Dimensional Descent

Leonel looked down at the girl. Even in his enraged state, he had noticed the actions of this young woman before. His connection to the Dream Plane had been cut off in this place, but he could still read people’s intentions with far sharper intent than most could.

Knowing this, he targeted this woman because she seemed smart. She would likely know about the stuff he had missed out on.

“Open your eyes.”

The pink-eyed young woman trembled and bit her tongue. But after a moment, she opened them, a hint of resolution within.

She was, indeed, sharp. Among those that Leonel had killed, there were two women who were conventionally more attractive than she was. If Leonel wanted to do that kind of thing, she wouldn’t have been his first choice. He didn’t seem like the type to use women in that way, he would sooner kill them so that they wouldn’t be a burden. Though it was possible he found her to be a bit exotic due to her oddly colored eyes, this was a small percentage chance that she didn’t place more than a three or so percentage chance upon.

There was another important matter as well. The way Leonel fought, the look in his eyes when he swung his spear, it was all precise, cold and calculating. He probably had a sensory type Ability Index much like her own, and as such, he probably felt that she was useful to him for something.

But it was odd. It didn’t make sense for Leonel to need another sensory ability if he had one of her own, but judging by that old man he was cursing, maybe he hadn’t come here of his own will, and as such… didn’t know the rules?

Leonel hadn’t made any attempt to absorb the energies around him, so that made sense.

He suddenly smiled. “You’re clever. Good, I don’t want to waste my time talking too much. Tell me the rules of this place, don’t hold anything back, or else I’ll know. If you satisfy me, I don’t mind letting you go.”

“Yes,” she nodded quickly, only stopping after she realized Leonel’s spear was still pressed to her neck and she had nearly cut herself. It seemed that even she was a bit flustered in the face of death.

“Right.” She adjusted her mental state. “This selection of the Gods seems to be divided into rounds. They haven’t told us what the next rounds entail, but this one is a point-based system and it also seems to be an opportunity.

“You get points by killing those around you, and everyone is worth the same amount of points aside from the Seeded Participants. Killing a Seed Participant doesn’t net you points, but it nets you their position as a selected seed.

“In addition, when you kill those around you, you gain a chance to absorb their energies as well. These energies will be a combination of insights and raw strength. It can be either used to push your Tiers upward, or you can gain insights on a Force that your enemy understands better than yourself.”

Leonel’s gaze narrowed. Was that possible? He didn’t believe it for a second.

If the likes of El’Rion didn’t dare to have more than one Innate Node, which was essentially a hack toward comprehension, how could you just take insights from others?

In fact, El’Rion had implied that it was bad even to create Innate Nodes yourself. The Gods clearly had a method of forming Innate Nodes naturally, but they advised against doing so.

And on the ladder of trouble, stealing an Innate Node was even worse, making your future path even more difficult.

Leonel didn’t believe that the likes of the Vast Bubble had a method to circumvent these problems. In fact, if his deductions were correct, this method of refining people down into their Force insights was likely just a crude method of the God Races’ ability to create Innate Nodes from scratch for their descendants.

One method was perfect, and yet inadvisable to use. So how much worse would the imperfect method be?

Leonel sneered inwardly. This was clearly another scheme by the Great Families. They wanted their pawns to be strong and also use this opportunity to get stronger, but in line with their usual history, they didn’t want them to get too much stronger.

If Leonel was correct, they wanted the best among them to become extremely powerful within the Eighth Dimension, but never be able to become powerful among the Ninth Dimensional experts.

And the worst part was that the method was so subtle that even when the day came that their potential ran dry, they wouldn’t even think to link it back to this occurrence, making them remain loyal to those families just for a hope of maybe, one day, breaking through.

It was a clever scheme, indeed.

The pink-eyed beauty felt her heart skip a beat when she looked into Leonel’s eyes. She found it almost impossible to read anything from this young man, but she could still tell that he knew more than he was letting on.

She felt like she had to keep talking. Maybe if she proved herself useful enough, she could stay with Leonel. After all, she doubted that only Leonel would be this point. Just how vast was the cosmos? How could she just so happen to stumble onto the only monster participating? Leonel didn’t even seem to be a Seeded Participant.

How much more powerful were they?

“The Seeded Participants, if you don’t know, are the existences that have the backing of their entire world. They were unanimously nominated by their people to lead their batch.

“You likely don’t have a Seed Participant because one of the benefits of being a Seeded Participant is spawning with the selected geniuses of your world. In addition, you’ll always be able to sense your Seeded Participant no matter where you go, so you can go off to look for opportunities and always meet back together.”

Leonel raised his eyebrow. “Oh? So is that what that feeling was?”

Leonel chuckled inwardly. The Dimensional Verse had chosen a Seeded Participant? And it actually wasn’t him? How bold of them.

The pink-eyed young woman looked toward Leonel with confusion. What he said didn’t make sense. How could Leonel sense a Seeded Participant, and yet not have spawned with them?