Dimensional Descent

Leonel was tempted to start with the most complicated, but in the end, he chose to pick up the calligraphy pen. It had an odd extra joint to it that made the nib off angle to the rest of the pen. If Leonel recalled correctly, they called this an oblique calligraphy pen. It was supposed to make it easier to match the aesthetic necessary for calligraphy.

FORCEFUL. SUBTLE. SWIFT. GENTLE.

The words flashed in Leonel’s mind.

Since he already decided to start with the easiest of the three, he also chose the easiest approach and just copied everything his uncle had done.

However, Leonel was only a single stroke in before he realized that he already lacked the same flair.

’Huh… Interesting…’

Everything was the exact same, Leonel was certain of it. Everything from the angle of his arm and wrist, even down to the speed at every point of attack. It was all exactly the same.

Leonel smiled, this confirmed one thing. This was definitely not a useless exercise, there was something else that he was missing, likely a comprehension of sorts.

This was a good thing, because it was clear that the old man planned on locking him in here until he made some progress. If he was stuck here doing something useless, Leonel would rather ram his head against a wall.

The fury he felt before getting here had somewhat faded after meeting his Uncle Montez again. But, if he couldn’t make any progress, he knew it would come back. By then, he would probably be far more serious about finding a way out of here.

’Alright, then. Since this is a worthwhile endeavor, what am I missing?’

Leonel’s gaze flickered. His uncle had been outside the range of his Starry Spirit Domain, so unfortunately Leonel couldn’t rely on that. Truthfully, that was an oversight on his part. But, if he was honest, he would have probably hurt himself had he tried to take that approach, if not in calligraphy or music, his uncle’s attempt at painting a spear would have definitely destroyed his mind.

’Then is this a different sort of application of King’s Might?’

Leonel had been practicing the technique his mother had left behind for a while. But, its effectiveness had somewhat diminished, mostly because he didn’t put as much effort into it as he should have.

It had to be remembered that Leonel’s original plan to give his King’s Might form was to use his Innate Node as a foundation, and that succeeded. But, since then, he had yet to upgrade it. This was mostly due to the fact that Leonel had too many different things to improve in, he was constantly being pulled in all sorts of directions and it was hard to remember them all, let alone improve in them all.

Back when Leonel first manifested his King’s Mind in the form of a miniature humanoid, he hadn’t even comprehended a single Destruction Rune yet. But now he had comprehended 729 Destruction Runes thanks to whatever had happened when he was stuck in his Dream World.

From what he understood, there were nine basic runes, these formed the foundation of the Third Dimension.

To form complete Fourth Dimensional comprehension, you had to fuse nine basic runes nine times, forming nine large runes. This meant that to master the Fourth Dimension, you needed to comprehend 81 Destruction Runes.

Finally, you had to repeat the process all over again for the Fifth Dimension, this time forming nine large runes and fusing them together nine times, for a total of 729 runes.

So, if Leonel wanted to master the Sixth Dimension and pull Sixth Dimensional Scarlet Star Force from the atmosphere with no impact to his body, he would need to comprehend 6561 runes, and so on.

One might wonder since Leonel had mastered 729 runes, why it was that he still couldn’t use his larger Innate Node.

The main issue stepped from the fact it had grown far too large. While it was, indeed, in the Fifth Dimension, it had a complete set of Runes, sitting at almost five million total runes combined into one behemoth.

This meant that while Leonel’s Innate Node was in the Fifth Dimension, it had access to the full Rune set of a Ninth Dimensional Innate Node, making it far more powerful than a usual Fifth Dimensional Innate Node. This was the price Leonel paid for having an Innate Node that had outgrown him.

That said, because his second Innate Node had been placed in his left kidney, he now had an Innate Node that had outgrown him, and another than had actually lagged behind him. It would only take a small effort to unseal this second Innate Node to the Fifth Dimension, the only reason Leonel hadn’t was because he had yet to be in a situation where he needed and…

Well, would you casually mess with a seal that just magically appeared in your body without a good reason?

Leonel still had too many questions about what was going on. And, as he tended to do, he dragged his feet when he couldn’t immediately understand something, situations that were, truthfully, quite rare for him.

’Let me hold off on upgrading my for now. I have a feeling that if I do, it would actually interfere with my ability to do this instead of helping…’

If Leonel’s King’s Might skewed in one direction too much, wouldn’t it make it difficult for him to grasp the artistic conception of other words?

’In that case… what did I feel when Uncle Montez’s pen connected to paper…? FORCEFUL…’

Leonel hand hovered, his pupils flickering, his gaze sometimes dull and, at other times, lively.

’Free, powerful, unworried… No, not unworried, more like understanding the gravity and still not caring, it’s a more subtle feeling than that.’

Leonel’s body wafted with his King’s Might as his demeanor shifted and changed. He only vaguely realized that his Tier 4 Control Ability Index had even given unprecedented power even over his own demeanor. However, when he grasped this, the shift was almost immediate.

Leonel no longer focused on just what his uncle had done, but rather layered in his own comprehensions of forcefulness.

An entire hour passed before Leonel pressed the pen to the paper. But, when he did, the lightest touch shattered the table, a ray of Spear Force piercing through the ground and threatening to split the tower in two.