231 Give Me Space

Under the relentless tug of gravity, I was pulled high above the atmosphere towards the surface of the hollow moon, yet, it too was being pulled away from me.

Higher and higher, I fell and at a faster and faster rate until, at last, I crested the summit of the ever-present White Wall, some five light minutes to the north. Yet, it wasn't until I was some four hundred thousand klicks above the Mortal Plane that I landed and looked up from the surface of the moon to see the twelve thousand kilometer-long pillar racing to catch up to me.

Ignoring it entirely, I focused instead on splitting my concentration between the living brace around my left arm, the acorn orbiting my body, the dusty surface of the world below my feet, and the new organ in my spiritual body.

While tiny in comparison to my Mana Well, the energy within my Divine Well was far more potent and more, fed by a healthy stream of faith from the uncountable set of eyes who gazed upon the moon every night.

This action would serve as the first time I truly used the stuff and would indeed be one of the rare occasions I'd be able to use it freely. Thus I released every restriction imaginable on both my mind and the pores before I split the flow of divine mana and attributed arcana between the three objects of my concentration.

Within seconds, rather than minutes, a subtle scratching notion began to claw at the back of my mind. Giving me the notion, or rather, a compulsion to find a nice piece of land to call home. My wise rock had matured, yet I continued the flow until my divine seed germinated.

Much like the Bodhi Tree, it was a seed of massive proportions. Akin to the size of a beach ball, but with the irregular shape of a nut broken apart to reveal an exposed rib of arcane flesh. Like my arcana, the flesh glowed with a seafoam green radiance while the wood-like coat of the seed grew ever-darker, revealing rows upon rows of strange glyphs, symbols, and markings that soon started to glow with the same arcane light.

For seconds and then upwards of a minute, the flow continued until suddenly, the radicle swung away from the seed. Yet, the acorn had yet to germinate. It continued to inhale my divine mana, but its hunger morphed into avarice. With invisible hands, it reached into my spirit to latch onto my Mana Well and withdraw from it every ounce of my arcana.

Through every affinity core in my body, the energy passed on its path to absorption by the embryonic root until the seed, satisfied with my emptied Well, glowed in spirited arcane radiance. Eager to sink its flesh into the first bit of material it could find, the solitary root reached out every which way. But like the Wise Rock, it would have to wait. My ambitions were much higher than some tower or a great tree, after all.

So, with my astral ambitions in mind, I opened a cave on the surface and dropped inside to look upon the nigh-infinite darkness of Mani's interior, using the blissful silence to imagine what the place would become until the horns of the oncoming train sounded.

With a wave, I merged those mental images with an abundance of moonlight and twilight, plus a touch of death, darkness, and void before mixing them with excessive concentrations of space-time, electromagnetism, gravity, and nuclear magic; and finally coupled the amalgamation with the divine before it was spread, not just to the interior of Mani, but to the freight train of solid matter crashing into it.

Naturally, the billowing invisible clouds of an atmosphere came first. Followed then by an uncountable volume of plants, animals, dirt, rocks, water, ore, gems, and magma that broke apart upon entry to form asteroid clusters, sparse clouds, and planetoids in the seemingly endless expanse.

Simultaneously, the remnants of the tower and what sat below it were sent drifting indiscriminately throughout the space. And so too was nearly every rock, stick, metal shard, water drop, corpse, animal, or even a fragment of a seed I had stored in my combined magical dimensions. Even Karu and the Menagerie were released into the realm to feed on the divine energies while I carefully stacked and layered and organized the material within.

I took the most care with the metals. Roughly seventy-five percent of them were separated by melting point and layered like a spherical cake that'd been baked by dual streams of electromagnetic and nuclear magic to create a miniature metal star.

What used to be the King's throne room in the former Gray-Dwarf stronghold served as the core for the second, larger body, and what used to be the Tower's storage room had been wrapped around that like a blanket. My old lab, observatory, and quarters followed and in turn were blanketed by the library, rec wing, and other areas of the tower along with patches of the forest and mountains far below. Thus completing the second body.

It was, by all rights, a pocket universe within the moon. The Twilight Domain realized into a divine realm befitting of the World Weaver. And its center, an onion of a black world that held biomes and estates within its eleven layers.

It was vast. It was grand. But still, it wasn't yet done.

With a final burst of divine mana for good measure, I turned my attention inward to imagine a truly fantastical place. A home. Not just for myself. But for the Menagerie, the animals in my profile, and the party I would soon form before I hurled the pebble at the onion world.

The release of the potent energy in my second well brought about an immediate change in the form of a flash of gentle light that bathed the entire realm in a pale glow. The moon within the moon swelled, brightened, and paled all at once as it repositioned itself in the newly formed cosmos while the remaining clouds of air, water, and land diffused, spread apart, or converged into abstract shapes or new worlds entirely.

With the finish line close, I hurriedly released my thousands of undead workers before I spread my arms wide to watch the decades pass in seconds.

As was quickly becoming the norm, cities were erected in the relative blink of an eye, and art galleries of legendary proportions were carved, drawn, or painted. New materials were researched and more complex technology was developed. And, more importantly, the diverse range of flora and captured fauna lived and died and evolved under Moonlight and Twilight without end.

Most importantly, however, was the quasi-sentience of the vibrant body floating high above. As the creatures within it matured, so to did it until, sooner rather than later, a legion of boulder-like growths began sprouting across its charred surface before they self-ejected into space.

Naturally, every last one of them was captured gravitationally and amassed into a small asteroid that remained floating off to my left, leaving me with just one more thing to do.

That said, the seed was germinated and the realm was complete. There was no need to spoil the surprise of seeing the final product. So, without thinking about it further, I sent the divine seed flying and watched it soar and land on the regolith with a silent thump.

With a final round of time dilation, I watched the arcane roots stretch across the surface while the stem reached out into the void above, fading in and out of existence as the leafless branches radiated the various magical attributes imbued within it.

And as the divine tree matured, so too did the quasi-sentience of the vibrant body dominating the skies within its roots until, eventually, the second legion of boulder-like growths self-ejected from the surface and were amassed into a small asteroid that floated off to my right.

With those asteroids orbiting me, I allowed the years to tick by with each passing second and left the realm entirely. Leaving the divine realm to grow and evolve and change until I returned with my followers to look upon the land for the first time.

Just as a God of exploration should.