Chapter 175: A study of Space

The Runalymo Flagship, still unnamed, is the largest and most ambitious airship being made. The hull was finished during the first stage of my work; the interior was finished during stage two, and now is stage three, the internal workings of the airship to power all of its enchantments. Stage three will consist of making the mana wiring all throughout the airship, making lighting fixtures, and most importantly, enchanting the entire airship to be large on the inside than the outside.

The Flagship is made entirely out of mana, which means I can’t use inscriptions on it, although the only one I do know is the mana gathering one which technically does not eat mana. How exactly solid mana will react to the mana gathering inscription, I don’t know, but I probably should investigate that; I imagine it will slowly erode the solid mana.

I quickly make a sample to test my hypothesis, and it becomes very evident that, yes, the mana gathering inscription will erode solid mana. However, even if that is a dead end, I should still test this on super solid mana just to make sure I cover all my bases. I don’t expect any different outcome, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure there is no way to have this inscription on anything made of mana.

I make a new sample of super-solid mana and carefully observe as the mana seems to resist the pull of the inscription! Being thorough pays off… almost. The longer I observe this sample; the more I see the ever so slightly erosion of the mana. It’s slow, it’ll probably take weeks or maybe even months to erode the sample, but it will if given the time; if only the inscription was weak enough that it couldn’t… If the problem is that this inscription is too strong, then perhaps a less effective inscription will be weak enough that it doesn’t erode super-solid mana? I’m going to have to investigate this.

I set a clone to make samples. I have thousands of mana adhering inscription designs to pick from. I just need to pick the most effective one, and while I am at it, I may as well find one that works for normal solid mana too.

With that being worked on, it looks like the Flagship will need to be upgraded with super-solid hull; this is something that will probably take a month. While I am at it, I need to enchant the hull as well, so the upgrade time will take around a month and a half.

There’s one more thing I should do before dabbling in space-altering enchantments, and that is studying space. I have a lot to learn, experiment and study, so I better get on that.

First, I need to power level my [Sense Space]. I start making samples of various space enchantments and studying the effects of spatial spells; however, it becomes troubling when I still can’t see any pocket spaces even with [Sense Space].

What is really going on? I ponder to myself, hand on chin and flicking my tails in thought.

Spatial pockets are formed by expanding a bubble of space and closing it off. It still has to be attached to this space in order to retrieve items from it. So the question is, how do I peer into spatial bubbles like storage items? One step at a time. First, I should see if I can find any evidence of spatial bubbles in the first place, any stretching or contraction of space.

I scan the space around my storage sample and focus intently on it, studying every little bit of space in and around the item. Minutes pass by, then half an hour. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and I am beginning to doubt my hypothesises on how spatial bubbles work when I finally see it! I tiny pin prick-sized ripple in the fabric of space like something is holding the space together.

Ting! Sense Space has met requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 10!1st Breakthrough: You have seen slight spatial warping; this will help you study spatial distortions.

Suddenly, hundreds of tiny spatial warpings come into focus, resembling something like heat vision but for spatial warpings. Each warping ranges from gravity waves passing by to unknown phenomena, the most notable of which is the slight warping of space around each person, myself included. Is it the gravitational pull of the matter we are made of? Yes, there is there as well, but accounting for that, there is something else that I do not know the explanation of.

If there’s a slight version, then there should be an extreme version of the skill, like how [Sense Mana] has a breakthrough for seeing extreme and very little amounts of mana. If this is slight warping, then what does extreme warping look like? The actual bubble might be an example like how a balloon doesn’t stretch at the top and bottom.

I spend the next few hours studying the spatial warpings, the gravity waves from celestial bodies far away, the subtle gravitation pull from objects, and the unknown signatures of minor gravitational forces. Overall I gain eight levels from my studies between my breakthrough and the base skill.

I wonder if I can squeeze my perception through the closed spatial opening, but I may need another breakthrough or two first. I give it a try anyway, but when I can’t do it, I switch to something else.

