.”

Leonel’s brows raised as he fell into thought again.

”There are too many possibilities.”

The problem wasn’t that Leonel couldn’t think of what Sceio might do. The real issue was that he could think of too many. And, without knowing exactly what Sceio knew, it was impossible to pinpoint which path he could take.

For example, it would be all too easy to close the loophole he and Aina planned on using. Sceio would only have to be demoted back down to Aina’s level, then she wouldn’t be able to use Void Merits to escape the chains of the contract.

Of course, whether Sceio would go so far, Leonel didn’t know. But, if it was Leonel, if he could force a talent like Aina to work for him, that would be worth exchanging whatever effort it took for him to raise his level. Aina was someone who had entered 20 leaderboards in her first attempt, where else would you find a talent like that?

In fact, now that Leonel knew the rule book inside and out, he could even think of some methods where demoting your rank would be a benefit rather than a detriment!

”Since there are too many possibilities, disregard them all.” Aina suddenly said.

”Hm?”

Aina blinked and looked up at Leonel with a smile.

”I told you before that your battle style isn’t like mine. You like withholding your trump cards and only using them when you can get maximum benefit. But, I just give everything I have right from the very beginning.

”So what if you know what’s coming? You can’t stop it anyway.”

Leonel’s gaze glowed, his heartbeat speeding up.

That was right. Instead of trying to think of a counter for everything Sceio might do, he just needed to find a method he couldn’t block no matter what.

It’s no wonder his Spear Force was so lacking. He had the disposition of an archer, not a spearman.

”Thought of something?” Aina’s smile widened.

”Maybe. But it will be difficult.” Leonel responded.

”What could possibly stop us if we do it together?” Aina asked.

Hearing such words, what else could Leonel do other than grin?

😉