Dimensional Descent

'Look at this brat, roaring at the top of his lungs as though he's actually accomplished something. Even I feel embarrassed.'

Wise Star Order clicked his tongue, shaking his head.

Leonel exhaled a long, billowing breath, pretending as though he hadn't heard a single thing the old man said. Maybe it was a bit silly that he had reacted like this after defeating a being two Tiers below him, but he was excited nonetheless.

With a thought, Leonel quickly placed the Rapax corpse within a snow globe and let the flames, his Runes and his armor slowly retreating into his body.

Leonel's mind was already swimming with thoughts of how to use the Rapax's corpse. But, the truth was that he had only placed it within the snowglobe just now so that the Zone couldn't recognize that he had won just yet. Though he was on a time crunch, Leonel still wanted a moment to take a breather.

The Segmented Cube shot off of Leonel's finger and expanded. Then, he disappeared within it.

…

In the skies, Cornelius gazed upon the images flashing before him, unsure of what to say or think for a long while.

His shock wasn't exactly related to the defeat of the Rapax. If there weren't at least some humans who could defeat Rapax on their own, what hope or chance would the Human Domain have had in lasting so long? The main issue was that upon a first encounter, things shouldn't have gone so easily.

'Could it be that Velasco prepared him for this as well?'

Cornelius had no idea what sort of parenting practices Val used. He had already been shocked enough that Spear Domain and the Segmented Cube were actually in Leonel's hands. Anyone seeing such a thing would think that Leonel had been pampered and handed everything on a silver platter. At that point, the idea that Leonel had had targeted training to prepare for this day wasn't so farfetched.

But this was exactly where the cognitive dissonance came in. If Leonel was supposedly prepared ahead of time for all of this, what was with the first half of the fight? Why did he seem like a deer in headlights? Was that just an act?

Cornelius didn't believe that a boy could fool his eyes so well, especially not one who seemingly had as hot a temper as Leonel. And, that also led to another. That roar of pure emotion, linked with that final breakthrough, it made Cornelius feeling that it was impossible for Leonel to have experience in this matter.

Putting all of this together, Cornelius felt that if he had to answer with his life on the line… He would choose to say that this was the very first time Leonel had ever come across a Rapax.

…

Leonel knew that there was a likelihood that he was being watched, so he chose to enter the Segmented Cube. Though he wasn't absolutely certain, he felt there was a good chance that whatever monitoring the Void Palace had left behind wouldn't be able to penetrate across this barrier.

'The Rapax make such good soldiers, if the tentacle womb could replicate them…'

Leonel's expression flickered, but Wise Star Order's words danced at the back of his mind, making him feel somewhat conflicted. Ultimately, the Rapax, although they looked different from humans, were a group of people too. Mass producing them felt… wrong, even if it wasn't possible—something Leonel wasn't absolutely sure of just yet.

However, if Leonel thought about it, wasn't it the same for beasts? They might have been unintelligent in the Third Dimension, but could the same be said now? He could feel the complexity of Blackstar's thoughts everyday, he had seen the kind of devious and well laid out plans the golden scaled koi fish had made, how could he still, with a straight face, say that beasts were different?

And yet, wasn't he trying to mass produce them either way?

'It might not be necessary to worry about such a moral dilemma…'

After the tentacle womb had absorbed Monkey's ability, it had undergone a qualitative change. In fact, it was so extensive and wide ranging that Leonel had actually left the dictionary to analyze it over several months. Though there was a small pause in that when he took it out to analyze to the Sub-Dimensional Zone, it should be about finished by now.

In that time, Leonel had grasped tidbits of its abilities here and there. From what he had learned, it was very possible that he wouldn't have to worry about it at all.

The fundamental change that Leonel was the most excited for was the fact that the tentacle womb would no longer need multiple samples of the same DNA to replicate it properly!

It had to be remembered that when two Ability Indexes fused, the result wasn't additive and it wasn't necessarily exponential either. Rather, an average of the two abilities would be added then divided in two. The result would then be a perfect reflection of both original Abilities. This was why Leonel couldn't just randomly absorb any strong Ability he came across even if he now had the Silver Tablet.

Though Leonel thought that the fusion of Monkey's Doubling Ability and the tentacle wombs Duplication Ability would work well together, he wouldn't have definitive proof of this until he saw the results. And, at least for this first portion…

He wasn't disappointed.

In the past, the tentacle womb had to have many samples. The more powerful the creature, the more samples of it were needed. But, the fallacy in this was clear. How could it be so easy to find so many powerful creatures? And, even if you did, how could they all possibly share the same Ability?

Due to this, Leonel felt investing in the tentacle womb would be a poor use of resources. He could create Crafts that were far more useful. But now…

After gaining a portion of Monkey's Doubling Ability, the tentacle womb only needed a single complete sample. Then, it could replicate it as many times as it needed to meet its goals!