I create a box with an expanded inside to study. The space expands and expands, making me wonder if there’s a limit. I still don’t get any breakthrough for extreme space warping, so I will have to make something even larger inside. However, the problem is that the box doesn’t have enough enchanting capabilities to do that, but if I make another box inside of this one, I can have an even larger box of the same size. As long as the outer box’s enchantments don’t fail, it will be safe; the only issue is that this doesn’t solve the weight of everything that could be inside the box, but that is a problem for another solution.

After making and enchanting the second box, I still don’t get another breakthrough! Well, if two won’t work, perhaps three? Inst this sort of a matryoshka box? Like those nesting dolls with each one larger than the previous one?

It's getting a little dangerous; however, the enchantments need continuous mana flow to be maintained, and I don’t have an unlimited supply of mana. If I can’t sustain the enchantments, they will fail, and the inner box will burst out of the outer and may injure me. I should stop before I get hurt.

I flick my tails in irritation as I have to stop my experiment, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

Thankfully I made the boxes out of mana so I can easily and safely take them apart. If I can make the Inscriptions work on mana constructed objects, then there might be a solution to this, but for now, I need to hold off on this breakthrough.

Still, the prospect for matryoshka boxes is an intriguing one, only limited by the mana needed to sustain it. While it can get – Hypothetically – to a ridiculous size, the mana requirements will be enormous, impractically so. At best, a three or four-layer matryoshka box is feasible since each layer is exponentially larger.

In order to make this work, I will need to make the outer box a mana collection array to fuel the enchantments, or at least subsidize it long enough for me to get the breakthrough.

I wonder what other things I can study? Make wormholes? Fold space? In any case, I start getting the shared sensing breakthroughs like expanding my perception and moving it. I have a lot of experience with them so it should be easy.

Ting! Sense Space has met requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 40!2nd Breakthrough: you've entered a state of perception; this will improve all of your space sensing breakthroughs.3rd Breakthrough: You've learned how to expand your aura of sense space, letting you see farther.4th Breakthrough: You've learned to move your area of space sensing, Allowing you to scout ahead and eventually view remotely.

With a couple dozen levels now under my belt, I give trying to peer into the spatial bubble another try. I push and push against the tiny pinprick straining myself as I try to worm my perception through it until I finally get a view into it.

5th Breakthrough: You've peered into spatial bubbles; this will help you see and study them.

It’s cool that I can now see into spatial bubbles and can see what’s in other people’s storage items.

I wonder how spatial bubbles are any different from normal space. From what I can perceive, it’s just a heavily warped normal space. Perhaps what is different is how things inside it behave? I test this by putting random things into the storage sample, and sure enough, it becomes apparent that it does behave differently. Spatial bubbles appear to have an anti-gravity effect from the center; this is due to the expansion of space inside the bubble, making everything ‘fall’ away from the center.

I consider this to be a poor way to make a spatial bubble. If everything was expanded by the same amount, there won't be any gravitational effect, but since I didn't know how it exactly worked, my enchantments are doing to the bare minimum to get the effect I want. However, now that I know more, I may be able to make more effective and efficient enchantments.

The same can be applied to expanded space too. I need to expand space uniformly; otherwise, there may be pockets of distorted gravity. Also, I need to consider an expanded living space like the Flagship will be; expanding everything uniformly may cancel out the world’s gravitation pull inside the airship which won’t be a good thing, so I need to take that into account.

By now, I’ve been studying space for the entire day, but I still have so much to learn. As I attend the Lojyo, rejecting the nightly suitors, I keep a clone on study duty.

The next day I meet with the Elders to buy a housing lot on the edge of the commercial district. All of the empty lots sprinkled through the rebuilt village have already been claimed by people moving to the village, but I don’t mind. I choose a spot near the industry district to be closer to the port. Technically I buy two lots to have a house with a side attached mana weaving and tailoring shop.

Next, I go to the construction company and hire them to build my house. The shop part will have three floors, the bottom being my tailoring shop, the second floor will be my mana crafts shop where I will sell enchanting services and other mana-related items, with the third floor being for storage.

My living space will consist of two floors, the second floor being for my many studies and experiments. My small room can no longer hold all my samples and gadgets.