There may also be some inaccuracies, since English is not my native language.
Essentially, TBATE is first translated from English into my native language - and in that process, some details are already altered to make it more understandable for us. Now I'm taking that adapted (and somewhat distorted) version, revising it, rewriting it, and then translating it back into English.
I hope you'll point out any mistakes in the text that I might have missed.
× × × × ×
May 4
Third-Person View
The morning sun gently warmed Lucius's back. He sat in a secluded corner of a café on campus grounds, not far from the administrative building. In his memory, vivid images flared up one after another-some pleasant, others unpleasant, the kind that refused to let go even when you tried your hardest to distract yourself.
"Here, take this, assistant," the young waitress said as she carefully set a small plate of food and a mug of hot tea on his table, first unfastening a couple of buttons and lightly pressing her breasts together with her elbows, making them even more noticeable.
"I didn't order any food," Lucius noted, lifting the mug and watching the steam curl lazily above its surface.
"On the house," the girl replied with a quick, slightly coquettish smile, rising onto her toes before almost immediately disappearing back into the kitchen.
Rustle.
"Expected," Lucius thought with a smirk, looking at the small note beside the tea on which an address had been written.
His appearance really did work in his favor.
Sipping tea made from some kind of dark leaves with a slightly bitter aftertaste, Lucius continued to mentally flip through his memories like the pages of a book, trying to squeeze more meaning out of them than they seemed willing to give him. Since he had parted ways with Arthur and gone wandering into another part of the academy, only about half an hour had passed, but in that time his thoughts had already managed to make more than one full circle.
Closing his eyes so that nothing external would interfere with his concentration, Lucius sank even deeper into them. He replayed the same scenes over and over, examining them from different angles-more calmly now.
Without opening his eyes, he absentmindedly popped a bright red berry into his mouth. Lucius had almost grown unaccustomed to the simple habit of eating-in the end, aether sustained his body perfectly, stripping him of most of the needs that had once seemed natural and unavoidable. But sometimes he still allowed himself this luxury: to stop, exhale, and simply eat something tasty. Especially when it came to fruits and berries improved by the system.
He ate a couple more berries, chewing slowly to savor the taste.
Leaning back in his chair, he inhaled deeply the bitter-sweet aroma of the herbal tea. The past few days had been spent trying to understand what exactly he was supposed to do with the World Seed and how he was even meant to use it. The more he thought about it, the more questions arose.
Could the World Seed turn out to be too powerful and simply crush the core from within?
And what if everything he had understood so far was nothing more than neatly arranged nonsense? What if, once placed inside the aether core, the World Seed began endlessly drawing aether from it until nothing remained but an empty shell?
And just how much aether would be required to sustain the existence of an entire world?
The djinn had said that the approximate size of a world created by a sixth-rank World Seed would be around fifteen million square kilometers. That was slightly smaller than the territory of all Russia-or about one and a half Canadas, if measured in more familiar categories. Lucius planned to give Arthur a seventh-rank seed, and if everything went well, he would then use the eighth-rank one on himself.
The djinn's words also implied that the Tree of a Thousand Worlds itself set the general laws and rules of the world born from its fruits. But they did not have the tree. Only the seeds of its fruits.
And that meant, purely in theory, that he and Arthur would have to create the world according to their own taste-set its fundamental principles, eternal laws, conditions of existence, perhaps even the very logic by which light, water, wind, time, and life itself would function within it.
Or perhaps it would all turn out to be much simpler.
Perhaps the mechanism had long since been perfectly calibrated, and all that was required of them was one thing: place the restored, energy-filled World Seed into the aether core and simply watch as, step by step, a new world began to form inside it right before their eyes.
"How annoying that I don't understand any of this," he thought, suppressing the useless urge to complain.
Lucius tossed another berry into his mouth and continued thinking.
From what he had managed to notice in the system, the increase between ordinary ranks seemed to happen at roughly fourfold. But between entire realms-it was closer to twentyfold. Of course, the system explained nothing of the sort directly, but the conclusion suggested itself if one carefully observed the density of aether in improved aether fruits of different levels.
A sixth-rank World Seed, if activated and properly nourished, should create within the aether core a world of roughly fifteen million square kilometers-perhaps a little less, perhaps a little more.
If his guess was correct, then after being improved by the system to the seventh rank, the energy required to create that world had not merely increased, but had been completely restored and renewed to the maximum. Which meant that the total area could increase disproportionately—far more than one would expect from ordinary rank growth.
