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Late Evening - Mid Summer : The Scar, Southwestern Holy Kingdom (The mountain)

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*vwoop* *vwowoom* "Hmm..." I looked intently at the black cylinder sitting static in the air in front of me with an annoyed expression. -How troublesome...-

"~Did you come up with an idea?~" Hera spoke from within the containment center while she continued making adjustments to the tether connecting to her physical body's reserve.

"Haah, no. I actually ran into another problem..."

"~Hoh? Isn't that a good thing?~"

I wanted to scoff at her way of thinking, but I couldn't say she was wrong.

"It gave me a hint, but I don't think I can do anything with it.

" -I don't even know where to start...- Moving my head close enough to nearly touch the cylinder, I flooded the area with my space mana, and gently broke one end of the cylinder.

*Vwip* Instantly, there was a huge suction force that pulled on the surrounding mana before vanishing as the space mana composing the fabric of space formed a liquid-like membrane over the hole.

The membrane itself was incredibly free-flowing, as anything I tossed at it passed straight through, including mana. The issue was that, besides my own space mana, nothing actually displaced the membrane while passing through. -They just phase through it...- (similar to quantum tunneling).

But while it was troubling to have to actually try and study, it was far from the first time I had seen the phenomenon. -Why does mana have to be so complicated...-

Composing and filling absolutely everything, the fabric of space essentially completely fills space.

If that fabric didn't allow for matter to pass straight through it, hypothetically, matter would not be able to exist since the moment it was created, space mana from the fabric would wrap around it and inevitably create a gate, sending the newly created matter into the void to be eaten.

It was an essential phenomenon of 'natural' space mana that had to be in place for anything to exist, but that didn't mean I could even remotely understand it.

-My space mana displaces both physical matter and the fabric of space, so does that mean it's an entirely different particle.

. or could space mana have observable energy states unlike its cousins. ..-

In physics, absolutely everything has energy states; like raising the temperature of water until it boils, matter will act differently at two different states no matter how small the difference in energy is.

-The issue though, is that, from my current understanding, mana cannot follow that principle.

..- While mana does have different types with different properties and energy levels, not only are there too many different 'states', but the energy composing each type of mana particle is fundamentally different and independent from one another.

In a way, mana acted more like a molecule that was adjusted to create the other attributes rather than each type being an energy state split by a 'phase change'.

-But space mana, on the other hand, can definitely change the amount of energy it possesses.

..- While I never looked too deeply into it previously, within the void, space mana that was fed energy, whether in the form of matter or mana, would change color.

This meant that at the very least, space mana had the ability to hold a varying amount of energy.

-But would changing that amount of energy really change its properties so much? -

It was clear my understanding of space mana was lacking, but it only made me more excited to try and dissect it.

Thankfully though, before I got too sidetracked, I felt Ilios's presence suddenly appear much closer than before and looked over to see his head pop over the edge of the caldera. -Oh, he's back!-

I immediately set my thoughts aside as he ran over. -His aura is a bit smaller than before... Did he fight something?-

*tap-tap-tap-tap* As he jumped up onto my back with a wagging tail, he looked at me as if expecting praise for something.

It was honestly so adorable that I decided not to question his change in aura too much. -He isn't injured, so I guess I don't need to worry.- "Haha, did you have fun?"

He immediately nodded before trotting up to my head and begging for pets.

-Gosh, he is so cute...- Unable to hold myself back I took a moment to pet his flowing fur before being interrupted by Hera floating out to the edge of her containment center.

"~Now that he is back, are you going to leave?~"

I quickly nodded. "Yeah. Although I have really enjoyed our time together, finding that wreckage is a bit more of an urgent matter."

"~Of course. It will take me at least 7 or 8 years to heal enough to try and repossess my body, so even if you only come by now and then, we will have plenty of time to talk in the future.~" She sounded oddly happy.

"Right, after I check out the wreckage, I plan to pay my family a visit, but I will definitely come back. Having another voice of opinion about my theories was really helpful."

"~Haha, I'm truly glad my limited knowledge was helpful. In any case, the wreckage you are going to check out, is it southwest of here?~"

-Hm?- I immediately paused. "I'm.. not sure. I was actually flying around the mountain looking for it. All I know is that it's around here somewhere."

"~Ah, in that case, it may be the wreckage from when I was captured. Although I was inevitably caught, I didn't go down without a fight.~"

-Southwest is toward the mountains.. that must be it.

..- But while I was eager to leave, I decided it was best to try and get a better understanding of what exactly the wreckage was first. "Right, I have been wondering since earlier, how did you end up getting captured?

Did you just get overwhelmed by numbers? "

But she just scoffed. "~Hah, I had the power to wipe out the entire human race, even if they came at me all at once during my prime. After a certain age, the number of enemies stops mattering because you simply have so much mana.~"

I looked at her with wide eyes as she spoke. It sounded like a truly outlandish claim, yet somehow I believed her confidence with certainty. "Then, what was it?" -Technology can only bridge a gap in strength so wide...-

She hesitated for a moment before speaking.

"~There was a fleet of three ships Bahamut sent me to destroy.

.. At the time we had never seen anything like them, but they had landed over an area where we knew a large mythril vein to be, so we assumed it was because of that, but they were essentially unprotected.

.. It was a blatantly obvious trap, but nonetheless, I confidently went out to destroy it, believing that nothing they had could prevent me from at least running away.

~" She paused for a moment before speaking in a slightly regretful tone.

"~It wasn't long after the war started, but even still, we were too naive to believe they hadn't noticed our arrogance. ..~"

-She says that as if.. the war wasn't with the human gods at all but instead with the Acardi...- Before I knew it, I was once again questioning what I knew of the history of the world. "S..so what happened?"

"~Mana.~" She responded instantly as if the event was still fresh in her mind.

"~The moment I was about to peek over the horizon, I saw the three ships spinning in the air over the forest, but by then it was too late.

Before I could see or feel anything coming, a beam of mana so dense it nearly made my reserve rupture, ripped through my body.

.. It incapacitated me nearly instantly. ~"

I felt my body tense up immediately. -T.

.the Acardi could artificially store and release mana?

- I felt like the world stopped turning for a moment.

The one advantage life in this world had over the Acardi, which was the ability for creatures to control huge volumes of mana with their reserves, was gone with the wind.

But before I could spiral into a rabbit hole of dark thoughts, Hera continued.

"~Thankfully, by the time another ship came by, likely to relocate me here, I managed to recover enough strength to break out and destroy it, but I was in no condition to run.

.. Even still, as I cleaved my way through a fleet in a daze, the ship that shot the beam of mana was nowhere to be seen. ..~"

I stood in complete silence as countless thoughts ripped through my mind, but thankfully, I managed to get a hold of myself with a bit of reasoning.

-The laboratory and containment center both didn't have any sort of mana storage device, even though they would have greatly benefited from it.

..- Looking at the broken antimatter charge pillars lining the edge of the caldera, my thoughts continued to calm.

-Even this place doesn't have one... Meaning the device was either exceedingly difficult to make and maintain, even for a race as advanced as the Acardi, or.

. they couldn't make efficient use of it. ..-

The more I thought about it, the more I came to a realization. -Were the Acardi not here to study life.. but instead to study mana's interaction with it?-