Dimensional Descent

BOOM!

Leonel’s roar filled the skies, towering up and above even the pillar of light crupting from him. It traveled far and wide as though letting the world know that he had arrived.

Everyone used Forces the same way. Through their Ethereal Glabella’s, they communicated with the world around them, and based on their affinities, there were a range of responses.

Every time, it was the world that granted the right to access Forces, and it was often limited by various factors of the world as well, such as World Spirits, Regulators, and sometimes even the Northern Star itself.

When you had a Sovereignty, you had the right of priority over these Forces. Your dominion over them became more assured, and the worlds you were in placed fewer restrictions on you compared to others.

If you had an Innate Node, in some cases, you were even better off. The Force naturally formed within you, so you didn’t have to communicate with or rely on anything other than yourself.

However...

The relationship with the world was still there. It was the Northern Star that allowed this sequence to happen. As such, there was hell to pay when it came to forming Dharmas and Idols after the fact, something that Leonel had already personally experienced.

This was the weight that came with Innate Nodes, and why, though Gods could create them with relative ease, they chose not to.

The only difference was when one was innately born with an Innate Node. This was the only factor that changed things so considerably that one could have their cake and eat it too, almost like receiving a blessing from the Northern Star.

What was the main difference? Why did Leonel face so much more resistance with his new Weapon Force Innate Node than he would have ever faced with his Scarlet Star Force Innate Node?

The Self...

Leonel realized something profound from that simple action of forcing a spear to soar on its own volition into his palm.

Dream Force was tied into the Second Dimension, and life sparked in the Third. By the time one got to the Fourth and started using Forces, there were already two degrees of separation that would only grow worse.

That was when Leonel realized that the reason Innate Nodes one was born with were so much easier to manage and handle was because, from the very spark of one’s birth, one had been experiencing its changes...

Meaning, the very fabric of the Innate Node was already woven into your Dream Force from birth. How was it that a Spiritual could be naturally given Innate Nodes if they were born as nothing more than a soul? Wasn’t that obviously because someone that was either born with an Innate Node or not could be seen even from the depths of the Second Dimension itself?

In that case...

Why not do the reverse?

Why not take his Weapon Force and change it so fundamentally that it acted as an Innate Node of sorts all on its own? Why not inextricably tie his Weapon Forces to his Dream Force in such a way

that bloomed with the power of his will and psyche at its very core?

Leonel had already done this in one direction by forming the very first. Weapon Innate Node to ever exist. However, to do this, he had continuously tempered his body, rooting the Innate Node in the Third Dimension and above, but he had never worked his way backward.

But now, he would...

-A Union of Light and Darkness will reveal the Twelve Pointed Star-...

Light and Dark could mean so many things. It could refer to them literally, it could mean a balance of yin and yang, and in this case... it could mean a cycle.

The last time Leonel had thought of this prophecy he had been in the middle of Crafting treasures for the Fawkes and he felt that he had grasped onto something faint that would change his perception of Crafting forever.

But the distraction of the matters that came afterward made him have no choice but to abandon those thoughts before he could delve too deeply into them.

But now he truly understood as well.

His Spear and Bow... they were missing the support of his Dream Force. By rooting them in one part of his body and another part of his soul, he could complete the cycle of the Weapon Force, crafting a power that could truly be pushed and pulled by his mind without relying on an external source at all. He was well and truly free.

And for his Crafting... maybe the Life Grade and the Self Grade weren’t truly striated differences either. But it wasn’t that simple either.

The Life Grade was the process of using resources and their Paths to create a single Path that all of them would follow together. This holistic approach to Crafting made Treasures orders of magnitude more shocking than normal.

The Self Grade was the overriding of those preferences, using the more fundamental aspects of Forces and ignoring their overarching ”personalities,” and instead imposing what you wanted onto them yourself. It was similar to a Path of Sovereignty where you tweaked what a Force could do to match your wants and desires more. The more Leonel thought about it, the more similar these things seemed.

In the past, Leonel had also thought that the Life Grade was just the upgrade over Gold Grade treasures, only to eventually realize that any Grade treasure could be Life Grade.

So why couldn’t any Life Grade Treasure be Self Grade?

Much the same way his Weapon Forces could be rooted in the physical dimensions and the mental ones... why couldn’t his Treasures be the same, striking a balance between what was and what he wanted them to be?

When he found this stroke, and a perfect balance was struck in his mind, his Dharma began to change once again...

The Spear and Bow shifted, moving to the side to make room for a third...

The Force Quill.