Why was he so sure that the system restored things to the peak of their rank instead of simply strengthening them greatly?
Because he had already seen something like that before.
There, in the zone with the giant centipede, he had noticed how the metal of his weapon changed after improvement. Then the fabric of his clothes. When the weapon reached the seventh rank, it ceased to be bound to a single form and began to change according to his wishes. But the most important thing was not even its properties. The most important thing was the very appearance of the seventh-rank World Seed.
A sixth-rank World Seed looked like an ordinary melon seed-small, brown, slightly curved, and completely unremarkable. But the seventh-rank World Seed was entirely different. It looked like a fragment of the universe itself enclosed in a shell shaped like half a moon.
If one followed logic and the one-hundred-percent trustworthy professional data from Chinese wuxia, xianxia, or whatever all those genres were called, then in Lucius's opinion such a world would most likely take the form of a huge flat disk lying at the center of the aether core and, in a certain sense, dividing its inner space.
The total area of Earth was about five hundred ten million square kilometers. Of that, around one hundred fifty million belonged to land. Or around one hundred thirty-five, if Antarctica was not counted.
If everything Lucius had understood and imagined corresponded to reality even partially, then theoretically a seventh-rank world could be arranged like this: two hundred million square kilometers of land, and the remaining hundred occupied by oceans and seas. Rivers and lakes did not count, since they would be located on land.
In the real world, such a balance would be impossible without an endless chain of causes and effects.
But if they themselves were creating the rules... then perhaps it would be different.
Then perhaps they could impose whatever conditions they needed. For example: the sun must shine with a certain intensity so as not to burn all life away. Or water must constantly circulate and replenish itself by means of the very energy that made the world's existence possible in the first place. Or the air must remain breathable regardless of altitude. Or the soil must always retain its fertility.
Wait.
"Would there even be a sun there at all? Or would day and night have to be created manually too?" Lucius frowned.
It did not matter. By tonight, he would know the answer anyway.
One way or another, he had accumulated far too many questions that could not be answered without testing it on someone.
But if he kept thinking about the energy inside the World Seed...
He still did not understand what exactly it was. He did not sense it as mana, nor as aether, nor as something in between. For lack of a better term, Lucius privately called it divine energy. And was that really so illogical? After all, it was the energy contained within something meant to create a world, its laws, and life itself within it. Did that not sound like something divine?
But...
Ah, whatever. What was the point of sitting here trying to imagine all of it if he could simply get up and test it?
With that thought, Lucius rose and stepped out of the café's inner courtyard. Once he reached the open grounds and began walking calmly along the path, he pulled out a fourth-rank strawberry and slowly put it into his mouth, lifting a thoughtful gaze to the bright sky and murmuring quietly to himself,
"Happy seventeenth birthday to me."
Lucius Zogratis POV
By evening, the already quiet academy had fallen completely silent.
My room was almost perfectly still. Only now and then did the wind whisper beyond the window, while somewhere far off, the occasional footsteps of those who still hadn't dispersed about their business echoed faintly. Arthur stood by the window with his arms crossed over his chest, staring out into the deepening dusk. Regis lounged nearby, fully emerged from Arthur's body.
Meanwhile, I sat at a small table, slowly turning the rank 7 World Seed between my fingers. Even now, after looking at it dozens-perhaps hundreds-of times, it still caught the eye.
The sixth-rank World Seed had truly resembled an ordinary pit-dry, plain, almost ridiculous in its simplicity. But this…
A transparent shell, thin as glass and yet somehow not entirely material, encased something like a fragment of the cosmos folded in upon itself. Inside, silver threads, nebulae, and the soft violet glow of aether drifted slowly, as though someone had managed to compress a piece of the night sky, crack it, and seal it into the perfect form of a crescent moon.
"You're looking at it like it's about to start explaining the structure of the universe to you," Regis remarked dryly.
"If it could also talk, I'd only be glad," I replied without taking my eyes off the Seed. "That would be very convenient."
"May I do the honors for it?" he perked up immediately. "'Hello, I am an ancient item of vague origin you obtained from Djinn's remains. Right now I'm either going to gift you an entire world inside your core, or blow it all to hell. Good luck.'"
I slowly turned my gaze to him. "Thanks. Very reassuring."
"Anytime."
Arthur gave a quiet huff at our exchange, but the tension never left his face. "One last time," he said, stepping away from the window and turning toward me, "what exactly do you think is supposed to happen?"
I exhaled slowly.
"In the ideal case?" I repeated. "The Seed will enter the core, anchor itself inside, unfold, and begin forming an independent pocket space under your full-or at least partial-control."
"And in the less-than-ideal case?" Arthur asked, lifting a brow slightly.
"In the less-than-ideal case, the World Seed will start drawing aether from your core little by little. But even that wouldn't be catastrophic." I paused for a second, and two aether beads of different ranks appeared in my palm. "We can always use these to replenish your reserves. But judging by Djinn's words, the Seed shouldn't cause you irreparable harm. If it harms you at all-especially after being improved by the system."
Regis looked at the beads with wary skepticism, though his eyes had practically lit up from the sheer amount of pure aether inside them. "And how many of those aether beads do you have?"
"Enough," I answered calmly. "Enough to help Arthur survive whatever we're about to do."
I rose from the table.
"Listen," I said, more seriously now, addressing only Arthur, since he hadn't taken his eyes off me, "I don't think the World Seed will feed on your aether like some ordinary parasite. If it really needed aether as fuel, it would be drawn to it differently. But after being upgraded by the system, it changed. Not just outwardly. It's as if it was restored to a state in which the energy inside it is already completely full. It doesn't need a core as food, but as a foundation in which it can take root."
Arthur stayed silent for a while, clearly digesting my words and comparing them to what little we actually knew about such things. Then he let out a sharp breath, as if releasing some of the tension along with the air, and finally smiled.
"So are we doing this here, or...?"
"I'd advise going farther away," I answered with a slight smirk. "Who knows how long it'll take you to create an entire world inside your own core."
A violet bolt of lightning swiftly slid around me, outlining the shape of my body. Space distorted for a moment, and I vanished, easily passing through several walls before appearing roughly three hundred meters away, closer to the mountains. After the recent training, movements like that no longer felt especially unusual. If anything, ordinary walking was starting to seem too slow and inconvenient at times.
Outside, cool, clean air greeted me.
The wind slid over my clothes, tugged at my collar, played with my hair, and swept down from the rocky ledges and sparse trees. The moon had not yet risen high enough, and everything around remained drowned in dark-blue twilight.
In the end, we stopped on a small stone platform hidden between the rocks. On three sides it was surrounded by steep slopes, creating the feeling of a natural shelter cut off from the rest of the world. On the fourth side, there was a view of the dark outlines of the mountains and the barely visible academy grounds below. From here, it looked almost toy-like-a few patches of light, thin lines of pathways, and the silhouettes of rooftops.
A good place.
Thinking that, I turned back to Arthur. Right now, his comfort came first.
"Will this do?" I asked.
"I think so," he answered easily, though it didn't take me even a second to realize that he was a little nervous.
He was trying to look composed, restrained, as usual, as though everything happening was just one more dangerous experiment in the long list of those we had already survived.
...And partly, it was.
But only partly. With tenth-rank intelligence, I saw too clearly how he was breathing a little deeper than usual. How his gaze lingered a little longer than necessary on the hand that had held the World Seed just moments ago. How, from time to time, he unconsciously tensed his fingers, as if checking whether he still had full control over his own body.
He understood, as I did, that the World Seed should not kill him.
But unlike the Godrunes, neither he nor I truly understood the nature of this phenomenon, if we were being honest. The only difference was that I felt more confident. The gap in ranks was not that great. His body and aether core were already at the eighth rank. The seed was at the seventh.
If my reasoning and observations were worth anything at all, everything should go smoothly. But I couldn't say that to Arthur directly. That was exactly why, earlier, I had limited myself to a half-truth about the strange aura surrounding objects processed by the system. In everything else, however, I had not lied: the system really did improve everything I received from it, rewove torn clothes anew, brought metal to the peak of its rank, and restored and strengthened the aetheric properties of aether fruits and aether crystals.
And yet, standing beside him now, I could clearly see that he was more worried than he wanted to show. I smirked and placed a hand on his shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts.
"Maybe I should try first? I'm already used to this world enough."
Arthur's eyes widened slightly. Several emotions flashed in them at once-surprise and slightly wounded pride.
"So now I'm being comforted by a sixteen-year-old kid?" he muttered quietly, then smirked much more lightly and straightened his shoulders. "No need. I can handle it myself."
"Seventeen-year-old," I corrected, standing beside him.
"Mm?" he responded, looking up at me because of the twenty-centimeter difference in height.
"Seventeen-year-old," I repeated. "May fourth. Today is my birthday."
For a couple of seconds, that particular kind of silence hung in the air—the kind that appears when a conversation suddenly turns somewhere no one expected.
"Oh... happy birthday," Arthur said a bit awkwardly, and at that exact moment Regis immediately burst out of his body.
"Why didn't you say so earlier?" Regis asked. "And happy birthday."
"Thanks. Though this isn't exactly the time for celebrating," I said, looking at them with a faint smile. "I already ate a small berry pie with tea and got a little carried away with my memories."
"Ah... right," Regis drawled.
He fell silent for a second, then his mane flared a little brighter than usual.
"Well then, once all this mess is over, we'll all have to get together and make up for lost time."
Arthur gave a quiet chuckle, "Regis was right. We'd definitely get together later. Later, I'd introduce you to my mother and Ellie."
And at those words, a light sadness brushed over all of us for a few moments.
But then I clapped my hands loudly and said with a faint smile, "Well, I would've come anyway, even if you hadn't invited me. But let's get back to what I suggested earlier."
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
"I already said there's no poin-"
"There is," I cut him off. "My system works strangely. I receive from you and Regis not only items, but aether directly as well-after training, after receiving Godrunes, after your core upgrades. After everything the system considers significant enough. And right now, I've accumulated so many aether points that, if I take them in, I'll most likely be able to rise to the peak of the third layer. Maybe even jump straight to the fourth."
I fell silent, letting the words settle.
Regis was the first to react.
"In case of failure, you'll be able to use those points to recreate your aether core from scratch," he said quickly, clearly having grasped the point already. "Like in a game: 'Are you sure you want to spend ten thousand aether points to form an aether core?'"
"You just said exactly what I was thinking," I answered, looking directly at Regis, then shifted my gaze back to Arthur, who seemed to have sunk into deep thought.
For me, the risk here was practically zero. Even if everything suddenly went according to the worst possible scenario, I already had a backup plan. Just in case, I had gathered the eighth-rank Four-Sided Physique in advance, but if necessary, I could immediately use the ninth rank as well. And looking at things soberly, with the system, caution, and common sense, real danger for me simply did not exist.
But before that, I intended to improve everything that still could be improved as much as possible-my soul. I had only partially improved it after receiving additional points from those two unlucky bastards. From one, I got 12,780 points; from the second, 21,630, and of that amount I used only five thousand. And there were also the points from Regis's birth-just under eighteen thousand.
And still, I decided that now was the best possible moment to improve my soul, just in case.
In truth, I was a little scared myself... But unfortunately or fortunately, my interest had always outweighed my fear.
Altogether, I had 47,000 soul points right now, and I divided them by seven because I didn't want to absorb too much at once.
So during those few minutes of walking from the academy to this place, every twenty-five seconds I absorbed 6,700 soul points. After taking in more than twenty thousand points, my soul rose to the twelfth rank, and after pouring in another twenty-seven thousand, I noticed that the changes had become insignificant. To reach the thirteenth rank of the soul, I would probably need to spend at least another hundred thousand soul points.
A pleasant warmth spread deep inside me.
Casting a quick glance into the spiritual world where my soul core was stored, I saw that it had become even larger, and the Godrunes upon it now took up significantly less space.
But hadn't it become too much larger?
Even for the twelfth rank, that was somehow too much. My gaze shifted to the black-and-white flame floating calmly within my soul.
"Is this because of you?" I thought to myself, not for the first time. I was sure that black-and-white flame was the reason I had not received irreparable damage back then, and it also somehow affected my soul and spiritual aspect. Because logically, a thirteenth-rank soul should be equal to a thirteenth-rank Godrune, but in reality that was not the case. A thirteenth-rank Godrune looked almost pitifully small compared to my twelfth-rank soul, and looking at the system, I could come to no other conclusion.
"Alright," Arthur finally said with a heavy sigh. "If you have a way to restore your aether core, then I'm more than willing for you to be the one we experiment on."
"Well then," I began, settling more comfortably onto the soft grass and taking out the eighth-rank World Seed, "shall we begin?"
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What should I call Lucius's inner world? I've named the realm itself "the Blessed Land," just like in the world of cultivation, but I haven't yet decided what the inhabitants of this world should call it.
Options:
Sänari,
Nayora,
Astelia,
Orifen.
Feel free to suggest your own.